NBA Flopping and Rules

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And as you know, I've been telling you for years, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during the NBA postseason, build the 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 and play your game. Twenty-one plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem called 1800 Gambor, call 888-789-7777 or visit CCPG.org slash chat connected Bill Simmons Podcast Live on Netflix. Zach Lo is here on a beautiful Saturday night. We just had an awesome, awesome game seven. My favorite game sevens are when it's not just a series at stake or maybe even the title at take stake, but I feel like there's real big picture basketball shit going on. Like era shit, legacy shit, um, changing of the guard type stuff. And it just felt this way from the beginning. And eventually we'll remember it as the Luke Cornette chase down game. That was it. It's the Corn ette game. Lock it down. Biggest play of the game. Luke Cornette. Much maligned. The entire series. Now, where do you want to start? I mean, that was incredible. I I want to start with what you just said about you know Tarico punctuates the game. It's it's Wemby's world now. And it's absolutely remarkable that the Spurs are already here. They're so young. And I look, they've been a clear championship team for a while now. The experiencing didn't bother me. It didn't, it didn't, it didn't you know limit their chances to me. But when you see them all embracing after the game, all the young faces, they're so young, the joy they have and Wemby's crying and all this. It's like they're already here at the pinnacle. And we are, what is it right now? May five, four months removed. I mean, it was really not until those December games, starting with the Vegas tournament. They played three times in like 10 days. Until San Antonio won those games, the story of the season was: is it going to be 73 wins? Are they going to be maybe the greatest regular season team of all time and have the greatest two-year run of all time and start of a dynasty. And the Spurs eviscerated that in a 10 day span in December, started this series with a remarkable win on the road and end it with a remarkable win on the road and go into the finals with De'Aaron Fox looking healthier, Dylan Harper looking healthier, and Wemby at the top of the league. And yet, you use the phrase changing of the guard, Wemby's world. I already want the 202 7 Western Conference Finals to start because there's going to be a lot of talk about what is Oklahoma City going to do in the wake of this crushing defeat, their title hopes, dash this rising phenom that they and nobody else has an answer for. What I want in my basketball fan soul is run it all back. Jalen Williams, you were injured. We're running it back. Chet, we got a lot of Chet talk to do. Let's go into the summer, learn, go into like the Australian Obutack like Dirk did when the Mavericks lost whatever you want to the Dirk to come to come back strong. Where did Dirk go? Send him out. Yeah and and just and just come back and say you thought it was a changing of the guard. We're coming right back at you again with the same core group that we had tonight. I just but the these two teams going back and forth is awesome. And for the Spurs to be here is absolutely incredible. Wow, you just chewed up a lot of storylines there. Let's get what but there's that. That was great. Let's start here with the Spurs though. Young core teams that make the finals, this just basically only happens once a decade. 77 Blazers, 86 Rockets, 95 Magic, LeBron and the O seven clut Cav s. Fifteen Warriors, sort of . Curry's like six years in at that point. Um, we had the 87 Mavs almost, the 93 Sonics almost. Um, there's been some almost. This is like the youngest, craziest run. Even the 86 Rockets seemed more conceivable to me than this. And then they go down three two. I picked the Spurs before the series. I genuinely thought they could win. After game five, I I thought it was a wrap because of because of Fox and because of of Harper, they just didn't look right. Harper looked great in game six. We were texting before the game. Tell them what your prediction was before the game. Well, I mean I said Fox was gonna have 15 points on six of fourteen shooting. I thought he said I basically said he's gonna have a good game, not a great game. But uh you were worried that he was gonna have a I was worried for the oh for eleven catacl cataclysmic, like is it already time to trade him game? And I was like, I th I like the shots that he was getting in game six, and I was like, I think he's just gonna have a good, fine, productive game. He made a big end up with uh he was I think he didn't fifteen points on six of twelve. He nailed it. He needed to miss two more shots for me to get it exactly right right. All. So here's what I jotted down from the everything we would want from a game seven standpoint. We had two fantastic teams. Yes. With two tremendous stars that I I think played really well. And I want to talk about SGA in a second, but both of those guys were awesome in that game for different reasons. And you had two fascinating career moments for those guys too. You have SGA. You talked about it with Goldsbury after the game six. Like we're throwing his name around with some pretty legendary guys from the last 75, 80 years. It would kind of be nice if you had a better series. Could we ask for that? And he was lights out. And then you have Wemby going on the road down three-two in a series. Um, battling foul trouble. We get down the stretch. I didn't feel like NBC, I thought NBC did it that the crew did a good job today. Was the one time where I felt like they should have been losing their minds that Wemby got that fifth foul so fast because he got four, and then all of a sudden he had five. And it was like, oh my God, there's seven minutes left. Is he going to foul out? What are they going to do? Are they going to take him out? So we had that. And then we had uh the Chet self-combusting piece, um, which we have to get into too. But Zach, I thought this game had pieces. I had three series written down. The eighty one Selt Sixers, which were the last time two awesome teams played in a game seven like this. They both had 62 plus wins. Same kind of chaotic rugby type game. Bulls Pacers with OKC in the Bulls in 98. OKC in the Bulls spot of down six, down eight, down four, down eight again, down two, down eight, just just kind of trying to scrap back and getting into it. And yet the bulls came back and won and OKC did not. And then the other one I had was the 2016 Golden State OKC game, ironically. And that was in Golden State. But OKC just the shots, they just couldn't get good shots. Like when you even think about like all the offensive rebounds they had in the first half and then Wallace like saving them down the stretch. But the offense, the non-SJ offense was so hard for them. So explain it to us. What happened? Well, I mean, Jill Williams and AJ Mitchell are hurt. That that's part of it. And you take those guys away and it's like, oh my God, we're real short on creators. And honestly, when SGA didn't come out at the end of the first quarter, did you think he might play all 48 minutes of the game? Because I did. Well, there was two panic things. One he ended up, I think forty-four minutes. That was one. And the other was they came out to start the third quarter. They had Wallace out there and Jaywell and Caruso. And it was like, Oh, we're Dagnald's doing this now. Like he's he's worried this game's gonna get away. So they there was definitely like he's calling timeouts. I felt like he was desperately trying to hold on to this game. They did some interesting sub-stuff too with the centers, especially in the second half, where I think they he was kind of realizing maybe I can't rely on Chet and may I'll start him in the third quarter, but I'm also gonna have Hart and staying in as as fast as I can if he's not there. But ultimately, Chet's why they lost. I I don't wanna do the Monday morning , you know, first take, just blame a guy. He didn't step up, send him to Siberia, but I voted for him, I think third team on NBA. He was the number two defensive player in the, you know, of the year and he didn't want to shoot. And it got to the point, Zach, where they were throwing him pass it. He wasn't even catching passes clean anymore. Like you, like he was as far in your head as you can get on a basketball court. Would you have sat him or would you have stuck with him? I think without I I think if they had more options, they probably would have sat him and then they sat him late from a cane when it when the when it was almost too little too late. Um yeah, I mean there's just first of all, SGA was everything you would ever want him to be in a game where I think there was some actual like career defining pressure on him after six and series. Like a scintillating game of shot making. He had the one annoying jump sideways into Devin Vassell who he got but but when you get a guy airborne the benefit of the doubt is gonna go to you when a guy bites at your pump fakes so badly that he's flying in the air you're probably gonna I thought you couldn't go sideways on that though. I thought they took care of that rule. You shouldn't. It's inconsistently officiated, but it doesn't matter. He played like an absolutely brilliant game. Wemby played a brilliant game. And here here to to me the series, the series changed in game four when they stopped double teaming Shay. And that was, I think you and I did a podcast after that game, and I said that there's a little whiff of like when the I I didn't really make this comparison, but I just it was the first thing that came into my head of when the Warriors in game four of the finals in 2015 went with the deathline up and started Iguadala, and you could and you could sense like, oh, the terrain of this just changed in a way that is not going back into the tube. I thought not trapping SGA changed the whole series, made it his life difficult, made the Thunders offense life difficult. And then I had a I had I talked with Goldberg. I had a checklist for what does Oklahoma City need to win game seven, even at home, because the Spurs had been the better team through six games. And the checklist was there were three things on the checklist. They got one. I said they needed two. One was a good Shea game. They got a great Shea game. Two was they're going to need a really strong three-point shooting performance from the role players. I'm not counting 12 of 35 as checking that box. I think that's like 34%. They needed better than that. They were like 29% before the end of the game. And then the third one was they're going to need to force a lot of turnovers and get out and transition. And the Spurs again won the turnover battle tonight. That's been the story of the series since game two. So they only got one out of three. And the Ch I would have thrown in offensive rebounds for there, which they were getting in the first half. And then it just flipped in the second half. San Antonio ended up with fifteen offensive rebounds. They had four at halftime. Well, and I'll tell you, Dylan Harper had two, and both of them led to baskets. And and and then both of them were the result of Oklahoma City messed up a rotation at the top of the arc and the guy from the corner had to panic rotate up at a shooter who was left open by mistake. And both times, I think it was Harper both times, the corner guy crashed and got huge rebounds. And uh I mean let's should we like Chet I Let's do let's do let's do SJA and Wemby first and then we can talk about Chet. So for um to finish the SGA thing. That was one of my favorite games I've ever seen him play. Cause I felt like first of all, worst possible team for him to play, right? Where they have I think it's just like seven perimeter guys, it's the throw team for everybody to play. Like that's like that's just this this is what this guy is now. He's the worst possible guy to play if you're an offense first player. But they but they also had a bunch of perimeter guys who seemed pretty comfortable at least trying to stay in front of him. They were trapping him really smartly. And he was just solving it for two hours. Um, and I didn't think he was doing a lot of the flop stuff. I thought everything he was doing was just like really smart scoring, made a couple of threes. Uh, and it felt like, wow, if they win this game , this is gonna be I know he won two MVPs in a row and he won the title last year, but this will be like the defining game that I'm not positive he's had yet, the first game you would point to. And then he just ran out of gas. And Reggie and Jamaal, who I thought did a good job tonight, uh they noticed it right away. They they noticed he started bailing on the passes and stuff. But that's about as well as he could play, finished with thirty-five. But as you said earlier, you don't have Mitchell. Now M cane's taking up most of that Mitchell minutes and playing really well. But Jalen Williams was that was it. Because Jalen Williams would have allowed them to go bigger, smaller. He would have been the second creator. And they just you could really feel it today. They didn't have that second guy. Yeah, and you mentioned the big man stuff. I I think what they concluded was, uh, and this you could see them trending this way the whole series was um we cannot play another big man with Hartenstein because there's just not enough shooting and dynamism on the floor. But we do want to have as much size as possible because Wemby is just so dynamic at the rim. We need a second layer of rim protection. So we would like to play two bigs. The only two big combination we have left that we have any faith in is Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgram. And they just completely separated into those two in the second half. And part of that is like if Chet's going to be a zero, like Chet is a floor spacing, off the dribble attacking big man who can play with a traditional center. That's the whole point of him. And he he ended up averaging like 10.5 points per game in the series and was completely invisib le the entire game. And you never want to read too much into one game. But when you play like that in this game, that matters a lot and is going to have some lasting effects that he and the team are gonna have to get together and figure out like how do we not have that ever happen again because that was just not an acceptable performance of a guy from a guy of his caliber. And the whole series was leading to that and it this was the low point. I got this email a few times before game seven and I wrote down because I had a feeling we'd be talking about this. But Joe from Pennsylvania wrote, I have no dog in this fight, but if you're an OKC fan, would you be worried that Wemby is taking Chet's soul? He wrote this before game seven. Um, Ben Craven wrote, Do you see any parallels between what Wemby is doing to Chet and what Jordan did to Drexler Um Greg in Toronto wrote, is Chet First Wemby the best modern example of two generational unicorns where the mere existence of one completely robs the relevance of the other? Um Chet deserves praise for not ordering a Tanya Harding level hit job on Wemby. I mean, we don't know what's we don't know what's going on. We're not watching the postgame right now. This should all be happening now. There could be the Tanya Harding hit job could be in now. Shane Stan, is he out of prison? Um so here's the thing. I don't see how this gets better . And it's gonna open up over when Giannis, wow, we're talking about Giannis again. Giannis is gonna go in the next three weeks. And it does make me think like OKC who felt like their window was the most limitless window possible. And now all of a sudden they're like, holy shit, we couldn't even make two finals in a row with this unbelievable setup we had. Do you start thinking that I just feel like Chet and Giannis, that's gonna be mentioned for the next 72 hours. And it's not Presley style to do a trade like that, we should say. So no, it's not. And I I do think you have to zoom out a little bit and say minus two of our most important players . We took a team to game seven who is a great, great like these were two great, great basketball teams. Yes. It's not as if you can come away with it, sort of like we've just fallen hopelessly behind the rest of the league and like things have caught up to us. I I think you would probably take the long view. You blame the injuries. I just think you take the long view like we're not we're not far away. We're gonna learn from this. That's what I said at the beginning. I want I want a vengeance narrative to come. I want the thunder to come together and say, no, no, it's still our time. It's still our time with this core. We just weren't up to it this time. We're gonna learn from it and get better next time. And about Chat, first of all, after this performance, how much more does Oklahoma City have to throw in to entice Milwaukee? And you have massive second apron issues for the Thunder. They can't aggregate contracts, so it's not that easy to do. They're going to be the most, one of the most, if not the most expensive teams in the league ever.y year We're talking about that later really quick. Um but like how much how much how enticing is that to uh Milwaukee? But it's not like Chet. So it's it's a it's disturbing that they concluded Chet is offensively But how about why couldn't have done what Jay Will did? Jay Will was the spacing center that Chet has been for his entire career. But what happened? But not only that, like, so he just can't really play center at all in this matchup. You can't put him at the five as the only big man on the floor and have him screen and roll to the basket and just do the most basic center thing that Wemby's also awesome at, which is be giant and tall and screen and roll to the basket. You can't have him guard Wemby pretty much ever. Like you're that terrified of putting him at the five and having him guard Wemby in this series. It's just right it they're just a thousand red flags around Chet after this series that it's just he's gonna have to dig deep and they're gonna have to dig deep and 'cause this this rival is only going to get better in the next three to four years. Well, you're doing the Tim Connolly . I've now taken over Minnesota. How do I create the team to beat the team I just left? And if you're OKC now , the you're you went from we want to have this long window, we have these picks . Um we're gonna try to figure out how to how to navigate everything, build around these three guys, use our draft picks to maybe move up, move around to drafts to now like how do we beat Wemby? You know, do you look at number 12? Do you there's a Michigan center who's seven foot three? Do you just like do you try to trade up and get them? Do you try to trade trade chet for Giannis or Evan Mobley? Do you I I don't even know. And then the other question would be, should you even be panicking about Wemby? Because nobody has a guy to guard Wemby. It's not like there are other teams in the league where like we we have our Wemby stopper over here. There's not gonna be a Wemby stopper. They did the best job you're gonna do. I think it's I for for me, I think it's much more toward that second poll that you outlined is like there is not going to be a silver bullet answer. In fact, I think if there is one, it's more shooting. I I think you just I think they were a shooter short in this series and it just made it easy for him to rove around and just patrol the paint and be on the baseline. And you know, they're like Wallace had a good game for them tonight and is a decent shooter. McCain is an up and down three point shooter. I just think they were Caruso teams are like had a great series. What was he? We won of six on threes tonight. Almost dunked on Wemby. That was exciting for about a for the for a second. Hurt his wrist it looked like I I think if if I think if there is an answer, that's the answer. It's just we got to get as much shooting as possible and have faith in our defense around it to to round it out. They this was their issue last year, and it didn't really rear its ugly head, even though they did play in two seventh games. But that was the always thing. You always would look at the threes, the games that got blown out this series, they suck from three. There were moves they could have made during this season with the with all the picks and all the young players they have. You know, there were people sitting around . Like that like who knows when Trey Murphy's gonna get a few. That was the name floating around my head as I was talking. Yeah. And maybe that's a move they make. That's another thing is Trey Murphy, we assume he's probably gonna get trade over these next three weeks. I think Boston is a possibility. We thought whoever lost this matchup was a possibility. There's a couple other teams, but you know, you have two, three weeks to trade for somebody like that. Um we'll we we'll talk more OKC later. Let's um we'll take a quick break and we're gonna come back and we gotta talk about Wemby and just everything we saw in this series and what that might look like against the Knicks too. This episode is brought to you by Duluth Trading Company. 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I mean, there like everyone wants him closer to the basket all the time. And I think the people who scream that all the time, even though some of them are ex players and I certainly am not, um, are underestimating how fatiguing it is to throw yourself at the basket over and over and over again when you're skinny and you do what he does on defen se. And just how hard it is. See like the days of just throw the ball into the post and post up and back down have been over for like 25 years. And the reality is his games are like he broke through the other night and he made took nine threes, I think. And his jumper was on again today. And he made that step back over J Jalen Williams on the left wing. I almost fell out of my goddamn chair. It's always going to be a mixed and that's okay. And he's defensively , there are just no words anymore for what this guy is doing. I mean, I said it with Goldsbury, and I'm I wondered where this game ranks. Five of Oklahoma City's nine worst offensive games, points per possession going into this game tonight, we' agareinst for the whole season, playoffs included, we're against the Spurs. Like it's just a weapon that no one has an answer to yet. You know when you really noticed it? When he would come out of the game and SGA was like when when I let Murph out in the backyard, he just runs around. SJ was like, he's not out there. He you can just see like the hop in his step. It's like, oh my God. Hey, look. That's what the rim looks like. I d you led with it almost as a joke. I do think that Cornet block, if we're gonna talk about the Wemby on the bench minutes, I mean that was if he finishes that fast break, Hartenstein, or passes it off to Wallace because it was kind of a two-on-one, that makes it 97-93. Wemby's in foul trouble, crowds going crazy. Instead, it's a block, and I can't remember who ends up scoring at the other end to make it um ninety-nine ninety-one . Uh just uh it was a castle. It was a castle jumper. That yeah, but and their their transition defense the entire series was just balls to the wall. Oklahoma City just could not convert and transition as consistently because everything was contested. The rebounds were contested. L credikeit to Spurs. That's the kind of urgency it takes to beat a team like this four times. And like that cornet, that cornet block was the I maybe the moment of the entire game. I I don't know, but it's up there. Well, there were two moments when it felt like okay see was gonna make a run and that was one. So it's ninety seven ninety two, six forty eight left, Wemby has to come out. And then there was that other one um when it was uh I don't I'm gonna say it was like two minutes left, Wallace hit that second three, and then San Antonio inbounded the ball, all this stuff's blending together, and they just decided to run the let's throw it to Wemby play. Oh, yeah, Dorwell. Door took it away. Door took it and OKC just couldn't convert, but it felt like, oh my God, this would be the classic young team falling apart piece. But um I listen, I really respect when somebody knows how to handle themselves with five fouls because they brought him back a minute later. He came back with like over five minutes left. And the announcers were talking about and I agreed, like, I'm just going at him and trying to get that that uh that six one. And there were a couple times I felt like they could have attacked him and and they just didn't. So there were a couple things San Antonio did even in this game to try to try to get him a little more open. A couple of times they just put him in the corner and created space, basically left him on one side and had him not really back down, but he was at least 18 feet where he can go toward the paint with his right hand. So maybe trying to think what stuff the Knicks will try to do against them. Now they the Knicks have that Mitchell Robinson finger thing. I assume who's going to play, but who knows? They'll have towns to throw at him who's a dump foul waiting to happen all the time. Other than that, who are they going to be able to like OG would be the other one, I guess? Ananobi guarded him quite a lot. I rewatched all the games this weekend to prepare. Little Josh Hart, maybe? Uh Josh did second or no? Josh didn't much. Josh guarded Steph Castle uh a lot. OG guarded him a lot. Probably Towns and Ananobi and Robinson. And then there's like random guys who are in these games because they're regular season games like Huck Porti comes in and whatever. I think we'll see a little bit of and and that is where the Harrison Barnes swap out of the starting lineup for Champagny, who was absolutely nails in this game tonight, looms large because when the Knicks would play around like that and put Ananobi on Wembayama, Harrison Barnes was the guy that they would be like, all right, cat, just like stand in the corner with Harrison Barnes and that's safe for you. And that's not that doesn't really um exist anymore. But the Robinson, I just want to flag it now. I think he's a massive deal in this series because one of the other things I've come to believe watching Wemby is everyone searches for like what's an answer. What's the is there an answer? Is there a player? And like I said, I don't think there is one individu there's no individual player. I think shooting is an answer. And I do think an elite offensive rebounder is gonna lob catcher, someone that he's gotta think about. Like if I try to block every shot and even I'm gonna miss some, am I gonna get it? Am I going to get punished on the other end of it? Or is there a lob threat? And I think Mitchell Robinson, yeah, but obviously in the Vegas game, he had like a thousand offensive rebounds. Right. I think that player type is a really important player type against the Spurs. And like they then if they don't have Mitchell Robinson full throttle, I think that's a bigger problem in this matchup than it would have been against the Thunder . I wrote anytime I watch a game like this, I always write down in the second quarter in bold the guys who I think I trust in the game. So for the Spurs, I had Wemby, Castle, Fox, Vassell, Harper, and Champagny. So it's six guys for them. And that was before the Keldon Johnson Renaissance in the second half, right? They had seven guys really show up in this game, not to mention Cornett, who had the biggest defensive play. For OKC at that point. By the way, I just want to point out that's basically all seven guys who played in the game. Every other three guys played six minutes, three minutes, and three minutes. I felt great about all those guys. OKC, I had SGA, McCain, Caruso , and then I had IHeart question mark and Jay Will question mark. And those were the only five guys I had for OKC. Now I didn't have Wallace down, and Wallace came on in the second. He didn't really play as much in the first half . Um and Wallace should have been on there. I maybe I forgot to write him down, but um but it's interesting I didn't have Chet and I didn't have Keldon Johnson and Keldon Johnson who I thought really wasn't good this series. Um but then in the in the second half he had some big offensive rebounds. He had a couple big threes that I there were some a couple no no yes threes uh and had the red kind of energy cut red kind of energy. Um , whereas like from from the OKC standpoint, I Dort was that guy for them last year. Um, he would give them energy with defense, with you know, just like kind of veteran stuff. And he just wasn't, I didn't feel like he was the same in this playoffs. Look, I think it's not second guessing. I I I I am certainly I was not alone said uh after game six, like I don't think you can start Dort and Holmgren and Hardstein again in game seven because you're just getting boat race at the beginning of every game. Would you have started Harper and Baylor and Baylor Shireman? Uh I I again I said after that game, um I I don't know if uh like we always say chess not checkers, I'm not sure what Mulaoz was playing. I think he was playing Boggle that night in neither neither chess nor checkers. Might have been some boggle. Um I just couldn't believe he started that lineup again. To his credit, he pulled Dort real fast and put Caruso and then the damage was not as severe um as it could have been. But the t like every time the Thunder got clo there were two times the Thunder took the lead, and when they took the lead, it felt like they had gotten to the top of the mountain, and boy, what a relief . And just instantaneously the Spurs would go on like a nine-o run to say, like, no, no, we're gonna retake control of the game. The first one is at the end of the first half when they finish on a 7-0 run, right? Right after the Thunder took the lead. And I think there was another time in the second half. And just like that's so impressive to take that punch, to have the crowd going like that, four point lead, three point lead, whatever it was, and just instantaneously like, oh, an 11-0 run just happened. And it's not just they're they're ahead again, they're in control of the game again, and they gotta fight back again from seven, eight, nine down. It's just cre the like sensational responses by the Spurs. Fox, especially, I thought had a couple of big boy moments. Right when the momentum felt like it was shifting against him, and he had some old school. Did he win clutch player of the year? He might have. He did no, he did. I think it was the beam team year, which was the first year they had I don't have my clutch player of the year by year thing framed yet. So I w I'm not able to look at it. But but it was the old school Fox ended with 15-5, he had three steals. And I thought he did an okay job anytime he was on SGA too. Like when you know, I I don't even really know who OKC was trying to switch SGA on to because it felt like every single guy was at least, you know, passable with Wemby behind them. There wasn't like a like a black hole type person. If we'd done it in the next series, it would have been Brunson. It it ends up not mattering because Doesn't matter. Of of the guy that's uh that's behind them, like you said. Yeah. Um, so Champagny hit uh six threes. And it was interesting, they didn't close with Vassal. I Vassell. Um he was on the bench, I felt like for most of most of the end because, they're playing Harper, who we have to talk about. Um listen, man , I I I've talked about it before, so have you. 20-year-old point guards doing this on this stage on the road is un heard of. This is, yeah, I'm trying not to use the word generational, but we're talking 1980 Magic Johnson at age 20 in the finals, and we're talking Derek Rose in that Bull Celtics playoff series. 20 year old point guards are a mess. They're like they're they're like freshmen in high school just trying to remember what their locker combination is and just trying to survive the day and remember where the classrooms are. They're not supposed to be running the offense . He had that one when he we backed down. I can't remember who it was. He backed him down, did the footwork thing and kind of stopped. I think traveled, but it felt like it might have been a travel, but somehow ended up pulling. But I just we're we're gonna have 15 years of that. I thought that was an such an important game for him because now you know the Knicks, that atmosphere is gonna be even crazier. It's the finals, the spotlights a little bigger, but I think they know with him. He seemed healthy to me too the last two games, which is the big thing. Yeah, bounce back, uh his bounce is back, his power around the rim is back. Uh and he tried to do that crazy dunk too. Yeah. In the fourth quarter, which was probably a mistake, but he was like, I'm going for it. Fine. I mean they killed some clock before, but again, I d I was surprised that he just went for it. But I'm also not because he thinks he's gonna pull it off. And imagine if you do, you just I think Chad Hombre would have just broken into like 10,000 pieces and that would have been the end of him and like I don't know what you I just don't know what would have happened. Poor chet this is really gonna be gonna be a tough one for him. So Harper Castle Fox together . This was the dream when you get Fox. When it's like we'll have these three guys. Sometimes we'll even be able to play them together. This will ease Harper into this. The Fox on a bigger stage on a better team. Fox is in Sacramento and and what'd you call them in our over under pod ? The Hindenburg of the NBA. I said they were I said they were they were heading for a Hindenburg level season. By the way, we have a Dearon Fox Mike Brown uh we got off the Indian Burger reunion coming up in the finals. We have a reunion for them. But Fox gets out of there. Um, the ringers, Rich Paul smartly puts him on Wemby's team, which was, I think, a good move. And uh and this couldn't have worked out better. I mean he you guess where else he could be? On Sacramento. With Russell Westbrook and DeRozan and uh waiting to see who they pick who they're gonna how they're gonna fuck up the seventh pick. So you have that castle was, you know, he I thought he was incredible the whole series for his. He's 21. It's not like he's 10 years older than Harper. Uh the defense, when he had the four fouls, I was nervous for them because it's like, I don't know if you can survive if he's out of the game that long. I don't know what does he become? What is what is Castle in his five years for you? Who is he? I mean, an all-star for sure. Um, a multi-time all-star. Who's the doppelball ganger? Who like who is it? I mean you have to think who's a big physical guard who who gets by with brute force and passing creativity around it and by that time is probably a more reliable jump shooter than he is now, though he shot the three-well in the playoffs. Like I don't I'm trying to even think of who plays with the the raw power and like ferocity that he has. Like he he plays as if he plays with like a hatred of the guy in front of him. Like I just want to beat the shit out of you and go upright in your face. Um yeah he was tired of Caruso after seven games. I think he was I had enough of him. I don't know I don't know what knowing no one is coming to my mind is like a great d guard wing doppelganger for him. It's somebody that definitely belonged in a different era and decade. I think he would have been really happy in two thousand three or two thousand four, being in like those Pacers Pistons series. But yeah, I don't I don't really know even who to compare him to. So the like a like a meaner is he taller than Dwayne Wade? Like a meaner, um more aggressive, more like powerful Dwayne Wade. I don't know. Yeah, it's like a Dwayne Wade crust with Alvin Robertson. I'm gonna go back to the eighties. Alvin Robertson. Um so anyway, you have that, you have this Corn ette signing that they do that was really smart. They played the Celtics perfectly. And then Cornet, every time Wemby comes out, they lose the Cornette minutes. And at some point, I think I had a couple people in my life who like the Spurs were like, what's up with this Cornette? What a stiff. I'm like, he's not a stiff. Cornette's a good backup. This is just for whatever reason, can't get it going this series. And then finally was able to hold the Ford a little tonight. But what's interesting about them going forward, they have the Wemby extension this summer, regardless, but they could still kind of dabble and make this team better. I don't even know what you would do because you always want to base this stuff on who do we have in a game seven than we trust. And we just went through it. I I've seven guys I like. Yeah, they have small windows to do small to medium things. The big things are over. Um I looked at it a little bit too and I I didn't think too deeply about it because the series was still going on. There, it's not nearly as like financially dire as what's about to hit the thunder. No. Um and well, and then and they have the Carter Bryant piece too. Like if he emerges, Kelvin Johnson expired next year, but if Carter Bryant becomes that perfect like defensive physical banger who can also hit threes and play next to Wemby, that's kind of what they need. So the Keldon Johnson one is a big one because if they end up having to keep him at a what a fair rate would be for a guy who just wants six man of the year, it get and they love him and maybe they will, but if they keep him, they're gonna I think they should probably wanna re sign extend or resign Champagne. They have a team option on him next year for nothing for three million doll ars. They get pretty expensive if they keep everybody together. But again, they have windows now. And by the way, we should, we always do this thing where we, we, the collective we, everybody, um, points out when a team like the Rockets were the first team that we talked about like this. Um, the Pistons have gotten a little flack for like, well, they had all these trade assets and they did nothing at the trade deadline. And look how it came back to haunt them in the playoffs. The Spurs did nothing at the trade deadline, and they have a lot of assets and i everyone i think thought they were gonna do something at the trade deadline and they didn't and they're in the finals so sometimes it goes the other way too i was okay with them because i felt like it was probably a year ahead of schedule. They needed to taste their own bud in the playoffs, as it turned out they didn't know. They're drinking everybody else's blood. But yeah, it's just like, let's take a year and see what we have, because that's like what Sam Prestey would have done, for instance. But as it turned out, it turned out to be an incredible move. And they have a bunch of picks too. Like they're going to be able to have some maneuverability. So how many Knicks fans in your life were texting you over the last 48 hours asking you who they should be rooting for in this game. Oh, just because I had every single Knicks fan I knew was like, what do you think? Who should I root for? And I'm like, if I'm you, I don't w plaannay Wemby in the finals. That's who I would refer to. So it's funny, I said this with Goldsbury, like I just think you just have to say I don't care because uh the easy answer is like the the answer they default to is the Spurs because oh we beat the Spurs, you know, twice and uh including in the uh the cup and like we looked pretty comfortable against them we killed them at home in march uh and the thunder of the thunder I'm like I just don't the Spurs have risen to the level where there's just no great answer here.'re The byoth bad answers. But if Jalen Williams is hurt and AJ Mitchell is hurt, I think the Thunder might actually be the better answer because I don't want any, I don't want any part of these guys. But they're just, they're they're just excited. And I honestly like weird ly a lot of them were a lot of my Knicks fans friends and acquaintances and people I run into were rooting for the Spurs regardless because they're just fascinated with Wemby and they have a lot of people really just have bought into even casual fans have bought into like the flopping with Oklahoma City drives me crazy and I just don't like the way they play. Like Knicks fans were they're they're just like you know what let's let's have some fun with Wemby it'll be it'll be fun at the very least. I am uh delighted that we don't have to talk about flopping anymore . Thank God. Thank God that's over for content. And the most fun possible series was Nick Spurs. Even though the basketball historian side of me was like, man, OKC going through war is to try to win two straight titles, like that would be really meaningful. That would put them on this whole other whole other level. But Nick Spurs is the most fun series. And if you're the le ague, oh my god. This is like the this is the all-time wet the only other wet dream if you're talking wet dream finals, it's this one. It's 2016 LeBron rematch against the 73 Win Warriors coming off the Clay Thompson OKC game. It's the 2010 Lakers Celtics rematch, right ? Those are the three wet dream finals for the league. And this might be number one, honestly, out of everything we mentioned, because you have the revival of the Knicks. You have 53 years and generations of fans. We've been waiting for this forever. And you have Wemby, your next guy, the guy who's ready to replace LeBron and Curry as as the guy in the league, already here. Um, it's it's like what we had in 2007, except the rest of his team is actually good when it was Spurs Cavs. And it's like LeBron's here. Yeah, but he's playing with guys that have no chance against the Spurs team. This is different. Like Wemby could actually win it. And I feel I feel like we have some history with Wemby too now. And I think the Olympics was really important with that. We've even though he's young and he hasn't around and he missed half a last season, I still feel like I've seen him in some basketball games. Like he doesn't feel like a shiny new car to me. He can't to you, right? We've been watching he's a few years now. We've been talking about him as arguably the best player in the league for five months now. Like he's here, he's been in big games, the the international stuff was big and uh the Olympic. Yeah. And this is, you know, um another finals without any of the sort of older generation players that have carried the league for a long time. And it's the first I think well, I mean, depending on what you how you perceive of Shea or whatever, but obviously there is a guy like everyone, everyone is fascinated by Wembinama. People who have watched two basketball games the entire year and kind of half watched them while drinking in the suite somewhere at MSG, like can't wait to watch this guy play on a big stage. He did a thing today in the fourth quarter. It was there were it was like halfway through the fourth quarter. Dylan Harper, maybe even like four minutes left, Dylan Harper ended up with the ball and he kind of lost it around the foul line. All of a sudden, there's a fast break. And the OKC had a two-on-one. And they ended up throwing it in the left corner to McCain. And Wemby was hustling back. And he's on like the three point line, but somehow challenged the shot and he did like that crazy Wemby like Freddie Krueger movie does. And he almost blocked it. And if he had blocked it, that would have been the greatest block I've ever seen. If he if the if I had had time, I would have gone back and slowed it down because he's running and you know he's gonna jump at it, and you're just thinking he's so big that he's just Jerry Cain is at least gonna know that he's coming, but probably also think he can't actually get to it. But I'm he's in my head a little bit. Like, did he actually almost like get a round it? He almost had it. It it seemed like he did from the case. And that's why Tarico on the call, God bless him, is like, oh, Wemby did that Cornet contest. And I'm like, oh, if only Luke Cornette could do a cornet contest like that. That was that was that was not the Cornette contest. That was something altogether different. I get where you're going. He started from Day on the same court with the state farm stanchion right there. That's right. The best players put in the work. 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Hubspot gives you that point guard vision, one platform, full customer context, and that context is everything you need to win. Visit hubspot.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Viore. When it comes to clothes that score high at both comfort and style, Viore is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers. Oh, yeah. They have the perfect. I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the meta pant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viore.com/slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. FanDuel has the uh finals line for us. Okay. You saw it? You looked at it? I saw it. It was not what I would have guessed. Um I'll tell you what I would have guessed after, but what is your guess? Spurs Spurs very s Spurs, very slight favorites. Like m what is the proper terminology? Like minus one ten or something like that. Like minus say like minus one twenty five, minus one thirty range is slight favorites. Yeah. Yeah. So I would have said Spurs minus one fifty. And it's Spurs minus 205. Ooh. Two to one favorites. Very similar to the Boston Dallas um finals line. If you want to do Spurs sweep, that's plus seven thirty. If you want to do Nixon four or Nixon five? That's sixteen to one or twelve to one. If you want to do the greatest night of basically everyone's life that we know from New York, Knicks win in six plus four eighty. Look if the Knicks win in six shut down New York City. I'm either I'm either sleeping in Madison Square Garden. Yeah. Or I'm doing a live podcast from the street just drinking with crazy people in you may never see me again. Not sure we see really anybody again. I don't know what happens. I mean, that will be the highest priced basketball ticket of all time. It will be in the running for highest price sports ticket of all time. Don't you if if assuming we get it, let's assume we knock on wood that we have a game six and maybe a game seven in these finals. I'm I'm supposed to go through I can't go live after game two because my son is graduating high school. Big moment. Last time I skipped a game for his graduation was the curry game, uh curry game for Boston Golden State when you graduated. The fifth grade. Which you have stated was probably good for your emotional health to not be at the game despite its historic significance. I felt like whatever I did, they were going to lose, but I I'm glad I didn't go. I missed the greatest game of Steph Curry's career, but my son obviously means more, as he does for this high school graduation. But it's just it almost guarantees game two is gonna be good. I'm not saying I have those powers, but it's good for it's good for Ben Simmons that he's that he's stayed above NBA players that you don't really know in the Bill Simmons love power rankings. That he's sustained in the in these these intervening four years that he hasn't fallen off at all. Teenage Ben Simmons. And and stayed ahead of the other Ben Simmons, who is now a professional fisherman. That was another thing. I was worried he was going to be like, what if Ben Simmons had been Wembenyama, like been the biggest star in the league? Did inside the NBA work Ben Simmons into the Sixers gone fishing graphic? They must have, right? Like if if they didn't, I like what a missed opportunity. Um he could be on another boat just fishing randomly, like not even not even on the Sixers boat, you just on a boat nearby. Just doing that. Yeah, like in a in a boat in the back. Yeah. Uh you don't have to say your finals pick, but are you leaning I'll save it for your podcast, the Zach Gowl Show. A great podcast. Yeah. Um we're gonna record. Are you leaning longer series or shorter? Longer. Longer. I haven't I haven't made a I haven't made up my mind on who I'm gonna pick to win, but I will say I think the line , I would not favor the Spurs by as much as Vegas is favoring Spurs. I agree. Off the bat. I think this Knicks thing is real. Like I think it's legit. I don't care what the level of competition is, like to do this for this long and and hit you just know like I I know what my eyes saw how they are playing, but the Mitchell Robinson thing is a big, a big X factor. The other X factor is the the Spurs probably just feel like they won the title even though they have another team waiting. But that was such a to come back three two to do that on the road. It's about as emotional of a just getting to the finals. I'm trying to think who would have had a more emotional we just won the conference fin als win in the recent history of the NBA. Because more normally it's more veteran teams, right? I guess OKC beating San Antonio in 2012 , but even that wasn't g aame seven . Oh, but we're picking like winners. Like they had to have winning. I'm just saying winning the conference finals, being that emotional to just win a conference finals. Miami beating Boston in 2012 was a good one. Like they were home. Yeah. But yeah, it's pretty rare to have like I I remember going back to the nineties, because I wrote down it's funny, I I went through all the game sevens in conference finals because um what was rare about the thing today, there was every time it's under 200 points. Like for uh basically before nineteen ninety-three, every game has been under two hundred points except for two thousand two Lakers Kings overtime was 106-102. So usually they're rock fights. And then for the most part, the home teams always won until recently. And that was the fifth one in a row that the road team has won, um, which is nuts. So home teams conference finals, game seven species. Conference finals, game seven specifically. Um, but I'm looking at the list of most emotional ones. I guess LeBron beating Boston by himself in 2018 is up there. That was one of one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. He played all 48. I know he'd won a couple of titles already, but um the emotion of just dragging that team that he had all the way three series. That was pretty nuts. That was the only emotional Eastern Conference triumph for that LeBron two point zero in Cleveland. Because the other ones I I'm not even sure they were like late realized what round they were in and someone was just told, Well, no, you actually are in the finals. No now, you get to play the West team. You just beat all the East teams again. 94 Knicks over Indiana was one. Um, and then Barkley over Seattle in ninety-three was another one. And then the most famous one for me was the Celtic Sixers won in eighty one when everyone charged a court. And you know, that's still I think the greatest playoffs. Um , that's a great one. That's ninety-seven. Yeah. The Matt Maloney team, that's a really good one. Um but I wonder how much they have left in the tank. Wemby has never played this many minutes for this kind of a stretch. They've been really, really, really careful with him. Almost like a pitcher not, throwing more than like five, six innings. But he w he was forty forty minutes or around there for about a month. Um so we'll see what happens. We'll see what they have left in the tank. Let's talk about uh what happens with OKC . Okay. I always like to play what do you do with you ? So we talked about the safest thing to do is just be like, look, man, we won the title last year. We had a big bullseye on us all year. It was the first time we became the villa ins. The flopping thing became a huge storyline constantly. Um, people just didn't like us. That's always a weird thing to deal with for the first time. And then we had some bad luck in the playoffs. We went against um a guy who's the best, the best player the league's had since LeBron and Curry from a ceiling standpoint, and a team that just took it from us and we were banged up and injured, and let's not overreact. That would be the that would be the sa fe smart move. I don't think they're gonna do that. Okay . What do you think they're gonna do? I think you have to start getting creative with some of these picks. They cause the thing that they have is they can go 130, 100 cents on the dollar in a trade. And you're stockpiling all these picks. Now, they just changed with the lottery reform. Those picks might actually be even worth a little bit more than maybe they used to be. But you know, I'm just not wasting this SGA window when he's this good. You know, when he's this is four years in a row now where he's been one of the one to four best players in the league, and you just never know when that window's gonna end. So I would I would try to get at least a little creative. What do they need? What's your what's your all time fixer? Just improve the chet spot? What would be your move? I mean, but how am I improving the chet spot ? Giannis ? I again I have to aggregate like it's it's anything's possible when you have as many picks as the Thunder have, but DeAndre Ayton? The restrictions of the second I'm not gonna let that slide. Um the restrictions of the second apron are real and like make it very hard for the Thunder to make trades because they can't aggregate salaries, they can't take back a dime more. Like there's a lot of restrictions that just make this mechanically much I think the are they are they over the second April now or it's next year? They're not over it now. Uh I don't know if they're over it now, but I don't think they're over it yet. Next year they will when the calendar flips to July first, they're gonna fly over it. Um so next year, just so people know, SGA is 40, but then he goes to 60, 65, 70, 75. Chet and J Dub both start five-year $239 million deals. They have Mitchell, who they re-signed at three, three, and three, the best contract in the league. They have Caruso at 19.5. It's unbelievable that contract. They have team options for Hartenstein. They're under the aprons now. So they have team options for Hartenstein for twenty nine, Dort for eighteen. They have to deal with Kayson Wallace, um, whether you want to extend him or not, get him on a good deal. And then they have Joe and Wiggins and Jaywell making a combined 30 million next year, plus Topic and Sorber making nine. Sorber is just a forgotten man, just a little another mid first round pick sitting there, waiting to contribute next year. That they might, if they are really under the crunch, might have to use picks to try to get rid of. They have the twelfth and seventeenth pick this year. They have a Quippers swap next uh next year. They have a top five Denver first. They have a Dallas swap in twenty-eight. They have a Denver top five protected first in twenty-nine, and then they have their own first. What do we do to mark the moment when that clipper swap is exercised and the Paul George trade ends. Do we have a is it like when like the last episode of Seinfeld ? I was thinking you have a clip show leading into the final episode and then uh a party after? I was thinking like the last episode of the Sopranos, like every podcast just goes blank. I got a mailbag question wondering if they should um raise to the banners Paul George and Kawhi because of all the all the good stuff that that trade brought them. Why not? Not not the worst idea. So so all right, so get creative. I mean they can do a they can I think the I think the number one need is shooting more than anything else. And I don't know where they get it. But I but yeah, they can bundle a bunch of picks and move up in the draft. They can bundle picks and players and try to get like a low price player. And the Chet one is Chet one's tricky. Um and d and into did Jalen Williams. I mean, this was more or less a lost season for Jalen Williams, like almost an entire like lost season. Um, and now they're gonna jump up and make all NBA level money next year, and that is a proven big three on a championship team. We just saw it last year, but it it um we just didn't see enough of it this year in terms of availability. And like this this game tonight, I just don't think we can talk it uh enough about what just happened to Chad Holgram in this game. Like that was a disaster. Um and I'm just fascinated where he goes from here personally. Well, and we've also seen a couple times in NBA history where a guy had such a bad playoffs, it followed him. Right. It definitely affected Dirk for a couple years. There's no question. Um hey, one of the famous Celtics examples was Antoine Walker when Kenya Martin just destroyed him. And I honestly felt like Antoine Walker was never the same after that second net series. Like Kenny Martin just took his lunch. And then we mentioned Drexler earlier as another one where Drexler was the second best player in the league in 92. The next year, I don't even think he made an all-NBA team. Like between that and kind of being a backup on the dream team and getting his ass kicked by Jordan every day, like he just wasn't the same after that. So the question is, do you start to worr thatied that could be Chet? And then if I'm another team in the league, do I feel like this is my opportunity to try to go get Chet? And what is Chet? Like what if what am I getting in Chet? Because am I getting a guy who is this another you know, it's hard for these big guys where it's like we we're doing it with Mobley and Chet like, oh, they have this well rounded game, like maybe this is year they're gonna they're gonna develop into a twenty four point a game score and the perimeter game's gonna come along and it's just it's hard and are you ever getting that guy or is he gonna be 19 a game second best defensive player in the league reasonable three point shooter I mean the the the total vanishing of his three point shot is astonishing to inexplicable. I thought it's like one of the best things about his game. And it's the thing that, like, yeah, okay, sure. It's hard for you as a big man to a skinny big man to dribble against wings that are guarding you and get to your spot. You're not an overpowering ball handler who's going to back people down. But that's the thing that should never go away, no matter what no matter what or where ver you're going to get five open threes a game by spotting up and they it just they he got I think he averaged less than two attempts per game and was completely invisible in the biggest game of of the year. Twenty-seven percent from three in this series before tonight. What did he shoot tonight? Was it like one for two or something? I mean he did he even take a three? Didn't uh zero for zero. So you can just Wow. So he finished twenty seven percent . Really it's not the percentage. How many did he take? He took eleven threes in seven games. He passed up a couple too tonight that uh Jamal and Reggie called him out for right away. Like, wow, he's got it. Yeah. Like they were about as harsh on him during the broadcast as you hear announcers. The only one who will really do that is Van Gundy. But they were over and over again, like, where's Chet? What's going on here? Why isn't he? She ball cropped straight up was like, Hello, hello. Right. Like Ken Rich Williams attempted as many threes in the series as Chet did. But the other thing is, shouldn't he have I like if I had told you he's gonna do zero threes in a game seven or ten , what number would you have believed? I would have believed the ten, because it's like, oh, they're finally like this is their strategy now to pull Wemby out. They went smaller, would shed at center, and he's just gonna shoot threes. But he just I as I said earlier, when he wasn't catching passes clean anymore, that's when you know he you're in your head. Like when the ball handling pass catch stuff goes sideways. So as long as they are is is assuming we're both right that they're under the second apron for like the the next month. Like so let's just let's just do it then. Do you think Ch et plus you're gonna have to throw in someone else good. You think let's I'll just make up the throw in some of their extra picks. No, let's just go Chet plus Kasen Wallace plus Sorber plus three unprotected firsts and three swaps, including some of my swaps from other teams for Giannis. Do you think that's a good idea? I think that's way too much. I I wouldn't have Wallace in it. I would have less picks and less swaps because who am I competing? She would like to do that. Who am I competing against with for Giannis? I'm competing against Miami, who I can top any offer they have. And now Orlando, because they we didn't , but they hired Sean Sweeney, the uh San Antonio bench coach who spent what five years with Giannis, four years with Giannis in in Milwaukee. And I think makes not the first person to make this point, but I think that entered them into the Giannis chat for trades. There's no question. So it's like, is Palo on the table for Giannis? Is that even a possible trade? I don't know. You might be competing against that too. Sure. I mean, again, they traded all their picks for Desmond Bain, so I'm not sure how many sweeteners they can throw in there. Um but look at the thing. If I'm the Bucks and I could get rid of Giannis and just start over and have Palo as the centerpiece, I'm I'm doing that. But like here, like the thing about the Thund offers offer,ers whatever you want to say compared to the Heat or whoever you want to throw out there is like at least if I'm Milwaukee and I trade him to Miami or I trade him to Golden State or something like at least I'm getting picks where I have some expectation that I can bet against that team being successful, and some of these picks might end up being pretty valuable. Even with the lottery rules changing, if I trade them to Oklahoma City, even if I like fleece Oklahoma City, there just not is there's no world reasonable world that I can project where those picks are gonna be any good. And I'm probably not getting any of my own picks back, which is another little side plot. I still kind of like the uh uh Jalen Brown to Portland, Giannis to Boston, a bonanza of picks, including Milwaukee's own picks that Portland's have uh coming back and young players coming back to Milwaukee. I kind of like that trade construction. I have no idea how interested anybody actually is in doing it, but I don't mind it. I keep saying it. I don't think Boston's in on Giannis. I mean, I not certainly not sensed any great urgency from them to break up their team. I think the the reason to trade Jalen would be to not want to have the two 70 million dollar guys in two years or sixty-five or whatever it is. So you to just flip him into somebody else who then's going to want an extension. That's the other thing with the honest. To me it',s it feels like a very unokay move. Like if we if we're really gonna like we've been with Presty now for 20 years. Presty's a huge chemistry guy. He's a huge put personalities together, certain types, be patient. Like even they with that first OKC run when that was when you and I started working together, and the hardened trade was a big trade for them because they couldn't afford them, even though I feel like they could have. But then you look at the next couple of years, they remember they how hesitant they were to do anything? And then that last year when they thought KD might be leaving, they said that was when they went over the tax and they made some some big swing trades and did like the Dion Waiters and a whole bunch of weird trades that they did. I think for the most part, he's pretty careful. The one time the Perkins Jeff Green trade, which feels like it was 700 years ago now , is a little bit similar to this Chet situation, I think, where it was like Jeff Green, KD, Hardin, Westbrook, those were like their four guys. Oh, they'll never trade. And then all of a sudden he did it. He traded Jeff Green because he needed his center. And that would be like so we we know he could be cutthroat if he needs to be. I mean Chet is now an all-star and an all-NBA level player. This is a just a completely different comp conversation. I mean there was also the Abaca trade, which was, you know, like when they got all the D. No, he's the yeah. This it's a bigger situation 'cause you're gonna get a better quarterback than Kendrick Perkins. But the all the other thing is like Giannis plus J Dub plus Shea, like I've the the financial I'm not solving any financial issues with with that kind of trade. In fact I'm just I'm getting even more expensive. Uh I don't see I don't see them doing and messing with you know, now you got the brothers there and I and it doesn't feel like an OKC move. I would say the move would be hey, we should have won and Jalen Williams got hurt and you talk yourself into that world and you don't do anything. But the question is is Chick gonna do the Dirk Australia we don't see him again for four months because he's gonna take a ton of shit all week. I mean and and look you I don't love piling on that was dumbfounding like it the whole series was dumbfounding he had a couple moments in game five and six where he seemed to like crash the offensive glass, had a couple nice takes against Vassell, whatever. This was a just a dumbfounding game. And what in a game where they the need for anyone to produce offens ively other than Shea was never more glaring than in this game and he just didn't do anything. Wow. Thirty-two minutes, one for two. Like he almost looks like it's like the James Harden 2021 Brooklyn game seven box score when he was on one leg. Well, and you're like, Oh yeah, he was hurt, but Chet was healthy for this game. The last the last two things I remember him doing on offense, yeah, you know, he had that nice block on Dylan Harper were dropping dropping an entry pass. Now he recovered it, but it was it took the it took the he like cut into the middle of the floor, Shea passed it to him and he dropped it and it disrupted the whole rhythm. And then he tried to drive on Victor, and you could hear the broadcast gearing up, like here he goes, he's going, and then he just like fell over, and was and like I couldn't see him on the floor. And like those are my last two memories of Chetholmgren on offense. Yeah, it's it does have shades of that Jordan Drexler thing, but more like it's almost like a boxing thing. Where the or like what happened with Rhonda Rousey when she was just, you know, beating everybody, making everyone submit, and then all of a sudden she fought uh Holly Home, got knocked out and like lost her mojo and like kind of never got it back. She ended up losing again. And that's why what I'm rooting for is come back for vengeance because the end of Ronda Rousey was not that fight, it was the next fight against Amanda Nunez when she was a little bit look at Zach talking UFC. This is so exciting. When it was very clear that she was broken as a fight and would never be repaired. I want I want this is amazing. Let's dig out of it. Come back . Like everyone should be fucking pissed off. Like, no, we're not ready to pass the torch. We want to go at that guy. We want to do it together. I'm going to learn from this experience. This was my low point. Like, I'm coming back next year, Jalen Williams. Gotta be so frustrated that he just lost an entire season, lost an entire Western Conference Finals other than a few minutes here and there where he didn't . And just like go back at him next year. Glad you brought that up . What happened to Jalen Williams? He played I have it in my notes. He played last year, he played over three thousand minutes. Right? Regular season and playoffs got hurt. I know he got hurt. I'm asking you, how do we end up with him playing a thousand minutes this year where it wasn't like a knee injury or torn MCL or like this is just like a he's a hamstring injury that he just kept having for eight months. Like what the fuck? Well it happens. I mean, we it it happens, and obviously everyone is a lot more cognizant of like if we if we push this too far, real bad stuff can happen. Now hamstring Achilles, it's not the same, but they didn't f far at all. I I mean, if anything, they pushed they unpushed it because they were just hoping he could be healthy for basically two rounds. He had a wrist injury too that messed up his uh his his his like uh pattern in the middle of the season. But yeah, I mean look, it just he got hurt and every time he played he would get hurt and he would feel it. I mean, it it wasn't subtle. He would come off the court grabbing his left hamstring like something isn't right there. And it was causing pain and discomfort and it wasn't getting any better. And look, he played 37 minutes in game one and I, thought he played quite well. And that game you've talked about a lot, like took took like there was punishment from that game. Like there was there were lasting effects that both teams had to deal with and overcome from that from that crazy that was their tactical mistake, was unleashing him too much in that game. Because that game it's weird because this wasn't a great series, but it had in all time game one and a really good game seven. And then everything in the middle we're never gonna remember. I mean and I think like we have short memories and you and I were arguing about this a little bit before the series where you said Chet's the second best player on the Thunder. I was like I all due respect, like I I I s like I think we're about to be reminded of what Jalen Williams is and, then he we we were, and then he was gone. Like that guy's fucking awesome. That guy showed out in the finals last year in a seven-game finals. He's a six-eight monster wing who can do everything. Like he's he's uh and like isn't this as a neutral fan what you want? Like get the gang back together and take a shot at like isn't that more fun than panic trade for Giannis and all the games? Well, the core gang, like the main part of the gang. Like the side characters might change, but like the main part of the gang, that's more fun to me as a neutral fan than Panic Trade for Giannis. We get way older, so different. We disrupt. Don't we want continuity? Panic trade for Giannis. Don't we want continuity? Don't we want to watch great teams, the core of great teams? Not the top eight or top nine, but like the core of great teams. Don't we want them to stay together and grow together? Isn't that what we want as fans? Don't we want them to come back and try to avenge this? That's what I want . Guy by the name of Magic Johnson. You might have heard from him or might have heard of him. 1984 finals. Sucked. Got the nickname Tragic Johnson . Guess what? He was fine. That would be what I told Chet. I'd prestized gonna take him out. They'll go get an ice cream cone in downtown Oklahoma City. And he'll be like, have you ever heard of the Magic Johnson story? 84 Finals, Rock Bottom . Came back, ended up winning three MVPs and three titles. That could be us, Chet. No he'll he'll bust the Presley will bust out an obscure 80s hip-hop song, rap song, where he's like the the You're gonna like the lyrics to this. Yeah, just think about this later. Uh can you be Joe Dumas for a second, New Orleans general manager? And I'll be uh I don't I need another phone. I need another phone. I'm Sam Prestey calling you.. Hello Hey, hey Joe. Um , I've got I already threw the phone to Troy Weaver. I already just threw my phone. I'm scared. I threw my phone to Troy. Troy . I have uh I have Lou Dortz expiring. I'm gonna pick that up, the team option. I could pick up the Hartenstein team option for 29. I've got Aaron Wiggins to offer you. I have the 12th pick in the draft and the 17th pick. What else do I need to just get you to trade Trey Murphy to me? Sorry, the phone went. The phone, our landlines are out. There was a power outage. We didn't know so no like give me the package again. Hartenstein, twelve and I'll give you twelve and seventeen. I will give you Hartenstein and Dort on expire on expirings. And I'll take back Jordan Poole in the Murphy trade. I'll take back Jordan Poole's expiring. You'll take back Jordan Poole now. I'm paying attention. I will. So I will. So you give me Poole and Murphy. I'll give you 12 and 17. I'll give you the Hart Hartenstein expiring, the Dort expiring. I'll take Jordan Poole So now I have eight centers on my team that I gotta figure out how to play together. Okay. Yeah. Uh also instead of Hartenstein, I'll you can keep Jordan Poole, I'll throw in Wiggins instead. Uh I need another pick or a swap that's actually good. How about Topic? Have you seen him? Do you see him in garbage time? I have any interest? No. I mean, for me New Orleans, no. I like I he's fine. I need to see more of him. I need another pick or a swap to What if Dumas says back is AJ Mitchell on the table? That's what I would that's that's what I would say back. Three million a year. Um I'm interested uh how badly do you win the topic? How badly do you want to win the title? You got a very brief you got a window with these three guys. How badly do you want to win the title, Sam? AJ Mitchell, twelfth maybe seventeenth pick in a contract. Yeah, there's something there. That's the to me, that's the mood because I'm tired. If I'm them, I'm tired of not quite having enough three point shooting. You know what I mean? I do. Um, and that's a very intriguing, that's a very intriguing trade. Also, I have to trade for him before somebody else does, like the Celtics. And the thing everyone's around the league, I don't know Troy Weaver at all, but the thing everyone around the league who talks to Troy Weaver, talks to him, says is like he's always got a guy or two in the draft that he really, really wants that he just loves and he has to have. We saw it with Queen. And maybe if there's somebody in that range , that twelve or seventeen helps him get, maybe in in a year where they, you know, traded their pick, obviously. Maybe he'd be amenable. McCain . I thought I loved how he put in the playoffs. I'm on the record when Philly drafted McCain. I went nuts. That was my favorite. I watched him in LA. I've just always liked him. I think he proved that he's a guy that could be out there for them in a real way . And I wonder with SJA Mitchell and McCain, um, could you turn one of those last two pieces into something with Murphy? Would be interesting. Um couple things before we go . Just a couple couple of mailbag questions tied basically tied to um to what we just watched. Okay. I had a whole thing on the pod the other day about if they had flapping penalties like they used to with flagrant fouls. I saw this. Ben from DC said you missed the best part about your flapping point system, the leaderboard . They'd publish the leaderboard every week and it would be like shameful to be like the number one in flop points. It would just be good. So good one for the thing I love that I mean look look teams do that with their like hustle boards, right? And they track in pra thectice, charges taken, hustle this, hustle that. And like if you're at the bottom of the hustle boards, like you're there, your your name's at the bottom there. There you go. It's like being in the bottom and the in the barrel speed one in baseball. Like Caleb Durbin for the Red Sox. He's like in the bottom 5% of barrel speed. I love all these stats . When you know you're not doing great. Tyler in Portland, I had a whole thing about all the losers from the Knicks Cav series, and he wanted to know why Tom Thibodeau wasn't one of the biggest losers out of how this has played out with the Knicks. And he said the second biggest loser were the seven remaining Tibstands. I just thought that was really mean. You just wanna you wanna throw spotlight on his cruelty? Just since like let's platform his cruelty. Do you feel like Tibbs was a loser for how this has turned out for the Knicks? Or what did circumstance make this a better situation? Circumstance and health make this a better situation this year for the Knicks. If Tibbs is the coach, are the Knicks in the finals? I don't think so. I don't think so either. But I also don't think that he's a loser in the situation. I've I'm sure it eats it as c rawl a little bit or whatever the right terminology is to see this happen. But I also I'm sure he's happy for a lot of the people that are there that were with him. Um I'm sure it's a dip an interesting emotional time for him. But I don't consider him a loser. I would flip it around and say, how about Mike Brown as a winner? He did a great job with the Knicks. He played the long game. He pushed all the right buttons. He was he was a good hire, even though he was like their 17th choice, apparently, for the job . I like that. Um , this episode of the Bill Summons podcast brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. For small business, every hire matters, but the time and resources required to hire a right are limited. 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So So Clark from Rockford, Illinois wants to know did all the negative national discourse on OKC's flopping tweak how SGA played a little bit over the course of this series in a negative way I I actually thought a little bit about that because they're so buttoned up of like, well the noise doesn't affect us. We don't care about the noise. We don't care about the officials. We don't care about the media. We don't care what's being said. They must be aware on some level. Like the I think the tipping point for me was what was it? Underdog Sports made the fake operation game uh and then they got a cease and desist letter from Shane's attorneys or something like that. It's like, okay, so I wonder if this just is this shrieking noise is in his head at all. But then he goes out and shows out like that in game seven. And I think the real thing the thing that really bothered him was Victor Wembanyama. Now I d I actually don't I probably don't think the flopping thing bothered him . Sam from Austin said on the Zach Low Show, good podcast, after game six, Zach talked about how the Spurs play a one-man zone with Wemby roaming the paint while everyone else is locked up man-to-man. Goldsberry asked if Zach had coined that term and encouraged him to take credit for it. Um Sam thinks it should be called the unboxing one. I I do feel like it should have a name, but I was thinking maybe it's like the alien box or the box and alien ? Something like that. I'll workshop some stuff in my head. Now that I know there's a groundswell of interest. There's a groundswell. People like the box and one. I, by the way, have always loved the boxing one. I've always loved variations of it. It's the two things I've never understood with basketball are why don't more teams play boxing one and why don't more teams press? Like if I was OKC, every time Fox was out, I would have pressed. I 'cause I I think he Castle I like. I don't guard. I think he was dying to give up the ball and I don't know why they didn't just go ninety four feet with him with Kayson Wallace. I'm just so charmed by this that you I mean, we're we're we're almost 30 years into this, and you're just not giving up the full core press. You just I love the full core press you're enamored with like someone's gotta do it. Soneome's gotta really make it part of their I mean the Pacers kind of came closest for you last year of of doing it. The Celtics were doing a little this year, but I thought OKC Wallace was playing twenty-two, twenty-three minutes a game. And I don't know if. If he's out there, I'm like, hey, when you're out there, you're you're just going 94 feet with everybody. They can't really do it with Caruso. I'm just gonna say this. I mean, yeah, there if you wanna implement these kind of tactics that may or may not work, but that are certainly unconventional. I think you're gonna have to suck it up and try to get the GM job for the Sacramento Kings because your owner is a guy who suggested that his coach play four on five defense and cherry pick. And if like if that's available, you can go to the owner and say, here in the job interview, here are some crazy things I want to try. You're going to think I'm crazy, but these are going to work. He's the right audience. Maybe this is your destiny. You can 't eight through twelve. We are going to press for five minutes a half. Maxine Raynaud is going to be a full court press center for us. We're doing it. Vivek is a gullible guy because Vladi Debatch looked him in the eye and said, We already have De'Aaron Fox. Luca's a big market superstar. He's not going to want to stay here. And Vivek's like, you're probably right. Let's take Marvin Bagley. I signed off. So if he signed off on Marvin Bagley over Luca, I think he would sign off on my press idea. This is and then you but then that you you have car blanch. You're what's working against you is you did not play for the Sacramento Kings in the early two thousands. That would have been a big leg up for you in this in this race, but alas. I would have started smoking again too. I got a bunch of emails today. Are you a soccer guy or no? I'm ready for the World Cup. I don't know. I watched the final what happened today? I saw the penalty kicks. That's all so PSG won for the second year in a row, and I got a million emails about this about how m m b m m mmbap mbap. I always screwed up. My speech dyslexia. He doesn't play for them anymore. No, but he left and they've won two titles in a row and people are wondering. Ewing theory? If they it's gone further than that. It's like, A, is this the best Ewing theory ever? And B, should we just change the name? We're never changing the name. But I d I can't think of a better Ewing theory than this of going all in on a guy, the guy leaves and then they immediately win two titles without him when he's considered to be one of the best players in the world. His first name is Killian. I have to co-sign it. His first name is Killian, right? Killian Mbappe. I feel like that gives us gives you a lot of pun potential for like you don't even have to name him. Killian theory. You have Kill sitting there in the first in the first part of his name. But it he plays for R Real Madrid. I And he's still very good. Like you know, those so how does it not as not as good as you'd think. Okay. Um I had a mailbag thing about um a single shot swinging a series , how few times that's actually happened, most famously Ray Allen. Um and Joshua M wanted to know why didn't I mention John Stark's his miss in game six in nineteen ninety4. And a couple of people have wondered about this. Why doesn't that get better PR as a do-or-die? We could have won the title if that went in. I listen, I watched a lot of basketball back thenhen there was no way that John Stark shot was going in. I never thought it was going in. And uh and by the way, what it was uh hotly contested by Hakeem Alajwan, one of the best 15 players of all time. I think there's a finger I think there's a fingernail on that shot. And there might have been a fingernail on it. But I just don't think that shot was going in. I know it's like you could say, Oh, if he had made that but I just So the interesting thing about that shot is they're down two, I believe, the Knicks. So that's a shot. They they they're playing for the win. But Ewing has always contended I was rolling to the rim wide open at the nail. And John had a passing lane to me and he didn't make it. And Starks has always said there was just so little time on the clock that I wasn't sure I had time to pass it. You would have time to gather it and shoot it. But Ewing, it wa has always said, if he had passed it to me, we're going to overtime. I'm making a little eight-footer, we're going to overtime. Well, he did miss that little eight-footer the next year. Um Jack from Chicago wants to know if we could see with these new tanking rules a spite tank of somebody who somebody else has their pick. Like the Nets and like the Nets could be an example, right? The Rockets control the Nets 2027 pick. And the Nets could be like, fuck it. We don't care if we're one of the worst three teams. We don't even have our pick. How about we relegate you? Watch this Rockets and they just run play five point guards for the last 10 games of the season. And it's like Silver's worst nightmare. I didn't think of that. Do you think of that? Variable. Yeah, it's come up. I've seen people talk about it as one of the potential ripple effects of this sweeping change that is everyone is still trying trying to grapple with, including what they've done to the second round, which I did not even realize was in the proposal until W that was like they had a couple shots and just got drunk and they were like, Wait, did we change the second round last night too? I don't remember. I passed out. We can do anything. Once they've gone for this, we can do anything. How about we make the second round of like we could do we could do anything we want. Do because there's some drafts where if you have 16 and 31, it's almost better than having like six, right? Those deeper drafts where after the top five, you don't even read you just want to like throw darts against the dartboard. Um Rob H had another one on this. Would this this weird new rule lead to somebody trying to accumulate a bunch of picks in one draft to have the most possibilities? Basically stack a draft. Like when when Houston and Brooklyn made that weird trade when uh when Brooklyn wanted their picks back and they did. And could we see something like that where I don't know, the Spurs have a 29 pick, but they have three twenty-eight picks, and they're like, you know what, let's trade our twenty-nine pick for another twenty-eight pick and try to have four of these . Sure, why not? I don't know. I mean, no one knows yet. But yeah, that's not a bad theory. I like that. It could be weird. Yeah. The biggest question I've gotten over and over again is why would I wanna be the playing ten the tenth seed trying to win two playing games so I can get destroyed by San Antonio next year. Why wouldn't I wanna actually could this lead to higher level tanking basically? We're like, eh I don't I don't be the tenth seed. Uh I don't I I think I mean there's two directions that flows in, right? There's the team that's twelfth and is four games out of the tenth seed and do they go all out to try to get it? I I could see that team currently already I could see that team under any rule system you have having some thoughts having some thoughts about it. But the other be responsible. The other one where I'm eighth and I'm like, I'd really like to be 11th. I just can't see a team doing that to its fans, especially since a lot of the teams in that spot are younger teams who really I think could use and value the experience. And like look, we saw Orlando get in, we've seen play-in teams have real success and get to the finals and in in Miami and Orlando took Detroit to seven. Like you know counter. Golden State, do they give a shit about March and April after Jimmy Butler's injury if they have this new lottery system in place . I don't think they do. I think they're saying Curry's fine. You j you're sitting out. Don't try to come back. We're going for it next year. We just lost our second best player. And then you're just trying to get in that four to ten range. I guess but like they have Steph Curry and they've always been honorable by having Steph Curry on their team, even this year. And they gave you, I think your maybe your favorite moment of maybe top five moment for you of this NBA season was that Warriors Clippers oh yeah play in top three top three easily you were so delighted. Leo from Indianapolis wants to know if Halburton doesn't tear his Achilles in game seven and then they win the best finals of all time. What do the rest of the decade look like for the Pacers? Would it have been a fluke or would it have just kept going? So no Halburton injury. And they win the title? They win the title. They lose Turner. Is it just like a one year fluke like Leicester City basically in the Premier League? I don't think you lose Turner if you win the title. You think they wanted to keep Turner at that price? I think if Halliburton's healthy and you win the title , yeah. I mean I, think that one of the reasons they punted on Turner was next year is a loss for us anyway. It might as well just save some money. Dalburton's hurt, he's out for the year. It's an underrated what if . Um I just think as a fan, I still and will forever feel just so robbed of what that was. Because we could have even had what we had, yeah, even what we had tonight could have been at that level. Um John and did did you see Shea by the way said before this game today it was the biggest game of his career. I did. It's you played in a finals game seven. How was that? Not you're not ever playing in a bigger game though. But I wonder if he just in his memory now that game, even like that game is so weird to look back on. Like I wonder if he can even conjure what it felt like before Tyree Saliburton towards Achilles. If he can even bring himself back to what that what the stakes were because then that injury happened and it's like I just felt like I was ho in a haze for three hours and not even paying attention to the game because you knew what was gonna happen . I mean that's almost a good one to end on . But I am going to end on this. Okay . Mason from Seattle. Sent this before game seven. I feel the exact same way about AI as I do about Wemby. He's a foreign unknown technology that's arrived to dominate our world for the future. And there's nothing any of us can do about it. I felt genuine dread after watching game one. The same dread I feel when I think about how AI is eventually gonna take my job in a year That's pretty dark. Um , but I just want I the only reason I wanted to mention that email is that's how astonishing this postseason has been that we have seemingly normal people sending mailbag emails comparing Wemby to the most uh generation-changing technology we've created since the Internet. I wish I could remember who it was who summed it up. I don't even think like that's a that's a dark that's a dark version of a a thought pattern that I don't think is like fringe. Fringe. Um I think it was Harrison Feigen, who's a Lakers blogger, but I might be miscrediting somebody. After game one, somebody tweeted, um , Wemby is the first player I've ever watched in my life where I thought maybe they might actually have to change the rules for this guy. And I think that like that tweet can like got some traction because I do think you watch it and you're like, is this a wilt thing where like fundamental things about the change? No more offensive world tending. A greonna you have to change? Like I it because when in his best games where it just feels so hopeless to ever do anything near the basket, I think those thoughts could reasonably like creep into your mind . I love how much he cares. I love how he reacted after the game. Um we'll see how he reacts if they actually win the finals, but the mountain that they climbed, and you know, the more we're talking and think about it, you're OKC, you have that kind of semi-magical year last year, but the game seven was pretty weird with the Halburn injury. Like it was just a weird way to win the title, but you're taking any title you get, but now you think they start out the way they did this year, and it's like, holy shit, oh my god, what are we gonna do? And now the oh my god, what are we gonna do has just shifted to Wemby and away from OKC, which to me is the most it's even more stunning than San Antonio being in the in the finals. That the what are we going to do has just shifted teams in real time . And I think the other 28 teams are still like, what are we going to do about OKC when they get healthy and they they make whatever moves they're gonna make. And I think that's the ultimate compliment is these two teams are going to be staring at each other one way or another. And they're the ultimate measuring stick. And I think that's why one of the reasons why if you want to cycle analyze it, why Shea would call that the biggest game of his career, why Wemby would weep after it, because they both have so much respect for the other team that they know what the challenge is. Yeah. Well, there's four guys in this draft that le vitate above everybody else. The order has been in great debate. There's a chance Peterson could get to four. Um as crazy as that sounds. I know you've been doing some stealth you talk about. How are we talking about the draft where are you going with this because I wonder like with Chicago at four would OKC would that be the power move that we talked about earlier like a what the what would they do move. Maybe they just go all in and try to get one of those four guys. If I'm a team try to keep keep their nucleus in place. I've done my I've done my just enough to be dangerous YouTubing of those four guys. Yeah. If I'm Chicago, I'm just not even picking up the calls. I mean, you gotta really do some c razy ass stuff to make me just not be psyched to take whichever one of the four falls into my lap. But that could be that's the opportunity for OKC though to be like, we're overwhelming you with a stupid offer. But I'm not even knowing I don't know like you hear those stories about when people don't want to leave their house and somebody knocks on their door and is like, I want to buy your house. It's not for sale. Here's the offer. And like, whoa, I guess I'm moving. I mean, I guess you get a bunch. The overwhelming thing is like I got I they have some Denver swaps, a clippers pick, uh Clippers swap, their own picks. Like they could throw ten first round picks at me. If I add them all up, are they uh as valuable as one of these four guys. What if I put Chet in the table ? I just want to start over, man. Just let me start over. Just Benny the Bull just wants to start over. I think you've talked me into it for Chicago, but also for OKC. Okay. I think the move is deep breath. That San Antonio team is awesome. That's gonna be the team we battle for the rest of the decade. And I guess I guess it's if you if you offer me 10 first round picks in Chetholm Grin, I I guess I just have to do it. I mean, I don't know. I uh uh but then if you're Oklahoma City, you're you're out. That's it. You gave everything for Well, you know what the you know what the example is? It's when uh Kawhi wanted to play with Paul George . Right? Ironically, and what did Preston do? He said, Well, I don't want to trade Paul George. And they're like, what about how How what would it take to trade him? And he's like, uh, four first, three swaps, and then you have to give me SGA. And they're like, well, we can't give you SGA. And he's like, well, that's what it would take. And he just kind of ground them down. Maybe that's what one of these teams in the top four would have to do. They also got to figure out what Wallace is worth is the other thing, which we didn't talk about. Because you do you do an extension with him or roll the dice with him as heading toward a restricted? What's his price? Is he like in the twenty-five million range, probably? Right? Yeah, I think you're twenty to twenty five. If you're his agent, you're at the very least throwing around like, you know, Christian Brown, Jalen Suggs, type of thing as you're mailing the Christian Brown contract to them. Well, no, I'm like this guy's. This is what Christian Brown got. Our guy's better than this guy. Yeah, exactly. Um , I'll leave you with this. Why does Denver have to trade anybody to sign Peyton Watson? Fuck off. You have Jokic on your team, dickheads. Pay everybody. Clip this out. Denver fans, clip this out. Kronki's got a cajillion dollars. Just pay Peyton Watson and keep everyone else on your team because your owner's super rich. How much did Arsenal ? Just just for making the Champions League final. Isn't there they must that must make gargantuan amounts? Yeah, definitely. They own Arsenal, right? Yeah. Joker was there supporting Arsenal. Yeah. With at least one of his brother. All right, Zach Lowe. What's your podcast schedule this week? I think uh we are going to record Monday night. Uh so I'm going to San Antonio uh for game one of the finals at least. And uh flying Monday. Uh Tuesday, there's gonna be some interesting podcast stuff happening that the NBA is organizing that I don't know if I should really say anything, but now I've said something. Uh but so I don't know what how that's gonna work exactly, but so I'm going to do a traditional episode where I just do a deep dive finals preview. I've watched my film, I've got my notes, I'm ready to go. I'm going to make my pick. So I don't come out either Monday night or overnight into Tuesday morning, like usual, and then I'll have some fun in San Antonio. Hopefully see a great game. And uh hopefully we get a great finals. And boy, the Knicks and the Spurs. Woo ! All right, so I'm gonna be I'm coming back with my pot on Tuesday. We have tomorrow rewatchables, which usually runs Monday night. We are running it tomorrow night because I'm not gonna have my podcast because we did this. And we did two thousand and one a space odyssey. And it's one of the best episodes we've ever done. Without spoiling uh what happens, um I would highly encourage people to check this one out. Um Zach Lowe, I w I don't know when I'm gonna see you again because this final schedule is weird, but I'll see you after one of these games. This is like