The 30 Most Intriguing NBA Playoff Guys, With Zach Lowe

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It's Bill Simmons podcast.

I am here with Zach Lo.

Sunday night live on Netflix.

I am so glad we waited because I would have bet anything

heading into that day that Denver was going to be our

number four seed, not our number three seed.

But no, they beat San Antonio.

Anyway, Zach's in Denver because he is doing a live show

there tomorrow night.

I have a new rewatchables coming.

Tomorrow it is a live show we did last week in San Francisco.

There is also a new ranger podcast coming.

I wanted to mention on Tuesday that you can follow, subscribe.

Now it is a narrative podcast called LaGata.

If you like Miami Vice and the 80s and drugs and cocaine and great

stories and all kinds of things like that, which I do, get ready for

LaGata two episodes coming on Tuesday.

All right, Zach Lo.

Yeah.

Do you want to start Western East?

Because shit went down today.

Things happened.

As much as I'm tempted to start with what the hell happened

with your Orlando magic today, I think the West has to be

at the starting point just because of the implications of Denver

getting the third seed, the Lakers getting the fourth seed,

just wide ranging matchup implications across the board there.

Okay.

So Denver, all we knew from Denver today, they were 11 and a

hundred and a half point underdogs against San Antonio.

And all we knew was that Joker had to play like 15 to 20 minutes to be

eligible for game 65 other than that.

Seemed pretty clear because they were resting all their dudes that

they were really comfortable getting into that four or five matchup

playing whoever.

San Antonio wants to beat Denver because if that would have moved

the Lakers up to three, that sounds great to them.

But trying hard the whole game and somehow Denver says, no, no, David

Roddy.

Big body Roddy baby.

Can't stop big body Roddy.

Yeah.

No, when be for San Antonio.

So now, I guess my question to you is, if you're Denver, are you

like celebrating right now?

Are you happy?

I mean, you're celebrating that you got the over.

Your over was 53 and a half for the year.

Miraculous over.

I won.

We did Terrible on Overunders.

You won for most of most correct overunders.

All of us were under 500.

I went five and three of my locks.

I'm selling that to my fans this summer off year five and three in the

locks.

But if you're Denver, are you celebrating?

What are you doing?

I think you're you're like, you clearly didn't care, right?

So if they cared, they could have manipulated it more than they did.

And I think, look, you're going to have to beat these teams

sometime.

I you could argue, like, is it better to go Oklahoma City and then

San Antonio and hope one of them gets knocked out or is it better to go

to San Antonio, then Oklahoma City, the order they're going to have to go now.

You might have to be both of them either way.

Might as well have some fun.

Don't tempt the basketball gods by manipulating the standings and pulling

shenanigans on the last day of the season.

Have some fun.

Get in San Antonio's head.

Maybe I don't mind it.

I mean, it's six to one half dozen of the other.

I would have liked the easier first round matchup, but it may not even make a

difference in the end.

And we'll see how Minnesota looks in the first round, right?

Jaden McDaniel just came back and just missed some time.

They've been just up and down and weird and Denver actually kind of

played much better against the wolves this year than they had in the prior

couple of years.

I think there were three and one.

So I like it.

Go for it.

Get some W's.

Well, I was trying to think of the weirdest game 82 that actually swung

seasons.

Because there was one.

I don't remember what year it was with the Dunkin Spurs, but they lost a

dumb game in the last week or the last day and it swung the seeds and it actually

like screwed up the playoffs.

I believe it was some old down.

I believe it was a loss to New Orleans on the last day of the season that set

up the Spurs, Clippers, Epic first round series.

And New Orleans.

Yeah, New Orleans made the playoffs because of it.

Yeah, you're right.

2015.

So that was one.

Then the other one was two years ago, San Antonio with Wembee beat Denver in the last

week.

And that swung the Denver seed a little bit.

And then all of a sudden the road was much tougher and it hurt them in the playoffs.

Your road's going to be tough.

You want to win the road's going to be tough.

And I have some Denver thoughts on the road to the finals or whatever that I'm going to

share later when we do our draft.

I like it.

Rose going to be tough.

Don't tempt the basketball gods.

54 wins for Denver.

They don't have Gordon half the year.

They lose Peyton Watson for a long time.

Cam Johnson's not really healthy until the last.

I would say month and a half and they hit their over under by a half win.

Feels like around the right thing.

And yet I watched a ton of Denver this year.

And I really feel like that could have been 60 wins.

They had some really dumb losses over the course of the year.

So Denver, Minnesota.

Now becomes.

I think our best first round series.

Right.

That's the best matchup where there's history.

I could see an upset.

Great players are in the game.

Minnesota seems like the relatively healthy.

I think that's number one now.

I think so.

I mean, Nick Hawks has a lot of fun potential, but it doesn't have the history.

You know, this is a rubber match.

I think three of the last four years now that I'll have met in the playoffs.

That's what you want.

Like that's where rivalries happen when you face the same team four out of five years,

three out of four years.

A lot of the characters haven't changed.

There's been some changes, but like a lot of the core guys are still there.

It's one one epic seven gamer.

The last time they played that Minnesota won on Denver's home floor.

It's the Tim Connolly, like hovering over everything.

It's the Rudy Go Bear draft day trade, like stuff happening and Tim Connolly reacquiring him in

Minnesota.

There's just a lot here.

And yeah, it is.

And it's a big series for the wolves because I think they've banked a lot on.

Hey, we've made the conference finals two years in a row.

We play up to our competition.

Sometimes we played down to our competition.

We get bored.

And wake us up in the playoffs.

So now you woke up and you're six.

And this is what you're looking at.

Nicoli Okic having his best offensive season average.

Amal Murray going to make second team all NBA maybe 13.

I put them on second team.

Good luck.

That's not what you want.

When this is your reward for, you know, kind of lolly gagging through parts of the regular season.

You have to go Denver.

San Antonio.

Okay, see no shot.

Not happening.

Not happening.

I don't like my chances as healthy as Minnesota is.

The most unhappy team was Minnesota.

I'm sorry.

They go into the day thinking they might be able to play the Lakers in round one with Luke

of maybe coming back halfway through the series.

Instead, they have Denver.

The happiest team is the Lakers.

Lakers now add for that.

Are they that happy?

Yeah.

Yeah, they're probably happy to get to play that weird Houston team who loves nothing more than

being up eight with four minutes left and then bow in the game.

I don't know.

I think out of all those teams, they didn't have a real chance against Minnesota.

They don't have a chance against Denver.

They have a chance against Houston.

They can tread water.

Maybe it's two one after three.

Maybe it's two two.

Maybe they're down three two.

Luca comes back like game six, seven, five somewhere in there.

You know, there will be a game where the Lakers shoot 55 free throws or something crazy.

Love it.

You're playing the seeds already.

You wasted no time.

Five minutes.

Yeah.

No time.

You know, there's going to be a game that Houston chokes away at 12 point lead with five minutes left.

The people that haven't been watching them all year.

Like, what's happening?

Why is KD dribbling the ball up against suppress?

What is the Steve doing?

That's not.

I'm prepared for this to go seven.

That's the game that the body language doctor is going to write a 10,000 word column analyzing

what happened to the rocket.

Shouldn't the rocket.

Couldn't you argue the rockets are the happiest team because they get the Lakers without Luca

and without Reeves.

Maybe Luca comes back.

I don't know.

I'll believe it when I see it.

We don't know when he's going back.

Could you argue that the rockets who have one nine out of 10 and are playing kind of well.

That they're actually the big winner or that Oklahoma City is the big winner because Denver and

San Antonio kind of slotted where they should and they'll have an easier seconder.

I think Houston and Oklahoma City have cases too.

So rockets Lakers, both of them are static to be playing each other.

Nobody can be offended because they're equally as excited to have the other team in a round

one series.

The other thing that got decided in the West Portland locked down the eight seed, which means

we have Portland Phoenix.

It was an almost hilarious game 82.

The Kings, they're like a Mongoose.

I don't, you, you watch Instagram videos of a Mongoose just taking down a snake and you're

like, how did that happen?

Is that something you're doing regularly watching Mongoose and the first second.

I had to delete it.

What were they eight and eight and their last 16?

This is why you can't fire Doug Christie.

You got to keep on me.

You could be this could be the next, you know, pick a all-time great coach.

We could be sitting here 20 years from now.

Doug Christie just won his 600th game and said coach, you can't fire him.

How could you?

I got to say the young guys are looking better.

When they remember, it was pretty good.

Doug Christie, like a month ago, was like, who is that guy with like the ponytail, the little

guy?

Oh, we picked him in the first round.

Maybe we should try to play him.

Should I play him?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I was thinking in nicknames for them.

Whether they're the Sacramento drunk Kings, because they're just drunk at all times.

You have no idea what to expect.

They're the drunk guy at one in the morning.

Anything's possible.

You think like the game made it to you today.

It's like, I don't know.

They could beat Portland.

Well, I would be be Portland because they're the Kings.

How can you figure out anything they're doing?

I don't know if they're drunk or men or the Sacramento drunk Kings, whatever they are, but they've

just had three bears in them at all times.

I think it's, it's, it's just a lot all the time.

It's just, you know, like we've already made great fun of the intentional foul on Seth Curry.

And just, you know, it's bad times when your defense in the court of tanking law is your

own incompetence.

That's the only, your honor.

No, we're just that dumb.

Yeah.

We just misread the situation and we're stupid.

They have a guy, Dylan Cardwell, kind of feisty backup center who I have in my head.

Called him Dwayne Coswell, 130 times.

And it's just too much for me.

And I think I'm just going to, I'm just going to say that he's Dwayne Coswell.

So anyway, Portland ends up holding off Sacramento.

And now we have a really good Blazer's Suns game in the 7-8 matchup.

And I have not looked on Fandall yet to see what the line is.

But I'm going to guess that that line is around like the sun's being barely favored.

Would you agree with that?

Like so is like minus two.

I'm not a betting guy like you are, but I was going to throw a sun's minus four and a

half or something like that.

I think it's going to be a really fun game.

I'm going to find out right now.

I don't, I don't see a line yet.

It might be too soon.

It might be too early.

Too soon.

We'll go back.

Fandall not ready for us yet.

Maybe they're still trying to figure out what happened in that weird Sacramento game.

I'm bummed the Fom Phoenix.

I wouldn't much rather play the Quippers.

I just don't think the Quippers have enough size.

And I think I think everybody's excited to play the Quippers right now.

Like if I'm Golden State, which is going to be Wednesday night, I'm so excited.

Can't wait to go.

Might be Steph Curry's last meaningful playoff moment for all we know.

Who knows?

We have no idea if the words will ever be good again.

This is not a meaningful playoff moment.

I'm sorry.

I know it involves Steph Curry and Kawaii Leonard and Drey Montgomery in a bunch of big

names.

We could not call the 910 game a meaningful playoff moment.

I'm banning you from doing that.

Counter.

No counter.

I don't accept your counter.

Counter.

They win the 910.

They win the 8.9.

And now they're playing OKC.

The team that gave us the first great Steph Curry arrival moment, the double bang when

it became clear that this was somebody who had a chance to be a generational guy.

And now we circle all the way back.

They took Kevin Durant from them.

They're going to be, you know, prohibitive favorites.

They probably know chance of beating OKC.

But OKC Golden State, I would watch every game every minute and really enjoy it.

And who knows what Steph Curry.

OK.

We talk ourselves into a who knows what Steph Curry by an hour before that series.

By the way, they'll probably get swept.

I was going to say, I feel like that's a nice.

That's like a nice pregame intro for whatever network has that game.

And then eight minutes in we've forgotten about the pregame intro and it's 26 to eight Oklahoma

city in game one.

Luke Dordist, just clubbing Steph Curry.

Portland though legs that I talked a surprising amount of them on Thursday.

They now that Charlotte is no longer allowed as a guilty league pasting because they just

became a well known good league pasting Portland over the last couple of months became the

guilty league past pleasure team, especially when Abda came back and Abda is right on the

fringe of a third team on B.A.

If Luca is not eligible.

Now I asked multiple NBA sources today, hey, how about a Luca ruling?

That would be cool.

Like we're all doing podcasts this week doing our votes and we have to turn the votes

in.

Like, you know what'd be cool knowing if Luca Dachit was eligible or not because there's

a huge still no idea.

I think they're not even allowed to file the appeal until that last day of the regular

season.

So that's now and I mean, it's just, I can't believe that we're in a situation where we

have to wait for like actual litigators to figure out whether a guy is eligible or not.

And we're just like, I don't know, this fourth on my MVP ball could be Jalen Brown could

be Luke Dachit.

I don't know.

Well, there's some salary cap stuff tied to this, right?

Which is one of the reasons you didn't want to vote anymore.

But like, like I have castle on my third team on B.A.

I'm just spoiled or I'm putting them on.

And I don't know.

Does that affect?

I have no idea.

Does that affect like his, it doesn't, right?

For no, he's too soon into his career unless I'm going to the Scotty Barnes.

Does it bump him?

Does he get like a percentage thing?

I never, I try not to look at this because I don't want to think about this stuff.

You got to be in the right year and I don't think either of those guys is in their, in

their right year or so far.

Well, we'll see with Luca.

All right, to the east, the game of the day, the reason game 82 exists, the reason

the play and it's so much fun, Boston against Orlando.

Celtics were like 13 and a half point favorites.

And I was telling everybody under my life.

Underdogs, underdogs.

Underdogs, I mean, yeah.

They were a live dog to say the least.

If you know anything about this Celtics team or Joe, Mozilla, Joe Mozilla incapable of

tanking.

And for the record, you and I talked on the phone six hours before the game and you predicted

exactly what was going to happen.

That the Celtics were going to play all their backups and the backups who play hardest

shit and the magic would be like, oh my God, we're in a game.

What's happening?

Does Desmond Bain maybe come back?

Are you still in the arena?

Maybe come back and play.

We might need you.

This was if we had an ad San Antonio, Denver a weekend ago.

This was in the running for game of the year.

We had the reunion of the main lobster claws.

This was it.

This was the main lobster claws sports movie.

We had a Celtics team that had 11.5 million in active players playing Orlando, who's playing

everybody except Desmond Bain who did the ceremonial.

You'll play the first half.

You played 82 games in a season.

Congrats, buddy.

Have a seat.

Enjoy the second half.

And he's back in the game with five minutes left, which is the ultimate humiliation.

Three Celtics had career highs.

Taylor Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr., who was on his way to 40 and got her and then Luca

Garza.

Garza hit the craziest three of the Celtics season.

Orlando crawls back, ties the game.

The Celtics can barely get the ball in, but if somehow, schedule the two for one, that's

basically Garza just shooting a 26 footer on Carter right in his face, makes it.

And if you're thinking about voting Missoula for Coach of the Year, it's nights

like this.

This team is just from player number one to player number 20 is just wired to try really

hard and play smart and do well.

And it was an amazing achievement.

I am, I would vote Joe Missoula for Coach of the Year.

By the way, I'm thinking of asking the lead to get my ballot back next year.

I'm getting itchy, but I would vote Missoula Coach of the Year over JB Bicker staff.

They would be one two for me.

And my second observation is I'm almost alarmed by how delighted you are talking about

Game 82.

This might be the most delighted.

I've seen you talking about the Celtics on any of these podcasts.

Something about this cast.

It's my favorite win of the year.

I mean, you're, this is your, you're getting.

I listen, Shireman is turning into a guy.

Oh, no.

And now when I say he's turning into a guy, I'm not saying like this is somebody who's going

to be an all star or be the focal point of an offense.

But if we're, he is now at least moved into the in a playoff series.

There's going to be a weird bearler, Shireman half quarter game.

Something weird is going to happen with him above.

So there's that I like Garza and I think Garza is better than Bruceovich for this team.

And I know they're going to have a week to try to get Bruceovich going, but I like the fact

that Garza was really good.

And I continue to love Ron Harper Jr.

And I feel like on a lot of different teams, he would have played 25 minutes a game.

So all that stuff was good.

But the reality is this is, everyone's like, is this Jalen's team or is it Jason's team?

Who's team is it?

This is Zoolist team.

This guy, this is one of the best coaching performances I've seen in a long time.

He was, you could tell in the first quarter, he's like, it was like a game seven.

And he never, he had that energy and was just, was really something for half a second.

For half a second there, when you were saying, is it Jalen's team is a Jason's team?

The reality is for half a second, I thought you were going to say it's Shireman's team.

I thought there was just like my brain just went for half a second.

He's actually going to say Shireman, by the way, the way I think the way I would put it

is like that guy is now ready to be a 20 minute a game guy in the highest level of postseason

games.

Like whether you has a half or whatever, like he's ready to play real minutes, real backup

bench minutes against the best teams and hold his own on both ends of four.

He's a good, good player.

Couple of fun things with him.

Really good at, not always breaking up two on one's and three on one's, but at least kind

of fucking up the play a little bit.

Um, and an excellent rebound taper, which I know is one of your favorite skills.

Love the tap.

Love a good tap.

There's two different taps.

There's one where the guys just blindly tap at backwards, which we were taught when we

played basketball, never to do that because you're jump starting a fast break for the

other team.

Then there's the other tapers that are like really smartly tapping it to teammates or in

areas where you can get the ball back.

He's really good at that.

The flip side or land.

I think mostly I don't think he wasn't on the hot seat before, but this is a borderline

catastrophic or land a loss.

I mean, they actually went backwards in the standings.

They now have to play a playing game as the road team, inexplicable.

The main thing, and we'll talk about it, Lian, in a second, but this whole thing about

just not taking game 82 seriously enough because the other team's going to rest some guys.

The leaks too good now.

Like we saw it with Denver, we saw it with the Celtics.

Like when guys play scrubs, they're not scrubs anymore, you know?

The only thing I would say is all it cost them, and I think they understood that it was

the most likely scenario by far.

All it cost them was home court in the 7a game against a Philly team that's not going

to have dual MP.

So let's just not pretend that it cost them the fifth seat or the 60 to cost them, and

it's certainly embarrassing.

The main thing was extremely unusual and also kind of embarrassing, but it didn't cost

them that.

They should still be able to be Philly with no MP on the road.

And if they can't, and their season ends, then Jamal Mosley's seat has been hot all

a year.

It then erupts in flames, I think.

It was a horrific coaching job.

And I will say this as somebody who watched that entire game and was talking to people

about it as it was happening, being in disbelief that they weren't pressuring a team that

had no point guard.

The Celtics had no point guard in that game.

They had Banton dribbling the ball up and Shireman and Ron Harper Jr. and Orlando has

all these dudes that could pressure you and people that can, you try to trap, just try

to get some turnovers, and they're just letting them walk the ball up.

I thought I was incredibly confusing, but the team that was probably the most furious

was Atlanta who can also look at themselves in the mirror because they decided not to

care about game 82.

And now they have to play the Nix because they've been tanking away.

Instead of the calves, but here's my question.

But now they have to go Nix Round 1, Celtics Round 2 potentially, which I'm going to guess

wouldn't be ideal.

My question for you is, it seems like the Hawks were cool with that.

I think they were cool with that.

I think even mapping it to Round 2 is kind of misses the point of what their season is

if anything in Round 2 for them is gravy and sure it would be nice to get an easier

round 2.

I don't think they cared.

Nix versus calves, they've played both, I mean, they've had good games with both of

them and in the last week of the season, they lost to both, but good games.

And I think they also probably wrongly assume that Orlando would win, which would create

a three way tie that they would then win and keep the fifth seed in Orlando messed up

Orlando's plans.

It messed up Philly's travel plans.

Philly got to cancel some travel plans and it messed up part of Atlanta's plans.

In the end, I just don't think they really care.

Yeah, well, I watched, I watched them play the Nix on Monday and I watched them play

the calves on Wednesday.

I saw the second half of that one.

I watched the full Monday game and Alexander Walker was great against the next.

I mean, he probably had one of his best games of the season.

Nix ended up winning at the end.

Brunson made some plays.

That's a game McCollum makes the crazy half court shot that doesn't count by like, doesn't

count.

A fingernail.

The Hawks looked really comfortable against the next and if I'm the next, I'm fucking

bummed.

I would have so much rather played Toronto than Atlanta.

Atlanta has dudes to throw on Brunson.

Brunson's going to get his points and do all this stuff anyway, but they could throw

Daniels Adam and Alexander Walker at him.

That's not nothing, right?

They could even put Jalen Johnson at him if you want to go big.

It's just a weird matchup for them because their teams kind of built to stop the other

teams, awesome wings.

The Hawks have just weird guard stuff.

They get points and bunches.

If you look at what the last had this written down, last 31 games, both teams are 21 and

10 and they're right next to each other in ratings.

For 40% of the season, they've basically been right next to each other.

I don't know.

I thought Atlanta calves would go seven.

I would say six or seven for this.

It's just like not having done any of the studying yet, but this just at least feels like

a longer series to me.

What do you think?

Yeah, I can't wait to dig into the film and everything over the next couple days, but

yeah, I don't think it's going to be a quick series.

Atlanta's ceiling is just higher than Toronto's.

Toronto can hum along at an okay level because their defense is always pretty steady.

They just can't hit the heights that Atlanta can hit because their offense is just pretty

limited.

To your point about Brunson, it'll be interesting to see.

I'm going to go back and watch who they would have put.

Who Toronto would have put on Brunson in a playoff series?

Can you put Scotty Barnes on him?

Do you need cap?

But these are things that we don't care about anymore.

The next dominated Toronto in the regular season.

I'm sure the nicks would have rather had that match up.

It's a comfortable one for them.

Atlanta is this new team.

Used to be a pretty direct, as tricky as Trey was to game plan against on defense.

It was a pretty direct game plan.

Trey is coming at me on one end and on the other hand, we can direct our entire offense

to wherever Trey is.

And now it's just a hard team to grasp and plan for and a tricky team to play against.

The problem is there like a bench guy short and it was funny watching Portland tonight

because Cretchi was playing for Portland who they gave away a guess for tax reasons.

But I think that one of the games, I think it was the next game.

They got eight points total from their bench.

And you just got nothing.

And Caminga is going to be hit or miss.

He'll have 21 game might have to the next game.

Toronto to your point.

And this is Cleveland had to be another one of the happiest teams today.

Because Cleveland, I think Cleveland, Atlanta would have been kind of a blood bath.

Toronto went 500 for the last 75% of the season.

They started out 14 and five.

They went two and 16 against the top three seeds in each conference.

They got swept by the Celtics.

They got swept by the NICS.

So to your point on the ceiling, yeah, they finished with the five seed because of what

happened to Orlando.

But I just don't feel like there was any difference five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Even you go all the way to Miami.

Like I just, all those teams could look good on the right.

Right.

You know, and out of all, all those teams, I think my favorite's probably Atlanta.

If you go from five through 10, I think I thought Atlanta was playing the best at the end of the year.

Yes, Charlotte has not stumbled, but they've kind of come back to Earth a little bit.

In the last 10 games, ended up ninth, which is great.

It's a great season for them anyway.

Certainly they can still get into the playoffs.

Atlanta's been the highest level team in Toronto.

This has been a huge talking point in Toronto a year.

They can't beat good teams.

They haven't been good enough at home.

They've actually been decent on the road.

Just a weird team whose offense on the wrong night just looks clunky and gummed up and

we'll see how they do against the calves.

It's a team that has a good bench, which can go a long way over the course of a regular season.

But in the playoffs, I don't know if it necessarily matters that much.

Atlanta and the calves.

What, which actually, you know what?

Let's take a break because I want to find out from you, which one just first glances

feeling the most upsetting to you.

But we're going to take a break, come back and answer that.

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All right, playing games.

We're going to do the upset conversation in a second.

Philly Orlando is one of the games.

That's Tuesday night.

No imbede, Mosley in the hot seat.

Orlando trades all that stuff for Desmond Bain and wins four more games.

And I don't think their fans are doing backflips about how the season went.

Do you think if you're Detroit, do you think Detroit has a preference out of Philly

to trade Charlotte Miami for who they want to play?

I would just feel like I'm good to get all those teams.

Yeah, I think if you asked Detroit, they would say, dude, we won 60 games or whatever.

We're tough as shit.

We played defense.

We rebound.

Like we're going to beat the hell out of all these teams.

We're not afraid of any of them.

Realistically, I think you would have to say Charlotte would be the one that you would say.

They have demonstrated a very high level play for a very long time and competitive against

us although we beat them in the Brawl game because they could not handle our size and

our physicality.

That's what kind of triggered the whole the about they during Stewart Brawl.

So I don't think they really have a preference.

But if you're telling me I get to choose between like fully healthy Charlotte Philly without

imbede or Orlando, like a half broken team, Miami kind of just like stumbling around for

the last 20 games.

I at least want not Charlotte.

I bet they don't care.

Then they shouldn't.

They're the number one seed.

Yeah, I would say Charlotte as well, except that watch that game Friday and the pistons

really big boy them in that game, which has happened to Charlotte, you know, the more

and they've been an amazing story, especially when you think they started 4 and 14 or whatever

it was, but they're a little small and those the bully teams seem to really enjoy going

against them.

And I start no wonder if Detroit would just be a bad match up for them.

I might have been too low on Detroit, especially like we did our scariest play out, like scariest

ceiling of a playoff team.

I feel a little definitely about the trait that I did a couple weeks ago.

Well, the way they weather the Kade injury was tremendous and they're just they're just

I think everyone is focused rightfully so on the outside shooting and do they have enough

to have enough secondary creation.

Well, that Jenkins has potentially answered at least a bit of like the kid anyone but Kade

creates some offense for us off the job.

We'll see how he holds up in the playoffs, but they just get by with just cutting toughness,

size, rebounding and their defense is legit top to bottom.

They're really good and like they to your point about where they had where we had them in

the scariest draft like their offense may never reach scary levels, but you're just not

going to beat them in a short series.

Like even if they lose to Boston or lose to the Knicks or it's going to be like a long

nasty series and that tends I think that just favors them because they're just bigger

and meaner and tougher than a lot of these other teams and they wear you down.

I think one other thing happened with them.

So I was thinking about it Friday night because I really thought Charlotte was going to show

up Friday night and I didn't bet on it, but I just felt like, you know, coming off the

fight to ensure that this would be a nice little test for the Hornets, like they're playing

for stuff and Detroit really big boy to I wonder like in the last month or so because this

happens in this more of a football thing than a basketball thing, but in football, there's

always the nobody believes in us team, especially when we get toward the playoffs and there's

this team that gets a chip on their shoulder because they feel like they're not being respected.

Basketball is a little tougher because I think for the most part, it's really tough to,

if you play like shit, you're probably going to play like shit in the playoffs and if you're

really erratic in the regular season, you're probably going to be my Amy's really the only

team that's been able to pull off the nobody believes in us thing over the last 10 years

and a real chip on their shoulder and a switch.

I think Detroit has that now.

I think they're they just seem pissed off to me.

Like I don't know if you read or heard any of the stuff from the Charlotte game, but like

Durin didn't want to do any sort of post game, anything like can shakes, the game ended

and like we're off the floor.

Like they were still mad about the fight stuff.

I like that.

I like it.

I like it.

And then Kade goes out and everybody's like, well, Detroit's done Kade's out.

They're not going to they're going to lose the number one seed.

They didn't.

I just think there's I've been reading between the Lions reading stuff on them and I think

they there's an edge to them now that I'm not sure they had at start of the season.

Yes, I mean, they are the nobody believes in us team, which is ironic because they're

the number one seed.

I felt like JJ Reddick tried to nudge the Lakers into that when he was like everybody's

everybody wants to play us and say, yeah, man, with no Luca and Reeves, you can probably

you can probably get why that is.

You don't get to be the nobody believes in us team.

But Detroit Detroit has a point.

They have a point.

People think they're young shooting challenge.

All that Kade got hurt.

I thought they were safe for the number one seed.

I didn't think they were going to lose that at all.

They have a point and I'm very excited to watch them in the playoffs.

If they roll in the first round and come like guns blazing in the second round for Cleveland

or whatever, that's going to be a lot of fun.

They have a great crowd at home.

They're going to have home court.

They got something with Jenkins that they didn't have before the All Star break where

they've turned Jenkins now into a real asset.

You know, those Kade minutes, Kade, they got to play a couple games here heading into

the playoffs.

So he's not just coming in.

Looked to good.

Flat.

I will say though, this is I want to mention that says, you know, I'm the unofficial

Zara professional sports.

I think this is another great case for the one seed in each conference.

It should be five games at home.

Two, two, three.

Because for Detroit, so let's say Philly loses to Orlando.

And now they have to play Philly in round one.

But maybe Mbede can come back.

I'd wonder who they would want to pick out of the Philly Orlando Charlotte Miami or what

if Charlotte ends up being the eighth seed and they're like, fuck, and Boston gets Philly

in Orlando's out.

It just feels like there should be some advantage toward being first that I don't think we

have.

You're preaching to the preacher.

I think the number one seed you get to pick its own opponent.

I think I'm fine with the five two home court thing in the first round.

If you play the whole 82 game season in a year where teams are not really playing the

whole 82 game season for good reasons for bad reasons.

And you come out number one and in Detroit's case number one by a pretty hefty margin in

these, you should get a bigger reward than you get.

And by the way, Detroit played its guys every game down the stretch.

They didn't have to do that.

They did it because I think they pride themselves on.

We want to stay in rhythm.

We want to stay in peak physicality and we want to deliver like we want to go in the playoffs

feeling like we didn't leave anything on the table and we're going in like full blast

and I was fun.

You know, I wonder at the end of the year if a team should get a trophy from like the

Adam Silver trophy or something for just like, I'm just proud of you guys that you gave

a shit for every week.

Thank you.

Thank you for being a role model of how the leaks should work.

You guys really cared the entire time.

Here's another reason why they should get a 223.

It's actually better for Boston the way the setup is now because the 78 game happens and

Boston's going to know from that point on who their opponent's going to be, right?

They have four days.

But if you're Detroit, now you have to wait for the eight nine.

Like it could be like, let's say Charlotte versus Orlando for the eight nine and you're

not going to know until once again Friday night.

And then we go on Sunday.

So you have the number one seed allegedly with a huge advantage, not knowing who they're

going to play on a Friday morning, having to scout two teams.

It seems stupid to me.

Phoenix Portland is the other seven eight.

And as we said before, genuinely, I think Portland could win this.

Scoot stock, by the way, my accountant just called like a half hour ago asked if I saw

the crossover in the first half when he just went right to the rim and looked like Derek

Gross, I said I did.

But Scoot again, look pretty good.

I've the looks great.

The center, the team has a nice vibe.

Not like, you know, if they win the set, if they are able to win the seven seed, put

them against San Antonio.

It's not nothing.

I don't think they'd win.

But if I'm saying Antonio, I'm like, all right, this kind of sucks.

I thought we're going to play Phoenix.

Is either a team that pleasant to play against?

I mean, it's kind of a rock fight between two mediocre offenses and tough physical defenses,

lots of turnovers, lots of fouls.

San Antonio is above, should be above caring about this and should wipe out either of those

teams in a playoff series.

But Portland's frisky, I've also held onto some Scoot stock over the years, not as much

as you.

So I've been happy to see that.

And I'll pick all the play and all the playing games on my pod, either tomorrow or Thursday

or whenever, whatever's left, I'll pick them.

And I, because it's, but it's folly to pick one game, but it's also fun.

I very well might pick Portland to win that game in Phoenix.

I have a Fando line.

You were correct.

Suns four and a half.

You claim you're out of gambling guy and you're just picking lines exactly.

Look at me.

Portland is plus one 52.

I don't know what that means.

I like it.

That means if you bet $100 and that means you went 152 if they win.

Okay.

So and then the magic sixers, sixers are one point favorites.

And then the clippers are minus three and a half against the Warriors.

Magic sixers may be the play and game on the least excited about in the history of the

play and that doesn't involve the Chicago Bulls.

Interesting.

Atlanta Charlotte playing game at one point.

I feel like that was worse.

But any game involving those two teams is just going to be there's going to be goofy offense.

Somebody might score 145.

Lamello will take some crazy shots.

There's always fun stuff going on in those games.

Well, the 910 Charlotte Miami, which is really the, but one of the worst ravers we have.

That would be a fun thing.

Top five worst ravers Charlotte Miami.

How many times did they play in the playoffs series?

They're in the same division.

I mean, they played once.

It was a seven game ugly, ugly series back in the day with it played three times.

2001 Charlotte won three nothing.

2014 Miami sweep.

LeBron's last year and then 2016, the aforementioned ugly four to three battle that Miami won.

I think that was nobody won.

Somebody just lost.

I'm gonna say Steven Jackson still there on Charlotte.

No, who was there on Charlotte to Al Jefferson?

I think big Al Jefferson.

Kenba certainly there.

Joe Henderson's probably involved.

How sad is it that this was a zeller brother?

I don't remember anything about this series other than what seven.

I had an idea for this winner.

Charlotte Miami winner advances to the eight nine loser has to take Terry Rozier back.

That's it.

He's actually at the game.

He's hanging above the arena like the world wrestling when they do the WWE, when they do

the money in the bank belt.

Terry Rozier is just in a strap hanging over the arena.

And then after the game gets lowered down and rejoins one of the two teams.

That's my that's my idea.

I don't know if you're into it.

I mean, Rozier.

It's got a booby prize game.

Look, if we're trying to gin up interest in the play and it's got it's not the worst

idea you could come up with.

It's certainly the most controversial and probably Adam Silver is going to listen to

this and be like, why?

Why did they have to say his name?

Why Miami waved him two days ago?

I know you can't hide from the news NBA.

You can't hide from the news.

We'd come back from commercial and they'd come back up to him hanging over the court

again.

There's Terry Rozier.

He said, why is he on his phone?

Where it goes?

Why is he on his phone?

What did you do?

I thought we disabled his wireless.

And then Clippers Golden State is the definition of an awesome playing game.

Steph versus Kauai 2017.

We're back, baby.

The rematch.

Kauai's revenge.

No, probably not.

You were so excited.

You texted me so excited that you were going to get a Los Angeles home Steph Clippers game.

I'm legitimately excited.

As if this was like 2014 Blake Griffin, the Sterling controversy, Chris Paul, young warriors

rise enough.

And I'm like, I just this might be the least exciting possible Clippers warriors, postseason

matchup of the last 58 is the least exciting.

But it's still Steph Curry and it's still Kauai Leonard who's going to make second team

all NBA.

Steph would have been ready in that conversation too if he hadn't got hurt.

You know, it's sad because I knew you when you were an impressionable pup.

You'd wide eyes.

You really love basketball.

Just the thought of Steph and Kauai and a do-it-die game.

What have the lady did?

And now you've been on some studio shows.

You're hanging out with Queen Wade.

Okay.

All right.

And now it's like you're too good for Steph versus Kauai.

Guess what?

I'll tell you what, Zach, low.

I'm showing up at like 530 for warmups.

I'm going to get there soon as doors open.

I'm in.

I would expect if you are there at 530, I will expect at least one tweet from the body language

doctor about Derek Jones, juniors, pregame warmup.

How's Gisanto's high five game in the warmup?

Like I just give me something.

Give me some insight.

I'm going to do multiple IG posts getting ready.

I want to watch Steph do the full court, heave shot, whatever it does.

If you're two questions off this game really quick, Ken Golden State went to in a row.

I think it is conceivable as lousy as they've been this year.

But they just beat the clippers in Portland or Phoenix back to back.

I think they can.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

If you're the Clips, do you wish you had Zubats in this game and you're never made

the trade or you still love the trade?

Love the trade.

Good value.

And we'll see how the lottery, see how the lottery unfolds.

I think that's also the right answer.

And part of that trade was they thought they'd get a Neater House or who was a bad ass

for like a week and a half and then got hurt.

But I think that was part of the reason.

It's your guy now.

That Mathurine slumped to the finish line.

He did.

Has hurt both that trade for now and also his value in the Aussies of the Ins� to see if

the clippers even resign him if the number gets to a point where they are not comfortable

with it.

I mean, it depends on what LeBron is going to want when he switches teams.

Okay.

All right.

How much money are they going to have to have left over?

I'm not.

I'm just I'm not.

I mean, do you really?

Do you really think there's a chance LeBron goes to the clippers?

I've always been told through the years hard no on the clippers.

I've said that as well.

I'm just trying to torture the clipper fans.

Sorry.

Oh, they've been through enough.

My God.

I gen.

Remember when I threw my warriors, the area you with LeBron a while ago, I don't know,

six weeks ago, I'm starting to become convinced that's going to happen.

And I think it's the expendables.

Remember when Slice alone did the action movie when he got all the older action heroes

back together.

Yeah.

And it was like never saw it.

Kind of an all-star team of older, Dolf Lunger was a bunch of people.

I'm really convinced that that's how this plays out.

Look they're looking at everybody, right?

Like Stein, I think broke the news that they looked at Kauai at the trade deadline, which

is true.

I've now confirmed that that's true.

And like if they're just like, whatever who can help Steph, who's getable for Kank

A. Janis, who could we get?

Get some Janis stuff too.

You did?

It's been all over the, but the warriors are just how much the trade preference is.

Trade preferences.

He doesn't want to be on the West Coast, which rules out my Portland area that I was really

excited about.

Okay.

That's what I heard.

Great.

And I looked at a map to back up the information I was getting.

Greece really is far from America.

It turns out that's what the map said.

Not close.

As it turns out, Greece far away.

But when you're going from Greece to America, the East Coast turns out closer to Greece than

the West Coast.

Do you want to talk?

Portland, Portland really far away.

Portland's like, you're talking 19 hours from Greece.

I don't know.

It's not, it's 19, but it's, it's long.

I'm glad that this is dawning on you.

I was going to, this is great.

Did you talk to me right away?

I was going to talk, I was going to ask if you want to talk about the Hungarian election

today.

If you really just want to get into some geopolitics or do I just, just keep, just leave that over to

the side.

Yeah.

So, um, but on the flip side, suddenly a team like Charlotte, not that far from Greece.

Oh my God.

Hey, look, they had, look, okay.

We're not doing this.

No, no, no, no, we're not doing this.

We're not doing this.

We're not doing it.

We're not doing it.

Just looking at the map and go down the eastward, eastward seaboard.

You know what I want?

I want, first of all, the bucks probably shouldn't care and don't care anymore.

And number two, give me the guy who's like, you know what?

I want Midwest.

I like it here.

Give me another Midwest team.

Deal me to Chicago.

Let me go save the bulls.

Someone has to save the bulls.

Someone has to save them from themselves.

I'll do it.

It's 100 miles away.

I'll do it.

I'm glad you mentioned the bulls.

One of five American cities with direct flights to Greece.

My least favorite major American airport, by the way.

Oh, here.

I hate oh, here.

I think mine is probably Atlanta.

It's just too big.

I don't like when I have to get on a tram to go from one terminal to another.

I don't like tramps.

I just want to land.

You know what's an amazing airport, Burbank?

Never found in a Burbank before.

Burbank, we did San Francisco Burbank.

Amazing.

You're like out and you're like in your car in a second.

Round one.

Okay.

Boston versus Philly or Orlando, those are the two choices.

If we go upset watch, let's cross up.

Okay, see your San Antonio because no round one team is beating either of them.

Okay.

Upset teams.

Minnesota, beating Denver.

Who is even favored in Lakers Houston?

I better look at that.

Lakers have home cord.

I think Houston should be favored personally.

Houston is giant favorites.

Minus 900.

So Lakers would be the upset in that.

Cleveland, Toronto.

So Toronto beating Cleveland.

Atlanta beating the next or Detroit or Boston losing to the Podge Podge teams.

What is your most upsetting?

Where's upset watch going in your opinion for you?

I mean, I think of all those series.

I'm going to just park Lakers' rockets over here because I don't, we'll see who's healthy,

who's not.

I, I, I'm tempted to say Minnesota.

I just don't have enough confidence in the state of their team over the last month.

I guess, I guess, next, I guess, next Hawks, because I think the Hawks are, are interesting.

I will pick the next to win that series, but ain't the calves who have had their playoff

bugaboo's over the years, kind of lucked into a good matchup for them in the first round

that they should be able to just no matter if Hardin comes out and has a bad game or

Jared Allen gets pushed around on the boards or whatever usual stuff happens to them.

That should just be a series they should win.

I, so I guess I would say the next.

I would as well because I just don't think Toronto has it in them to be Cleveland.

I think that would have to be a real collapse.

I will say Cleveland fits a lot of the rest of the you'd want for a playoff upset because

of their defense.

Like, that's just a great way to lose a series, not being able to guard anybody and giving

up a bunch of threes.

I'm trying to think which team would have a better chance of upsetting to trade.

And I think it's probably Charlotte, even though we just litigated how small they looked

at that.

But just the Charlotte three point shooting, the longer that series goes that they just

got hot, I would start to get scared after a while.

Plus, you're in a situation where Lamello, I don't think he would be, but it's conceivable

he could be the best player in a series, right?

Not like he would be.

I'm saying it's at least in play.

It's in play.

I keep trying to talk myself into what I thought the magic would be in the preseason,

like Franz is back, Anthony Black is back.

They've got the full complement of players.

They have a scary upside.

Their defense has been top eight in the last couple of years, not this year.

It's slipped backwards.

Their offense is actually better, but it's still kind of a mess, but they have all these

guys.

They're all healthy.

And it's just too much has happened.

So much has gone wrong.

There's just too much in there and they should be, they should be the answer to this question,

even with as well as Charlotte has played the fully healthy magic who had a 50 and a half

over under before the season should be the answer to this question.

And they're just, they just aren't.

We did bad on the over unders.

It was the worst I've ever done.

Now, but here's the thing and I'm not making excuses.

I think all the tanking really screwed up some of the record stuff, like some of the

stuff that normally works, even like one of, I had the, the unders for Washington and Brooklyn,

I think for, because I just thought they're trying to tank.

We don't, I think we all did.

The problem is with this many teams trying to tank, they end up playing each other

a bunch of times.

So you had teams getting wins that didn't even want to win.

What happened?

The Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Dallas, Golden State, those situations being where it was just

an awful year.

But now I'm really, I'm motivated to make a comeback.

I have some playoff odds for you on Fandall.

Next minus 255 for the series over Atlanta.

So that's a little row.

I would have said three to one, but minus 255 Atlanta plus 250 and win that.

And then Cleveland is minus 480 against Toronto.

Toronto is plus 370 to take that.

And then Minnesota Denver, what do you think the, you know, nothing about odds, but what

do you think the odds are for that?

Minnesota Denver.

Based on all the numbers you just threw out on those other series, I'll say like Denver

minus 500.

Denver minus 330.

Okay.

So the, so faith in faith in the wolves, my stealth contender who all, first of all,

stealth means stealth, right?

Like low chance, but possible.

Stealth is a keyword and also matchup dependent and they've just walked into a nightmarish path

to get anywhere in the playoffs.

330 is a little lower than I expected given ants up, you know, in and out of the lineup.

Jaden has just come back and I, that's a little lower than I would have thought.

I agree.

I think there's some pedigree stuff with Minnesota, just the two conference finals, which I think

is meaningful.

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Okay.

Enough for a play.

It's time.

Okay.

Last year we did it.

Last year we did it.

This will go faster this year.

We're 25 most intriguing people in the 2026 playoffs.

We did this last year and somehow picked 28.

Oh, highlights the last year.

We did it.

Categories.

So it's basically a draft.

We're going back and forth to drafting, but you have to draft a player for a specific category.

And here are those categories, America.

Apex superstar, beloved bench guy, Crossroads guy, meaning somebody who is at the Crossroads

of his career, Crossroads with his team, whatever defensive stud, feel good star, hot

seat coach, hot seat wild card could be coach or a player.

Oh, I didn't know that could be.

I didn't know that could be a player too.

It can be a human being.

Okay.

Could be an owner.

Oh, my God.

Legacy guy, second banana, third banana, the leap.

Last year I took Tyrese Halliburne as my leap guy.

He made a huge leap.

Trade machine guy.

Somebody were coming out of the playoffs, they're like, that guy's getting traded.

Weak link.

And then we each get a bonus guy who has to be mentioned.

So I gave you the first pick.

You have to pick somebody and then stick him in one of those categories.

So it's your most intriguing player assigned to a category.

So you're expecting me to come in here and get Wembee or Yokech or SGA because, you

know, I guess I want to win this, right?

Like there's, I don't know how one wins this, but you think I'm going to take one of these

names and I'm not.

I am going to for the crossroads category.

I'm starting here.

I am taking Donovan Mitchell in the crossroads category.

And I just think he's had a fascinating career.

He's made the playoffs every year of his career and has never made the conference finals.

His team, and it's not on him.

People say like he's never made the conference.

His teams have never made the conference finals.

He's had some great series.

He's had some clunkers.

His teams, particularly in Utah, both, both Utah and Cleveland have had some like pretty

epic flame outs.

I think in all, I think he's been in the playoffs eight times already, eight for eight.

His teams have won, I think just one series where you could say they beat a team as good

as them or maybe a little bit better.

And that was his rookie year when they beat the Thunder with Paul George and Russ in the

first round in six games.

They had the same record that year.

Other than that, they've lost to their peers.

They've lost two couple teams that who are worse than they haven't been anyone who's

better than them.

And look, Cleveland's obviously had kind of a checkered history with this core.

They exchanged one member of it, Darius Garland for James Hardin.

Donovan Mitchell's the guy.

I trust the most of Cleveland's best players.

Like I expect him to be great in the playoffs.

He's been great in the playoffs.

He's been at times like the only Cavalier you felt you could count on in the playoffs.

But it's just like I kind of want to see him make a run longer than he's been because

he's been such a consistently great player.

And it's a crossroads pick for me also because like if they, if they disappoint in the playoffs

again, they've already traded one of these guys.

I just don't, he's not like up for, you know, he's not a flight risk anytime soon.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying like they're just comes a point.

You've seen it with the Clippers, the Chris Paul, Blake Griffin Clippers, where like,

if you just lose too many times too early in the playoffs for what your pedigree should

be, it just starts to go sideways a little bit.

And I think Cleveland is kind of nearing that point.

And Donovan Mitchell, it just, I want to see a deeper playoff run.

That's all.

And he's had some bad losses.

I think the last couple of years were bad.

But the Clippers Utah one, we're didn't Kauai.

How many, I can't remember because I was going to have to wait.

Kauai got hurt halfway through the series.

And they still lost.

They were up two O they lost four games in a row.

And the sixth game is Terrence Mann having like an out of body experience and hitting a

million threes and just and the other, the next year when Utah limped out of the go bear

Mitchell air, Luca was hurt for part of that series.

And they still couldn't beat the maps.

That was the Brunson.

Maybe he could be have his own team.

I thought that was a really good pick.

Thank you.

I ironically had Mitchell third on my list, not first, but had him third.

And I saw the case.

I don't have for that category or for just your whole list.

But just make your probably I would have, no, I would have put in me their legacy across

right.

Here's the thing with Mitchell.

We've gone through this a couple of times with players.

How far can we go with this guy?

Chris Paul, you mentioned him.

He got in there.

I think Dame was in there too.

Even though Dame did get to the conference finals and that really weird gold state Houston

year when Durant got hurt all that, you know, and then they got swept.

But I don't think anyone felt like that was a conference finals team.

Westbrook I think was another one.

We're like, what?

How far are we going with this?

And I think Mitchell is certainly a better higher upside player than Westbrook was.

On paper, he seems like somebody who should be able to be the best guy on at least a conference

finalist.

I also think if it doesn't happen this year, I wouldn't be surprised if he's on another

team next year, which is why Crossroads, I think, was the right pick for them.

I think we both agree.

If this, if something bad happens to this team in one of the first two rounds, I'm prepared

for any outcome with any guy in that roster.

Absolutely.

Nothing, nothing would shock me if they lose.

I mean, God forbid they lose in the first round.

I expect them to win that series.

But if Detroit just, we've seen different versions of Cleveland, but with the same front

line, we've seen them get out physical and out tough in the playoffs before by big burly

teams, notably the NICS.

If that would happen again in a Detroit series, I just, all, all bets are off.

Yeah, because you could even see, I don't know, I noticed the luxury tax bill came out.

Seven teams paid the luxury tax.

The cabs had the highest luxury tax bill.

I think it was 68 million.

I don't think they're doing that again.

And then you look at some of the desperate teams around the league that want to make a

big splash.

And we'll see.

Mitchell always, like, it always seemed like he was supposed to go to the NICS went to, went

to school and Greenwich, like, famously want to be in the East Coast and then just kind

of ended up on Cleveland.

I've always been suspicious of that.

And maybe Brooklyn, how many years in a row are the size just going to be like, yeah,

we were going to suck again.

Like at some point they're going to have to make a real run at having a team.

Well, they don't have one.

They don't control their pick next year, which makes them kind of a wild card in the off season.

Look, I expect like Donovan Mitchell is resigned with Cleveland at the moment when he could.

He's got multiple years left on his deal.

Yeah, we know that doesn't mean anything though.

No, but he's also like, I don't want to make this too much of a pan.

I think he's got a lot of years left on his deal.

He said all the right things.

He's been happy there.

Who people tend to get less happy when their teams, he's got, he's actually, he's only

got next year in a player option left on his deal.

He's also showing up for them in the playoffs with other people on their team were injured

or didn't show up.

So you've got to give him credit for that.

But yeah, this is a big, a big moment for him and for the Cavs.

Yeah, a really good season.

If Luca is really in eligible, which we're just never going to find out if he's eligible

or not, he is really in eligible.

I think Mitchell's going to be my tip tie in that team.

How about this?

If we're going to take forever to make these rulings and we're going to have to litigate

this.

We're going to have to be a NBA award show when they tried to make that a thing and like

kept all the awards secret for this big award show.

Red carpet and then that they pretend like that just never happened.

We never tried that.

Let's never talk about it.

Bring it back.

If it's going to take forever, let's all get together again in July and give out some

awards.

They can get the lawyers can come out like the Ernst and Young guys and announce it in

talking, you know, who knows?

I'm going to take in my, in my apex superstar spot, I'm going to take Wembee and I do think

I liked your Mitchell case.

I had Wembee first on my ballot.

I think he is by far the most intriguing guy in these playoffs.

I wrote down on my notes is this is 1975 JAWS moment.

It's just the moment when we are releasing a summer blockbuster and it's going to make

a cajillion dollars and be known as one of the best films of its kind and we're always

going to remember this was the year it came out.

Or we're going to wait a year or two years.

Who knows?

I'm old enough to remember when it seemed like Samson or Lajewan were going to be around

forever in that last of the year.

I never trust any sort of long term anything when big guys are involved and I know right

now he has a really good team that's been kicking ass in January first.

He was the best part I saw in person this year.

I'm not voting for MVP but he was the best single performance I saw in person this year.

My questions are can he play 35 to 37 minutes a game in the playoffs which I think he's

going to have to do for this team to win?

You're going to have to rip through this Denver O.K.C. whoever comes out of the East

gauntlet went for in a row.

My question for you if they make the finals and he's age 22 but they lose in the finals

is that season still a huge win for him because I would say it is.

Oh my God.

Yeah, absolutely.

Even though you talk it out and you think they lost to an Eastern Conference team in

the finals they'd be favorite.

You get to the finals with this young group of guys and a couple of veterans would be

a massive win.

Great pick.

I'm jealous you got Wembee.

He also doesn't really fit any other category like he's too young for the legacy guys.

He's too good for the defensive stud category.

He's already made the leap.

I'm don't know if there's probably another leap coming but that it just the only category

you can really it maybe feel good star could be but he doesn't feel right for that.

So you got him in the right category.

The other thing that we should just mention really quick and why you know I'm always excited

for the NBA playoffs.

I think of the last time a new guy was in the playoffs that was kind of can't miss.

I don't care who San Antonio plays every round.

I'm not missing a minute of the spurs in the playoffs and I think the last guy was probably

Curry out of the new guys obviously going back to the 2000s there were others but when

Curry and we were working together at Grantland I think it was your first year when Curry had

kind of his breakout that year when they upset Denver and then they lost to San Antonio

and at some point there in that it became like I'm not missing a Curry playoff game anymore

just period and I feel that way about Wembee.

I think Wembee out of all the guys that are in the playoffs.

I don't want to miss Wembee or Yoke age one minute of any playoff game with those guys.

I felt that way about Luca when he first cracked the playoffs with Dallas and he lived

up to the high.

That's good.

I should have mentioned him.

Yeah, you're right.

That's good.

But it was was it in the bubble?

First playoffs in the bubble.

Yeah, you're right.

That's good call.

My apologies to Luca.

All right.

You have the next pick.

All right.

I'm going to pick Yoke and I have him in the legacy category.

That's the right category.

And I think it's the right pick and for just this just this reason only and I was hoping

the seeds would fall this way for this pick because he is a three time MVP.

He probably should be a four time MVP.

I don't think he's going to win this year.

He's going to get closer.

You can get second again probably.

I think before the season said he's already one of the 10 greatest players of all time.

I don't think that's premature to say that and I went over this on my pod last week.

If you look at all the guys who have won three or more MVP's, it's a very short list.

Every one of them but Moses Malone has more than one ring and I think that's one of the

reasons why Moses Malone doesn't get mentioned enough in these like all time great conversations.

And that's nothing against Yoke.

If you replayed the 21 and 22 seasons with the fully healthy nuggets, it feels like they

get one of those titles potentially like one of those may have belonged to them.

You can make same argument about the Clippers, but at some point he's going to, I don't

know if he's going to have to get a second ring to enter that kind of stratosphere because

he's just been this good.

I just think if he does and if he does it this season by running through this gauntlet of

teams, the entire conversation about him goes even up another level where some of the

most how-load names in the league begin to not only be mentioned alongside him, but

maybe a little bit behind him, but that's if, right?

That's if and at some point I do think he'll make another run to the finals and if it's

this year, we're going to be having some pretty high level conversations about him after

the finals.

Yeah, I think I'm dealing with two picks.

No, that's you made all the right points.

I would have made all the same ones.

Moses is a great comparison because he was the best part of the league for five years

and had some bad luck with the team.

He was on only one one title, only one finals.

He made the finals like a 41 team, but for five years he was the best guy in the league.

Yochuch has been the best guy in the league for this entire decade.

He's either been one or two depending on who got super hot that year or whatever else

was going on.

I did a tweet this week about this weekend about if he's second in MVP, if he finishes

number two, which I think is conceivable that he'd be the third player ever to be first

or second MVP for six straight years, the other two are wrestling bird.

There's only, he would be I think the sixth guy ever to just have six top two MVP finishes.

I think MVP finishes are super important.

It's a good way to look at who actually had real impact.

It's easy to be like, oh, this guy was amazing, but go look at where they stay in the season.

This is the thing that is probably the worst for Curry's top 10 case is he kind of doesn't

have enough like top three, top four MVP's.

If you're really putting him against everybody, it's the one thing you can do.

You can ding him on and for Yoke, it's just the finals.

By the way, by the way, you look back and you go, he only won one title.

What happened?

And you weren't there to see how devastated the Murray injury was because it took two

playoffs away from him.

And the other thing I was out to dinner with some guys in Denver last night, Nuggets

fans.

They wanted the third seed and they wanted the gauntlet.

And I thought it was interesting why I don't know if the team probably doesn't care about

this, but they are so sick of hearing about how Denver had an easy road to the first

championship.

How they got to face two play in teams along the way, including in the finals that they

now want the they they're they're not getting greedy.

They're like, if we're going to win it again, I want to win it the hardest way possible.

And and it just got me thinking about not only Yoke itch and the MVP in history, but like

if they actually did this against these teams, what it would mean for for the whole franchise.

The gauntlet's good.

I mean, my favorite Celtic team ever was the 87 team the year after they won in 86 when

they had to they basically had a seven game war against Milwaukee, a seven game war against

Detroit.

And then they had to put the Lakers and they didn't beat the Lakers, but it was like just

that pulled the most out of them.

They're almost broken down at the end.

And it was a real championship run.

Um, you know, this Nuggets teams a little younger.

I think they could survive other things.

I think there's more chances here.

But Yokech has just had the best year of his career and he's probably not going to win

the MVP.

Um, the offensive stats I was doing all the work this weekend trying to figure out a vote

for.

And the offensive stats are just like you just can't even believe it.

It's like you're just like, you're just like, oh my god, like true shooting.

I just pick any stat are like, oh my god.

This guy's created over what do you, he 28 points a game in 12 a.c.

Created like over 50 points a game of offense.

And I'll say it.

I'll say it again.

The defense is the best rebounder.

Their defense has not been good enough in the last 20 games, whatever problematic.

Maybe it's a wait till the playoffs thing.

Maybe whatever.

Like if you're, if you're just focusing on that, what you're missing is like, they're

making it look so easy on offense, no matter who they play that it's a, it's actually

a little bit scary.

It's some of these games are like, it's like shooting fish in the barrel.

It's, it's just too easy for them that if they actually ramp up their defense at all,

like Peyton Watson gets healthy, whatever, they can absolutely win the title.

It's just a hard road.

So that's my, that's my pick.

Denver 12 to 1 to win the title.

Okay, see is plus 125 San Antonio's plus 480 and the Celtics are plus 550.

Cleveland is 10 to 1.

That was the other one.

Cleveland's odds drop because of how the playoffs played out with Toronto, which I thought

was interesting.

Okay, really good pick.

You're doing a great job.

Thanks, Scott.

I'm going to be proud.

I have to take Tatum here because it's a, it's a most intriguing draft.

Okay.

And I'm going to put him in the feel good star category.

He was my number one pick for that category.

I was actually going to take, I might have, it was, it was going to take him next round.

We don't need to talk about Tatum.

Everybody knows the stakes.

This was one of the craziest comebacks I've ever seen.

And in some ways, he's even better than he was before he left.

Another way, he's not like, I thought that next game, he had a lot of trouble going,

buying around in an OB, which I thought was notable.

Like there's a certain way to defend him that I just don't think he's 100% comfortable

with the first step yet.

Everything else is back.

The rebounding is back, the passing is back.

And he's just so much better than I thought he was going to be.

I was like, boy, it would be nice if he was a rich band Sam Hauser.

And it's like this guy's one of the 10 best rebanners in the league already and playing

defense and the passing and, and, you know, just is a really meaningful athlete to Boston

fans and Celtic fans and at the games.

And everyone's just really invested in this.

So the longer it goes, I think it can be pretty special.

That's the right pick.

You would have been a good second banana pick maybe the way this year has gone, but just

the right category for him.

I was going to take him next round, but you taking him in this round allows me to make

the most obvious pick, but load up my roster.

Apex superstar, because I took Yokech for a legacy guy.

Apex superstar, I'll just take SGA, just sitting there, low hanging fruit, I'll take

him.

Everything I said about Yokech, it legacy, what happens to him if he levels up.

He's probably I would say going to win his second MVP.

If he finishes that with back to back titles, breaking the leagues, no repeat streak and

back to back finals MVP's.

We're talking like I saw some pleats today.

He already won the 25 best players in the league.

That conversation is going to go zoom in in a different or is zoom in higher than that.

If this postseason goes that way.

So look, I got Yokech, I got SGA, I'm taking SGA Apex and there's no other category

for him.

This is the only category I think where he fits.

So I'm taking him here.

I just did my pyramid, I just updated it for the playoffs and I have him in level four

and I have him 30th.

Okay.

And I think that's the right area, but I think if they win a second title and he's two

time back to back MVP, back to back titles, back to back finals MVP's.

He's in the top 25 and that's it.

That's not arguable.

That's just where he ends up because now we're talking about some real shit that only a handful

of guys have done in the history of the league.

Good pick.

I have no notes.

I also think he could have been if there's a category of who could be dinged by these

playoffs, that would have been an interesting one.

Like if he just sucks in the San Antonio series or you know, there's some other outcomes

so then we're like some Ivan Drago, the Russian cut outcomes, which you could feel a little

bit over in December when they played the spurs a couple of times like, huh.

But then so, so if we have a seven foot five alien, we can stop this guy.

But that's the only time you felt that way.

And I just I just never worry about him having a bad game and even his bad games were like,

he shot eight for 21 and still got 10 free throws and finished with 29 points.

And then you know, the next game he's going to play, but he just never has two bad games

in a row.

Defense is a constant.

Anyway, that's an obvious pick.

I changed my mind on my MVP pick 230 times this weekend.

I forgot to tell you.

Are you going to finish that story or are you just going to leave it hanging there?

Still haven't decided.

Okay.

This is for my weakling pick.

Oh boy.

You get it.

No, you know what?

I'm going to go hot seat wild card.

Oh, I'm jealous because I have I'm going I have two guesses for who you're going to pick.

And I'll just pick the other one later.

Deer and Fox.

Oh, you went not coach.

Okay.

Went not coach.

Okay.

Hot seat wild card.

Deer and Fox.

I've talked about this on the pod and the past don't need to belabor it, but this is the

guy to watch on this first team as we start climbing levels and seeing how high they

can go.

Somebody who used to be one of the best clutch guys in the league who had the offense

running through them in the Kings who now has to figure out when to pick his spots on

this team with the semifoot six alien on it.

And there's been some signs, some, oh, signs for me watching them.

If I like if I'm a spurs fan, the ball seems to find him a lot in big moments.

And I'm not always sure who's going to deliver.

And I'm just really interested to see how it plays out because ultimately when you go

in these playoffs and you'll see it like when it's Hawks cat, when it's Hawks nicks,

ultimately that game's going to come down to CJ versus Jalen Brunson, right?

And if you're a Hawks fan and you're in these tight games with three minutes left, you're

going to have the subiphany where you're like, fuck, we have CJ who's a good player and

they have Jalen Brunson, who's second team on B.A.

We're kind of at a disadvantage here.

If Fox is the guy deciding offense for them, but now I'm going against Yokeage or SGA,

I just don't like my chances as much.

And I think it's a lot of pressure for him.

And he could be the lightning rod if things don't go well in a series, especially when

we have 48 hours, 72 hours between games.

And he has like a three for 16, 0 for six from three, game four, start of sports center,

start of all the shows, start of all the pods.

What's up with Darren Fox?

Should they bench him?

Just interested to see how it goes if it goes wrong.

And it might not go wrong.

Yeah, should we bench him feels a little far fetched to me?

In the podcast era, what are you talking about?

Okay, fair.

In the hot take studio show era, that will absolutely be a topic.

I'll just say this, like I had him on the list for my candidates for the trade machine

pick.

The problem there being he has four years left on his contract after this at a gigantic

number.

I've actually been completely fine with how he's played this year.

I dipping down to 33% from three is a little disappointing given he started higher than

that.

I think he's just done a good job at fitting in and not forcing anything and gradually

developing a better chemistry with Wembee.

I don't think he's ever going to be tasked with, okay, man, now we need like we need to

run every offensive possession through you.

It's crunch time.

You were clutch player of the year two years ago, three years ago, whatever.

I don't think this team is built like that and that's fine.

But he's being paid a salary of that level of player for many years going forward.

And the spurs, although they're thrilled to have this sort of like present all star,

Deer and Fox now two young guards rising up behind him.

Nobody's over taxed.

The young guys don't have to do too much.

At some point that equation starts to wobble when the young guys get ready and expensive.

And it's just it's only natural.

And you know, you just never know when the time is going to come.

So he was on my list for that category and I don't disagree with a lot of your reasoning.

I also just don't worry about him much in terms of like underperforming.

Yeah, and from an aggregation standpoint.

I'm glass half full on Fox with this team.

I'm just trying to look at if things start to go wrong, what would people point at?

And that seems to be the one.

But I actually like him on this team.

And I think if they didn't have him, you would still want a guy like him.

Somebody who's a little older, somebody who's been in some situations, he's competitive.

I think he's a, you know, he's a legitimately good point guard.

And this is an awesome spot for him.

They actually need him.

They need him at the end of games.

You know, that he's just got to figure out, how do I pick my spots and how much do I take over?

How much do I defer?

It's I don't end being because he'll be the lightning rider, but doesn't work out.

All right, you're up.

I'm deciding if I want to make a good pick or just an annoy you pick.

And I think I'm going to just annoy you and take Peyton Fritchard as my beloved bench guy.

Just so you can have him and and and obviously he's been phenomenal all season,

whether he started or come off the bench, his paint game, one on one game is reaching

Paul Bunyan level proportions at this point.

And he's massively important to arguably the best team in the Eastern Conference.

So I will take him off the board for you.

I was delighted that he had a really good.

Next game against a team that he has always sucked against.

I thought that was weirdly important that he finally put one on the board because they're

going to definitely see him.

All right, let's get crazy.

My next pick is Jalen Williams.

Which one?

J. Dub.

You know what, I'm not going to get that crazy.

I'm going to have fuck it.

I'm going to take him as my trade machine guy.

I like it.

Just for fun.

Just for shits and gays.

It's not just for fun.

It's not just for fun.

Don't do that.

You got something to grow in in your head.

Okay, so he has a lot of money to spend over these next couple of years.

And I just sometimes I wonder like if if it doesn't work out for them this year, how does

that play out?

I also couldn't think of another place to put him because I didn't want him as my second

banana.

Look, he's looked good lately.

I don't think there's a lot to worry about here, but I also think it's going to be really

hard to have three max guys plus case on wall as plus all these draft picks.

And I do wonder like if you're going to take a huge swing, what is what does that look

like?

Now if they win the title again, they're not trading anybody.

But who knows?

I'm just trying to loosen the draft.

Look, there's a reason why I have a stool softer pick.

I'm just losing things up.

There's a reason my trade machine list is loaded with guys on the thunder that are

not jade up, but are like door and Wallace and AJ Mitchell, just guys that they can fling

around the league.

I'm not going to go to that category.

Now I'm going to go chalk in in my second banana category for reasons that need not to

be elaborated on at all.

I will pick Carl Antidie Towns is my second banana intriguing for the playoffs.

Team is built to win now.

Team fired.

It's coached despite its first conference finals appearance in forever.

Up and down season, he seems to be the subject of a team wide existential crisis every two

weeks has actually finished strong enough that I would put him third team all NBA right

now.

His defense has been, this has been a pretty solid defensive couple of months for him.

And you just know that by game, maybe by game two of the first round there, we will have

an existential crisis of like why did he only take four shots in the last three quarters

of that game or why are they not running the Brunson Towns pick and roll enough, which

they've been running a lot lately.

We shall see how it goes against the Hawks.

But he's had ups and downs in the playoffs to say the least.

I think he's turned some corners in that regard over the last couple of years and got a little

more consistent, made some huge shots last year along the way.

But he's still one of the more enigmatic second banana types in the league.

And I'm proud to have him on my roster.

You and I both know a lot of next fans and you live in Connecticut.

So you're around them probably 50% of techs I get from next fans are about towns.

But sometimes like positive like excited that they think towns, good things are happening

with town.

So he's figured it out.

I think this is Atlanta matchup.

I think this Atlanta matchup is a good matchup for him.

I don't think it's a great matchup for the next relative to what they could have drawn.

But it'll be interesting to see how the Hawks guard him.

But if they guard him like they guarded him the last time they played last week, it's

a good matchup for him.

And the Nick should lean into his offense more.

So I'm optimistic.

This is an optimistic, hopeful pick of cat.

I need to get this guy off the board before you take him.

It's a little early.

And I'm taking him for third banana.

But I also think he's super intriguing for these playoffs because I think he's a ceiling

changer.

I think you're going to take my guy.

Yeah, I sure am.

You can say hi to him in Denver right now.

Oh, it is all no.

Yeah.

Yes.

He's the superpower of this Denver team.

He looks like he's back.

And you could and Yokeh physically looks like he's back.

And I think this might be the most healthy they've had all three of those guys at the same

time playing well that I can remember.

Since they won the title.

So for that was three years ago.

It feels like he just gets slightly better every year.

And there's been guys like this over in Bay history that just as they get older, they

age like a fine one.

And he's one of them.

I just feel like every year he's gotten 5% better.

So that's my third banana pick.

I mean, he needs us to say he was my number one choice for this category.

And I've almost already taken him twice and I'm angry that you took him.

I'm glad I got paid in preacher.

Maybe I'll start just take maybe I'll just make a run of Celtics despite you.

Maybe just just get resentful.

Maybe I'll take Google now is my defensive stud.

This is just a smile.

Wow.

I'm not doing that.

I'm not doing that.

Let's see.

Let's see.

Let's see.

I'm going to go back to back bananas.

Okay.

And for my third banana, I will go back to back Nix.

I guess one could argue if he's the true third banana.

But the other noisy Nick dialogue is all about McCale Bridges because of the 5 first

round picks because of the like last six weeks where it's like, did he not crack double

figures again?

And just they need him to be not only a more reliable score, but a more when they're

flowing, he's just more involved in the offense.

Both as a secondary ball handler as like a a playmaker and open space.

He's just more involved and they're going to need that version of him.

And just like cat, if they don't get it, like just in general, if this playoffs goes poorly

for the Nix, if they lose to the Hawks in the first round, which is not impossible.

If they lose to Boston in the second round, there would be no shame in that, right?

Like Boston's been the best team in the East for the last 40 games.

It's a good matchup for the Nix.

But there certainly be no shame in it.

There would certainly be like an organization wide stain of we fired the coach into this

really dramatic stuff and took and are out around earlier.

And we traded five first round picks for this guy and Janus is still sitting out there.

I just feel like there's going to be a lot of McCale Bridges noise.

And so he's going to be, you know, Annanobi could be a third banana for them.

I'm taking the kill bridges.

Interesting.

I feel like Annanobi is their third banana, but maybe in the playoffs, it becomes bridges.

I don't know.

I guess they're both third bananas.

Maybe they're on that team, they're both third.

Well, that's, that's the, sometimes real and sometimes theoretical strength of the

Nix.

They just have a lot of very good players.

And he's one of them.

He's certainly given the ball handling load he showed he could take in Brooklyn is sort

of more tailor made for like a banana 2.5 kind of role that he just hasn't played enough

for them.

You can tell that I'm just the Nix are just the most interesting puzzle to me in the NBA.

Them are the calves.

And so it's not a coincidence that I've drafted to Nix.

Well, there's also their storylines with them that include they haven't won the title

since 1973.

They are looming as a semi blow it up team.

They're looming as a Janus possible destination.

They're looming as a possible dawn of a Mitchell destination.

They're looming as just a destination.

I'm prepared for anything with the Nix that they lose and round one or round two.

I listen, you started out really well on this draft and the board has just been breaking

for me perfectly ever since and you know, like, no, I do.

I'm just excited that you left this guy in the board for me for the hot seat coach category.

I'm a doca.

I've not been impressed by the coaching of this team this year.

The chemistry doesn't seem great.

I think the offense is just been bizarre.

I don't understand why they have why email hasn't just said I have to sink or swim with

reach shepherd because I don't have Fred Band-Bleet and it's going to be impossible to win

even two straight rounds without a real point card and he's just doing it his way.

They put a staggering amount of miles and minutes on Amen Thompson who led the league in

minutes this year and Kevin Durant, who's 37 years old, who I think was like seventh

and minutes.

No, they were one two.

They were one two the last time I checked.

Oh, Jesus.

Hard minutes.

It's like a total minutes.

Right.

I like he Kevin Durant's running to the corner and just setting up shop watching other people

on the play.

He's dribbling the ball up against people like Jada McDaniels and shit like that.

I don't understand half the shit this team has done all season and I don't understand

the reach shepherd thing at all.

I don't care if he's weak for you on defense.

You're putting miles and unnecessary crunch time issues on your team and it's like you

took reach shepherd third either either he has something or he doesn't but you have to

find out this year you're not winning the title.

So I just don't understand it and I would be very unsurprised if he was not their coach

next year.

Remember for this category last year I took Tom Tipido and you did a triple take backwards

and I was proven correct.

I think they're they've backed into it.

Not that they won nine out of ten.

They haven't backed into anything but they have a good first round matchup and I think

if they win a playoff series and play a pretty honestly competitive second round playoff

series despite all the offensive infrastructure stuff that we spent all year talking about

the crunch time disasters and whatever would vanfully injured and finney Smith being a complete

nothing.

I think they would walk him and I think they'd be fine giving you may another year.

It's it's a it's not a completely off the wall pick.

What if they lose to LeBron and the Lakers in round one in a series that look at that

church plays two games or no games and by the way would there be would there be with

I mean email trash talk LeBron multiple times in games.

I feel like he kind of wants to fight LeBron.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's just something there and if they're losing who the hell knows it's not it's it's it's

it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's

The evening came off the two guys that could come off the bench and actually get into

a fight with a player him and Joe Mazula.

I think Joe Mazula it's anytime there's any sort of an altercation I was worried but this

happened in 1975 in the finals when Al Al Adles came off the bench and fought Mike Reardon

and got ejected by the way.

Okay.

You're up.

I'm so excited.

The leap.

The leap.

I could take this guy in multiple categories.

I have a feel good star that I want to take in that category, but you've already filled

that category, I believe.

So I'm strategically shoving this pick down the road.

I know you wish you had this guy in your roster.

So I'll take him in the leap category.

Steph Castle will be my leap guy and I'll just pen him in.

Damn it.

I don't even need to explain it.

He's might be like my favorite non top 10 player in the league to watch.

I just everything about him is insanely entertaining to watch.

And I know one thing, can nitpick is shooting, nitpick is turnovers, can nitpick is passing,

can't nitpick is assist passing, can't nitpick is pain scoring.

One thing I know for sure is that dude is not afraid of anything.

That's about to hit them into playoffs.

He wants all of it.

He's not afraid of any player.

He's not afraid of any opponent.

He's not afraid of any scheme.

He's not afraid of having a always shot.

He started 0 for 8 in his first career playoff game.

Is he going to get rattled?

No, no, he's not.

So he's my leap guy.

I spent a half hour making sure it wasn't absurd to put him on third team on NBA and the

answer was it's not.

I would encourage anyone questioning whether he should be on an all NBA team with all the

guys that are now missing.

Seam in person once.

It all makes sense if you see him in person.

I didn't and count league pass two because I watched a lot of spurs this year because

of Wembee.

I never saw that guy take a split second off.

Even today in that Denver game, there was a stretch where he was just getting offensive

rebounds.

But they were surrounded by all these taller guys and he just kept jumping up over people

and getting offensive rebounds given them the people.

I love stiff castle.

That's a really good pick.

I did have him.

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Okay.

I'm going to have to do it.

You did this last year, so don't feel like I'm cheating.

If you want me to just confine it to one player, that's fine.

No.

What would you want to do?

This is for the crossroads guy.

And again, I'd be in the playoffs for all we know.

But I'm taking Palo and I'd like to really take him with France.

That's because I feel like if this week goes badly for Orlando, I do not think these two

guys will be teammates next year and they will just have to make some hard decisions.

I think this is a stealthy honest team.

I think it's a stealth.

Hey Sacramento, you give us the fourth pick in the draft and we'll give you Palo.

Let's dance.

I'm just prepared for anything with this, but I think they would have to take a hard

look at whether it makes sense to build a team around these two guys together.

I think they probably have and are doing it, not even pending the playoffs.

I had him, I was going to take him in my trade machine pick for all the reasons you outlined.

Okay.

I'm fine with you can have both him and France.

He was a little too young for me in the crossroads category.

And as always, by the way, Palo has always shown up big in the playoffs.

And I think that's one of the good, that's one of the interesting reasons to take him here.

There are pretty spotty regular season.

The last couple of months have been better than the ones that came before it.

Fit with France is still kind of TBD.

But on underman teams, that dude has always shown up and not just in a like, oh, he had to

take 30 shots and he got a pretty inefficient 35 points.

Like he's showing up on both ends of the floor and played pretty well.

And that guy is still in there.

Obviously, so it's a good pick and I had him on my trade list.

Yeah, because they could lose the Philly and they could lose to Charlotte and be out of

the playoffs on Friday night.

And at that point, the wheels and the trade machine will come off.

All right, you're up.

It's time for another spite pick.

I contemplated him for leap.