An Epic Spurs-Thunder Series, Cleveland Survives, and the Knicks' Moment Is HERE With Zach Lowe

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe react to the Cavs eliminating the Pistons in Game 7 before previewing the conference finals matchups and looking at trade suitors for Giannis (0:31). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Jonathan Frias Find the right talent with Hiring Pro at https://linkedin.com/simmons The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 0:57Speaker 01

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• 1:24Speaker 02

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 2:02Bill Simmons?

  All right, Bill Simmons Podcast, live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here. We thought we'd be starting... After the Cavaliers Pistons game, but the Pistons had other ideas and so did the Cavaliers. I wanted to mention new rewatchables coming on Monday. We did Borat. It was me and Kyle Brand. It's turned into politically incorrect comedy month on the rewatchable. So we have that. Zach Lowe is going to be Tuesday morning, Thursday morning as we head into an absolutely awesome round three. Very excited. The Knicks might make the finals.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  Don't jinx it. Don't, don't, don't jinx my hometown.

• 2:39Bill Simmons?

  Spurs and Thunder. We're going to talk about where this, this matchup ranks for us, but we'll start with Cavs Pistons. So wrote down, great win for Cleveland and Donovan Mitchell fans and supporters. Decent win for James Harden truthers.

• 2:56Bill Simmons?

  Great win for the Knicks because they now have home court in the Eastern Conference Finals. They have one, two, five and seven.

• 3:04Bill Simmons?

  Where do you want to start with those?

• 3:05Speaker 04

  What truth, what truth do the James Harden truthers subscribe to?

• 3:10Bill Simmons?

  That he's one of the 40 best players of all time, that he's actually come up big in some playoff games. They just all happen to be in series that his team eventually lost. Bad luck against the Warriors a couple of times. Four conference finals. I don't know. What else would they say?

• 3:28Speaker 04

  I think we should start with Donovan Mitchell and getting over the hump into the conference finals. I mean, he, he had, the stats are not overwhelming, but I thought he played awesome. And the seven assists is to me the defining stat of the game for him. I just thought he like slowed down, played with a better pace, kept his dribble alive a little bit longer on the pick and roll. Like looking actively for the big guys instead of like that, that, that overhead carry he does. It used to be like a once a game kind of thing and it became like five times a game as he was searching for his own points and playing a little frazzled and I thought he was just under control, got the big guys involved. Game seven, Jared Allen showed up as a result. Evan Mobley played, I think his fourth really nice game in a row.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  And just like we get Cleveland Knicks, which is like the road not taken for Donovan Mitchell, the road not taken for. The Knicks after acquiring Jalen Brunson and flirting with pairing him with Donovan Mitchell, who allegedly always dreamed of playing for the Knicks. He's from here. His family is still all in the Northeast. His dad works for the Mets, on and on. So we get like that road not taken. JB Bickerstaff doesn't get to avenge his firing from Cleveland and, uh, and you know, I like the, the Cavs paid a high price for Donovan Mitchell, like Lowry marketing and the gap between Mitchell and Lowry marketing and the, whatever your player rankings are shrunk dramatically since that trade and the three picks and the two swaps.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  And I think now you have to look at it as you paid full freight, but here you are in the conference finals with like a Knicks team that I think is going to be the favorite. I will pick them to win the series, but they're not unbeatable. But Cleveland, Cleveland has a chance in this series to get to the finals.

• 5:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I had Mitchell as the top story too. Nine years, 77th playoff game tonight. Never made conference finals, which becomes a weird list. When you've had a really good career and you've made some all MBAs, but you've never made it past round two. And I don't know who the most famous player in that list is, but I always think of Dominique Wilkins when I think of lists like that. And all the what ifs with his career and how like if the Lakers had just taken him over James Worthy and if he'd been able to get by the Celtics once or the Pistons. Anybody had this awesome career, but never even got to be in the final four. Felt like we're heading that way with Mitchell. Uh, Friday night, I, I just was stupefied by Friday night. I thought for sure the Cavs are going to win. I don't know what happened to them. They looked lethargic. The Pistons, they had so many turnovers.

• 5:52Bill Simmons?

  In that, uh, in the Friday night game. And then today we were texting during the, near the end of the first half that Cavs had two turnovers with like, four minutes left in the second quarter. Honestly, that felt like part of the difference because Detroit's, Detroit's offense was so iffy. They really needed that energy stuff and they needed like the two on ones and the, and the blocks and going the other way. And they just, just didn't, didn't get any of those today. And it's just a lethargic game all the way around. Cade wasn't good. Mitchell was the best guy on the floor. The, the point you made about the getting the big guys above. I almost wonder, did they look at the tapes of the first six games and notice that every time they drove to the basket, the Pistons' bigs and Thompson were just flying at those

• 6:35Bill Simmons?

  guys trying to block the shots. And like, they told Mitchell, when you go to the basket, look for Allen, look for Mobley, because those guys over and over again were rolling and it seemed like they were unimpeded. So it almost felt like a football strategy flip of like, they keep doing this, zag this way. And Mitchell bought in. Because the thing with Mitchell, it was a storyline that he was averaging, what, 2.9 assists in the playoffs? That's terrible. He's supposed to be the guy who makes everybody else better, and he wasn't, but he did tonight.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  I think if they lost this game, and he had another game like that, the number one takeaway, I mean, all the big takeaways would have been the big picture Cavs stuff that we don't have to discuss now. Like, what are they gonna do? Is this the team of the future? Who do they trade? And the act, so all that stuff is stable. But the biggest basketball takeaway would have been, what happened to Donovan Mitchell's playmaking? Like, I thought this was gonna develop into a real strength of his game, and it kind of had just disappeared in the playoffs. He was, he was not making passes that were there to be made. He was, he was not looking for them. He was just playing, I keep using the word frazzled. He looked a little sped up and just not in his normal state of mind. And tonight, he was really, really under control and really good. And

• 7:44Bill Simmons?

  A little Black Hole-ish before tonight, I felt like. Like, not that fun to play with, would have been my take.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  And, and out of sync sometimes with Harden. I mean, gradually, starting in game three, and excluding the just inexplicable egg they laid in game six, three, four, five, seven, you started to see the Cavs figure out some ways to, it wasn't pretty, it's not always artful, but to loosen up their half-court offense a little bit. It was sometimes hunting mismatches for Donovan Mitchell. It was using Mobley more in the pick and roll, and they started to get like the Mobley to Allen, big to big passing going on. It was finally, I thought, probably a little overdue, starting Strus tonight, and playing Merrill more, and just having more shooting on the floor. Merrill, like, probably should have liked the thing with Sam Merrill, who came in and completely changed the game.

• 8:31Bill Simmons?

  I've been calling for it all series. I don't, I don't know why they weren't playing him more. Do you think he was? Was he hurt like?

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Well, he did miss a game.

• 8:37Bill Simmons?

  Such an obvious person to play more.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  He did miss a game. I thought the Struce adjustment was going to come sooner and in Kenny's defense, that line, the initial starting lineup with Wade had a, had like a better plus minus than I had thought of in, in the playoffs, but it's just, the offense was so clunky.

• 8:50Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like it.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Wade was not bringing enough defensively to really justify it. I thought they could have reorganized their rotation a bit, but it's what happens in the playoffs, man. You shrink your rotation. You got to stretch for answers. These are, this is, you know, the Cavs for as ugly as it's looked at times, seven games and seven games and they're here and they had to negotiate two of the five best defenses in the NBA this year. It's like not always going to look pretty, but they found just enough to squeak those series out.

• 9:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So the big adjustment was starting Macho Man Maxey Struce.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  I saw, I saw you. I saw that comp. That was fun.

• 9:21Bill Simmons?

  The macho. Yeah. Hopefully that'll keep going in the, in the next series, but.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  Sorry, I dropped my notes.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  Other than that, it just looked like they took care of the ball and Mitchell played better. Those were, those were really, that was really, cause Friday night was, I was really surprised and stunned, but Detroit did seem like they got the Reid, the Reid Durin combo going. And then today it was gone again and we'll talk about Detroit later and what Durin's worth and all that stuff, but for ugly loss for Detroit.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  What a wild, like just a reminder that it's a little, as predictable as the NBA is compared to other sports leagues in terms of who generally wins and advances game to game. It's like, wait, Cleveland won three games in a row and just got obliterated in game six in the most dispiriting way possible at home. Detroit's riding high. They're going back home. You know, they're like game seven and they get obliterated at home. It's like, it can swing in wild ways, even if it doesn't seem that way sometimes.

• 10:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's turnovers and threes basically seem to be, when you have two teams that I think a notch below the highest level that we have going in the league right now. Who the hell knows? For Detroit, how bad was that loss for you? If I gave you a scale of. One to the 2022 Mavs Suns game. How bad? That's a 10.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  That's 10.

• 10:41Bill Simmons?

  That's 10.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  I'll go, I'll go six and a half. I mean, I, I think we saw in the first round that this team was, it's, it's regular season win total probably inflated a little bit how good they really were. And, and all the sort of concerns we had about their viability as like a real finals championship team came to bear in the series against Orlando, which by the way, I think Orlando probably wins if Franz Wagner doesn't get hurt. And also they blew

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  A horrendous game six of their own at home. So

• 11:09Bill Simmons?

  I think we win because we did that podcast with the, the scariest ceiling playoff teams. And we had Detroit 11th and their fans and media got mad at us.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, and just, I'm, I'm going six and a half, maybe seven, cause it's a young team. It's a rising team. It, in a lot of ways, like again, this is a team that had it over under, I think in the high 40s before the season started. And, and here they are going toe to toe with Donovan Mitchell and James Harden and Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in the second round. It's great season, but Jalen Dern, another invisible game. Tobias Harris, oh for from the field. He's a free agent. You've really got, you've really got a tough question, tough, tough discussion to have with him. And just the center rotation completely fell apart again at the, after Jalen Dern looked reinvigorated. We were texting over the weekend, like the biggest, the, the biggest possible positive sign for Detroit going into game seven

• 12:02Speaker 04

  is maybe Jalen Dern got over whatever mental hurdle or whatever was happening to him. He had a pretty

• 12:07Bill Simmons?

  He did not. Yeah. He's missing layups and everything around the basket.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  And then Isaiah Stewart, for what felt like the fourth time in the series is just throwing guys, like judo throwing guys at the foul line and picking up these crazy fouls. And JB Bickerstaff's like, dude, cool. You're the tough guy on the team. Can you play basketball? Cause if you, if you're not going to play basketball, we're bringing in Paul Reed.

• 12:28Bill Simmons?

  Six minutes for Isaiah Stewart tonight. So I would go higher than six and a half for the Pistons for three reasons. One, you have this impossible to figure out during contract thing now.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  I mean,

• 12:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. He just got outplayed by Jared Allen, who plays, who makes, you know, 28, 29 million a year, right? So you can't pay during more than that, even though I voted for him for an NBA team. I don't know. You, we've seen this in, in, in football and we've seen it in basketball where if you overpay somebody who's not a dominant guy, that's the quickest way to screw your team up for three, four years. It's AKA the Bradley, the Bradley Beal paradox.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Paradox, PIP, dilemma, whatever.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  Bradley Beal paradox? Um, I just couldn't in good conscience pay that guy more than

• 13:24Bill Simmons?

  33 to 34 a year.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Oh, I think if you're, I think after this series, if, if you're Jalen Durin's agent, you, you might pretend protest what you just said, like, oh, that might, might place a phone call to Bill Simmons being like, oh, blah, I gotta do the, the thing where I protest, but secretly like, I would take that. Like, that's like, we, I was.

• 13:42Bill Simmons?

  So Dyson Daniels, 25 a year. Jalen Johnson signed for, I thought, I think we all felt like it was a little low, right?

• 13:50Speaker 04

  30 a year.

• 13:50Bill Simmons?

  I think five for, five for 150. So he's somewhere in there, but I wouldn't feel good about going over 30 for him after that series. I don't feel good about paying that for centers in general because I think the perimeter guys are more important unless it's Jokic or Wemby.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  I will say, I thought his defense was pretty solid throughout the series. Offensively, he was exposed, is kind of not ready for the, for the playoffs at the level that the Pistons need him to be ready, which is a really high level. Second round against a really good team. Like you, it's got, it's high level stuff. And you know, the perimeter, the perimeter game, like every time he takes a mid-range jumper, it's a win for the other team. And I think he'll get better at that. He's only 22. You can't repeat that enough. But like, I don't know what the market, I mean, the Bulls are the team with cap space that has the obvious hole at the position, but I, I just don't know that anyone is blowing Jalen Durin's market away with any kind of offer sheet. Now, agents, as we saw with Miles Turner, are super creative of like magicking up sign and trades and crazy deals. But you know,

• 14:49Speaker 04

  I, it, the center.

• 14:50Bill Simmons?

  Lakers, Lakersy, Lakers-ish?

• 14:53Speaker 04

  I mean, we'll see if they have any cap space. They have this $50 million possible cap space and it depends on a lot of different things. LeBron, Rui Hachimura, how quickly they sign Reeves and all that. But he, he would be, I mean, at the very, very high end of what the Lakers could, could go after. Sure. I mean, you know?

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  So that was my first thing. I have two more things. For being bummed out upon the Pistons. The second is what happened to Isaiah Stewart. Where I, I think he became a liability as the playoffs went around. He was one of my favorite bench guys in the league this season. And I don't know if, since the fight, it never felt like he got his impact back the way it was before the fight. Where it felt like he was coming in and just swinging in games and adding on to Dern. And I just thought he got worse in the playoffs to the point, seemed like he came at it, seemed like he was yelling at a couple of coaches and they cut away from it. But I think he's an obvious trade piece for them. Making 15 million a year, there's great rim protection things for him. Maybe he needs to play more, but just in general, I thought

• 15:54Bill Simmons?

  that was a guy that seemed like he was one of the better contracts in the league and just was MIA. So that's two. And then the third one is just that they punted on the trade deadline, which we talked about at the time. Their big move is Kevin Herter, who didn't play tonight, who didn't really play all series. And I don't-

• 16:09Speaker 04

  Had an injury in fairness, but yeah, there was no universe in which Kevin Herter was going to suddenly be playing 22 minutes a game off the bench in this series.

• 16:16Bill Simmons?

  Did he even, he wasn't, he didn't play one minute this series, did he?

• 16:19Speaker 04

  He got in at some point.

• 16:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, well, whatever. So they kind of punted on that and we talked about it and we said, hey, they, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint. They're using the Sam Presti logic of let's try to build and we'll, we'll pounce when we pounce. I don't know, if you have a chance to get into the final four, that means you're four wins away from the finals. I certainly think they, they've had a lot of success against the Knicks and they really needed that second scorer, which is what we said in February. You're putting all your bricks in the, you're putting all your eggs in the Tobias Harris basket. And he was 0 for 6 today and they did not have that other scorer they could trust. Levert had the one hot game in the series. You know, they'd have Jenkins would hit a three every once in a while. Robinson, who did not seem healthy to me.

• 17:04Bill Simmons?

  I know he made a couple of threes, but I felt like he had some back thing. I was watching how he's walking, he didn't look 100% to me. But they were just missing that second, whoever it was. And I don't know, if I was a Pistons fan, I'd be mad about that.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I was talking about this with some people at the combine and, and you hear this like, well, I mean, ironically, they got, they get to swap picks with the Timberwolves in the first round of this draft because they took on Mike Conley in the initial salary dumper. So they, they were involved in that. And ironic, I say, because you hear a lot of people say, well, I mean, like, they could have gotten in for Kobe White or I would assume new or a guy like that. I mean, they could have. Is that getting them over the hump? Is it worth it? But it's definitely would have given them a better shot. In this series, because we like, we all knew they were light on secondary creators. And I think honestly, like. I think it Cade had to have been exhausted by the end of this series because he just has to do everything. And the Cavs.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  I think probably switched too easily against Kate, like they gave him Harden. They gave him Donovan Mitchell. They gave him Merrill. They gave him whatever matchup he wanted. They'd never really trapped him when he got those matchups and a lot of where people were calling for that. And I understand that. And I think they could have done a little bit. I bet what they were thinking was, look, we're just going to make him dribble eight times and take a 14 footer. And yeah, it's going to be over Donovan Mitchell or Sam Merrill, but. We're not giving him the easy stuff and the easy passes. We're just going to wear his ass out. And like what he was doing. What is he? No one in the league is carrying a bigger load. I don't think than Kate Cunningham in the playoffs.

• 18:41Bill Simmons?

  Two MVP votes from people today for him.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  First place and first place MVP.

• 18:44Bill Simmons?

  First place MVP votes. Yeah. So I have a lot of Knicks fans in my life. I know you have even more. And they've been asking me for two weeks. Who, who do I want to play? Do you want to play the Cavs or the Pistons? And. My answer, at least for the last week is you're going to beat either team. It doesn't matter. But. I'd rather play the Pistons. Because I the Cavs still have this ceiling thing that they. The potential of what they are is still more dangerous than what the Pistons are to me, which is a team that just has too much trouble scoring. And the Thompson piece of it, Thompson, who. You know, steals and blocks, some offensive rebounds, three incredible defensive plays a game like clearly somebody who.

• 19:28Bill Simmons?

  Can be one of your best five guys on the floor and be really impactful. But if you don't have enough scoring and especially this was a Pistons team, if they fell behind 15, it felt like 50. You know, and I, I just feel like if I'm the Knicks, I would have much rather played that team because I'm better than them. Anyway, I could just outscore them. Cleveland. Who knows with the two bigs? You mentioned Mobley earlier.

• 19:51Bill Simmons?

  The last, the three of the last four games, I thought he was really, really, really good. Like as, as much as I've enjoyed watching him play, just total package, like defending the rim, some good passing, was aggressive, wasn't afraid to shoot his three. Did you feel like he went up a tiny notch or am I crazy?

• 20:11Speaker 04

  No, I mean, look, the scoring numbers are, I don't think he cracked 20 unless he did tonight. I haven't checked the final box score in, in any of those games. I just thought he played really solid all around basketball. And I, I think the series started to turn when the Cavs had him more involved in the pick and roll and like used him as a passer more and used him as a hub more. And I think like, that's not going to be sexy statistically, but I thought he made all the right plays. And, and it got him just, it got the ball moving a little bit for a team that was like 29 assists tonight. They've been dead last in assist rate in the playoffs for most of the playoffs. It just got the ball moving a little bit more and it invigorated him. Like there was a moment, I think it was in game four, where he dunked on Isaiah Stewart, like dunked on him hard. And I'm like, where is this every other game?

• 20:56Speaker 04

  Like, why is this a rare thing? Like this level of nastiness and aggression and he played that way the rest of the series. I kind of agree with you. The Pistons swept the Knicks in the regular season. They blew them out, if not all three times and at least two out of the three. There are guys missing on both sides in, in most of the games, but they, their physicality bothered the Knicks. They just beat the crap out of the Knicks. The Knicks were not ready for how physical Detroit played. Obviously in the playoffs, your state of readiness and your willingness to engage and that kind of stuff is going to be way higher. The Cavs, like you love the trick or treat analogy for players. The Cavs have a little bit of that in them where they, for a quarter, will find this groove where the Harden Mitchell thing is more complimentary than it is. Like they, they amplify each other a little bit more than they do usually.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  The bigs are rolling, Strus or Merrill are making shots. You're like, oh my God, this team is awesome.

• 21:44Bill Simmons?

  Defending the rim.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and then the next two quarters, it'll just be a little bit like sluggish. And so they do have that kind of like, oh, if that team pops a little bit more than, than off than not, then yeah, they have a chance.

• 21:57Bill Simmons?

  They've also really, I think Meryl, Sam Merrill has really emerged as a possible like MSG playoff villain. I can see him going in and being unafraid and hitting shots. Schroder, who was plus 12 today, was at least, uh, two turnovers. Schroder was a turnover machine the last couple of games.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Last couple of games it was rough.

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  To the point that he almost seemed like unplayable in game six. Like, I was surprised they kept him out there, but, you know, with Macho Man, Maxey Struce, Harden, Mobley, Allen, Mitchell, and Merrill, I at least know I have six guys, and then Wade's like a six and a half, at least he has some size.

• 22:37Bill Simmons?

  It's, they'll, they'll be able to land some punches on the Knicks, but if I'm the Knicks, this is, I mean, this is easily, easily their best chance to make the finals since 1994, I think.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  It's not, it's not close.

• 22:48Bill Simmons?

  They're way better than, they were way better than either of his teams. What do you think the line is for the series? I'm going to Fanduel right now. Before I look, I'm gonna say Knicks minus 300.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  I was gonna say 250 or 230 or something like that, so.

• 23:03Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 23:05Bill Simmons?

  The answer is

• 23:09Bill Simmons?

  minus 240.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:11Bill Simmons?

  Plus 190 for the Cavs, you win that one.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  I win.

• 23:14Bill Simmons?

  That's why you're Mr. Gambling.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  And I, I win, I win, yeah, me and House had nine different bets going on this game tonight, that's what I, that's what I do.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  And I won by Price is Right rules, which I respected my house.

• 23:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you did.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Like, but my wife does not respect Price is Right rules. She says that's stupid, it should just be who's ever closest. I respect the institution that is the Price is Right.

• 23:34Bill Simmons?

  I like Price is Right's rules as well. Brunson minus 170 for final, for conference MVP. Mitchell's three to one, Towns plus 950, Harden 20 to one, OG's 22 to one, and then Evan Mobley's sitting there at 33 to one.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:50Bill Simmons?

  Not against it.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Gotta get, get my app, get my app up.

• 23:54Bill Simmons?

  Not against, not against that one, cuz I, in my opinion, Mobley will be the, uh, that's the Cavs guy to watch in a series like this.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:02Bill Simmons?

  If he's awesome, that's a, that's a differentiator for them.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  I'm gonna dig in a little bit tomorrow. Obviously, it's a quick turnaround, game one is Tuesday in New York, I will hopefully be there. And, uh, but I, I'll dig in on the matchups a little bit, but the Knicks. OG Anunoby practiced and said he's feeling much better and this does not like the hamstring injury from two years ago. That's a huge thing. I just think they're better. I think they're a better team. They, they, they, I think we're two and one or three and one against the Cavs this year. Now, I will say the last time they played, I've said this over and over again. I think the Cavs figured out a little bit, something on who should match up with who and how all that should work defensively and, and gave the Knicks a little bit of trouble. And I think they, they've discovered a little bit of, of that kind of stuff, but the Knicks are just better.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  And like to your point, I'm surrounded by Knicks fans. They are absolutely giddy. And I'm like, you should be giddy. This is by far the best chance. I like, I'm, I had never thought I would ever have a hometown finals as long as I would be doing this. So finals where I didn't have to travel for half of it. I just never even deemed it possible. I just never, which of these teams is going to suddenly be competent enough to actually win three playoff rounds? This is by far the most likely it's ever been to the point that if the Knicks don't win this next series, I think it's going to be absolutely crushing for their fan base and that they're, they're a whole organization.

• 25:28Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how crushing will be because they had the will to live for the rest of their lives crushed out of them by the Halliburton shot and that Pacers comeback. So they're, they're already dead inside.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  I can't believe you. You have to mention that. Like they're

• 25:41Bill Simmons?

  They're dead inside. They have, they have no emotion left.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  How about the Paul, how about the Paul Reed shot? By the way, can we just, from a, from, from game six that hung on there? It was like a golf shot that just hung on the lip for five seconds.

• 25:53Bill Simmons?

  It was like Tiger Woods where he's doing the fist pump after. Uh, we're going to take a break. Couple more storylines for that Cavs Knicks series in one second. One second.

• 26:03Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The conference finals finally is here. We are down to four teams. Think you know it'll go down. Take your shot with FanDuel. Get closer to the action. And as you know, I've been telling you for years, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players and players during the NBA postseason. Build a same game parlay for a shot at a better payout, or try live betting and jump into the action after tip off, or just follow me and my picks because every once in a while I'll put them on social. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now.

• 26:35Bill Simmons?

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• 27:20Bill Simmons?

  Get started by posting your first job for free at LinkedIn.com/Simmons. That's me. That's LinkedIn.com/Simmons. Terms and conditions apply.

• 27:32Bill Simmons?

  So one thing I was thinking about with the Knicks and the Cavs, and it's, it's off of Minnesota falling short in their series about these little windows that teams have, the, that can't get over the hump teams. The teams that they win a few playoff series, they might even make a conference finals. They have like a three or four year window and they just can't make the finals. Right? And I think the most, my favorite example of this team ever was the Mark Price Cavaliers that with Dougherty and Nance and all those dudes, I thought those were really, really good teams. It's really unfair that they never made a finals. They had some bad injury luck. You know, they obviously crossed paths with Michael Jordan at the worst possible times and the Pistons and then Price got hurt.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  And, but I just thought that was a really good team. And you look back, you're like, oh, that was an era, but they never got over the hump. And I think the Knicks and the Cavs are like that right now, where the Cavs, they've had this Mitchell, little mini era here where they, they were able to get lucky with the Mobley being there and being able to draft him. And then the Jared Allen trade, you're basically getting him for nothing. And then, you know, Garland initially turned him in hard, but this is their window right now, I feel like. And then the Knicks, same thing where they, they went all in with the Bridges. They were able to dump Randall at the perfect time. We're going to talk about him later. They get Towns, that trade turned out really well. And this is the window right now for them. And this, this is why, when I think about this series, like,

• 29:03Bill Simmons?

  For one of these teams, whoever loses this, I don't think it'll be a, well, we made the conference finals. I think this is like, this was our fucking chance to make the finals. So there's real stakes here that, not that there isn't always stakes for the conference finals, but I feel like this is like a four-year road to this series.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, look, if you're right, and one of these teams comes out feeling disappointed to the point where they view change as necessary, like certainly the Bucks are hoping for just maximum disappointment around the top whatever teams in the league, including these two teams. And it is like, I talked about this last week, like imagine if Cleveland comes back and wins the series and they did, like, what does that mean for Harden's future with the team? It seems to solidify, right? Does it solidify Mitchell's? But like, you're right, if they just get rolled, if one of these teams, it's different if you go to seven and it's just like, both teams played really, really well.

• 29:55Bill Simmons?

  It's a heroics, awesome series.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Like just in there, like, it's a tip your cap kind of series, but if it's 4-1 and we get exposed on the glass, like Mitchell Robinson four years ago exposed us on the glass, or 4-1 and Cat has another existential crisis week, like the Cat thing goes back this way where he's fouling and like, all of a sudden, you just can't recapture whatever it is you had against Philadelphia and at the end of the Atlanta series. Like, you're right, there could be, there could be certainly disappointment to the point of like, all right, we got to pivot. I, I, I mean, we'll see how it goes, I guess.

• 30:27Bill Simmons?

  The problem with some of this stuff, I remember you talking about this when Dame was leaving Portland about like, they made the 2019 Western Finals. That's a win. They were one of the four, you know, teams left. But the whole Dame era in Portland, I don't look at it as like, oh, man, they were rolling. You know, we, we go back and we, we look at that Western Finals, it's like, ah, it was a little fluky. The Houston and Golden State was really the Western Finals that year. But that was an era. And I was thinking about the get over the hump teams. The grit and grind Grizzlies is a great one.

• 31:04Speaker 04

  Made the finals, I mean, made the conference.

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  Made the conference finals, right? They put some series together. They had some upsets. It was a distinct era. They could never get over the hump. Lob City Clippers.

• 31:14Speaker 04

  Oh, boy.

• 31:14Bill Simmons?

  Paul George Pacers, your favorite, the Coach Bud Hawks. Blazers, the Harden Rockets is probably the most successful example of just a ton of success, but never actually made the finals. The Celtics, pre-COVID Celtics, basically 16 to 20, where they made the Eastern Finals, I think, four to five times.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  That whole era in the Eastern Conference Finals, it should just be, it was just Cleveland and a bunch of whatever.

• 31:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So, and Knicks and Cavs now, and then, and then the Wolves, and we'll, we'll talk about the Wolves later because I want to do, what do you do? But sometimes like being one of the final four teams is okay. I think we just overreact to where it's like, we didn't win the title. What do we do? And it's like, I don't know, man, there's 30 teams in this league. There's a lot of good players. Like if I'm the Cavs, I'm like, all right, this was pretty good. We were down 2-0 in the second round. We made it. Like, maybe let's cool the Jets on, on all the panic stuff. Now, if they had lost tonight, I would have had five trades for you.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  I, I totally agree. Making the conference finals is really hard and there's only four teams left and you're one of them. And you've learned something about yourself. You're going to be better off for it the next year when you're in the playoffs. And you know, you were doing the hump thing. Like I was like, where's the hump? Because a lot of these teams you were mentioning made the conference finals, but not the finals. And I guess that.

• 32:36Bill Simmons?

  The hump is the finals.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  I mean, that's like, and again, like, what are you going to tear down a conference finals team? Because now you have decisions to make and the salary cap forces you to make decisions and all that kind of stuff. But it's, it's hard to get that far in the playoffs and you know, I mean, the, the West is just a completely different animal. Like Minnesota loses to San Antonio in the second round of the playoffs. I'm supposed to panic about. Now there are things to panic about, like Julius Randall disappearing is a thing to panic about. Rudy Gobert kind of sneakily disappeared in the last two or three games.

• 33:04Bill Simmons?

  Sneakily?

• 33:04Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, he's.

• 33:06Bill Simmons?

  That was a catastrophe.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Okay. I was trying to be nice for, for Rudy. Because everyone just, it's just, he's just the punching bag of the NBA.

• 33:12Bill Simmons?

  No, I know he's a punching bag, but.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  I'm trying to be nice. I'm trying to be nice. He's being bullied. He's been bullied too long. I'm trying to be nice to him.

• 33:18Bill Simmons?

  Putting that aside, if I'm Minnesota, I'm really scared that one of the people I have to go through in my conference, Victor Rumbadama. Just completely annihilated by center.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  To the point.

• 33:28Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what to do with that.

• 33:29Speaker 04

  To the point, and Stan was making it on the broadcast that they were, they, and I had talked about it last week too on my pod. They were rejiggering their rotations, the Wolves were, to have Rudy in the game only when Wemby was not in the game.

• 33:42Bill Simmons?

  Not good.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  Or, or limited, yeah. So, look, but it's hard to make the conference finals. The Cavs are pretty young. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. There was something else I was gonna say and I forgot, but it's, it's, it's hard to make the conference finals.

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  With Detroit. So we talk about, they're obviously not panicked. They're young. Darren's 22, Cade's in his mid twenties.

• 34:04Bill Simmons?

  There's a trade for a second scorer. Let's, let's try to get Kate some help.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  No question.

• 34:10Bill Simmons?

  There's probably a, there's probably a Kawhi Leonard conversation.

• 34:15Bill Simmons?

  There's probably a, we don't have enough to get Jalen Brown conversation, but let's at least kick the tires. There's a, hey, do we make our version of the Desmond Bain? McHale Bridges trade for Trey Murphy and see if New Orleans is interested in that. But I think it's somebody like that. I think it's, I think they have to find a reliable second scorer that is not Tobias Harris. I thought Tobias had a good season. And I actually really liked the way he played the regular season, but the, the playoffs speak for itself, unfortunately.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  The question that you, you're gonna have to face is, what's the salary that you're throwing in? I mean, you can throw in all your picks, I guess, and that's pretty valuable. Throw in all your picks, all your swaps. They got everything, but I gotta get up to a number, right? Like if I'm, the names you're mentioning, I got, I gotta get up to even Trey Murphy, but big number.

• 35:00Bill Simmons?

  They have Robinson who's 16 a year, the next two, but he's only 2 million guaranteed this year. So they can get out of that.

• 35:09Bill Simmons?

  They can, I think they could trade Stewart pretty easily. And I think that's somebody that teams would want.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  But just throw Jalen, you just threw Jalen Brown's name in there. The Boston Celtics are not trading finals MVP Jalen Brown for Isaiah Stewart, Duncan Robinson and a bunch of Detroit first round picks. Like that's, you're not getting a guy like that.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  They're not. And the problem is they're not getting Kawhi or Trey Murphy for what they have to trade anyway.

• 35:30Speaker 04

  I think, I don't, I don't.

• 35:32Bill Simmons?

  Unless Thompson is involved.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  Well, they're not, they're not doing that.

• 35:35Bill Simmons?

  Some sort of capacity.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  They're not doing that. And.

• 35:38Bill Simmons?

  But that's the other thing. They have to figure out, do they, do they extend Thompson? Do they give him? You know, do they jump the gun on the RFA season and, and take it out basically?

• 35:47Speaker 04

  I mean, look, we could get. A lot of pretty, I mean, we had the four guys who just hung in restricted free agency forever last year because there just was nothing out there for them. We've seen the Rockets already play pretty tough with some of their internal free agents and just say, we're not giving you the max. How about this? And if you don't take it, we'll just be happily negotiate against you in restricted free agency.

• 36:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  And I think more teams should do that. I mean, I hate restricted free agency. It sucks for the players, but it's a rule and I don't think teams have adequately taken advantage of it. And I think it's really like, if you can chip eight to 10 million a year off some of these contracts, again, it sucks for the players, but it's, it's a weapon that you're, you have collectively bargained to have. And I like.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  It also really hurts the flexibility of being able to fix your roster. Once you do that extension, you're, you're poison pill.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  Look, we're just, these are just the rules. I have to live in the, I can think about other rules, but these are the rules that exist now. And under those rules, like I'm not extending a star Thompson now unless he's willing to take a, a, a pretty big discount. And because if I'm, and if I'm a star Thompson's agent, I'd say like, oh no, I want the max. It's 25% and like, then we're not negotiating. Then we'll, we'll go to, we'll, we'll take it to restricted free agency.

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  If, but if a star Thompson's agent asked that or said that, I would cut a 45 minute video of him missing eight footers and be like, we're not giving you the max. And here's our 45 minute answer on that.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Well, I think that would be.

• 37:12Bill Simmons?

  Can he make an eight footer?

• 37:13Speaker 04

  I, I think.

• 37:14Bill Simmons?

  Can he make an eight footer?

• 37:15Speaker 04

  I don't know if that would go over well. I think that would be perceived as rude.

• 37:18Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 37:20Bill Simmons?

  What were the backyard basketball one on one games between the Thompson twins like?

• 37:25Speaker 04

  Ferocious. I wouldn't want to be a part of those games.

• 37:27Bill Simmons?

  Just incredible. Is that why they both can't shoot? Because the other one was so great defensively, they never figured out how to make an open shot?

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Just four hour games and people like, we gotta eat dinner. I, I know it's two, two to 11, but with dinner is ready. It's getting cold. Can we just call it a three?

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  It's like two, two cheetahs just fighting, unable to gain upper ground on each other. Uh, I'm going to just quickly give you my, I had some Cleveland content in case they lost about what would happen. I was really excited about some of this. I, I wrote down in all caps, LeBron is looming. I think we can close the door now for the LeBron comes back to Cleveland. Hey guys, I'm a former champ. I'm here to help.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  What if they lose? What if they get swept? I mean, I don't think they would. What if it's four, one, and it's just, it ends like with a whimper? Really? Just close it. You're just closing it.

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  What's the golf like in Cleveland? Because I think that's going to be the number one determiner for him.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  Probably not great for a large percentage of the year.

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  I think he has to stay in California. Yeah. I had some Mitchell trades, though.

• 38:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, let's say, how about this? If Mitchell gets swept, if the Cavs get swept, I'm just trying to figure out what his value is. Fourth pick, Chicago is, Chicago's not doing that, right?

• 38:40Speaker 04

  I would, I would think not. New GM, new lease on life. Let's get it. Let's get a cornerstone.

• 38:45Bill Simmons?

  New guys, young guy. But Brooklyn's sixth pick, which I think is for sale.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  They were, they were the first team that came to my mind when you just started.

• 38:52Bill Simmons?

  So sixth pick, Traore and a future first, call it in.

• 38:58Bill Simmons?

  Sacramento, seventh pick with Levine, and I get another Sacramento pick. And then, uh, and then Atlanta, eighth pick with Dyson Daniels, something there.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  He'd be very good on Atlanta. I mean, he'd be very good anywhere, but there would have been a really interesting discussion to be had of Donovan Mitchell, almost 30,

• 39:20Speaker 04

  eligible to sign just a, one of these extensions that's just going to be a just gigantic amount of money if it's a max extension going into his mid 30s. With a playoff record that I think, by the way, has been a little bit underrated as he's come under some scrutiny in this series. I think he's been pretty goddamn good in the playoffs. And there's been a couple of series, the last two years for the Cavs where he felt like the only one, he was like the bus driver and just, just, just the only one that was really up for a fight.

• 39:48Bill Simmons?

  Orlando game seven was a good one, too. And he was great tonight.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  And, and, but there still would have been interesting discussion, like, you know, small guard, 30 plus, 30 into 33, 34, 35, I want to pay him 70 million. And he's never made the conference finals. And that discussion is at least forestalled for now.

• 40:04Bill Simmons?

  The bigger issue for me with that kind of money is do you make anyone better, which he was not doing during the playoffs, but he did tonight. I did get, uh, got an email earlier today from Alex Taylor. This was before we knew the result. Who said, being a Cavs fan is a lot like having an elderly relative you're taking care of. I always have to watch and I'm rooting for them, but I kind of can't wait for this shit to be over with. It's a dark email.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  That is.

• 40:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think that's where the Cavs, that's where the Cavs fans are mentally, I guess.

• 40:31Speaker 04

  I needed a trigger warning for that. That was awful. Alex Taylor.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  Geez, Alex Taylor. Um, and then this one I got before game seven. From Britt Pierce about watching James Harden push off on every drive and flop all over the floor. The best playoff moment this year has to be Dean Wade slipping on Harden's sweat spot. And Tobias getting the run out dunk, the referees should be embarrassed for laying the ship for two decades. That would have been, if the Cavs had lost, that would have been the signature play. But they won and now nobody will remember it.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  There also would have been, like, I'm sure there was an understanding between James Harden and the Cleveland Cavaliers about what would come next when he has this player option for next year.

• 41:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  And the Clippers, there was clearly an understanding about would and would not come next with the Clippers. And when there's an understanding of that nature, James Harden tends to change teams and find one where he finds a better understanding. But if they had just flamed out in this series, and by the way, he was two of 10 today. It's not like he covered himself in glory in this game. He just didn't turn the ball over a lot.

• 41:28Bill Simmons?

  I liked it. I thought he was good. Two for 10 was deceiving.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  I do think, and again, I'm sure they've already kind of talked about it, but I, like, I would have been like, you just opt into your player option and we can just wash our hands of this because he's getting old in front of my eyes.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't think that's what happens. It's, I think the player option's 43.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, it's, what's going to happen is he's going to opt out and get a longer deal. But I'm saying if they flame out in this series and he goes down like he's gone down at other game sevens before, if I'm the Cavs, I'm like, I don't know, man. How many more years of this? Like, I know we traded Garland.

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but don't you want to do, what if it was like 27 and 27?

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Is he going to take that?

• 42:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  I guess, I guess he would.

• 42:12Bill Simmons?

  But he was in the, what draft was he in? 2009?

• 42:15Speaker 04

  He's old. He's getting old.

• 42:16Bill Simmons?

  Is anyone, it's just him and Curry from that draft now, right? Is there anybody else from that draft?

• 42:20Speaker 04

  I don't know. You're better at the draft stuff than I am.

• 42:22Bill Simmons?

  I think that was.

• 42:23Speaker 04

  But, and you do get to, you do get to have him as a trade chip in case you have one of those meetings that doesn't go well and then he gets traded to another place.

• 42:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, the question is, is this the third straight team? He felt like he was wink, wink, promise something that then did not materialize.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did. I didn't sense.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  I didn't sense a lot of empathy for Daryl Morey from the James Harden camp when the news of Daryl Morey's firing was rippling through the combine in Chicago last week.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  I want to invite Daryl on my podcast and just pour truth serum into him, get him to tell all kinds of stuff.

• 42:58Speaker 04

  With the painting of Harden being in the background, do you think he still has the painting? Remember the Ramona Shelber wrote that piece and it was like, "Sit in the living room, stands this painting of commission from this artist for this amount of money and it's James Harden doing this." And then it's a quote from Daryl being like, "Yes, he is my muse. We will be forever connected. We hugged on the tarmac all those years ago."

• 43:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, when he has his podcast on The Ringer, maybe James will be one of the first 10 guests on the Daryl Morey Show.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  The Daryl and Doc Show?

• 43:26Bill Simmons?

  The Daryl and Doc Show would be amazing. I don't, I don't think that one will happen.

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if there's a lot of.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  The mismatch part two, the mismatch 2.0?

• 43:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that'd be more than a mismatch. I don't see those two getting together for a pod. All right, Knicks, Knicks, Cavs.

• 43:45Speaker 04

  Let's do it.

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  Are you, well, you'll do Tuesday mornings, so you'll be able to do a pick on that series. So I won't step on your podcast. Listen to Zach's pod.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  I'm gonna pick the Knicks. There's no amount of film study or whatever that I'm doing tomorrow that is gonna make me pick the Cavs. I'm picking the Knicks. It's just a matter of how many games.

• 44:01Bill Simmons?

  I would lean right now toward Knicks in five.

• 44:07Bill Simmons?

  Just because I think Mitchell will have one game when he goes nuts. That's usually, usually what happens with him. They'll have one game where everything goes right, would be my guess. But I don't, I just think the Knicks, it's weird. I, it's, we have three classes of teams this year, not two, as we get into the final four. Cause we have this OKC, San Antonio all the way up here. I think we have the Knicks here, but puncher's chance of being able to hang in a series against either of those teams, no question. And then probably the Cavs here. I think those are the three levels.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's fair. I think the Knicks could win the championship. I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't pick, I'm not gonna pick them over either of the Western Conference teams. But if you told me it's a 25% chance they could win one of those series, that sounds reasonable to me.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  I think the Knicks winning the championship, oh, this is gonna get cut out in no social media video. I'm fine with it. I think the Knicks winning the championship. Is the biggest thing left in any sport other than the Bills Vikings or Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl. And I probably left out another team where their fans are gonna get mad at me. But when you think about the Knicks not winning since 73, but the generations of fans and the drought of 20 years and it, there's just so many parallels to me with the Red Sox pre 04. The, just the emotion that will come out of that, we cannot, I don't think there's

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  another basketball team that would have it. And that there's some that it's unrealistic because like the Sacramento Kings, as long as they have the current owners will never win the title. So we can't even be like, oh, in Sacramento, it's like, we'll never know because they're not gonna win. Phoenix, a little bit, just because of all their tough losses, but other, I just think the Knicks have the most fans. New York's the biggest city we have. Generations of fans going back to the 50s and grandfathers and great grandfathers and that, I just think it's the biggest thing we have.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  I, well, look, I mean, outside the arena is already a complete shit show after every game. And I mean that mostly affectionately, but also like leave JR Smith alone and leave poor Brian Winors alone this year if he comes to town. It's already insane there. And yeah, I mean, they're the Knicks. I mean, this is, they are an absolutely iconic team. They're New York's team and New York is a big gigantic city. I would throw out like the Timberwolves Vikings twofer in Minnesota would be pretty huge.

• 46:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about this? Minnesota hasn't won a title of any kind since 91 and I don't even think, the Twins, I don't even think they've been in the finals in any sport since 91. I'm pretty sure that's true.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  I mean, my North Star slash Wild history is a little muddled.

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  But the thing is like, I know there's been a bunch of teams that have had droughts or have never won at all. Like the Maple Leafs fans are listening to me right now. Like, what about us? So just, the Knicks are the biggest city in America. Like they have the most fans. That's, the point is like, they've had 53 years of just getting their teeth kicked in and they have just a shitload of fans. So that's, that's why I would make that argument.

• 47:09Speaker 04

  Can I give you one more?

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  The Mets are at 40, by the way.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  I'm aware and we beat the Yankees today and come from behind, bottom, bottom of the 10th win to take the Subway Series yet again. Can I just throw one other team at you?

• 47:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  I, I am curious to know. What modern Atlanta would feel like if they got a team that they really felt like this could be a championship team like the Bud Hawks, I think everybody knew they're gonna run into the Cleveland buzzsaw at some point. And this was like a very fun team and a very fun story for like the basketball seat, right? Like, oh, they pass the ball, they do all this cool stuff with Korver. Like, what if they got a like a cool ass dude like like Jalen, I mean, Trey Young was, but then like

• 47:50Bill Simmons?

  Anthony Edwards?

• 47:52Speaker 04

  Whatever. Don't don't do that.

• 47:54Bill Simmons?

  Like, University of Georgia, Georgia native, Anthony Edwards.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  But and had and had a team where you like actually believed that it's that seems like they would go crazy there.

• 48:03Bill Simmons?

  That would be a pretty good one. Hey, listen, lots of teams have a one Indiana. Get back there after the Halliburton coming so close and Halliburton going down like that would be another one. But I just think the Knicks have the they've so many fans and some but I you and I, I mean, it's a little less fair for you because you're in the vicinity.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  I'm in the heartlands.

• 48:23Bill Simmons?

  We just I just know there's so many Knicks and it's like all they want. This is it. Um, all right.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  I'm going Knicks in five.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 48:33Bill Simmons?

  This is my pick. I don't know what the odds are. Let's uh, let's talk Spurs OKC.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  You um.

• 48:44Bill Simmons?

  You were asking me what I thought the most anticipated series has been since you and I have known each other, which was 2011. I tried to hire you. It didn't work out. And then you finally finally came to Grantland the next year. Um, you sent me all these series that you thought were in the running for most anticipated playoff series.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Trying to trying to get my headspace back into what it was, what it felt like before those series started.

• 49:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Kirk and I talked about this for a scratch on Tuesday, and I said that I felt like this was the biggest series in eight years. But I didn't really put a ton of thought into it. And then when you and I were talking about it, I think the weirder thing to me is that we haven't had like a mammoth series like this in eight years. And I don't really know all the reasons for that because I do think we have a lot of talent in the 2020s. Um, I don't know if it's bad luck or.

• 49:39Bill Simmons?

  I don't really have an answer, but I know that this is, this feels like the single biggest series we've had, at least since the first Cavs Warriors one. But what would you, what would you go? Like, what was the top five that you landed on?

• 49:50Speaker 04

  So first of all, my theories as to what you just, the void that you just talked about, I have a few theories. Will you?

• 49:57Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it. No, let's go, let's dive into it. I'm curious.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  I think the pandemic fucked up like two and a half seasons. They just didn't, not that they don't, don't, don't Lakers fans, I'm not saying that. It just didn't, they didn't, the games didn't feel the same, obviously.

• 50:10Bill Simmons?

  I'll say it.

• 50:11Speaker 04

  Well, no, don't be, the Lakers-

• 50:12Bill Simmons?

  The games are in a fucking bubble with cardboard cutouts of fans. Like, that was insane.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  And then the next season, there was attendance restrictions all over the league. And then I think the parody, like, we've had seven champions in seven years. We just haven't had these, like, two colossuses who are rising next to each other and meeting in the playoffs over and over again. Sixty-plus win, just like juggernauts. And now we're gonna have that. I'll give you my top five. I made my top five.

• 50:35Bill Simmons?

  Before you give me the top five?

• 50:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  I have a point off your point. Cause I'm glad you brought up the COVID. I think that would have been the best and biggest and most anticipated series, but we didn't get it because COVID would have been Lakers, Clippers, first Kawhi year, second LeBron year. They were the two best teams in the league. And we were headed that way. And I remember the weekend before all the COVID shit happened, and I think they might have even played that weekend. And it just was clearly, I remember doing a podcast that Sunday and it was like, this is it, man. We are headed, we've never had the LA versus LA collision course. This is fucking happening. Kawhi was the reigning finals MVP. LeBron had his fastball back. Like, Davis was there. We were heading for it. And it didn't happen.

• 51:19Speaker 04

  Streetlights over spotlights. They had, the Clippers had the whole ad campaign that was like, we're the anti Lakers of LA.

• 51:26Bill Simmons?

  It was great. And it just immediately was over for, for two plus years. We never had the awesome Nuggets. Kind of, oh my God, Nuggets series either. Probably the closest was that, that first battle with the Timberwolves when the Timberwolves ended up beating them in game seven. But there wasn't anticipation for that, like with the Spurs. Anyway.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  The Nuggets are in a bunch, like a bunch of my honorable mention, top 20 anticipated series. Like I think Thunder Nuggets last year was like, that was a pretty hot series. But again, it wasn't like, it was earlier.

• 51:56Bill Simmons?

  No, you need like, it needs to feel like this is the finals right now. There's big legacy altering stuff. I have two of, hopefully the two best guys in the league, but at least two of the best three or four. Like you gotta check a lot of boxes with this, which is what this series does. So what do you got?

• 52:13Speaker 04

  My top five, I did this from LeBron signing in Miami until now. Top five most anticipated series. I sent you a list. I have like 20 finalists. My top five were, I'll go in reverse order. Number five, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Western Conference Finals 2012. It was like the old guys versus the young guys. The Spurs had acquired Diouf at the end of that, like the middle of that season. And they were on like a 20 game winning streak going into that series or they.

• 52:40Bill Simmons?

  Killed the Clippers, killed them.

• 52:42Speaker 04

  They, I think they had won 20 straight games after going up 2-0 in that series. And then the Thunder were like, oh, we're just younger and more athletic and we're actually ready. And they just wiped the Spurs out four in a row. So that was number five.

• 52:55Bill Simmons?

  By the way, on that 2012, which was a great basketball season and it was right after the lockout. So it was all condensed, sped up and there was just a lot of basketball happening. And the, the thing that sucked is we lost Eric Rose at the beginning of that playoffs. But we had Chicago, Miami, Boston on one side. And then we had this Lob City team that came out of nowhere because Chris Paul ended up on the Clippers. You had this proud Spurs team trying to get their throne back. You had OKC, you know, ascending.

• 53:26Bill Simmons?

  And then you, you had, there was one more, right? OKC, Clippers. No, that's it. Those three. So we had 16.

• 53:33Speaker 04

  Great and grind Memphis was like floating around there.

• 53:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like kind of lurking, but. But yeah, that was a, I thought both of those Thunder series because Heat, Heat Thunder in the next round was also really great, but I like the non-finals for this. Okay. I'm with you on that one.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Number four, most anticipated series, Warriors-Thunder Western Conference Finals 2016, ends up being the Klay Thompson Game Six series. Just-

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  So I had that higher. I had that second on my list.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 54:01Bill Simmons?

  Because it was 73 and 9. It felt like it was Durant's last, maybe he was getting out of there, maybe he was going to Washington, maybe he was going to Boston. The Golden State buzz had started, but most people didn't know whether to believe it or not. But it just felt like there was something momentous happening ahead of us.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm not done with that team that year yet on my list.

• 54:25Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 54:25Speaker 04

  Uh, number three out of a bunch of candidates from this two-year era, uh, the 2014 Finals, Heat Spurs 2. Um, I think just the happiest I've ever been covering basketball was being at the back-to-back Heat Spurs Finals. Just so many awesome players, awesome storylines, the vengeance storyline in the second one, the one out, the 2014 one after the Ray Allen shot, the year before it broke the Spurs' hearts. Uh, and-

• 54:52Bill Simmons?

  Heat favored for that series too, which people forget. The people really felt like-

• 54:57Speaker 04

  I think that's the air conditioning game is in that series-

• 54:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Where the air conditioning goes out. Uh, honorable mention, I just think the Spurs, the Spurs-Thunder Conference Finals from that year is also awesome. Uh, that's my number, that's my number three.

• 55:09Bill Simmons?

  By the way, Clippers, Clippers-Thunder that year was awesome too, right? Wasn't that 14?

• 55:13Speaker 04

  Honorable mention, not so awesome for the Clippers, but honorable mention. Uh, the Clippers had quite a dramatic playoff run that year with Donald Sterling happening right before. Uh-

• 55:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Number two, the 2016 NBA Finals, 73-win Warriors, LeBron and the Cavs. Just the, the rematch after the first one had Kyrie injured, Kevin Love injured, and it ended up being not quite a fair fight as the Warriors won their first title. And number one, just slightly over that, 2018 Western Conference Finals, Warriors versus the Rockets team with Chris Paul and James Harden, and they switched everything and were built to beat the Warriors. It actually had them on the ropes, the Durant Warriors, the invincible Warriors that had gone 16-1 in the playoffs the year before. I think that was my number one.

• 55:59Bill Simmons?

  It's a great list. So I had, I had five of the six bolded. The one you didn't mention that I think has lost to history and was fucking awesome was Warriors Rockets 2019 when Durant was hurt. And it felt like it was, we were headed toward the end of this Warriors run. That was awesome. We're probably weren't getting Durant back. It was Houston's best chance to take them down. And then Curry had that incredible second half. I think it was game six. What do you have like 30 in the second half?

• 56:31Speaker 04

  I think he had zero. I think he might have had zero in the first half. And it's also not just one of my favorite Curry games. It's one of my favorite Curry and Draymond together games because they just run the same two man game on the right side of the floor over and over again down the stretch, but they do six different things out of it in six different possessions and the Rockets just don't even know what the hell hit them. And it's one open shot after another.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  18 Western Finals is a great one because it kind of did feel like the finals that LeBron had nobody left on the Cavs that season.

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  That weird Celtic team that didn't even have Kyrie and Hayward almost made the finals came within a couple of mysteries and

• 57:11Speaker 04

  A couple, like a thousand mysteries.

• 57:15Bill Simmons?

  But we also had the Chris Paul, uh, could this be it? And then he gets hurt in game four. That was an awesome series. For this decade, you, you wrote down Clippers Mavs 21, Bucks Nets 21, Nuggets Suns 23, Sixers Celtics 23, Wolves Nuggets 24, Nuggets Clips 25 and Thunder Nuggets 25. The only one I think could be in the discussion is Bucks Nets.

• 57:44Bill Simmons?

  But I can't remember when the injuries started, but it was Giannis coming off two straight MVPs. It was your greatest theoretical team of all time, the Nets. It kind of felt like whoever won that series was making the finals. And as it turned out, uh, it was the correct assumption because the other series was Hawks, Sixers, which was the, uh,

• 58:04Bill Simmons?

  The end of Ben Simmons' career as we knew it, but Bucks Nets was, I think we were excited for that and then the injuries just started coming.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, we were, I was trying to remember, trying to put myself back into the space of like, I must have been pretty pumped for that series.

• 58:19Bill Simmons?

  Covid was back at that point. It was just, 21 was weird. I don't really remember a ton.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  And by the way, I now remember as I'm going through the whole list of my honorable mentions, the very first one on my honorable mentions list, chronologically, is the 2011 NBA Finals, Heat Mavs. And we were talking before about how making the conference finals and losing should not be treated as some catastrophic failure where I have to upend my entire team and pivot in a different direction. But I forgot to say, and now remember to say is, that Mavericks team is the quintessential example of that. Yeah, they tweaked here and there, but they failed in the playoffs over and over and over again with Dirk, often in high-profile ways. And they just took the attitude of, it's not that bad to be a 50 to 58 win team every year and just be good and good and good and maybe hit great

• 59:08Speaker 04

  in the right year where we get the right matchups, the right chemistry, whatever, and maybe we'll win a title. And they won the title and it's one of the most beloved title teams of the last quarter century of the NBA. They are the poster team for, you don't always have to like blow it up or trade three people when you're running into a wall in the conference finals or wherever, over and over again.

• 59:29Bill Simmons?

  So what are the 22 Warriors the poster boy of?

• 59:32Speaker 04

  They're

• 59:32Bill Simmons?

  Because they won the title anyway, even though they should have made trades and they didn't because they were doing the two timelines bullshit.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  Well, I think they're the poster thing of like, if you have a top 12 player of all time, wherever you think Steph is, like, and he's in his prime, just like, just keep trying to win. And they did.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  Basketball was really good from 12 to 14. We just had a lot of good teams and a lot of good players. I think the 2010 Celtic Lakers rematch.

• 1:00:00Bill Simmons?

  Dorfs all of these, I think for a variety of reasons. It also feels like, uh, it feels like the end of basketball and the start of this new era of basketball ironically, in this new decade, when the threes started to come in and the new Durant moved up and Curry and all of these, LeBron went to Miami. It just feels like basketball shifts as a sport. And that Celtic Lakers series, incredible anticipation, but also feels like the end of a specific generation at the same time.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  I remember thinking at the time, and I was not at, this is 17 years ago, whatever, 16 years ago, not as well versed in like the early, early history of the NBA as you were then, I am now. So you can talk about the 69 finals, whatever.

• 1:00:43Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  I remember, I remember thinking at that time, could you make the argument that this game seven is the biggest game in the history of the NBA? Celtics, Lakers, Lakers trying to like close the title gap. Kobe, the big three Celtics going for one last ring when it felt like they should have had another one and never did. And just, I, I, I don't think that was a crazy, I mean, I, you, we, I'm sure we could go back and find other candidates for such a lofty designation, but it had to be up there.

• 1:01:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a, there's a couple of finals that I think levitate above the rest of them. 2016 is definitely like that. I mean, that's, you could argue that that might be the biggest one.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  No, I'm just saying at the time in 2010, I was thinking, is this one game? Obviously, yeah, 2016, that, that was.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  No, but I'm saying going into certain series and being like, wow, there, the stakes just feel higher right now. That's why like, if we get a game seven in this Spurs Thunder series.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  Oh my God.

• 1:01:38Bill Simmons?

  I think we're gonna feel that way. Right? Cause on this, I know Wemby's 22, but I don't care, man. He's seven foot seven. Yeah. You, you gotta take it year by year when somebody's got that kind of size. And I just, I'm always nervous about injuries with him. And then OKC, you know?

• 1:01:55Bill Simmons?

  You just never know. It's really hard to just put title seasons together. It's hard to keep everybody happy. They've done a great job of it. Presti famously. And some of the stuff's starting to come out a little about how he approaches player evaluation and stuff, but really thinks about personality, chemistry, wanting to build these guys that are all going to pull for each other. That's why he sees somebody like Jared McCain and just grabs him. There's like a certain type of person that he values. And they probably have the best chance of anyone of having a long, long run with a tail without any disease and more stuff happening. But.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Well, you talk about stakes, like Shay just won his second MVP in a row today. It was announced.

• 1:02:36Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  If he, they go, if they break.

• 1:02:39Bill Simmons?

  Shams somehow scooped everybody, but was it a scoop? Did we, did anyone think Shay was not winning the MVP? Is there one person?

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  I'm sure, um, I, no, I mean, I don't think it was a surprise, but I'm sure the league and its broadcast partners preferred that to be, or the other broadcast partners preferred that to be out at a different way.

• 1:03:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that wasn't great.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  But, but if they break the no repeat streak in the NBA now, and he wins another finals MVP, and they're still pretty young. I mean, like, the, the historical stakes for him and for this Thunder team are, are now very big. And they, they will begin to put, if they win another title and they break the no repeat run, they will begin to put themselves into position with another title, whether it's next, like if they win three out of four, or four out of seven or something, they will get into some pretty big historical discussions. And like, that starts now. That starts with like this, this title, and this is the first time they, I mean, they've, it feels like they've barely participated in the playoffs. It's been so easy for them. And now, and now we're here.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Back to back finals MVP, Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron and Durant. That's the entire list. And then back to back regular season MVPs, Russell, Will, Kareem, Moses, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Duncan, Nash, LeBron, Curry, Giannis and Jokic.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  The Giannis second MVP, gotta, gotta reinvestigate that one at some point.

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  Well, look, no one reinvestigates an MVP race like you. I mean, you got a whole team under you.

• 1:04:10Bill Simmons?

  I think I voted for Giannis, but I, but now it's like when they always talk about that LeBron won enough MVPs, that might've been the shaky one that he should've taken. I think he finished second.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  I got, I'd have to look back.

• 1:04:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  I remember voting for Giannis both times.

• 1:04:27Bill Simmons?

  So anyway, the, the, the people who have done the back-to-back regular season and finals MVP, it's not a, not a long list. Also, speaking of MVP, Jokic got second place. He, he officially top two MVPs six straight years, him, Bird and Russell. That's the whole list.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Wow. I'm surprised. I thought it would be a little closer in the, in the voting than it was.

• 1:04:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. 83 first, uh, first placers for Shay, 10 for Joker and five for Wemby. So you thought Joker would get more votes? Who'd you think was getting more votes?

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  I thought Jokic would, would snag like 10 more first place votes or it would just be a little bit less of a rout than it was.

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

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• 1:06:32Speaker 02

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• 1:06:38Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible. The workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetrades. It's football season and Uber Eats is delivering deals every single day. This week, buy a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. When your watch party gets hungry, order in and keep everyone's attention where it matters, on the game.

• 1:07:22Bill Simmons?

  Order a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes. Get another one free. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score great deals on Uber Eats all season long because it's not football without food. It really isn't. Popeyes offer valid through November 1st. Add eligible menu item to order prior to checkout. Taxes, fees, and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. I have a segment I didn't tell you about called Spurs/OKC Legacy Check.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  Okay, well, let's check some legacies out.

• 1:07:57Bill Simmons?

  Just mentioned Shay.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:07:59Bill Simmons?

  He's really going for something unique here with the back-to-back and finals MVP and round MVP. Chet? There's seeds of the Wemby feud going really since like 2023. It's like something's here that doesn't seem like there's a lot of love between these two guys. And now they have a chance to really go at it. He's, I think he's solidified himself as the second best Thunder guy. He's probably the second best defender in the league, second best center. He's their best chance to maybe nullify Wemby a little bit. I don't know if Wemby can be nullified. It might be impossible.

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  Well, let's say he's definitely not.

• 1:08:42Bill Simmons?

  Shet stuff here.

• 1:08:42Speaker 04

  He's definitely not the second best center in the NBA.

• 1:08:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, that was a joke. Yes, the third best center.

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this goes back to before, you know, they were even in the NBA, the international basketball scene. There's a lot of, there's a lot of Wemby Chet history. And I'm just going to say like, just let's see how Jalen Williams looks before. I mean, it doesn't really matter. They're both awesome, but before we definitively say that Chet has now surpassed him as the second best player in the Thunder. I mean, this was a dude who was like, oh my God, is he gonna, is he gonna steal finals MVP at the last minute here?

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  In the league?

• 1:09:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's gonna play. He's ready.

• 1:09:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I forgot what he looked like.

• 1:09:18Speaker 04

  Well, you get ready. He's gonna look, you're gonna see him again.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  He was on my legacy list. I wrote Jalen Williams hyphen.

• 1:09:29Bill Simmons?

  Were you here?

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  Yes, he was there.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  Do you not remember the finals last year? He was unbelievable.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  He was awesome. I had him, I had him like 12th in my ring 100, just like to see him play. Can he play, can he play some basketball? Legacy.

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  Sam Presti.

• 1:09:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:09:50Bill Simmons?

  I think a title, getting by this series and then the next series. I think officially, um, he becomes one of the great GMs of all time. I think it's just official.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  You're talking Arbakh and West and Riley, Jerry Kraus, pick anyone. But to put that whole Durant run together, not have a quick cut there and then do what he did with this decade.

• 1:10:14Bill Simmons?

  It's, he's certainly been the best GM in the league.

• 1:10:19Bill Simmons?

  For how many years now? The one that people point to?

• 1:10:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Bill Simmons?

  I mean, 15?

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  I don't know if it's quite that long. It's a very long time. And there's indisputably, he's in the, gonna go in the pantheon of the best ever to do it.

• 1:10:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. AJ Mitchell?

• 1:10:36Bill Simmons?

  Best contract in the league.

• 1:10:39Bill Simmons?

  Bordering on one of the best this century with the way he's playing, making $3 million a year. Ridiculous trade bait or keep bait for them. And in my opinion, hold on to your horses, Zach Lowe.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Bill Simmons?

  The single most important Thunder player in this series.

• 1:10:55Speaker 04

  Thunderer?

• 1:10:56Bill Simmons?

  The single most important thunderer for this reason. The Spurs are gonna go small and do that three guard thing and try to do speed and unleash their pitfalls. And they need Mitchell to be really good. They need him to be as good as he was the last two rounds. They're gonna have to play lineups with him and SGA together. And a defender and might even have to go a little smaller and he's just gonna have to be good. He's gonna have to do what he's done. And we haven't seen him do it at this level. We've seen him do it in the regular season. We've seen him do it against in series where they were much better than the other team. This is a whole other level, so we're gonna find out.

• 1:11:32Speaker 04

  I love that you brought him up and I think you did for exactly the right reasons. I think it's very much worth noting that he missed three out of the five games the teams played this year. And you felt his absence in the games he wasn't there. Just the secondary, the more ball handling you could, I mean, the Spurs secret sauce against the Thunder was we have a ton of ball handling and enough that we can A. Get into the paint against your defense and B. Not collapse in a hail of turnovers because we have reliable guards. And that's what you feast on. But the Thunder can play similar lineups now that A.J. Mitchell has become A.J. Mitchell to this degree. And I think we're gonna see like, I've been waiting for the Thunder death lineup all year and we've barely seen it. And it's Shay, A.J. Mitchell, Caruso, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren.

• 1:12:16Speaker 04

  At the end of some games or in crunch time of some games, we've had glimpses of it. One of the glimpses was in one of the Spurs games, I was rewatching all of it. I think that's an awesome lineup that if we, if we see everyone healthy, we'll see a little bit more of it. Hopefully in this series than we've seen.

• 1:12:30Bill Simmons?

  What's the lineup again?

• 1:12:31Speaker 04

  Shay, Mitchell, Jalen Williams, Caruso, Chet. It's like, I wanna, I wanna close, can I close?

• 1:12:37Bill Simmons?

  So I have enough defense with Caruso and Chet.

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  Just super.

• 1:12:41Bill Simmons?

  But I have a little more offense than A.J. in the Dort spot.

• 1:12:44Speaker 04

  Three super dynamic ball handlers in Mitchell, Shay and J-Dub. And just, I just think it's like, look, there's no Dort, so you lose a little heft, right? And there's no Kason Wallace, who's sort of your defensive ace in the hole at all times. But just something to watch for.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  Because the other thing with the Spurs is this is a fun series for them because they can play the Wemby with smaller guys lineup. They can play them with three guards and a swing, you know, play them with three and a half guards, whatever they want. And it's not like, okay, so you'd be like, okay, we're going big and you're making, they're just not gonna be able to do it. So I do think the guards versus guards thing, which was a huge advantage for San Antonio. Okay, so he has the guards. So I have Mitchell. Alex, Alex Caruso role player Hall of Fame is like in reach now for him?

• 1:13:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:13:31Bill Simmons?

  This will be three titles for him. I think they really need him in this series specifically because um. I want to see, who do you think guards Harper for them?

• 1:13:42Speaker 04

  I mean, I think it's gonna, all of these are just gonna be a combination of tons of different people, depending on who else is in the game.

• 1:13:48Bill Simmons?

  Alright, so let's say, let's say end of the game, they go Fox, Harper.

• 1:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Castle, Bassell and Wemby.

• 1:13:58Speaker 04

  I mean, they rarely play that, they, the Spurs rarely put all three of the guards on the floor together. It just, it just hasn't happened very much this year, but sure, we can, we can.

• 1:14:07Bill Simmons?

  They were doing a little more in the playoffs, though.

• 1:14:09Speaker 04

  Just a little, but not very much because Champagne plays a ton, Kelton Johnson plays a ton.

• 1:14:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  And, uh, yeah, but so, and like, I, well, this is the, I mean, this is the interesting chess match of the series is right. Like, I think we would, the Thunder are awesome in any configuration and we have not seen hardly any of Hartenstein and Holmgren together against the Spurs with Wemby on the floor. So those, those two, the double big, the best double big they have.

• 1:14:35Bill Simmons?

  That you can't, you gotta play shooters.

• 1:14:37Speaker 04

  They've only played 33 minutes against the Spurs in five games. It was really only in three games. And if you go back and watch, a lot of them were against Cornet and Harrison Barnes because Wemby came off the bench in two of the games that they played. And so they start and Wemby comes in and like, when it's Wemby is the only big man on the floor for the Spurs and Chet is the only big man on the floor for the Thunder, I just think the chess match that's gonna evolve over the course of this series is gonna be fascinating, starting with, do they guard each other? And if so, how often? Because the Thunder have put Chet on, you know, Harrison Barnes, Kelton Johnson, basically not Wemby. And the Spurs have kind of toggled between Wemby, sure, you can guard Chet, you can guard anybody, but we like, you have, like, guard Caruso and Rove.

• 1:15:20Speaker 04

  Guard Dort and Rove. Like, I, I just think that chess match is gonna be super interesting.

• 1:15:26Bill Simmons?

  And will Dart guard, Dort guard Wemby?

• 1:15:29Speaker 04

  Everyone got a

• 1:15:29Bill Simmons?

  Is that something that will happen?

• 1:15:30Speaker 04

  Dort guarded Fox a lot. So their ba- their base alignment, when it was one big versus one big, if they're, if they had one that was used the most frequently, it was like Dort on Fox and Jalen Williams on Wemba Yama to switch that pick and roll and, and they would have the bigs elsewhere on the floor. But Dort will guard Wemby some. Caruso guarded Wemby some. Like they'll throw everybody. They'll put Hartenstein on them now and then, like particularly, I think when the, the starters are against the starters. It's just gonna be super interesting to see who guards who.

• 1:15:59Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be, I, I don't, I'd love to know how many people OKC is gonna actually settle on as the series goes along. Cause they were basically playing 10 and sometimes even 11 in the last two rounds. But I think that gets narrowed down. I think they probably end up at nine would be my guess, right?

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  That's usually what it is. Um, I'll tell you, I, I can't tell if it was because OKC was, you know, like AJ Mitchell was out for a bunch of game, a couple of, three of the games, as I mentioned, and, and, but like a guy that saw a lot of the floor against the Spurs in the regular season games, and he was not played hardly at all in the playoffs is Kenrich Williams. And I, I, I do wonder if he's someone that they look at as, do we try him at the five a little bit? Or we like his shooting at the four next to Chet? He guarded Wemby a bit. I, I wonder if he's a guy that is gonna get a shot to play a little bit in the series.

• 1:16:55Bill Simmons?

  Wemby I have for legacy as this would be the single craziest ascent since 1977, Bill Walton.

• 1:17:02Speaker 04

  Pretty much.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  If you're just like, hey, I'm gonna actually win four straight series and take the title here at age 22. Harper is definitely moving into that 1981 McHale, 83 Worthy, 88 Pippen, 2003 Manu and Tony, where this is just a guy at the beginning of his career who is also a huge chess piece. And it's somebody that I genuinely think he has a chance to be.

• 1:17:30Bill Simmons?

  A Hall of Fame, like top 50 guard.

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  There's a.

• 1:17:33Bill Simmons?

  House and I were talking about the other day, like, like, I was there when young Jason Kidd showed up and, you know, some of the best guards of the last 40 years I've seen the beginning stages. I just think he has it. Like, I would bet anything.

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  I don't think that's a daring bet. He have, he absolutely has it. He's going to be a star. There's a world in which, this was a popular debate question. I was meeting everyone at the Combine was, uh, best player from that draft in five years and 10 years. Is it automatically Cooper or is it Harper? Those were the two.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  Can't say automatic, anything.

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  No, I, I think people would defer to the size that Cooper has, but I, I think Harper being the best player in the draft is in play. And by the way, all the love Harper's getting is incredible. Like, he's incredible. And the Ginobili comparisons, they're lefties. They come off the bench. Ginobili's mentoring him. It's an amazing story. He has totally stepped up in the playoffs. Steph Castle's averaging 26 and 5 on 49% shooting and 44% on 3. And just being a gigantic pain in the ass to everyone at every position on defense. And he's going to guard SGA a lot. And like, I just can't, I just can't wait for that. What a show that's going to be.

• 1:18:36Bill Simmons?

  I had Castle as the next legacy guy. Um, I wrote down horrific haunting of the 2024 top three draft.

• 1:18:43Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. What a sliding.

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  Horrific at this point.

• 1:18:46Speaker 04

  The Reed Shepard stuff. I mean, for teams that have.

• 1:18:48Bill Simmons?

  All of them. I had them first.

• 1:18:50Speaker 04

  But, but, but for teams that have massively high stakes, like are ready to win big right now, the Rockets and the Spurs. So the Spurs didn't quite know that they were going to be ready this fast. Like, that's a huge sliding doors moment in like the, the coming history of the West.

• 1:19:06Bill Simmons?

  Brutal. Cornet and Barnes.

• 1:19:08Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, when, when are we?

• 1:19:09Bill Simmons?

  Two team champs, like Shaq.

• 1:19:10Speaker 04

  I was literally gonna say, when are we going to get to Cornet's second title? When is that coming up?

• 1:19:13Bill Simmons?

  And Barnes. How about Barnes?

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  Well, but you, okay.

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  Darren Fox escaped from Sacramento. This guy was playing on the Vivek Radadive Kings 18 months ago and now is, is in the best series in 10 years.

• 1:19:26Speaker 04

  I just watched the jailbreak, jail, the jailblazers documentary on Netflix. Escape, Escape from Sacramento sounds like the next Netflix or Amazon basketball mini doc.

• 1:19:39Bill Simmons?

  Mitch Johnson versus Dagnall, the most boring, great coach matchup in NBA history?

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:19:46Bill Simmons?

  Can anyone name three things about either of these guys?

• 1:19:49Speaker 04

  Mitch Johnson went to Stanford and Mark Dagnall coached the Tulsa Blue.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  Leventhal Massachusetts, I know that. Mitch Johnson, son of John Johnson.

• 1:19:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Bill Simmons?

  NBA champ Seattle, ended up on the Celtics in 1976 and something got screwed up. And I can't remember what happened. The trade got voided or the signing, something weird. And they actually had to trade him again to Seattle. But during that brief time, looked at my mom and dad's condo, came into the condo because we were selling the condo, moving to another house. And John Johnson, new member of the Celtic, walked through the condo and six year old me almost had a heart attack or seven year old me, however old I was.

• 1:20:28Speaker 04

  What a, what a.

• 1:20:30Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's my most exciting Mitch Johnson story for you.

• 1:20:32Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a lot of information about Mitch Johnson's dad.

• 1:20:35Bill Simmons?

  Do, how long could somebody spend with Mitch Johnson and Dagnall together, drinking beers before something fun would happen?

• 1:20:42Speaker 04

  I bet.

• 1:20:43Bill Simmons?

  Two hours?

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

  No, I bet not that long. I'd like.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because Leventhal is going to come out of Dagnall at some point.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  Everyone gets, you get a couple of people, a couple of beers in, it becomes a fun time.

• 1:20:52Bill Simmons?

  One of my college roommates was from Leventhal, Chuck La Pasta.

• 1:20:55Speaker 04

  La Pasta?

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  Chuck La Pasta.

• 1:20:58Speaker 04

  All right. Shout out Chuck.

• 1:21:00Bill Simmons?

  And then last one for me for legacy check, Adam Silver.

• 1:21:05Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:21:06Bill Simmons?

  The Spurs Knicks series is sitting right there. This is your biggest ratings series since 2016. Wemby versus the Knicks.

• 1:21:15Speaker 04

  What, what a.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  Pull some strings.

• 1:21:17Speaker 04

  Remember when the Spurs were the boring killers of ratings, even when they were like immaculate, immaculate. Yeah. Basketball team. And now they have freaking like, I, nobody can take their eyes off this dude. People who know nothing about the NBA are asking about him and watching these games. And by the way, I'm like, we're, we've barely scratched the surface on just how awesome this series could be. I mean, we were texting, like, I, I looked it up because I'm like, man, the Spurs, every loss they've had in the playoffs has been like, Wemby got a concussion.

• 1:21:45Bill Simmons?

  No, they have three Astros losses. Yeah.

• 1:21:47Speaker 04

  Wemby got ejected. And I looked it up in the last, since February 1st. And look, everything says the Thunder should win, right? It's experience versus youth. The Spurs haven't taken their lumps, back to back champs, number one seed, all of that stuff. And their record's incredible. And it's absolutely terrifying to not pick the Spurs because since February 1st, the Spurs are 37 and 3 playoffs and regular season when Wemby plays at least 15 minutes in a game. 37 and 3 in half a season. It's, they just don't lose when he plays a real game. They don't lose any games anymore.

• 1:22:22Bill Simmons?

  Feels like they're just up 20 all the time, but you could say the same about OKC. Um, I'm picking the Spurs.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:22:32Bill Simmons?

  They are, what, what is their, what are the odds for this right now? Let's see. So they are plus 220 for the series. I'm taking it.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  I would do Spurs in 5, 50 to 1, or Spurs in 6, plus 550 for value.

• 1:22:53Speaker 04

  But these are bets. Are you just picking them to win the series?

• 1:22:55Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm picking the Spurs to win. I'm just saying that the value I like are those two. Think, I think asking the Spurs to win a game seven with how young their team are, is in OKC is a little ambitious. I think it has to be in six. I like, Van Gundy mentioned it today. It's a great point. I thought Van Gundy's been really good the whole playoff. Shout out to him. Two man booth, clearly his destiny for broadcasting. Three man, didn't like him. Two man, great.

• 1:23:22Bill Simmons?

  Made a great point about the rustiness thing. We see this every year. We always forget, the team that's been playing and is in the groove and, you know, can just go from one series, they always have an advantage in game one over the team that hasn't played. So I think the Spurs, I really think they actually have to win game one to win the series, as goofy as that sounds. And I think they are going to win game one. And, uh, so that one on Fanduel, Spurs to win game one in this series is plus 450. So I like that bet too. But I think the Spurs are gonna win, Zach. I just think they've caught lightning in a bottle and this feels like 77 Blazers to me. I'm tired of thinking about the teams from the past and how you gotta learn and take your lumps.

• 1:24:07Bill Simmons?

  And I just don't think it matters. They have a seven foot seven guy who's out of control and a bunch of pit bulls. And they absolutely struck oil with the Dylan Harper thing. Like this is to get those three guys in back to back drafts. This is the kind of fluke you need to win a title when your best guys are 22, 21 and 20. And I think it's gonna, I think they're gonna win.

• 1:24:27Speaker 04

  I, I, I said it on Christmas, the Spurs can win the championship and they absolutely can win the championship.

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and I forgot one more thing in my, my pick.

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:24:38Bill Simmons?

  The Jalen Williams thing is, I, I know he's gonna be back and they feel good about it, but I think it's a weird variable to introduce into the biggest series of the year. And I don't think it's gonna be seamless. And I do think OKC has too many guys. I don't know about all the roles with all those guys and they can, I know they have great chemistry and all that stuff, but I don't even think they know who their best five to seven guys are, whereas I think San Antonio knows. I think they know exactly who they are, what lineups work and don't work for them. And I just think they're gonna win.

• 1:25:12Speaker 04

  These are all great reasons to pick the Spurs. You don't even need great reasons to pick the Spurs. They won 60 whatever games, 37 and three in their last 40 games when Wemby plays more than 15 minutes. I mean, it's an unimpeachable pick. They can absolutely win the title. I'm gonna pick the Thunder in seven.

• 1:25:28Bill Simmons?

  I respect it.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  The Jalen Williams thing is not a worry to me, other than is he gonna get re-injured again? I think he probably could have come back earlier had they felt that any kind of pressure at all from either the Suns or the Lakers. And they got to sit him out for a long time. I do, I still will like defer a little bit to the experience factor and having been through these moments of like big, total stress, although the Spurs seemed completely carefree to the point that Wemby was like, yeah, I'll kick a game by elbowing Nas Reed in the head. Like, I don't really care. We'll lose this one. We're, we're gonna be fine. I just want to elbow Nas Reed in the head because I'm fucking annoyed at everything.

• 1:26:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:06Speaker 04

  Uh, and I, look, they have, Thunder got a lot of guys. I, they have a ton of continuity, so I don't think reintroducing JDub is gonna be that big of a deal. And they're just gonna have to make some decisions. Maybe it's a big versus small decision. Maybe it's like not an Isaiah, Isaiah Joe series. Maybe it's whatever. They've already done it with Aaron Wiggins too. And whatever 37 and three you can make, there's a similar record sitting out there for Oklahoma City and it's last like 40 games with Shay or something like that. It's scary. This is what the Spurs did to them in the regular season was legit. I went back and watched all the film. You can definitely see Shay looking uncomfortable, looking like this is my pet. This is my pet jump shot. This is a pet move I do every game.

• 1:26:51Bill Simmons?

  And I don't have it anywhere.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  But the guy on me is a pretty good defender and like I see that the giant arm there and I know he can jump really far and get to and like you would see him pull out of shots that he makes in his sweep. But I think I look, these are two awesome teams. I think Oklahoma City has home court advantage. They're more experienced and I do think they probably have a little bit of an extra gear that they've been waiting and saving and reserve for a series like this. So I'm going to defer to the champs and pick Thunder.

• 1:27:21Bill Simmons?

  I totally respect it.

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  And my second, as long as we're being full disclosure, my second backup pick would be Thunder in six. Like this is not a case where I'm picking Thunder in seven, but I kind of don't, it's wishy washy and it's 50 50. I would, I'm picking the Thunder to win the series. So I think I would go Thunder in seven, Thunder in six, maybe Spurs in six is the third most likely outcome, but I'm going Thunder.

• 1:27:43Bill Simmons?

  We both agree long series. Six games is plus 210 on Fanduel and plus 220 is seven games. And that's another way to do it. You can just bet both.

• 1:27:52Speaker 04

  What sweep? Plus 1200 or something like that?

• 1:27:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. Spurs sweep is 25 to one. Thunder sweep is plus 550. I just don't see it.

• 1:28:04Speaker 04

  That's a little lower than I would have expected.

• 1:28:08Bill Simmons?

  OKC in five is plus 290. OKC in six is plus 470. It's pretty strong, actually.

• 1:28:18Speaker 04

  Can I just give Mitch, can I just give Mitch Johnson a little love for this?

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:23Speaker 04

  I mentioned how like teams have obviously all season gone back and forth with putting their, their centers not on Wemby and Oklahoma City has done that quite a bit. And Castle is now like the guy that they try to do this with and Castle has just been like, you think this works? Like this isn't going to work. How about I just shoot 45% of three? And when I'm not doing that, how about I just barrel to the rim with all the space you're giving me? And I'll score 32 points in an elimination game, but he's been the guy that like Klingon guarded Castle and on and on.

• 1:28:55Speaker 04

  Mid-season, moving Harrison Barnes to the bench in favor of Julian Champagny. I mean, it's one of the most important mid-season adjustments a coach has made in a long time. It completely changed the Spurs because Harrison Barnes was the safest guy to put your center on. And Mitch Johnson had to go to Harrison Barnes, who was having a nice year and making a ton of corner threes, but starting to slow down, be like, hey, man. And is a, is a bigger, better defender than Julian Champagny, bigger for sure, better in certain situations and say, we're gonna, we're gonna start this unproven, like relatively unproven shooter over you because we just have to maximize Wemby and you're, you're too safe of a hiding spot for these other centers. They can roam off you. They don't have to guard him and our goal just has to be,

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  we're going to make it as hard as possible for you to finagle the matchups with where your center is on the floor. And like, it's Julian Champagny. It's not like some like 10-year veteran with a track record and Harrison Barnes ate it and he took it and he remained productive and now he's barely playing because that's what happens in the playoffs. And it worked and it was like, not a gutsy move, but it was like a, it was a big like seismic shift in how the Spurs are guarded, I think.

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  It's a good one.

• 1:30:11Bill Simmons?

  Minnesota quick. This is another thing for my San Antonio case. I think Minnesota was really good and I think San Antonio just kind of broke them as the series went along, specifically Randall, who just his brain broke during that series.

• 1:30:24Speaker 04

  So rough, rough playoffs.

• 1:30:26Bill Simmons?

  Edwards wasn't a hundred percent. They used some stuff against Minnesota. You know, obviously they were relying on Conley a little too much. Gobert was eradicated in that series, but I actually thought it was a more impressive six game win because they really should have just swept them, you know? When we gets kicked out of the one game, I don't know, that game one, looking back, like they, if champagne just hits the three, they maybe they win that. But I really like that Minnesota team, which brings me to what do you do with them? Minnesota, Randall has 36 this year or this upcoming year and 33 the next year. Gobert is 36 and 38.

• 1:31:11Bill Simmons?

  They have to figure out Io and DiVincenzo is 12.5 expiring next year. I don't think Edwards or McDaniel's goes anywhere. Do you buy anything that this team got a little screwed up holistically when everybody was getting shot for three minutes there when they thought they had a chance to get Giannis?

• 1:31:29Speaker 04

  Um, not really because you didn't hear a lot of that when they were kicking the shit out of the Nuggets in the first round. Like it wasn't a, it wasn't a problem then against a team with, you know, one of the two or three best player, minimum two best players in the world. And that when you lose, then it becomes a problem all of a sudden. But against that team was a problem. What's a problem is Julius Randall's been in the playoffs four times in his career and three of them have been complete disasters. And one of them last year was, we thought, okay, got over the playoff hump after just, I think he came into last year shooting like 30% for his career in the playoffs and had a great playoffs. And he reverted right back to what he had been in the first two runs of the playoffs. That was that, is that because of the trade stuff?

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  I don't really, I don't really buy that. I think what really submarine them was Anthony Edwards was 100%. Io was 100%. DiVincenzo tore his Achilles and they stopped playing Bones Highland. Like they just kind of ran out of, ran out of guys. And then Gobert had four points combined in the last two games of the series. I think it's a good showing for them with all that injury stuff to take two out of the, off the Spurs, I think is a perfectly fine showing. Doesn't feel good.

• 1:32:38Bill Simmons?

  So they can, they can put together Randall and DiVincenzo's expiring. He's not going to play next year. If he plays, he won't be back till April. And you could take back somebody else's big money problem if you want.

• 1:32:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  Like you could be like, all right, we'll take Zach Levine's last year.

• 1:32:56Speaker 04

  Why is that? Why? What is that doing for me?

• 1:32:58Bill Simmons?

  I'm just, I'm just pointing out, they could put those contracts together if they wanted to change something, they could think about something like that. Somebody's big expiring, um, which would give them more trade flexibility in December, January, February, maybe than what they have. Um, I don't know what you do about Gobert after that Spurs series. Uh, and who knows? It might be a get over the hump thing like we talked about earlier where they had their run and this is kind of where they are. And now they're clearly just going to be behind San Antonio and OKC for the rest of the decade. And that's where we are.

• 1:33:37Speaker 04

  You know what though? Again, like this is a franchise that from the last couple of years of Garnett to the one Jimmy Butler year, just sucked, sucked continuously and sucked in every possible fashion. I mean, like a little flirting with like, we're all, we're 500 with Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love. We're like a fun team to watch. Nikola Pekovic, but like they just weren't good. They did nothing in the playoffs. They had the one Butler year, they lose in the first

• 1:34:01Bill Simmons?

  Bad injury luck with Rubio, bad injury luck without Jefferson.

• 1:34:04Speaker 04

  And just like, everything goes wrong and then they, but the Butler thing goes haywire. And then you're back, not quite to square one, but back to like, we got to figure out what the hell we're doing with this team. And now you've been in two straight conference finals and a conference semifinal where you win two games off Victor Wembieyama. Like this is just indisputably an awesome three years for the Minnesota. Like all of their fans should, are elated by everything that's

• 1:34:26Bill Simmons?

  With all that said, you can't bring Randall back.

• 1:34:28Speaker 04

  Well, what are you going to do?

• 1:34:30Bill Simmons?

  You have to figure out how to trade him for somebody else.

• 1:34:32Speaker 04

  Well, this was the, this was always the mystery of like, they're in on Giannis, they're in on Giannis. They're one of the teams that's like in, in last 72 hours, still in contact with Milwaukee. And I never got how that was going to happen because they don't have any, they have very minimal to no first round picks to trade.

• 1:34:50Bill Simmons?

  I never believed it. I never understood how they were getting them.

• 1:34:53Speaker 04

  But I, I, I believe.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  But McDaniels would have had to have been in the trade for them to have any sort of assets to then give up for Giannis, I think.

• 1:35:01Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Again, I don't know how, but yes, if there's a person on their team who's getting you multiple good first round picks, that's who it is. And. You know, I don't, I just don't know how they're gonna do it, but if they were trying then they'll surely try again.

• 1:35:16Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails.

• 1:36:01Bill Simmons?

  So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday.

• 1:36:13Bill Simmons?

  God, I hate bringing this up.

• 1:36:17Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk about Giannis' trade value for a second?

• 1:36:19Speaker 04

  Well, you, this is your favorite, one of your favorite topics, so go ahead.

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, we're gonna be talking about it for the next four to five weeks. He was in the news this week because Myles Turner gave that interview talking about.

• 1:36:30Speaker 04

  That was.

• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  That was pretty, I have no problem saying this because he's not gonna be on my team like next year, so here's some tea I'm gonna spill.

• 1:36:41Speaker 04

  Or it's just like, hey, man, they paid me $25 million a year where I didn't have a lot, a lot of other options. I'm, I'm just happy as a clam. This is all great for me.

• 1:36:49Bill Simmons?

  I know. He's stunk this year, though. Um, I can't really find the team for Giannis. I thought this was gonna be a lot easier. Last year, if we were doing this a year ago, I think we had multiple suitors. And, uh, just, just kinda talking to people and hearing from different people about this. I'm really surprised how lukewarm the market is for him. I don't think people feel like this is a home run. This will change my franchise. I will now have a chance to win the title. It was telling that San Antonio and OKC wanted no part of him when they had the most assets. It seems to me that the team that would trade for Giannis would be a team that needs to take a little bit of a hail mary or as a really short window.

• 1:37:35Bill Simmons?

  And that rules out a lot of teams. I, you know, my dad and I have kind of landed the, we hope it's not the Celtics. That's where I've landed after looking at this from every direction. I don't know.

• 1:37:46Speaker 04

  Simmons, awful announcing tomorrow, Simmons, I don't want Giannis in Boston.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  Get that guy fucking out of here. Um, I don't know. I went through all the stuff, what, two months ago about the year 14 and after, big guys and how, how kind of creepy the stats were and how few guys even were able to put up 2010s and the injury history hit in the last five years. And it, it just doesn't, something's just telling me to stay away. And I know some teams will talk themselves into it, but I just don't know what he's worth. I don't, I can't figure it out. So what have your, as you talk to people in the league, what are you hearing?

• 1:38:25Speaker 04

  So I mentioned this last week when I got back from the combine that it like, the thing comes out from Shams that the Bucks are quote, open for business, which you already knew that they're going to be open for business. Jimmy Haslam came out and said, we're going to be open for business. Again, we wanted to do it before the draft if we're not going to sign him or if he's not going to sign, whatever. Um, and it just like, there's a, it's a, it's an interesting paradox because there's a general, I mean, everyone was in Chicago. I saw a million people.

• 1:38:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:52Speaker 04

  There's a, there's a general assumption that he will get traded because that's just what happens, right? Like when the toothpaste is as far out of the tube.

• 1:39:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:00Speaker 04

  And yet no one can really identify the team that, that fits the right, the right package of like, we have stuff, a lot of stuff that's going to entice Milwaukee and we're going to be good enough to justify it, sending out all that stuff when Giannis is here. And I, I said this, I had, uh, I met up with a, a very high powered agent who, who knows things and we were just shooting the shit. And I said, and so what's your, what's your bet on Giannis? And he said, you know, I'm, I'm just. I'm going no trade. I'm in the contrarian zone. I think I'm going no trade. I think he's going to be on the Bucks. And I was like, really? Why? He's like, I just don't know what the team is. Who's the team? Go through all the teams, find the team. And it was like,

• 1:39:39Bill Simmons?

  I heard you say this.

• 1:39:40Speaker 04

  It was like a fairly convincing argument that I still, but didn't sway me. Like, I think he's going to get traded still. And that's why I said after all that, if I just had to, if you made me like, pick a team that is, if I had just had to guess if he's traded, where has he traded? I would put Miami as my number one guest team because they fit the hail Mary thing you just said, because they have just enough stuff that if they threw it all together, the Bucks could sell it. It's like, hey, we got, we got a lot. And maybe we can re-flip this one guy we got and like, get another thing. And, but I don't feel great about that package, whatever it is, if I'm Milwaukee.

• 1:40:17Bill Simmons?

  Portland would be the other team, and I don't even know if you'd want to go there. The other stuff.

• 1:40:21Speaker 04

  Good thing is, at least he's not a two-way player, so he can travel to all the games.

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  I think he's fixing that, though, Dundon. He didn't, he went on game over with Rich and Max and said, he thought, he thought it was more like hockey.

• 1:40:35Speaker 04

  I saw that. I saw that. I didn't realize all the players went to the games.

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, he learned. He learned a valuable lesson. Some of the stuff we keep hearing, everybody seems terrified about the injury history and the miles on the body, right? Using almost like a running back in football, or a car that has a ton of miles on it that's going cross-country. Just wondering, if I get Giannis, how many years left am I actually getting? There's also the stylistic thing. If you already have a best player on your team, how is that person going to fit with Giannis? A guy who likes to have the ball, who likes to be at the top of the key? How do you, how does that fit with somebody like Jason Tatum? Right? And then, you know, I, I think everybody loves Giannis the guy.

• 1:41:20Bill Simmons?

  I think everybody thinks he's a great guy, but there's some, there's some stuff that comes with Yanis, right? He's got multiple agents. He's got, uh, he's got the two brothers. He's been the superstar in a, in his own team now for 11, 12 years, probably used accustomed to certain treatments. And it's just, it's risky to bring somebody in like that. We've seen it not work in the NBA where it's like, I'm a big star. I'm walking in. This is now my new team. And sometimes it doesn't work great. Even when Dame came to Milwaukee, it was rocky there for a year. It was a similar situation. So I think we're, I think we're both looking at the same team and

• 1:42:01Speaker 04

  But would you?

• 1:42:01Bill Simmons?

  The same kind of hail Mary situation.

• 1:42:04Speaker 04

  Would you say you still expect him to be traded though?

• 1:42:09Bill Simmons?

  I do.

• 1:42:10Speaker 04

  I do too.

• 1:42:11Bill Simmons?

  Because, um, here's what I think has changed. I think it's become acrimonious with him and the GM. I think him not playing at the end of last year. I, I, I don't think it's on good terms.

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  Well, look, I

• 1:42:25Bill Simmons?

  The understanding.

• 1:42:26Speaker 04

  I mean, the Miles Turner stuff got kind of a chuckle from people, but

• 1:42:31Bill Simmons?

  That was real shit, man. He was basically saying the dude was never on time ever without saying who it was, but we knew who he was talking about.

• 1:42:37Speaker 04

  And like, I mean, I didn't realize, I, I, did he not say who it was? Did he not, did he just say it's the best player or whatever?

• 1:42:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, there was some dancing around, but you could tell who he was talking about.

• 1:42:48Speaker 04

  I mean, that's

• 1:42:49Bill Simmons?

  And he certainly wasn't kind to Doc either.

• 1:42:51Speaker 04

  That kind of stuff annoys whoever it is annoys players. Like I've heard stories about, we had to hold the plane because this guy was late and everyone's grumbling because they have dinner plans when they get to the city or like the guy, the guy was late for his massage table appointment and it was like, had created this whole backup that ruined everybody's days. And when the guy, if, if it, if he's talking about Yanis, like when the, you just, if you're the best guy on the team and you're the franchise guy, you can't do, that stuff is not acceptable for someone. You have to be the other way. You have to be the guy who sets the standard for the rest of the team.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  There's one other team that I think we have to mention and it ties into another theme that I've been wondering about. If there's going to be punishment against the Clippers, should they be moving fast right now and trying to trade their picks in case they're worried that they might get taken away? And if you're going to do that, like, do you just, could you just trade the number five pick for Giannis right now?

• 1:43:48Speaker 04

  And just, we're trying to win a title with Kawhi and Giannis and Garland and yeah, I think-

• 1:43:53Bill Simmons?

  They would have the cap space to do it. They could put a couple expirings there to make it, to make it work and basically try to jumpstart if they feel like a punishment's coming. Because I think that the feeling is we're going to have a verdict pretty soon.

• 1:44:05Speaker 04

  That would shock me if only because, I mean, I was there when it happened and I, and I saw other people, like, they just feel like they got a new lease on life with this pick. I mean, just the new, that it completely changed everything about their franchise and it would just absolutely blow me away.

• 1:44:24Bill Simmons?

  So who are the other hail Mary teams then? I guess you could say if Cleveland gets annihilated by the Knicks, maybe they're in that zone.

• 1:44:30Speaker 04

  Well, that's, that's what I was gonna say.

• 1:44:32Bill Simmons?

  Would you trade Mobley for Giannis straight up at this point with the injury history? Because I don't think I would.

• 1:44:38Speaker 04

  I'd be-

• 1:44:38Bill Simmons?

  I don't think that's a smart move.

• 1:44:40Speaker 04

  It's, it'd be, I don't know if I would do it, honestly, but it, if, like, a couple of years of Mitchell plus Giannis is, is interesting enough.

• 1:44:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're short here, two-year, yeah, that's like a classic two-year window.

• 1:44:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:53Bill Simmons?

  I'd be very nervous to do that.

• 1:44:55Speaker 04

  So yeah, how the playoffs play out is a big part of it, right? We haven't mentioned Houston. And then you have the other kind of older hail Mary teams who may not have enough to get it done, like the Lakers and the Warriors and, and teams like that, right? But who else?

• 1:45:11Bill Simmons?

  That's it.

• 1:45:11Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:45:13Bill Simmons?

  Rockets, I mean, would you trade Shangoon and another contract for Giannis and throw some picks in? I don't know if I would do that. The only other one I could think of is Brooklyn. I do not, as we said before, I don't think they're keeping their sixth pick. And is it like a two-part move where move one is Giannis, move two is something else? And you go in on two stars and now you're in the mix in the East.

• 1:45:34Speaker 04

  Well, that's the thing with Brooklyn is like they've been floating around the rumor mill like this with Yanis for a long time. And the question has always been like, what, who is Yanis going there to play with? And given his age and his injury history, you don't get a year to be like, we'll find another guy. Like that year, you have to have your team ready to compete at the highest possible level. The sixth pick is super interesting. Like I haven't heard a lot of buzz about the Nets in the sixth pick yet, but they're just in the range where everybody's a guard and they just drafted a million guards and, and not all of them are playing. Like your guy Burry is not a, is not a point guard, so maybe he would fit there, but it is an interesting place for them to land.

• 1:46:09Bill Simmons?

  He can't, A Cuff, A Cuff or Wagar has to be six. They just have the most value and they don't need either of those guys. I also think all the intel I've gotten is that they don't want to have another rebuilding year. Like they want to be good. They're tired of this. And the Nets are in a weird spot. The Si family, who I think everybody thinks are great owners and it's like a first class team. They have this awesome WNBA team situation where they sell out. People love it. There's real energy in the arena and then they have this Nets team that's just punted and they're playing in the same city as a team that's about to make the finals. Barring something crazy happening. So I don't see how they don't try to.

• 1:46:45Speaker 04

  I had someone make the, the best possible pitch to me about the Nets at the sixth pick. And he was just, I don't even remember who it was. It was a front office guy on another team. He was just, he didn't know anything concrete. He was just saying, this is what they should do. He was like, I don't even care who they took in the last draft. They should take A Cuff because he would just be like the ultimate draw. Like the hipsters would be like, this kind of is a cool undersized guy who does cool stuff. Like he would just fit what they just, give them a buzz, give them some hipster like street cred. Like he would, he was just like, fuck all the guys they just picked. Maybe they'll develop, maybe they won't. They should take A Cuff no matter what, if he's still there.

• 1:47:21Bill Simmons?

  I agree with that because, because he has real Kyrie potential and you have to investigate it. But yeah, so if we're talking, you know, the draft's still five weeks away, but I do feel like we're in range now. It's May 17th. The draft is in five weeks. And I think some trade stuff is, is starting, you know?

• 1:47:39Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:47:39Bill Simmons?

  The Celtics are certainly looking at it. I think the Celtics.

• 1:47:44Bill Simmons?

  Whatever, I've talked about this already, but whatever they decide to do with Jalen, I think would be, I don't think it's a Yanis move. I think it's more of a, can we get two pieces for Jalen, some salary cap relief and maybe somebody that makes less money than him two years from now type of thing. But I would say they're way more likely to keep him than trade him, you know?

• 1:48:05Speaker 04

  I would, I, I do think it's more likely they use on the team next year than not. I, yeah, I don't, I don't know anything more than that. So we'll see.

• 1:48:14Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird situation. All right.

• 1:48:16Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:48:16Bill Simmons?

  It's past midnight, your time, and you have to get up early tomorrow. So we have to go. Anything else? We cover everything?

• 1:48:22Speaker 04

  I think we covered everything.

• 1:48:22Bill Simmons?

  What was the best thing you heard in Chicago that you didn't talk about on your podcast?

• 1:48:25Speaker 04

  Oh God. I talked about a lot of it on my podcast.

• 1:48:30Bill Simmons?

  It seemed like a lot of people were there.

• 1:48:32Speaker 04

  It was crowded. It was, it was, everyone's always there. It's one of the great, it's like Vegas, but in a shorter period of time and in a normal city and not Vegas, which I, I do like Vegas a lot actually, but I, I'll have to think about that. I have nothing.

• 1:48:46Bill Simmons?

  All right. So we have, we have Knicks and we have Spur. We, I have the Spurs, you have OKC.

• 1:48:53Speaker 04

  And we both have Knicks. Yeah.

• 1:48:54Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Thanks to Keanu Eduardo. Thanks to Zach Lowe as well. Don't forget new rewatchables for me tomorrow. Borat? Very nice. Really fun one. And then I'll be back on Tuesday night. Zach's gonna have a new podcast on Tuesday morning after game one. Spurs, Thunder, which should be an all-timer. Zach, great to see you as always.

• 1:49:17Speaker 04

  It's, it's gonna be a blast. Thanks for having me.

• 1:49:27Bill Simmons?

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• 1:50:05Bill Simmons?

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