Ryen Russillo
Appearances
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Look, I'm not an insider. I think just there was a younger version of me egotistically, maybe a little insecure in the business where I was like, well, I heard. Then I got to know Woj. I got to know his daily sacrifice. And I was like, it's wrong of me to dip my toes into his world. Yep, stolen valor. Right, just because I have access, right? Like, I don't go on CNBC because I day trade.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Are you good at it? Here's what I'm telling you. If I put the right, if I had more screens, I'd be better. Yeah. But I'm hearing big time rumblings.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Just whoever you have a contact with in the league, because I've never talked to more teams than those 48 hours after that trade on Saturday night. Like I was hearing from guys I hadn't talked to in years.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It still makes no sense, right? So, look, we've been in New Orleans all week. Every single thing I've gone to, all anybody wants to talk about is Luka.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Bobby Marks had to be like, he's not hacked. He's like, I need a third source to confirm this about the original tweet.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Right, because if it had sent until we joked on Saturday after it happened that Bronny would have been in it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He would have said yes.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I know that must have hurt.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You're just girthy, dude. You're not even fat.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
270 is not bad at all. On 6'7"? I'd be 270 if I could. Yeah. Right now, I'm not even 6'7".
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, but BMI, there was a new thing I read today. It was like, finally, you're like, oh, you think it might be a little outdated for jack people? Yeah. Scientists. Yeah. Muscle. But is it just he hated Luca? Yeah. It seems like it. I mean, I think everything is out. There's other conspiracy theories. And I love, you know, when somebody is really smart and they're really good at making a point.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And then everybody was like, hey, did you hear about this like casino thing and like the moving around? And then you're like, OK, Maybe. Maybe. Or, because it's so convincing, right? But I always have this issue with making this simple thing difficult. And I think those of us that do this for a living like to do that at times. And this guy wasn't even, I don't even think, a media member.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But you're like, do you think they want to leave Dallas? Do you think they want to leave the Dallas market? And so we get a major league on our hands here? Like, of course they don't. They want the expansion teams. For Vegas. Yeah, but they want the money paid. When you expand, those two new owners have to write these massive checks.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't know if you've heard about this one. Of course I've heard about it. I've had it sent to me by people being like, checks out.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I like when somebody shares it with you like they got it in a source that no one else has already seen a hundred times.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Here's what I think is the funniest part about it. Is that I guess Niko wanted to keep it a secret because he was afraid people would get mad if they found out. I don't know. But he was like, don't tell anyone. Yeah, he thanked Palenka for keeping it quiet. And you're like, what did you think Palenka was going to do? Start telling other people?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The other thing that I always think is insane with rebuilds in the NBA is we need everybody to be on the same timeline age-wise. So you go... So if, like, in theory, Ant were available, he's too young to play next to Kyrie. Now, granted, positionally, a fit center in AD and Kyrie.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's very clear that Nico's background in the guys that he's had relationships with, like he said, I don't do anything scary. I'm like, you did the single scariest transaction in the NBA two years ago by being the one team that's like, yeah, we'll trade stuff for Kyrie Irving. And it's worked out. And I think it's worked out because of that relationship.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Clearly, the AD relationship goes all the way back. The Palenka relationship goes back 20-plus years. You know, everybody's read all the same stuff about how, like, Niko was obsessed with Kobe, made it work. The Palenka-Kobe deal where Kobe's, like, telling Palenka, go start your own thing. I'm coming with you. Like, these guys have been...
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
um, you know, and not a weird way, but like collectively in bed in this basketball world for a really long time. But like at some point you have to have someone close to you that can, that can go, Hey, even if you don't love Luca, even if you love a D that, silence is not the play here.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, like, every time there's a big trade, and granted, it's more in the NBA than any other sports, but it used to happen in baseball when it was a more active trade deadline. But when the insider goes on TV, like, it just happened with De'Aaron Fox. Shams goes on, Windhorse goes on, whoever goes on, it's like, look.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
People around the league are starting to tell you Sacramento definitely looking at offers and maybe open for business on De'Aaron Fox. A lot of times that comes from the team. They want the guy to go on, advertise to the rest of the league that this guy is available. The idea that if it got out, it hurts their leverage is bullshit. This is unfathomable to so many different teams around the league.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
This should be an auction. It should be a public auction. It should be updated every fucking day. The Lakers, as Windhorse reported, saying that they went to Dallas and said, we can't give you the second first because we don't know if he'll sign an extension.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Then if you're Nico, you go, okay then, then you can walk away from acquiring Luka Doncic at 25 years old in a trade that is unprecedented historically.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You can say no to me. And instead, Nico was like, yeah, you're right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, that's the other thing, is that I spend a lot of time, I mean, I don't really talk to anybody about it, but they're like, oh, look at this guy's numbers. I'm like, that guy's a loser. Oh, he had 30 points again? Cool. Do you watch all the other shit that he does wrong? This guy has a laundry list of losing plays inside of a basketball game.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, I know you're upset about the Zach Levine thing. No, I'm not upset. But, you know, he's played in, what, four playoff games in his career? So, like, we're sitting around. This league has a lot of dudes that put up huge, huge numbers, but they do it on their own terms. They don't pay attention to anything else. They've never even heard of an off-ball cut to save their lives.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
No. It sounds very mean. Well, Jordan Poole is, like, I joke that if he went to confession, he'd be like, what is this? because there's just no... No conscience. There's zero. I mean, he's the most dangerous player in the NBA. I love him. I love watching him play. It's actually not entertaining. No, it is. I can't imagine being a teammate. I'd want to get on the plane at one point.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, are you fucking serious, man? So anyway, the point is, is there's a lot of players that get a lot of pub that were like, well, he must be good because look at his line and look at all these things he's done. And they've done nothing. They've never sniffed anything. Maybe a playoff fluky run Luca with a team three years ago. That's third option was Reggie Bullock. Okay. Like,
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That team made it to the Western Conference Finals. And then this team gets through OKC. It gets through Minnesota. And it plays, you know, it was a bad matchup against Boston. That Boston team was really, really good. But this guy was actually going on the playoff runs. Right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So all these other guys are like, I can think, you know, sometimes I think there's guys that are good that are on bad teams and other guys I think that are frauds. This guy's not a fraud.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, that's what he brings. Right. I mean, that was alarming. It was also weird because I think the Celtics knew because, I mean, it's pretty obvious by their approach. Like, we're going to just kill this guy. I'm out. The Celtics also had like five to seven guys with a ball in their hands that you actually have to worry about off the dribble, not just spot up guys.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So you can make a target that you're hunting move more when you're as good as the Celtics are. So, those video clips, like, okay, fine, but I can do the same thing with a ton of other players that don't even sniff the first or second round. Right, right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That matchup was tough for them, but I think just team to team it was a tough matchup because it was like the first team. I mean, they had Tatum guarding their center while Tatum was playing point guard. And, like, I was at two of the games, and it was funny because Dallas at one point was like, oh, wait, maybe we can attack Tatum on the post.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And it's like, cool, you're going to run Gafford post-ups and take the ball out of Lucas' hands, take the ball out of Kyrie's hands. Like, you're playing right into what they want to do. But I think PFT, your point is just like, okay, you want to call him fat? Fine. You want to say he's not committed enough? Fine. You want to say he argues the refs?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, dude, pick a guy that doesn't argue with the refs. Like, it's always shocking when you go, oh, so-and-so doesn't argue all that much. I mean, sure. Okay, fine. All great stuff. Call other fucking teams. Right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think Ainge would have done like Tatum after he won an NBA championship with him.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't know. I mean, he never would tell you the truth or anything. I don't know if Boston could after just winning with Tatum, knowing that Tatum's always in shape, plays every game, plays defense. You just want a title. Their window is still open.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. Max aura. Not your Max. Unattainable aura.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I love that discussion. I love that first take. Whose team is it? Yeah, whose team is that? Bronny. When Dwayne Wade spent like two years doing interviews and then like another 10 years after, he's like, well, the team didn't really click until I sacrificed.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He's like, oh, you sacrificed against the guy who at the time is the best version we've ever seen of him. That's arguably like. Again, we know we're sitting here. He's number two probably all the time. There's definitely a clip that runs in two years, right? Luke is out of shape. He gets hurt again. There's questions about the extension. He's miserable.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He actually doesn't like L.A., which would be shocking to me. I think he's probably going to hang out with all the hockey players and move to Manhattan Beach. But I – We know what it could be. I mean, maybe Dallas goes on. I really like this team when they were healthy this year was a good team. They had an awesome offseason. The trades were great for them.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
There is a version of events that can definitely happen. So remember how everybody thought this and Nico was right, whatever that could happen. I'm open to it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Dude, how about Allie LaForse on the call of the Mavs Celtics game last night, like having a moment where she was like, you know, everybody just wants to remind you that Saturday night's home game for Dallas, like these people have families. Be responsible. Right. I know. And like, this is quite the message. Anyway, having said all those things, um,
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
you still will never be able to defend the process. Right, the process is bad. The execution of this is indefensible. But then I think about Luca, like, is this this wake-up call for him?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
A lot of taxes. 13.5% state.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, I think so, over a million, yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
This does remind me of Roman times, though.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Sula, where he was like... I thought you were talking about Jim. No, there's no friend that's ever served me, no enemy that's ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That is powerful.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Just finished the trilogy. But I can't get the authors on. I wanted to do like a three-part thing. Were they dead? No, I did Pax. I did Rubicon. I did Storm Before the Storm. So I just wanted to, like, you know, what I do is I chart it out. And then I'm like, which years am I missing?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
No, actually, when I saw the memes, I felt a responsibility.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
do your research i was like you know what like a lot of people think this is funny yeah but it isn't and if you look at like the different forms of government like is it better to live under the guise of democracy with you know ultimately a dictatorship yeah you know which again speaks to bread and circus do you feel strongly about the the republic versus democracy debate um
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, I don't know, man. I think at some point, I mean, not to go full dictator on you, but I think at some point somebody has to make the final decision.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, cause I just think that, you know, there's a lot of stuff in history. You go through it and you're like, you think this is a collective.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. World War II museum yesterday in new Orleans went by myself was shocked. It wasn't busier with people from the media. Some people like to party with booze and drugs and women. And I like to party with history.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, he was sending me a picture of like a... Just an airplane? I took like 20 pictures. No, there's an airplane. There were several airplanes. You bought it?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, thank you, Ryan. The shirt, and that's my dog tag.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, that's an MRE right there.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
At first I was afraid I was, I would die. And then I was afraid I wouldn't. Oh, that's good. Anonymous Soldier World War II.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Anyway, how about that Central Division?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I like that. We just did this the other day, the surprise list. So who's not a surprise? OKC's not a surprise. Boston's not a surprise. Cleveland's not a surprise. I think Denver's the fourth team. When Denver has Aaron Gordon and this version of Jamal Murray, even with a diminished bench, it's like you can't rule, especially, you know, look at the depth, the extra days off.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Depth isn't as big of an issue. Yeah. Michael Porter Jr. is hit or miss to me. I think I like him less and less, even though he's so important to what they do because of stretching the floor. Westbrook has been really good in these minutes because of the energy. I think he's finally kind of accepted who he is a little bit so he doesn't force the issue the way he would with some of the other guys.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think he's more differential to Jokic than anyone he's ever been playing next to. The great thing about playing with Jokic is, dude, if you just keep moving and cutting, there's free baskets all over the place because he's going to find you. So I would put Denver in there because that's just how special I think Jokic is. Memphis? No, I'm not quite there yet. Houston? No, no.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I have a hard time believing Houston will win four series. The Knicks? I probably have the Knicks over Houston, even though I enjoy watching Houston the most. As the taping of this, Houston's really going through a weird stretch. They haven't had Van Vliet. They have these awesome clutch record numbers, but they have some awful clutch metrics, which is really weird how off the two things are.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And I wonder offensively if they would have enough. to keep up with some of the other high-profile teams. But one of the questions I have about OKC is, will there be a second scorer that is more reliable than the first version that we saw in Jalen Williams, which is totally understandable because it was the first time.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, the rebounding stuff has been an issue now for a while with them, but I worry more. Their defense is so good. They are so smart. They made Wemby look terrible. It was very early in the season, but if you hold the ball and you wait around, against OKC, they just swarm you. And everybody's bought in. The culture of that team is almost like an unobtainable thing in the NBA.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I'm impressed with all of it. I just want the second or maybe even another guy, which isn't going to happen now, someone to be that reliable.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
third creator in those minutes where maybe one of the other guys has subbed out or some of the things bogged down but now I'm like nitpicking like I'm nitpicking with yeah there's little things that I can nitpick with Cleveland but I thought the DeAndre Hunter trade addressed probably the biggest issue is that when they start a game against the Celtics like Struce is getting defensive minutes against Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum because they want Struce's spacing right the rest of the assignments you're like you know what do we do do we put Mobley on a wing and feel like we're wasting him because you kind of have to
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
if Boston doesn't want to play with double bigs like they do sometimes. So I'm really, really impressed with Cleveland. And even though Hunter's expensive as far as what they'll have to pay him and all the tax stuff, it's a no-brainer. Not that he's a lockdown guy, but it's just a way better defensive option. Because playoff series are crazy, man.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You can see a game one result and everybody sits there and be like, oh, This is over. And then game two with the same guys plays out an entirely different way. So at least they have an option as opposed to what they had before.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think after that, it would be a surprise to me if the Houston Rockets won an NBA championship this year. It would be a surprise to me if Memphis won an NBA championship. The Lakers, yeah, I think it's a surprise. To me, this is a reset. I mean, Doncic becomes available. You stop worrying about how you match up in the 25 playoffs, and it's pretty clear. And even if they spent...
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, real assets on acquiring Mark Williams, he needs to be better. Now, Graney's only played like half the available games of his career, but the defensive numbers for him are atrocious. And when you watch him, the good sign might be, I just, like, do you not care? Like, I know it sounds crazy. I want guys to care all the time.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But is it easier to fix it when it's like, hey, your effort sucks.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, you're playing with the Lakers now. You can hide in Charlotte on league pass, but you can't anymore. What about the Bucs? I hate just missing Giannis just because I think on the best nights, he's the second best player in the world. He's been even better this year. Last year he wins the MVP in a lot of seasons, if it's not for this epic run that Jokic is on.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, they've reinvented themselves a bit. Kuzma's probably got a little bit more juice to him than Middleton does at this point. I think Middleton defensively in some of the wing matchups worries him, but Kuzma doesn't necessarily solve those problems.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I mean, that team was such a mess, and the minutes were all over the place, and the priorities were different than Kuzma. Like, when Kuzma's been good, he's pretty good, man. He's not the most athletic guy. It's not like you're letting him initiate a ton of offense, like, off the dribble on his own.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And defensively, he can probably get caught in some stuff where he's not athletically matching, like, another guy that he's assigned to, but... I like him because I think they can just count on him more than they could Middleton at this point. Right. But I'm worried about, like, the Dame stuff at the top. I think Brook Lopez, like, it's kind of over, man. Yeah, it's getting up there. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So the Giannis thing is terrific. And, you know, I just fucking love that guy. I love, like – You knew when it was the Wemby matchup earlier, you're like, oh, I can't wait to watch this game tonight because he's going to be like, I'm going to go right at this dude. And Wemby blocked him twice at the start of the first game. And Giannis is like, all right, now I'm even more pissed.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Where a lot of guys like with his profile be like, all right, I don't want to get embarrassed. I'm not going to do that again. Like he couldn't wait. So I always kind of like – I think I probably stubbornly have respect for Giannis so much that normally I would keep him live in this. But I think the reality is the NBA story is the way they go. Like their window is probably already closed.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, he's everything that I would want. Like all the stuff that we've talked about with Luka and the funny part, too, is like there's been way more rumblings about Giannis's fragile future in Milwaukee than Luke. I mean, you know, the Luka thing was like, maybe, you know, oh, 26, this team's clearing cap space. All right, fine. But this Giannis stuff has always been.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
this weird lingering like, Oh, they have to do this. This is why they did the Dame deal. You know, this is why they did the coach thing. And you know, who knows? And would he ever say, Hey, I'm at this side of 30. Like I'm out of here because it doesn't mean it's never going to happen. But like the American guys are usually the guys that do it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The international guys don't again, an international guy at some point who's a superstar is going to be like, get me out of here. Yeah. Go ahead.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Isn't it funny that, I mean, it's like, okay, well then he can't win. He can't win at all. I know. I know. That's what I'm saying.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, there's definitely truth to him liking his role with the Trailblazers all those years. Right. And whenever you talk to people out there, and granted, the regime has changed over, but it was, you know, is he ever going to get a little, like, annoyed with all this stuff? It's like, no, he likes being the main attraction. Right. Like, everything's sort of on his terms.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Not in like a – like, I think the OKC stuff with Westbrook was, like, absurd towards the end where everything was so on his terms and they had just lost Durant. I mean, you had Biggs just getting out of his way so he could get extra rebounds. The highest, like, usage rate in, like, modern history.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And you start to realize, like, he still gets rebounds other guards will never get because he's so incredibly gifted, athletic, and his determination, all that kind of stuff. But, like, everything started feeling so catered to Westbrook. You're like, is this actually – The recipe for success. Now, that team didn't have any success in the playoffs. Dames certainly had a couple moments.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The OKC shot once Paul George was there. The Houston series. There's just a lot of stuff in there that I thought was a lot of fun. They had a Western Conference Finals run that I think is one of those that falls under the kind of fluky category.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It was the year before.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So... I totally get your point. And, like, there was always this Bradley Beal thing that's very similar. It's like, this guy's not asking out yet. And then people go, well, you know, he's a pretty content guy, and he's pretty close to, like, qualifying for the five-year max.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So he may just get that, and then he's going to bounce, and that's exactly what happened. So... I don't think you're wrong. It just feels so fucking unfair. Right. It's hypocritical. I don't really want to say, oh, yeah, this guy actually was a loser the whole time. You know what's crazy?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Imagine if he had gotten his way and gone to Miami. I know. Like, do you think Butler would have been like, okay, I'll chill out now without the extension?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The one you can get on Dame for, though, and this was starting to happen, and I remember the first time it was explained to me, they were like, this is just the transfer portal now because people don't care about getting to free agency to maximize their opportunities or leverage or all that stuff. They're just signing the extension and then saying, okay. And then saying, I want out.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, we've covered this. Yeah, and that sucks. That sucks. Yeah, and he had four years to go on his, the same way Durant had four years to go on his when he decided he wanted out of the Nets and they wouldn't trade him, they wouldn't fire everybody, and then they had to trade him to Phoenix anyway, and they ended up getting a haul and
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Honestly, looking back at that, it's an unbelievable deal for what the Nets were able to pull off for a guy that's unhappy within 18 months of every place that he's gone. I was kidding around the other day, but I was like, who's been happier at his peak basketball moments throughout his career, Kyrie or Durant?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I understand the sentiment behind it. The four-year extension not kicking in and then saying I want to be traded here and I only want to go to Miami. Right. I mean, that's not a blast.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, 12 finals run. Yeah, when he didn't get jaded by it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Best starting five I've ever seen.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Making sure. I just thought you were going to argue. No, I know. I was thinking, I don't know. Dream team.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Oh, yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, Rip.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I love that. That's not even the worst one. Remember the Atlanta Hawks team with all those guys? Corver? Yeah, Corver and Joe Johnson. They're like, well, they're in first place.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's pronounced Josh Smith. Smith. He was my all-time, like, he's just going to chuck a few threes. I think he was on Detroit by then. He might have been, yeah. Maybe like 27% from three.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I like those guys. That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. Henry V.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
A lot. You know what people don't talk about enough is Shakespeare's depiction of Henry V is so fucked. I agree. I totally agree. Yeah, right?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That's good. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, Billy Shakespeare, he couldn't get it wrong. Are you serious? Yeah. Have you ever fucking talked to writers?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, when he was just straight-up efficiency. I mean, granted, he got a bit of a gobbed complex and just saying France was his and it was his right. I would love to be arrogant enough. Like, we're here Super Bowl week, and there's some guys you're like, we need to fucking simmer down. Like, cool daytime ratings.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I look at Henry V, and I think... Imagine just being like, hey, this isn't me just being a dick. It is my birthright. France is mine, God told me. How do you run errands that day with that kind of idea of where you are in the world?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
There's really nothing you could say. Yeah. Like, hey, this sucks. We're in the woods still. We're digging ditches and guys have malaria and dudes are dying and we don't have any food and we might have to start eating the horses. And I haven't even seen a boob in two years. Like, this fucking sucks. And he's like, don't worry about it. God said we're going to. Yeah, we got it. God's got it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
God did. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, he did marry the daughter of the Mad King, which was arranged. He did seem to like her, though.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Totally. Beyonce and Jay-Z. Yeah. You're like, Kate's, you know, good for Kate. I think Kate Middleton's approval rating is through the roof. Yeah. But I don't know, dude. Henry V? Yeah. I just think it's funny to look at maps. You guys don't ever look at maps. Oh, I love maps.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You're going to have to explain to me. You're talking about maps.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Isn't that trump.com where you just pull Greenland? That's ours. You bring it left. That shit's ours now.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Do you? Yeah. Why not? Does Greenland want Greenland? No. No. There is something to be said. Well, I don't know. This will probably bring up something else, but like... Go on. When you read Henry V, you're like, we do invade each other less. Yeah, yeah. That's a positive, and that never gets talked about.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm shocked about some of that stuff from...
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Agincourt in like late 1300s early 1400s and you're like you invaded France with 2,000 guys and some boats like what the fuck like yeah imagine getting like we're good yeah like we're going into the whole country and the numbers were like really limited and then they started like going nuts I mean granted you gotta go centuries beyond Napoleon just being like let's go for Russia like
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm just more top of mind right now after the museum visit yesterday and everything. But, yeah, I don't know that that – back to the Henry V thing. Completely misjudged. Shakespeare fucked him.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't feel bad not knowing that.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think, I mean, if you want to be like completely serious about all this stuff.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
What flavors do you think they had?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Chocolate and vanilla in 1945.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Japan's resources. were strained pretty quickly.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
First time they'd surrendered in 2,500 years. It's crazy.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, he was called the God Emperor. Yeah. Another guy. Probably read Henry V. Yeah, he did.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, I was watching the videos about it yesterday, but I don't know. I mean, this is where being the war historian, like you could say a fact, but I'm going to go, I didn't know that. I'm the war historian? I didn't know ice cream. No, I didn't know ice cream.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm supposed to know all of it. I'm supposed to know every maneuver from the runways to Manila, the Manila decision.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's so good that we can't even do anything now with it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
We need to take a moment to understand how good that line was right there.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That's even the capital of the Philippines.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But when Oppenheimer came out and like, you know, some people just can't, you know, they send a tweet and it's like, oh, we're celebrating this now. Like, do you want to fucking do this? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do this? Are we going to do this? You want to talk about the coast of China? Yeah. You want to talk inland?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Dude, there's video. They didn't show the video, but there are stills of like practicing bayonet.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
work with live chinese prisoners so look history is littered with all of this stuff but like the artsy person that decides they're taking this stand without ever reading a fucking book or deciding that they're just going to ignore like i'm not saying necessarily like who's right but who put you in charge of saying who's wrong right yep is uh cooper flag the real deal
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I haven't watched enough of them.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
No, that's definitely not true. I don't have a ton of time for college hoops right now. I've watched, I don't know, two full games. Boston College seemed to not like him a couple weeks ago. They were letting him have it, elbowing him in the face.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, you're right. It just doesn't feel, you know what I mean? That he's a main guy, though, for me, I'm just going to have a hard time being anti. Like, would I hate Duncan Robinson? I couldn't do that, New Hampshire guy. Duncan Robinson's a good dude.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Cooper.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That'd be the first white American drafted number one overall.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. There haven't been any good ones that I've heard yet, I don't think. I haven't heard anything that's all that great. I would root for the New England guy no matter what. But we, look, the white guys have had a weird stretch in the NBA. There was a time when you were like, okay, who are the five white American guys? One through five.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And like dudes would get to four going, is it still Doug McDermott? Who we love. Shout out to Doug McDermott. Yes, Doug McDermott. This is, you know, Trump's back in office. Flag goes one. You know, you got to wonder.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That's true. That woman in the Walmart ad with Busta Rhymes around Christmas when she dropped the verse at the end. Yep. So I don't know where we are on the pendulum. It's all happening.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, well... Yeah, but the thing is, the more you really dug into Zion when he was at Duke, not that it was breaking news because everybody knew he was going number one, but I think for me there was this whole other level of like, oh my God, this is going to be awesome.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And the thing is, once he played, he was that dominant of a player, and you didn't really have to do anything with him except just make sure there was a little bit of spacing for him, which they could have with this new version of the team, but whatever. I don't think he's talked about...
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, we're coming off a Wimbanyama deal where the buildup to that, even though Flag has been on everybody's radar here for a couple years, and I think that there's the other two guys that are kind of part of the conversation. Like, you'll hear every now and then of somebody.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I don't think it's this unanimous praise, but if I'm comparing to Wimbanyama, Wimbanyama is the most anticipated pick since LeBron. So it's been 20 years. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
uh this is not one i have not watched him enough i don't feel comfortable talking about it based on what i think and i think it's been assumed that he's the number one guy and for good reason because he's side the size and the athleticism and a little bit more of the vision where it's not just he's a straight scorer but i mean look you've watched him more than i have he's he's very good he's very very good uh and i also appreciate that you were like hey i didn't watch so i can't i can't give an expert opinion we're the opposite i think you agree pft he's probably the best prospect ever
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Do you think that's sort of part of that prideful nationalism that you're feeling right now?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
That is interesting.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He's huge.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
They're twins?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's going to be tough. That's going to be tough. You don't know anything about Cooper Flagg. Let's ask about his twin brother. Yeah. No, I didn't know. I just always feel like no matter what, you know, your mom's going like, hey, your path is different. And, you know, you're special in your own way.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And you're like, yeah, my brother's going to be the number one pick in the draft. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Um, trouble. How? So I can answer it properly.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm going to sound like somebody who loves the NBA and therefore is going to protect it, but I think what I would do, because you know me, is that I would defend something against what I think are bullshit arguments. One, the first ratings quarter that was destroyed by everybody went up against all of our election coverage, and the most important election of our time was the tease, I believe.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Democracy was at stake. Do you realize I've been alive for every one of the most important elections of our time? Yeah. That's fucking incredible. I'd be that lucky.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I was there. I was there for that. And I was like, shit. And then the next year and four years, excuse me, the next election, they were like, no, this is. And I was like, I'm on the hottest fucking streak of elections of anybody you've ever known. So I think that that was a little unfair.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think the three-point thing, even though there's nights where I kind of feel that way, I also don't miss Mark Jackson post-ups that took 17 seconds. Yeah. I think whenever people start comparing all these clips of what it is today, what it is back then, like, yeah, every Jordan clip looks fucking awesome. You know what?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
There was also a million other games that Tuesday night that sucked and weren't as visually appealing as that clip. Why are we comparing that clip to a full slate of games on a Tuesday? Yeah. I also think that there's a very like I've talked about this before. It's the polling of one.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And it's not just one, but it's still a really small sample size of people who are like, I haven't watched it since they did that bubble woke shit. And it's like, OK, is that true? Like in that moment, you went group economics jersey, which, again, was stupid. But you went group economics jersey and you were like, that's it. I'm fucking out on these guys.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Right. That person exists, certainly, and that person loves telling you that they exist and they've done all of those things. But what I would argue is, did that make you change a channel or did you already change a channel and now you love pointing to that as the reason why you've already done something? Same thing happened with all the Kaepernick shit, right?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Right-wing people going like, I'm never watching that sport again. And remember there was a bit of a ratings dip and there was decline and right-wing media was all over it being like, see, see, see. All right, well... At some point, there's going to be some ebbs and flows of ratings and all that kind of stuff. So look, if you tell me, all right, Ryan, compare the finals to 10 years ago finals.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, am I comparing it to LeBron and Steph in that window? I mean, you know, we're also talking about LeBron and Kawhi. We're talking about Steph going up against LeBron in that one where everybody kind of got hurt in the entire series. So is that the best way to do it?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'd also ask people, like, have you ever cared about sports or games or teams, you know, today the way you did 20 or 30 years ago? Right. But do you care about movies the same way? How many times did you go to the movie theater this year? How many times did you used to go? Is there an appointment viewing on television? Is there anything that's like the Sopranos? So many options. Right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, remember the Sopranos? You stopped what you were doing. Oh, yeah. My TV went out. Right. You make sure your food was ready to go, whatever you were grabbing, like I'm sitting like nothing is disrupting this moment. I don't know those moments exist anymore. So I think the NBA has some things aesthetically about it that are concerning.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think there's some ratings Intel that is is a small piece. that if it were to continue is alarming. But I also think there's just so many people that love dunking on that league for a variety of different reasons that I think it becomes really skewed coverage. I think the NHL is down 28%. Is it too woke? Like, of course not.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It is. I mean, that's why they're going to 18 games. That's why they were like, you know, Christmas football family. No, it isn't. You're just like, fuck the NBA, which is within their rights to do. I think at one point we'll have NFL on every single night. I think that's what their goal is and that's what they'll look to do.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. Nobody's lost money on a team in like 40 plus years. They want to add more teams because people want to get into the business. The television contract was reported to come in like 3 billion less than it actually did. So maybe maybe looking at traditional ratings.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, as much as you can go, oh, look at that, or look at that number, or this product sucks, or all these different things, I think the global part isn't discussed enough. I think the new consumer and the younger consumer, the idea of sitting down at 25 years old and watching a two-and-a-half-hour game start to finish is, like, absurd to them.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I think there's a lot of factors here, but I think, unfortunately, the loudest voice is usually the one that already hates the NBA telling you this league is dying, and I don't think that's true.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, right. I mean, you ask that guy to be like, are you going to Vegas still? And he'd be like, ugh. Right. No shit.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I can never tell if I'm like the best taste, like I should, I'm just stop. You have the best taste. Um, thanks guys. If I am the one you should listen to or the one you should listen to the least, because I'm watching no matter what, right? This is my job. I have a good job. I have a good life. I'm lucky to have the life that I have. Okay.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But there are times where when I'm watching all these games, there's all these stoppages, and they add a challenge, and they have the timeout before the three minutes that everybody's figured out and all this stuff. The dramatic back-and-forth moment – and it's happened in football, too, where it's like, is that the game-winning touchdown? Oh, my God, it's the game-winning touchdown. Wait.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Let me wait for a review. And now I'm excited. But there's no way the excitement after the delay of what you think has happened and you're seeing the replay and getting confirmation – There's no way that excitement ever matched what we used to have in that moment where you were like, this is – like, oh, my God, it happened.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And basketball, as much as I love the NCAA tournament, like, there can be a score and scenario where you get maybe that possession, possession, possession moment. But it feels like it never happens anymore in basketball. And I think that's a – except they just are going to tell the TV partners, like, yeah, we'll figure out a way to get another stoppage in there.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, college football, like, we can't call it the two-minute warning, but we'll call it the two-minute timeout. It's pretty good, yeah. Because, you know, we're our own thing. It's like, no, we'll just call it the extra stop because ESPN just renewed the package. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm up for any of the, the Elam ending thing, no relation to Matt. I thought like at first, like a lot of people were like, Oh, well that'll change everything. Okay.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like I would love to have those dramatic back and forth moments. Like I think baseball may actually provide the best drama tension because you can't disrupt it the way you disrupt these game winning football plays and all the basketball stuff. So when I say like, I can't tell if I'm the best or the worst, like I can be on game seven and, And I'll know, like, here we get another stop.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Here we get all this stuff. And, like, I start dicking around. I'm looking at my phone. Maybe I'm, like, looking up something, like, what is DeAndre Hunter shooting? You know, like, I'm sitting there. And then I look up, and, like, four plays have happened because I'd already kind of, like, removed myself from paying attention to the game.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I'm like, if I'm doing that, what the hell is somebody doing that doesn't do this for a living? Right. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think Charlotte's actually in a pretty bad spot, even though they've done a good job. Because they've got to make a lamello decision.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, I mean, I looked it up the other day. His shots per 100 is the highest we've seen since Kobe Bryant's in 2006.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Well, I think the Hornets are in like a weird Atlanta Hawks spot where it's like we have this attraction and we have something we can put on billboards and we have something that gets the fans excited and sells jerseys and everything. Make money. Is this really going to be a guy? It's never going to work.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, I think it's a huge corporate thing.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't go anymore.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's San Francisco, I think. Oh, yeah. Well, with the no game week thing, I did the live show in Utah two years ago, and then I went, why am I working? There's no games. Right. I'm going to take some of this time off. So I went to Aspen last year. It's pretty nice. Yeah, I've heard. Very nice. It's rich. Yeah. A lot of rich people, PFT. How was the powder? Is that a cocaine joke? It was. It was.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Trying to fuck with me a little bit.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I don't know, man. We're not even on a course. It's kind of like a mini Super Bowl week, to be honest with you.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's unwatchable. I don't watch it. I mean, I can't even tell you the last time I watched an NBA All-Star game. I don't watch it. I think it's for kids. I think it's for kids. I think it's for corporate sponsorships. I think it's, like, whatever we deal with every night of, like, your options in New Orleans for Super Bowl week. It's like, I can go to this party. I can go to this dinner.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And, like, there's plenty of shit I can't even get into. But, like, if you go to the hotel lobby at the Four Seasons, you're like, cool, I'm going to see, like, 20 people I don't get to see unless I come to this every single year. So, to me, it's a mini version of that for NBA people.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
complaining about the game it's just not fixable it's it's not fixable because these guys do not give a shit there has always been something about basketball that bothered me is that if you're good it's like lame to try at times like the guy who's really good in a pickup game that almost thinks it's insulting to try against you and you're like this is way more insulting than you killing us you're really good and now you're pretending you don't care just in case
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
somebody were to cross you up or somebody were to stick a three in your face, like this is your never look uncool moment. That's why none of the guys do the dunk contest. That's why some of the guys don't do the three-point thing.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Why?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But he's way better than all of us. I could see him being a not-try guy.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I can't imagine how good he is. I mean, if you're good enough to walk on, or was it an offer?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He's big, too. I just saw him in the hallway.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Wow. God, you're all over these. I just made that one up.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, they're at the gates, and it's like, no way you're going to be right. No way you're going to be right. Like the trade and bead thing, I got killed for. You were right. I haven't brought this up yet because it's Super Bowl week. Thanks for not bringing it up. It's the first time ever.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Sulk.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, right. That's what it was. Percentage of games that he's actually played, percentage of Super Bowls that Brady played in during his career. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It was his 400th game that he missed. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they put the graphic up. When he got to 400, dudes were making a graphic like it was an accomplishment. I've always been kind of protective of him, and I was out. Once he started fallibating the Olympics, I was like, are you fucking serious, dude? I got mad.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I was mad at home by myself because nobody wanted to come over and watch me watch the Olympics during the day. Like, hey, you said something about maybe getting a drink one time. I was like, do you want to watch them play Serbia? It's going to be a good game. I got so frustrated.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And look, I think Embiid played for Team USA because he gets a gold medal, adds to the legacy, because it's probably not that likely that he's winning a title at any point. There's arguments that I would hear about Harden's meltdowns, Simmons having an absolute meltdown in that Atlanta series, just being shot and thinking, like, who has Embiid been able to rely on? But...
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, whether it's like there was a situation this week, like not this week, this season. We're going through all the hell stuff. And by the way, when he had been playing during that stretch, he didn't look right. Okay. Even though he's putting up numbers, he doesn't look right. He doesn't move unless he has the basketball. So you hope he's hurt.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And he was hurt because that's why he shut it down again. The newest news about his knee. And then I just like, why were you guys in a hurry to even do this extension with him on top of everything else? You already owe him. But when he basically like sat out the Cleveland game and then played in the Charlotte game, I'm like, dude, I can't do it anymore with you. I can't do it anymore with you.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. I do feel like we're getting closer to the sit-down with whoever it is at ESPN. It's like a countdown. Maybe it's Malika or something. And it's MB sitting there in the stool, and it was like, when did you know it was overview in Philadelphia?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And then it's like black and white footage of like yelling at the ref or him yelling at a reporter or the quote saying like, I've done so much for the city. If you were to say this story, like which course it's on, I don't know that redemption feels like the one that's more likely to land on.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, I know.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm trying to be sincere and think about, like, have you? Dick to dick. I don't know. There's some pledging shit I'm not sick about.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It's not going to be good. What do you mean? They're going to beat somebody in the play-in? Yeah, I mean, that's not if they're all healthy and they're all ready to go.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Honestly, even with all the Embiid stuff, because he's the guy, he's supposed to be the franchise guy, there's a bit of me, too, that's just so sick of all the Embiid propaganda people over the years where it's like, you guys are being such dicks about the Jokic thing when Embiid was never better than him. He deserved to win the MVP. I'm fine with it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I never thought Embiid was the better basketball player. If you voted for Jokic that year for MVP, I couldn't necessarily tell you you were wrong. Like sometimes I still kind of think about like, you know, did Embiid prioritize the MVP? And that's why you felt like you went in that direction. And Jokic kind of not giving a shit the last few weeks of the season. Was that the deciding factor?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know, I don't know. That wasn't an easy vote. A lot of the years for me, I haven't had a vote that long. It hasn't been Something where I'm like, yep, perfect score. Totally right. Zero arguments against any of this stuff. But that wasn't even Joel's fault as much as it was the people around him pushing this thing where it wasn't like just sticking up for your guy.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It was shitting on Jokic so much. And that really, really bothered me because I can't understand how anybody could spend their life in basketball and watch these two dudes play and think that it's the same thing. And I also think the Embiid foul hunting stuff that... Daryl loves because he loved it with Harden and all these guys. Oh, look at your true shooting. Look at your efficiency.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like, look at all this stuff. Look at your points per 100 and all this. It's crazy. He doesn't play basketball naturally anymore. He's always thinking about, like, how can he get the contact? How can he fall? Like, there's a very choppy way. That he goes about it, but then it's like, oh, he had 34-12 again. He must be fucking awesome.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And I think that stuff is easier to pull off in the regular season. I think there are times, even though he had that 50 against the Knicks, there were times he was not comfortable with the basketball late. He still stinks when a double comes to him. So, yeah, I'm over it. And even with all that said... Paul George is Tobias Harris with better branding. Whoa.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But like Paul George, I know he had a better January, but he needs to be a dude.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
while Embiid is out through all of this and instead he's totally comfortable getting his ISO 17 footer up because he's so talented and it's great and like all the shit that he can do but like there's there's no like consistent flow he just like where's the aggressiveness like it's you're being tasked with get them through this really tough stretch and he wanted nothing to do with it from what I saw
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, and then Maxie took like 25 shots a game, and I don't think his numbers are a true reflection of like – I don't think he's a declining player, obviously. He was just going for it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Are you talking Hoosiers football right now?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I did see the final score. I've never seen a final score more, to be honest with you.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The most impressive final score on the losing side in the history of fucking sports.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Did you see when he posted his own AP voting results where he had Indiana slash Penn State 4, Penn State slash Indiana 5?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You haven't seen that?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Um... The play-in is not something I'm in favor of, but I think back to kind of the ratings discussion, like March Madness right now is one of the best products in all sports, right? We agree. It translates over to the person that would never care about this.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And even though the regular season of college basketball has, I don't even know what the declining numbers are there, but I mean, it's just true. Like I don't watch a ton of it anymore, but when I do dabble, I can't believe how bad the product is. There's no continuity whatsoever.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Uh, that's great. That's great. But it's, there are, there are nights where you're like, are they going to score? No, it's bad basketball. What is going on here? I, I don't really know. You know, you can't team build for a lot of the programs, right? At least a lot of the ones on TV with the higher profile players.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And you know, I, I like the one and done stuff because I just think it's the right thing to do. I think not having to go to college at all would be the right thing to do. I just think it's wrong to tell people like, you can't just go pursue this because I don't know. Um, That's a whole different discussion.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But college hoops, when I've watched it over the years, even though I liked it more than the NBA when I was younger, it's a tough watch. But at least they have this moment. And what you're seeing with what Silver is doing is the play-in was we have this moment.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
um the in-season tournament which is now the emirates cup that's a moment it actually wasn't very disruptive and some of those games this year were terrific so i think what you your goal is like baseball's goal is okay make fun of how long our season is we don't give a shit we're selling 162 game inventory six months of the year and it rates really really high in local markets and all the local market stuff like this is a product they can put on and pull a better number than reruns a fucking wheel of fortune maybe i don't know the fortune's pretty popular
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But with college basketball, they have their moment. I think the baseball playoffs are incredible, but that might just be their moment. You're never going to be able to compete with what the NFL is.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But because soccer, I think Silver is so influenced by a lot of the international soccer stuff, I think that they want to have these moments that they can sell and package in a different way as extra inventory. So I don't like the play-in. There's going to be teams that have no business being like, you just had this season you had, and now you get another chance of potentially getting the playoff.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Like in the times that Steph's been eliminated, you're like, cool. Yeah. Great.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And like, oh, yeah, that's bullshit. That's like when they talk about expanding the tournament. You just go, no, you don't need to do it. But then the coaches argue for it. And it's like, do you guys want to argue for it? So you can say like, oh, you know, like the bowl. I made the tournament four years in a row. Give me my extension. Bowl eligible the last five years. You're like, dude.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
What?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Johnny's are really good.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Johnny's are good. People knock the schedule. Maybe you can help me out with Patino a little bit because – Family goes way back on the father's side of the Providence ties. And when Rick was the head coach of that Providence Fires team, this is a little early for you guys, Pop Lewis, Billy Donovan. I had a t-shirt that said Rick Pitino for president. I think I was like nine.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah, he was gone. Went to the Knicks. Family despised him.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And then he left the Knicks, right? Kentucky worked out. Worked out pretty well. Went to Boston. Family despised him even more after that. And then... Louisville... you know, Louisville, then everything else that goes with it. A lot of stops. I know you guys have some history with it too, but I would be tempted because I'm excited potentially about like the St. John's right.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Cause the guy can coach. I mean, he's unbelievable, but I did the Celtics documentary for bill, uh,
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
in hbo and i came in and did the patino years and i wasn't nice so i feel guilty about being in the documentary and then being offered patino and being like let's talk saint john's oh but by the way like i wasn't sweet about your celtics run that's going to be in the documentary so me and big cat had a similar situation it's i think it was nastier than what i yeah we said some things about his penis yeah over the years yeah i never talked about his penis in the doc
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Are you guys even going to do this again right now, or do you feel like you've worked through it?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Maybe I start with that.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Wait, which party?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. Who would, who would laugh at that response? I don't understand. Like, how could you be that like offended by it or entertained by the absurdity of my, it is very weird.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know who I really like is Aaron Wiggins, Oklahoma city.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Now he's not a superstar, not even close, but does his job. And there'll be stretches with the thunder where I'm like, God, I think I really like Aaron Wiggins, not Andrew. He was traded.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Aaron Wiggins. Speaking of trades and where Wiggins is now, where the rookie from Miami, from Indiana, he's been terrific since he's been a regular part of the rotation. I've been really excited about Scoot's resurgence. Okay. Tough first year for my guy. He was very invested, had some takes that were watered regularly, not showing a lot of life. That's a great way to put it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
There's still some limitations on the rim finishing and not being like, you know, it's like, oh, he's not Derrick Rose. You're like, well, this is the reason why we were so enthralled with Derrick Rose because he was Derrick Rose. But Scoot's been really good. Scoot's put together like a nice five, six weeks here. What else are you looking for?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Are you looking for, like, Isaiah Stewart, who I think would fight people? I appreciate that. I love what Cade has done this year. I actually think the Wizards with Koulibaly and Bub and even George a little bit. I guess you could throw Sar in there a little as the number two pick. Like, they stink, but they play really hard. There's, like, a few guys in that Wizards team. I love Bub. Yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I don't know that somebody's like, hey, what do you want to do tonight? Hey, I'm going to stay in because we're still listening to Wizards play with a lot of activity. So let's do that. Been really happy with Mobley, but I don't know if he'll hit like some of the – like Simmons was so crazy about what Mobley could do when he started comparing him to Duncan or KG.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Then you kind of are like, well, I like him, but I don't like him that much. And then you make – makes it feel like you're dissing a guy that you actually like. Like the strokes. Yeah. You like the Strokes big cat, but the way PFT talks about the Strokes, you're like, Jesus Christ, the run wasn't that long.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So you're never having him back on.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm not a Strokes guy, Russillo. That would be kind of nasty. You guys could LSU me. Oh, yeah.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I did go to the museum by myself, so I don't know that you'd be totally wrong on that. Who would be most likely in the media to have joined me if I had said, hey, do you want to go to the World War II museum? Probably me. Yeah, or I'd probably be the second or third option. No, I would never ask you to go there because you wouldn't do it. I would. It wouldn't be cool enough for you.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Did you win?
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I bet last night, live odds. What? I was watching Celtics-Mavs before I had dinner last night, and Celtics were getting destroyed. And normally, I would be like, okay, well, they're not going to get killed this bad. Let me look at the live odds.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
No.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Yeah. And it works out. He just wins every time. Well, it wouldn't work last night because it was like... Plus six and a half, minus six and a half when I looked at it, and I thought the number was too small even though they were down 20. So I was watching it, and I waited, and I waited, and I go, this might be just a mail-it-in night from these guys.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And I ended up laying it on the Mavs, and they got up 27 and then won by seven. Celtics won on a 14-0 run. So you covered. I covered, but from the point of like I'm so smart to a 14-0 run where you're like there's still four minutes in and all the backups are playing their ass off right now and Dallas has already shut it off mentally. I'm with Hank on that.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I think if you watch enough, I would look for live odds on the better team that's down. They're going to make the run. Let me see if they were minus seven before tonight. Now I'm getting them at plus three. I think I just have to do that with a certain amount of time left in the game. but I actually hedged myself last night. It just felt good to be back in it.
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NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Okay. I have no investments in crypto. I've thought about it a little bit more recently, but I think everybody does. They're like, oh, it's at 100. Now it's at 106. Now I feel like a fucking loser. I had to get my brains beaten in a bunch of different times with trades for me to then become numb to the ups and downs or that stupid math that you do when you invest.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
We're like, if I had only done this and then I had this many shares, like I used to do all that shit when I was younger. Um, I've had some bad losses. I've had some nice wins. Uh, my wins have been bigger, like my takes, you know, my wins, you know, may not, you may not see how the path you get there and you're like, how the fuck's that going to work out?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
But there's some, there's some losses I wish I could have back that ruined me emotionally for long stretches, but also when you're by yourself.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
and you day trade and you have a fucking horrible horrible stretch there's no one to tell you how insane you're being so you just accept your own demise it's like nico exactly it's just like nico he didn't have anybody to tell him he didn't have anybody to tell me like i remember i was on vacation once in hawaii with a date and i checked the pre-market to like three in the morning because i was so locked into it and i think i was down like half a million dollars because of just like this news and
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And I ran out onto the balcony and screamed, motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker, like a hundred times. And she came running out. She was like, did your father die? And I was like, no, it's worse. She's like, are you seriously setting your alarm to check the pre-market? So I was pretty into it there for a little while. Anyway, crypto... Tried to read everything I could.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Didn't understand in the beginning like everybody else. Now I fully understand it. The problem was throughout the entire time, the people I trust the absolute least were all the biggest people that were about crypto. So I missed the window or maybe the window still continues. I think the premise of it, its utility, all of those things make a ton of fucking sense.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
So I believe in it, except it has always scared the shit out of me.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I like real estate better. Some of you put your hands on. I think it's more fun.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Sopranos. It's free real estate. Even though people on the other side love touching a button and then it's done. Now I have it all. Whatever it says on the screen, I push a button and then I have it. I totally understand people are like, that's the only way I would want to do business. But
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I like real estate because I think it's a little like if I were to read all the materials and stocks and stuff and all the different options, I could read it all. I know that my full grasp of the understanding would be like, okay, so you now think like, I'm just do my own research. I don't need any help Schwab.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I just, I don't know that I've ever felt like truly comfortable going, Oh, I've read about all this thing. This technology makes sense. Like a lot of it feels like the winds can be common sense, but it's always common sense after the fact. at least with like different markets and real estate, I can go, this is a desirable place. I know what this house is.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I know because I've looked at this town so many different times or I know people that live here or whatever. So I just think that's an easier understanding, even if it's certainly not any kind of guarantee. I can't believe we're on this right now. Great job.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
The first 200 is where you fucking... That's the wax on, wax off phase in the movie.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Look, I love Chernow as much as any sports podcaster, probably in the country. I put myself, I'm a one seat of Ron Chernow fans. Okay. And I know when I dig in, I'm like, I've already read them all. I think Warbugs is the only one I haven't read. I'm like these first hundred, one eighty.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
tough sledding washington gets off to a burning start but he but you know like me these long-winded stories and answers i'm like i have to give you the prologue before i can give you the answer i'll get better one day i hope but no you won't i can't i don't want you to change yeah this is the best i can't the prologue is the best part i need to know what george was like as a rascalian
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I need to know what. And I think Chernow is the storyteller in the same case with Andrew Roberts and Napoleon. You've got to learn that Napoleon was an awkward, small dude, failed writer, maybe smelled, chicks didn't like him. No wonder he fucking ran a country and the world for a little bit there. What's more motivating than never having chicks like you?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
He was. He's just tweeting away. B minus tweet, C plus stuff. Apparently, his writing sucked. Really?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
All right.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Thunder over Boston.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
It would be seven. Thunder, get it at home.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Hank, what are your thoughts on that?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Are you leaving tonight?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Oh, you're out tonight?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Is tonight the night? Yeah. Neil Young?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You could do it if you wanted to. 10 a.m. Yeah, but I also... Perfect flight.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I can't imagine how hard you nap when you have kids.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
You know what the... It's got to be unbelievable. Yeah, and you turn your brain off.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
Do you ever wake up and go, I could see Hank's back there asleep. He might be in the night. He's on minute 90. I can't believe he was sleeping that whole time. Be honest. It doesn't mean you don't love your wife or your family, but do you ever have a moment where you're like, I don't want to go back?
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
This place can do it to you, but I think you guys have been here so many times, and I know we're wrapping up here.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And I love that you guys, I was like, those guys really like it. I'll check it out. But once you get, like, south of Poitras, all you have to do is, like, walk five minutes south of Canal. It's so cool. And you go, oh, this is why, like, these people that are, like, successful and, you know, Big Cat's known all these cats for a long time. And he's like, I got to introduce you to Russillo.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
And you see all these guys.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
No, I know. I mean, that was huge for me because I love chicken so much. But what I think is just so funny is like you'll meet all these people and then people think that New Orleans is only Canal Street and like bourbon. Yeah. And they go, dude, that place sucks. You're like, you know, there's other streets. There's other streets.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
I'm going to work my way south. Okay. All right. Which is uptown, ironically. I'm in.
Pardon My Take
NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week
All right. We'll see each other tonight.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I guess I just wonder why Phoenix would flip the unprotected 2031 for these other pieces without some inclination of what's possible for him before the deadline. Unless it was just, hey, we're all in now. Like when you have Durant, you're all in. So is Beal better than mid-level players? Yes. He's really low on what the actual acquisition cost is because he's in control.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Because they have nothing and they're already all in with this group, I think the argument is that, well, what are we doing? We're going to hold on to assets in 2031. We have to find any possible way to upgrade this group because once you did the Durant trade, this is how you were operating.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I'd be fascinated to know what he would actually waive his no trade clause for. Because this is somebody who actually didn't go to Washington the entire time they lost. We kept waiting for that to happen. And then I remember hearing... He's probably just going to wait until he can get that five-year extension with them as the incumbent team. And he is okay with just kind of being there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And then I wonder if Beal goes, you think I'm upset about coming off the bench? You think I'm upset about taking 13 shots a game? Yeah. I like it here. I like Phoenix. My family likes Phoenix. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, yeah. You can't humiliate me. I'm good. I stayed with the Wizards for years on purpose.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It's also a great name, just to interrupt quickly, because after last night, I was like, will he have a man in his top 10?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
this is a compliment, but imagine when he's good. Right. Imagine when he can shoot threes. Right. And I don't know if he's, he's going to be like somebody you're really worried about, but there are things that he's doing. Like he was even the last, and again, you're right. It wasn't just about last night against Boston.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You're looking at these rebounding numbers, but also, and I like it, even though it doesn't look great, like they're letting him get into kind of a pull-up jumper and it doesn't look very good, but, I like that they're allowing him or they would want him to make those mistakes because you're never going to develop any of that stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You're never going to become the best version of yourself, the most well-rounded. If you're afraid to do that stuff in game, like it's the old Ben Simmons thing where it's like cool videos, bro, but you don't do any of those things that you show us in practice. Cause you just, you've eliminated those from your arsenal because you're just not comfortable doing
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And I love to see young players, especially somebody who is raw as him. And when you did the draft work on him, you're like, man, he's such an insane athlete. And this is why people draft guys like this. And then they get mad being like, oh, they just drafted the athlete.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And you're like, yeah, but this is the version of the best case scenario of if this guy ever figures it out with his gifts and the fact that he's a 1% athlete, I want him making some of those mistakes. I want him...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
pulling up off the dribble and maybe taking an ugly jumper right now, because the only way it's ever going to get better is when he's confident enough to actually apply some of this stuff in game. So it was when you sent me the list this morning, it was the first name I was looking for because, because the question is how high should he be? Right. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
The other thing about this trademark, it is just a hit list of guys I'm not a huge fan of. It really is. It's the Rosillo All-Stars. So Jimmy's the only one, if I knew he was bought in, I'd go, okay, let's do this. And you can figure out where he fits in because as much as they need Van Vliet you worry a little bit about loading up on a small primary guy throughout the course of the playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You know, Brooks is so important to them, especially what he does defensively. And then Jalen is kind of like an every other night guy. And I thought he had turned the corner. You're giving him that? Yeah, I know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Okay, that's fine. Because as great as we are, as much fun as a man is and what he could potentially be, I still have a hard time believing you're running something for him with the ball in his hands to get you the bucket weight. I don't know that he's there yet.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I like the Cavs. I didn't think they were going to get off to like a 73 win pace. Yeah, it's starting to fade a little bit finally.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No, because I think any of these lists, like the first thing I did when I got it was like, don't go, I can't believe you did this. Because whenever you have to do these lists, like good luck. Like whenever, even though when I did the top 100 that I then threw away, so I wasn't able to submit it for ringer.com. Like I had such a hard time with 11 through 30.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, because I'd go like, do I really think this guy is like a top 20 player? And you go like, okay, we'll come up with the 20 names ahead of him. And that's the weird part of the league ranking stuff. And granted, this is different because of age and contract and all that kind of stuff. But the names start to add up pretty quickly. I think maybe Matherin, just because I've loved...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I've loved what he's been able to do in big spots offensively.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Would you rather have Kobe White or Matherin? I mean, on your list, you'd rather have Kobe White.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Maybe there's somebody we can bump. I like Tari better than some of the names that you have in the top 85. Well, wait, hold that thought, because I have to explain.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, I can see like, hey, what is he? And that's kind of the stuff we're talking about here with Thompson where I tend to, I don't want to say overvalue because I don't think I'm wrong about it, but I'm going to value the guys with the ball in their hands that can get me multiple points.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
like possessions like hey Cade like Cade Cunningham for me is somebody where you go hey fix this fix us right now yeah and clearly it's different with Detroit now that they've actually invested in spacing around him but we'll get to Cade when we get to him but like that's always going to be kind of like my default setting of can you get me a bucket or can you stop the other team from getting a bucket or really like it's that simple because that's where I still have some defense guys on this list that I'm like I really value the defense
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But I don't think it's a 50-50 split. It's not.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You know I love percentages and splits. It might be 61-39 the more I think about it. See, what is wrong with you? It's early. 59-41? Giving us flat numbers like that? I was expecting like 63.5.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
This feels low, even if he hasn't been my favorite throughout all this. And I do wonder, too, when we were talking about the heat at the very top, what if Dame had gone there and it was the same situation with Butler? Because if Butler's not getting the contract, would Dame be going?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I just wonder if Dame at any point is going, this actually worked out better for me, despite the fact that Milwaukee, probably more based on health than anything, has been... when you bring in somebody like Dame to pair with Giannis with this. The Gordon one is tough, man, because Gordon with Denver is worth so much more to them than as soon as Gordon is away from Jokic.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
He's just not going to be the same kind of player.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So when you label this second apron thing, which I think you're absolutely right about like Przingis and Drew, and you wonder like after this version of the Celtics, if there's a second apron, um,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
transaction that happens there with boston depending on the season you mean in july you mean emphatically yes uh you mean next month don't you think gordon's a no because of basketball first and contract second if at all for yeah i don't i just think he plays too well with yokich and as long as as long as you have yokich you have a chance to win the title that contract's not prohibitive the murray contract's probably a little more problematic
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Levine should be behind him is my point.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You're not wrong about that. I mean, the drop off from primary score to secondary like shot creation guy for Golden State is so significant. And that's why, you know, granted, yes, I love Steph, but when he has like bad games, they'll be this group. It's usually like LeBron weirdos.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You're like, oh, how come Steph never... I don't really love that content of somebody who's just done it the right way, has won multiple rings, first ballot, everything. It's like, can you guys shit on him for a couple weeks? You're like, you know what? I don't want to. And I'm not going to. He missed some shots. But what he is tasked with...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
to solve their problems offensively as the only guy, you know, other than the Schroeder acquisition. And I know like you could throw it right back in my face. Right, you could throw it right back in my face and be like, I thought you just started this podcast talking about you like bucket getters. And you're absolutely right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like there's moments with Levine where he looks like the most offensively talented player on the court. But there are just too many plays as a seasoned Levine watcher. There are too many plays in there that I think everybody misses. Yeah. where you're like, what were you doing here? Who were you helping do this? Why didn't you get back on defense here? And they're constant. He's flawed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No, there's a lot with him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I could just do it. I know. I thought about doing a version of something on my podcast where it was going to be one name, one game, where I just watch one player the entire time, like that Julius Randall heat game, where I just go, you know, I'm going to rewatch this and just watch Randall And it was when you really focus in the guy that you're like, how come this guy always has numbers?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And how come his teams are never that good? And how come he's so skilled? What else is happening around this? And you go, well, that's not good. And that's not good. And I talk about this stuff all the time with certain players. And I think Levine's the epitome of that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But at least we know at the highest level he's delivered.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But there are some scorers, when I think about their playoff resume, I'm like, so you've been doing this how many years and there's nothing significant? There's not a moment for me to look at and like, look, I'm with you. There's there's stuff with Jalen Brown and this year, the shooting.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And but, you know, when when you're that young, like we've argued about Murray, when players who are like have had something really good in their past, have these like I even was stubborn about Kelvin Johnson. I'm like, is he just going to be terrible now? He's going to be terrible. And I feel like he turned the corner a little bit this season.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Um, so even though the Jalen stuff, I would agree with you has been frustrating. At least we've seen that before. Like what, what are you throwing at me with Levine? You'd be like, remember, remember this series. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
They owe their pick this year, though, so they have to get into the lottery.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Eve's, I didn't expect this. I mean, he looks incredible. And he's so confident, too. There's no hesitation on him, his aggressiveness. I feel bad for the Pelicans front office. They're 12-35.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
They have done such a good job through the draft. Yeah. And they have just, you know, their main guys aren't healthy. So it's not a mystery.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I love Zoo. Okay. I think he fights his ass off all the time. There's some good rim protection stuff in there as well. I think he's a big part of why they win. I don't know if anybody will do this because I'm not going to do it, but I'd love to know the success rate of pocket passes because I think a few guys like did it a couple years ago. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And then everybody decided that when the big rolled and the two stayed with them, they were like, I'm going to do this sick look away bounce pass thing. and then it's going to hit somebody's feet or it's never going to work. I think the success rate on this pocket pass that every player is obsessed with off of two staying with them is so low.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But a lot of times, too, they're screwing the big by trying to even throw it to these guys. And Zoo, for the bigs that are out there, I'm like, I know what the play calls for and that you think this is the right move, but can the guy actually catch it? I'm a big Zoo fan, man. So I thought this was fine.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Jalen Brown, unfortunately, throws a lot of these. Like, hey, do you see limbs in the way of the pass? Yeah. Well, then don't make it. It's like, no, dude. Two stayed with me. Have to throw the pocket pass every time. Zoo number 60. James Harden, number 59.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. I like to have an open mind about a lot of things, but I think deep down my core, I know I probably already know which direction I'm going, but he just wanted the contract that he's not getting. So what, I mean, unless there was a promise, I mean, everybody knows Harden's not my favorite guy, but
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It feels like if Paolo's eight, Scotty Barnes shouldn't be 59 or 58. All right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Well, look, this is probably the wrong time to be ranking Scottie Barnes because it's getting worse. The efficiency stuff continues to decline over a four-year stretch. He's back under 30% from three. I think you always knew that he was a weird player, but in a good way because he could do so many different things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But yeah, you know, back to like the primary scoring thing, like I don't think he was ever going to be like a Cade. And even though Paolo, like people would get on him with his efficiency stuff, especially last year, like that was the big Paolo Scottie Barnes argument last year. It's like, yeah, but are you watching the shots that Paolo is tasked with taking? Right. All these other guys.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Please factor that in. Right. Like watch and see how difficult some of the shots are for this dude, because he's he's left with the ball to bail them out of every one of these possessions. So I think if you did like a four year thing of Scotty and, you know, again, it's your list. So I don't want to sit here and go through 10 straight guys. I'm happy to go to.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
i kind of sided with harden on the end of the philly thing because why would he have taken the pay cut why would he have done everything he had done yeah and then it's like and i know philly's gonna say nothing was ever agreed upon you're totally wrong all right it's fine but he did something that didn't really make a ton of sense at the time to allow flexibility then he didn't get a deal so in that one i was like well
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, but the thing is, I think his playmaking is actually pretty good. But it's just, we talked about Toronto this summer. It's like, look at who they're paying. Look how much they're paying all these guys. And there's nights where I like R.J. Barrett. But it feels like everybody's a slot up too high on a priority list for a basketball team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
If you were Lawrence Frank in Toronto called and offered Scottie Barnes for Norm Powell, you're not saying no.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Do you think Miami would say no to Scottie Barnes for Tyler Hero? I do. Really?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
My fear is that because the numbers are down the way that they are and... You know what? Even if we didn't like Toronto, which we both didn't like Toronto this summer, and the record bears that, but you're right. There are some nights with them Or I'll go, oh, RJ's having a big night. And be like, oh, this is why they wanted Purtle back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But they've also had a really disjointed... They haven't had much consistency for long stretches this season of having a bunch of guys be available, too. Do you think the Celtics would trade Derek White for Scotty Burns? If Ainge were there, yeah. Because Ainge would just go, give me the potential talent ceiling. But you're taking on like 15 million extra a year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, well, then now we're talking second. Now you're second.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, that's a different trade. See, I don't think there's any way. Here's whenever we're doing this exercise, right? Yeah. If right now is like the only time in the last couple of years that we would say Miami would turn down Scotty Barnes for Tyler Hero, is that when we're making a mistake?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Even though I'm not definitive either way, I can understand him being upset with this one. I mean, have you heard anything that you believe? That's probably the important second part. Have you heard anything that you believe that would let you think that Miami would have been in a hurry to extend somebody like Butler, who's 35 and misses a lot of games?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You want to run the numbers on it. It just, I was like, man. And maybe it's because I've been so used to the Paolo-Scotty argument. Like they're 50 slots apart on this one. And it's not like I want Scotty over Paolo, but...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Well, it wasn't very good this summer. And there was, there was a big piece on the athletic that spoke directly to that. And I know that like, as two guys that have caught the brunt of shit from Atlanta, I wouldn't even just say it's fans. It's like media members. It was like, Trey was their guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And then you're like, okay, did you see this piece where they basically said we need to be completely different with you? Yeah, that should matter. Right. And so you've seen it. You've seen it this year. You know, whether it's DeAndre being better in his role and Jalen taking on such a huge part of the offense.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like, I think it was a little alarming that it took this many years for them to say, hey, Trey, you know what would be really cool is when you have the ball, throw it up ahead to see if there's an opportunity to attack. Like, kind of like... Yeah, use your teammates. You got four of them. You can use them at any time. It's not just in the half court.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
That line, you can give them the ball before you cross that line. No shit. And so, look, all that stuff was in there. And they were like, they need to reevaluate what this is. I mean, it's not like he's taken 12 shots a game as opposed to 20. He's only down like a couple shots there. The assist numbers are huge. There's also another piece. Like, I'm sorry that I'm just...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
reading it and I was sort of just laughing as I read all these quotes. It was like, you know, I don't need to just hang on to the basketball and wait for the assist play. I can pass it to someone else who then can move the ball around a little bit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Right. So, um, I, you know, we both sneaky liked this roster for a while and I like it even more. I guess I'll never understand the Okongu thing of like, why every time I would watch it'd be like, so Clint's still the better player. option there. And then they made that change. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I don't, but I wasn't mad about it. I didn't go, this is outrageous. He doesn't play basketball. No. And I remember like last year when it was, I think it was, we already talked about it when we did the Denver show and I mentioned the Zach Lowe part of it. I wasn't being critical of Zach, but it was just this accepted thing because of who beat it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Don't send a DocuSign. I'll drive to you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I... I don't know what his value is, man. I just don't know that I'd want to be in business because why is it supposed to get better? And for all the shit that he's taken right now from missing games and the Denver history he's brought back up, I'd ask the people that are mad at him for not, did you watch when he was playing? And like, you can come at me with a box score and all that stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
The guy doesn't move. Just go watch the Golden State game if you're wondering why. And he got his numbers. And he got his numbers, so you'll say, oh no, what are you guys talking about? No, watch the Golden State game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
If he's going to move that badly, my point is I don't even blame him for not playing. He was clearly marginalized when he was out there, and now people are mad that he's not playing anymore. And I kind of look at that stretch of going, well, if that's how bad it was going to look, then he actually needs to.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
As frustrating as it is for everybody, he needs to be missing games to not look like that anymore because that's not going to work either.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I don't even know how you would project to be like, yeah, no, it'll just be fine. The Olympics thing was clearly a huge priority to him. And I think part of it was you're not going to win a title, like, you know, win a gold. And, you know, he's had some big moments for him. But for somebody who just doesn't ever seem to be right, like, was that the best use of your time?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, I'm a little worried because it kind of gets back to that thing of like, well, if you've shown us some really high level stuff, then I expect that you're going to get back to it a little bit. And he's 28. I would say there's some Keontae George possessions where everybody else is watching that I don't love. And then Sexton is talented enough to get his.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So now do they have like all these other dudes? And hell, when they bring in Sensabaugh, there's just a lot of guys that are like, it's go time. And is Lowry collateral because it feels like there's less opportunities for him to initiate? Or is that something that people have figured out with him?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I still think that there is value for him. But I think it's a fair point in that last year it didn't matter. Whatever to the last dollar we can pay this guy is what he deserves and what he would get paid. And everybody else would be happy to give him that in a free agent world. And this season maybe makes you think of him as more expensive.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No, I don't think it's because here's an example that I would use. Like when we went back and looked at like Kaminga, right? You had Kaminga 83 and you had toughest omission, Tara Eason. I would look at like, okay, I've seen the ups and downs of the Kaminga thing for multiple seasons.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So the idea that it's just going to turn this corner into something like really steady and that he could be a number two scoring option on an okay team. For $30 million a year? Yeah, that's now starting to feel like a bit of a reach with Kaminga. Where with Tari Eason, even though it's raw or whatever, like, He's out there just wreaking havoc on basketball games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And because I haven't really gotten to see the full-form version of Tara Eason, he would still be more valuable to me just based on the unknown. And then we know this game enough that the unknown always trumps the known. And that's why Castle is a hang-up. Even if it's not...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
like the best you know because whenever we see somebody young that's just good like what if you can do this what if you can do this i don't know if he's ever going to be able to shoot it consistently but i do know this the guy is what two years removed from high school and he goes at like 30 year old dudes like they stole from him he looks to kill guys so
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
That mentality and all of that, like having a dude out there that is completely unafraid this early. Like there's plenty of young guys you're like, okay, he's just uncomfortable and he needs to kind of get through this. There's none of that with him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So even if the full arsenal of like all the offensive polish of even a guy like Vassell, I have no problem with him being this high because teams don't trade guys like that. I agree.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No, I'm pretty sure I went over because it was such a massive jump.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I think we would have seen this earlier from him, too. One, with health and just more opportunity.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
yeah it's starting to feel undeniable with him yeah now i i kind of just don't want some of these guys to get in his way because i think there's an awesome version of him that's just waiting to happen here and i i love him so if we ran a team we'd be calling griffin every 48 hours you're like i don't know maybe too many guys what about murphy josh hart i was shocked
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I might hang up on you and end the pod right now for having Bam in a group with Zion and LaMelo.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It was the weird fan base.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I agree that I think there's a second team market for him just based on history. This is like Darko and Orlando giving up a lottery pick for him. It's like, well, this guy went really high. Do you remember this? I do, but wow, I didn't know it was that bad. No, it isn't because Zion's done more than Darko ever did.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
that's a better one based on production because like the Zion thing was, was really good last year. And it's kind of like a little bit like the Embiid thing in that you go, well, if the market is this bad for this guy that I know I probably shouldn't be in business with, I'm still not going to trade him now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And then I think on the other side of it, not that this lasted very long, but the idea that because of the contract, like would they waive him and you go, no, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's a market. There's still a market based on like the second team going, like if it were Pierce and Antoine Walker, uh, you would be calling in to EEI being like, we should get Zion.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
That's the kind of structure of a team where you go, they don't really have that much hope and I'm going to be excited and it's going to be cool to have Zion in my favorite team's uniform.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Okay, but in a vacuum, like if you were running a team and let's... I wouldn't trade for them. Okay, but if somebody said you have to have one, like your owner calls, hey, I just bought the team. It's... It's Bezos. Bezos is like, we need to make a statement here early, Bill. Finally going to give you GM job. We're also going to have like behind the scenes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You think, you think hard knocks is all access. Yeah. We're going to be, we're going to be waking up with you. Okay. Right. 24 hour. Running a team. 24 hour VR. Right. So you need to trade for one of the two, LaMelo or Zion.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
which isn't even a great bet i thought the all-star voting thing was really interesting and then when i went to look at how it was happening when you sorted his position for available people to vote on he's the first option because he was leading everybody in scoring so i was like i wonder if that would happen i got to give tim mcmahon credit on this one because he was on with wind horse and bontemps and he was like well his style of play has been in preparation of the all-star game
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So he's a perfect fit. If he's named a starter, he ended up not being a starter. He should have been a starter based on what Mitchell Garland Brunson and all these guys have done. I think between the two, here's, here's the issue. Wasn't just the BAM issue. I think that Zion and LaMelo should be behind group G. I think they should just be behind it because if somebody offered LeBron,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You might be right about that. And I think there's there's a bunch of different things there that I like. I've never been special enough to compare myself with Jimmy Butler. Right. Like I and I'm not I'm not saying this because whatever our dynamic is, but your career, like I think at times you have been special enough to probably get away with it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Right. Because, I mean, even though you can't trade Trey Murphy for Zion, if Trey Murphy were offered for Zion, the team says, yeah, we'll turn the page on this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Okay. SEP and Rosella, she'll put me to sleep. That was such a sad day in my career. I was in the car driving home. Listen to Mad Dog. He said that? Yeah, he said it on the air. Mad Dog shit on Van Pelt and I. And I was like, I would leave ESPN right at four. I'd be driving to the gym. I would listen to a little Gottlieb. I'd check out what the dog was doing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And Dog was like, that's my favorite show. Let me just sleep. There's no energy on that show. And I was just like, fuck. I was going to do another Eagles rejoin from Scottsdale. I was pissed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But, you know, if the rant were offered to the Pacers or Halliburton, would they just go, yep, no problem, and we'll just have Nembhard initiate everything?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
easy to ramp may just not be into it later on. All right. That's fine. I love, I love this group. Cause I think this is where it really starts getting hard. This is where all the years, all the tape for you, bill is showing up because Kyrie, this is maybe the highest he's been in a long time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. Mic'd up. Just leadership pouring into your ears.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Right? Well, yeah, I think we're coming up on, what, two years of him being trained.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It would be a good 30 for 30. You know, the Jalen thing for Durant, you think Boston says no?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It just feels low for Jalen. And I think because of this year, he's getting dinged too much. So you put him in the 20s? Yeah, but I like the group that he's in because Sabonis is incredibly, like the stats with him every single time. I don't even know that I blame the guy from Turkey for voting him for MVP. Um, I know he wasn't from Greece or something like that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like he might've just pulled up and gone like, look at this plus minus shit. Like, are you kidding? Like that has to be the MVP. 15 rebounds a game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Okay, but we were doing it before. So what was the Jalen deal? Five years what?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Well, right. When the first quote came out, when this thing first got picked up, it was like Jimmy hasn't even started yet, which I was like, yeah, because we know the deal. You know, I think a lot of this stuff is like personal equity where like Tim Duncan ever had a problem with anything. I think we'd all immediately take Tim Duncan's side. I guess you just go, whoa, like.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Because we were talking OG and Anobi. We didn't really get into it. There's part of me that will always think like you had to pay OG Ananobi five years to 12 fully guaranteed and give him a player option on the last year. And statistically, there's some stuff with him. You're like, how does but when you watch him, you appreciate him a little bit more.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Certainly when he's been more available, which I think has been a fair knock on him in the past there. But you're right. It's still 75 million light of what you're paying Jalen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
That's alarming for anybody. Right, but the cap's going to go up at 65 million. As crazy as that number is, it's 65 million for him at 32. He's going to age well. And at that point, it's under 32% of the actual cap hit. I hope he ages well. I don't like the fact that he's fucking jacked.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
He was a small forward. Is Kevin Willis first team all-time? Oh, yeah. Looks like he could play right now. That's always the Fred Lynn thing when he stops by Nesson once a year. It's mandatory. It's mandatory that anybody that ages well, he can be 104 and be like, that guy probably gets you six innings right now. Right. You just have to make him be skinny. It's just if you're skinny, they say it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Towns has been great for them. Completely won the trade. Still going to be a little bit worried about what the defensive alignment stuff might be. But when they're rolling offensively, it's just an awesome one through five.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Nope. I don't think when, you know, as we get to the rest of the list that I've seen here, so there was nothing. I mean, I always could pick at anything. I guess I'm just kind of wondering, like, what is Ja right now?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Tim Duncan's upset about something. And with Butler, even though I think there's a, there's a version of the Chicago events where I would understand him. I thought the Wiggins towns thing at the time was funny. Cause I don't think he was wrong. Philadelphia decided to go with the young guys.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Really? He's missed 19 games this year. He played nine games last year. And we know last year was a mess for a bunch of different things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
He's definitely a... Because Memphis is on whatever priority. Like it's easily a top 10 team for me now because I just am like falling in love with Jaron Jackson in a new way. Like I always appreciated him. But now like this year I get like excited to kind of see like I wonder how they're going to use him I love Jaron Jackson. So there you go. And you're right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like there's nights where I go, oh, like, shit, Jaws and playing again tonight. And so when you look at his style of play, and I know he's talked about, like, I'm just not going to be doing the same type of stuff that he's in the second year of a five year deal for one hundred and ninety seven point two million. But it is that two major incidents.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
This is a lot like some of these other guys that we talk about, whether it's Trey's value to Atlanta specifically, LaMelo's value to Charlotte, New Orleans going, look, if Zion's not worth anything on the trade market, we might as well just ride this out again and see that if he's healthy because the best version of him, we can be a team that, I don't know if dangerous is the wrong word here, but you understand at least a path of if we have all of our guys and...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
we can get frustrated, we can get impatient, but so many of these teams just kind of default to patience that Ja's probably a hang-up on almost 90%. There's probably a few guys ahead of him that are hang-ups, but I also can see people making an argument that at 23, he's too high because of availability.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, and Maxie has missed a little time this year, but those are the two that I put next to each other. The contract's the same. Maxie's only on the first year, but it's five years 204, like I said, versus five years 197. Maxie played 60 games last year, 70 games the year before that. He's played 37 of 44 this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So every exit, there's some drama, but with this, there's another part of this that is just the reality of what's happening. This new CBA, when we first talked about it, you're like, man, this kind of looks like a hard cap. Yeah. This looks like there's really limited flexibility. I think another motivation behind some of this was that, hey, guess what?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
His shooting numbers are down, but really that to me is a product of him going, okay, Embiid's out, and I'm just going to force the issue, and he's taking a million shots. He's taking more bad shots than he normally would. So I don't look at his declining shooting this year as this alarming thing. I think it was just the shot difficulty.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I mean, I could ding you because of the hand surgery, but based on everything you've read about it is that it's pretty straightforward.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
When he when he had the opportunity to talk about the trade market, he did the exact opposite, did the exact opposite. Bobby Marks brought it up when we had him on not that long ago. And it's like, this is what you want. This is what you want in the face of your franchise.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
This is the person that looks at kind of this lifetime professional relationship of like, hey, what's the best way for me to handle this versus the worst way? And the worst way would be like Anthony Davis clearly did it because he learned it from watching LeBron.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I just don't think, I just think it's a ridiculous way to like operate as if the front office is sitting around and be like, Hey, do you guys want to be worse or better? Like, I don't know. What about you? Like, what do you want to do today? Ah, I don't know. Let's get lunch and then we'll think about it. And then it's like, Oh no. the player said he wants us to get better. All right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
If you have a four year extension about to kick in and you want to ask for a trade and you want to ask for a trade to like one team that's already pretty good. We're going to set up something that not only curbs spending, which is the primary motivation behind this, but we're also going to make it really hard for you guys to decide like, sorry, I'm just out of here now and you have to do this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Well, that, that does it. Yeah. Let's get fine. We weren't, we weren't going to do it. We actually wanted to be average, but now, and usually that means you're forcing the front office.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
If you have leverage, if you have an upcoming contract, you have all these different things, you're probably forcing the front office and ownership into doing something they don't think is the best thing to do long-term. And, you know, LeBron's never care about any of the draft picks anyway. So I think Davis is just basically saying the same stuff as him. So yeah, there are no lines thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
There's there's I don't know, you know, nothing's impossible, but I don't know if that day is ever going to come.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I just think he should be up, man. I'm a huge Booker fan, and I think it's been a bit like some of the stuff that we've seen. I think there's certain guys from an efficiency standpoint, we just talked about it with Maxie, where I can handle the efficiency being dinged a little when I feel like you are tasked with having to get your team out of so many bad possessions.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And when I watch them, I think he's still... he's still the guy I trust the most on that team. So if that, I mean, let's run through it. Like, you think of Jalen Williams? Well, the Jalen Williams contract thing with OKC, I'm going to lose because of the flexibility and all that kind of stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, the contract, I can't win it. I'd rather have Booker just as a basketball player. I'd rather have Booker playing next to SGA right now than Jalen Williams. I don't even know how anybody would debate that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, when you look at who, they'll either attack, the other team will attack Wallace if it's a size thing, or they'll go at SGA because it's like the best of the options, you know, so you can avoid Dort or Caruso or even Wiggins, who I think is one of my favorite like underrated players in the entire league. I like them too. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And I think that a lot of star players, it's becoming a wake-up call. And when you're 35 and you miss a lot of games and your personal history is that it ends up in some sort of bullshit thing that's a distraction for the basketball team. Like, no kidding, there's not a great market for them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I would trade him for Booker. You would? I would. I think this is where... I mean, we raved about him at the beginning, so I don't think anybody's going to, but he's 19% from three first career. Kawhi was 38% his rookie year. I think he was 38% his second year too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I look at Booker as a top 10 bucket getter, and we've seen it in the playoffs. We've seen it deeper in the playoffs. He's 28 years old, and he's a motherfucker in the best possible way. And not in a way that distracts him from the task at hand of the game, but I don't think he's afraid of anybody.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I think when his, his level of like shot creation and scoring in huge moments is there's not 10 players in the league that are better than him at that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Right. But it's kind of the weight of like, how often would we have ever said no to Booker for Amin Thompson? And it's like every day except for the last 12.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
To carry this offense, um, back to the first part of this, to be able to do this, I still would like to know over under, if I said it at five and a half number of games, Monte Williams is watching the post Pistons taking the over the under, uh, way under, uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You don't think he's watched six Pistons games? Just out of curiosity, you don't think he's checked in twice a month?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You would say no. Let's see. This becomes a Cavs thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I know the shooting number wasn't great. It's the only dude that I've seen be like, to your point, fuck him. Yeah, it's like, fuck them. I mean, I haven't seen that since Scoot in that international game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I don't know. Come on. They'd come over to my house and be like, is he sleeping? Uh...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I'm glad. I was afraid. I was afraid you were going to do Jaron Jackson in the 20s because you get in his case with the foul trouble and the rebounding.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
When you think about what he can do offensively and the different ways that you can use him, I've never been as big a fan of him as I am right now. I voted him as an all-star starter, and I know that wasn't popular. Did you? No way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Well, very few media members agreed with me, but there was still like when the votes came out, I was like, am I going to be the only one that did this? And I think there were seven of us.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I was that on the fence. You know, we're all impressionable to a point too. And it just, I caught more and more of him during this. And then you back up and you look at the numbers and then you think about what he does defensively and all these different things. And I was like, I think it's close enough. And, um, you know, standings isn't necessarily my tiebreaker.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And I think that'll not be a tiebreaker when it comes to the MVP vote. If we stay on the same path, uh, and i you know i think i i think that durant like the default and lebron and all that kind of stuff like hey it's the all-star game it's about the stars and that's who fans want to see like i i wouldn't get mad about anybody doing that if it's close right yeah if it's close
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
It's yeah, it's minus 4.6.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, I don't know why they'd want to be in the Jimmy Butler business. I can't dispute the fact of whatever the trade market was for him versus now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Super impressed with them in person when they house the Celtics. I know people can point to the Celtics, what was it, five and seven? But I just hate how everybody just throws. Anytime any team loses, you're just like, oh, back to back, oh, look at this stretch. And I understand it, but the Lakers control that game from the jump. And it's very clear.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I thought they were really physical in a way that, was, was like inspiring. And not that I went outside and started, you know, fighting people, but I, that would've been awesome. Was well, I wasn't that upset. I wanted to get home and get something to eat cuz it was late.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But I think D'Angelo Russell just being removed from all of the possibilities and all the possessions and all the stuff that he does that may not show up like, oh, look at the shooting numbers. Like, oh, look at this. And he has a better net rating than LeBron, all these different things. It's like, yeah, man. It just there's just times where, you know, like, what the hell is he doing right now?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
it's it's diminished because you're like here we go again and it's all fresh and when it's actually happening and then you have to sit in their front office and your ownership and your coaches and go like like i like the memphis basketball part of it but then when you hear the quote being like don't send him to memphis like anywhere but memphis right so if you're
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And so their best spacing closing group was their worst defensive perimeter group. Yeah, they were kind of stuck. And I think removing that removes some of the stuff with them being stuck. And I, you know, it's weird with them because I kind of like them. But I also think like the standard is that when they're not a true title contender, they get so dismissed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And then we're just like, oh, they stink. It's like they don't they don't stink. Like there's seven guys there that I kind of like. But then I have to think about who am I picking them against in the playoffs in the first round? And that becomes more challenging.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
The other hope is that LeBron defensively is going to be a different version of himself in the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, it's terrible right now, and it has been.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I mean, there's just so many moments you can look at and be like, well, if he has to move, it'll be times where he'll help to where the help doesn't need to be there, but at least it looks like he's defending somebody, and it's like, okay, but now you just messed up the entire rotation of the stuff, and I get it. He's 40 years old, and that's why there was that weird stretch
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
like 10 games in or something where they were winning games and he was playing out of his mind and his intensity. I was like, what, what is this? Like, are you going to try to keep up this kind of pace? Like this doesn't make any sense. So that actually is a positive in that. I wonder why,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
You gear it up, you have a little bit more of a break during the playoffs if you can see a more engaged version of him where defensively he's just trying to survive the season, play as many games as he can, help them be kind of a mid-seed team in the West.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I still think some of their best offensive possessions is when he's initiating it because it would make sense because he's so smart and he's still so good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
memphis and you're like hey we're pretty good we're not great but we're pretty good so yeah he raises our top five ceiling which i think a lot of teams just do like hey if these are the five guys are rolling out there to close the playoff game this is better than the five we have right now it makes sense but if you're like what if he opts in at 50 million and then he's 36 and we don't give him an extension so even though i there's not there's only one team right there's well you have to be desperate to do this
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Think about it, though. How much easier is to move when you know where you're moving as opposed to having to move in relationship to the other person moving where you have no idea where they're going. So when he knows everything that he's doing, it's still incredibly impressive. And so that window of when he played that hard,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Even though I was like, man, this dude is like, it was a bunch of games in a row. I was like, he's really going for it. I wonder if that's actually something to look at. We were like, okay, well, at least that had happened at some point this season, even from that time on. Yeah, I guess it's been a little bit better lately, but there was a stretch. We'll see.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I don't think so. Okay, good. And it's that stretch. It's that stretch last year. I think he's another guy that you have to factor in who was available around him. Orlando, statistically, so bad offensively. And it also speaks to losing Franz for that long on top of losing Paolo. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of people that could try to throw it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And he's had some dud of games, you know, some of the shooting numbers since he's come back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
What I love about him is that I know he can fill it up, but he also wants everybody to be involved. And that's why I loved him at Duke. It's why I've always argued for him is that, you know, the difference between Jalen Green can't see the way Paolo sees the game. And that's why I'm a Paolo fan.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, but it was going to happen in the Olympics leading up to it. After his run through the playoffs, he was like, I'm the number one option. It's like, or. Yeah. Or you're going to be watching.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Giannis is better. Stop. Sorry. You're going to be so happy right now. Giannis is better than Tatum. Tatum is the better value.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No. Giannis turned 30 in December. Tatum... Oh, shit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. Tatum turns 27 in March. I didn't factor that in. So when you sent that, I was thinking maybe you were doing that on purpose because people were going to give you shit for the Tatum part of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Listen, even the great ones make mistakes. There's not been a day where I thought Tatum was better than Giannis. No, you're getting four extra years. And I'll tell you, Tatum this year, man... I think he's incredible. Couldn't agree more. The numbers may not scream it at you if you're not paying attention. but to see what he is doing to some of these defenses and what they're trying to do to him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And like Houston last night, the entire thing was Blitzen, double him, and he was still turning the corner on some of these traps. And it wasn't like he was scoring every single time, but there's not something that just goes, oh, wow, look at this jump, look at the shooting number, look at the scoring, because the shooting for the team is down, which is another part of the Celtics thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
This is the best Tatum's ever played. I've never, you know, much like I was talking about with Jaron Jackson, like this is the best I've ever felt about Tatum and the fact the age thing here is I think he actually should be ranked ahead of Giannis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
No, that's fine. Although there's an availability thing going on there where it's not. That's why he dropped.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So he's number one. They're like, no, we were calling about a three-way with Krejci.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. Okay. I... I don't know where this Jokic thing is going to end up all time because like this... This stretch is...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
like so ridiculous and that's why when we were in denver i meant this like i hope he gets another one so that the simpletons are allowed to accept him into a higher tier and i know that sounds like shitty for me to say but i just get so tired of like when i look at how people rank stuff like do you really want to be this simple you just want to count stuff Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like that's all it ever is to you is that this guy was good because of this and this guy was bad because of that. Then what's the point of watching any of this stuff? Having a lot with college football, I thought this year too. And I really hope like Jokic gets the one that allows him to be talked about in the way that he deserves to be talked about because of what this stretch is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Westbrook, Westbrook. I was thinking about this the other day and I don't know if this is going to work, but like Westbrook's your buddy from home that just, you know, has it dialed in and everybody knows the routine. You know, the girls probably maybe liked him when he was in high school or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But then if you bring him to like LA and you've been living in LA for a few years and you should be like, Hey, look, dude, just so you know, like, It's going to be a little harder out here. Yeah. And they're going to be competing with like different dudes. And like, it's up to you to accept the fact that like, you're not going to get into some places and people are going to big time you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And that if you recognize a guy from a TV show and you tell him that you're a big fan, he's not going to talk to you and he's going to walk away. And like, they're just going to smell the non LA on you and you'll have to adjust. And some people leave and never come back because they hated their experience. And I think Westbrook showed up to Denver being like, I do get it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Like I do, my hometown stuff might not work. I find Westbrook in this run funny because he can be almost too deferential where he'll like want to get it back to Jokic in a spot where it's not even like a great catch for Jokic because Westbrook doesn't want to do all the things that he's been criticized for doing in the past. Now, I still think
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
there's a version of this with the spacing with Gordon and Westbrook to close like a playoff game. Like, yeah, I'm allowing like, is that actually going to happen? But they needed him. They needed him. He was cheap. He was, and he's giving them like value minutes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Westbrook's really appreciated, though. He's appreciated more by players than he is by those of us that don't play. Because I think they look at what he did at his peak, and there is a respect for him that we probably don't understand as much. But you also realize with Westbrook, which version are we getting? Because the L.A. thing with the Lakers was a disaster.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And I think he resented so much of the dynamic there, which I can even see his...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
true but i mean it's not like he like his style of play was going to lead to oh this doesn't work like once again the players expect to be gms or sometimes i'm like do you not watch league pass like how do you not understand like how this is going to clog up some of the things that you'll want to do like but it doesn't explain the clippers thing last year how bad he was no because when it seemed like his career was over right the dallas playoff series when he decided to like prioritize just
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
being pissed off at everybody and taking himself out. Huge spots where you're like, what are you doing right now? He's a pissed off maniac. Yeah, right. You're getting us any buckets or anything? No. So now we can't even trust you to be out there. So you would think that it'd be easy for somebody to go, hey, look, all you have to do with Jokic is just cut, man. Be ready and cut.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And when you think he doesn't see you, he actually still sees you. So just cut.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And Yoko finds him every time. I still will worry, though, because there's times where you can see, like in a game, or if he has like an open look from three in the corner. And I know the corner numbers are really good, right? But... if he clanks it in a big spot, like the next time he may get that catch in the same look, you can see him just not want to, I've seen that happen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
So I don't know if there's numbers that would tell me that it's, it's true, not true, but I've seen him where it's just clear as day. Okay. He doesn't want to pull the trigger on this. And I don't know if it's like, hey, I just bricked the last one and this is a big spot. I don't know if it's him being deferential of like, hey, let me get it back to Jokic.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I wonder with the Jokic-Murray two-man game in a playoff series when you have Gordon where you have that spacing decision that Minnesota always messes with where it's like, hey, put Rudy on Gordon because that way Rudy can freelance off of him. That gives Nas the Jokic matchup that Cat did so well with last year. Can you run the two-man game if Gordon and Westbrook are both on the other side?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And are you going to start dealing with some real spacing issues?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
That's the only thing that when I watch it, I go, I wonder what that'll look like then. But up until this point, it's been, to your point, for a team that we were like, where's the depth? Just his energy and even like a diminished version of Westbrook athletically when he starts going and he realizes he's going to get the ball back because Jokic is just that good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, it motivates you to be be like involved in all of this stuff. Like, hey, if I keep cutting, I get just all these easy baskets because I'm still so much quicker, even though it's later in his career.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, Wednesday and then a loaded football show on Friday.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I just would be scared to death if I'm Dunleavy and I'm Lakoff and I'm going, okay, so we bring him in. Everything you said made sense, but his agent's like, okay, so what do you think about tacking on those two years for him? It's a no. And so if it's a no.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
If he was 32, he doesn't play enough for me. It's a no. And you're right about the basketball part of it, whether it's them, whether it's Memphis, because it does raise your student. But if I have to sit there and be honest with the people that are in charge of my employment, right, if you're working on the front office side of this, answering to your owner.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
And going, yeah, let's just trust that it's going to work out with his track record. I wouldn't feel good about saying yes to that. I would just go like, look, it'd be one thing if he was younger and you go, hey, maybe the West isn't and it isn't as deep or doesn't feel as deep halfway through the season as we thought it would be this summer. OKC still looks like a monster.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I mean, we can run through every team and I could tell you concerns I have about all the contenders, but. It would have to be more of like a guarantee of what's possible. And even adding him doesn't like, what does it actually guarantee about what Golden State can do in the playoffs?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Let me throw something at you here, because you mentioned it with the Riley thing, and they felt really betrayed by Riley being upset when Butler was basically like, if I was playing, we'd beat Boston, we'd beat the Knicks. By the way, they weren't beating that Boston team last year or last playoffs with Butler. No chance. So it was kind of a crazy thing. And then I think about Riley's age.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
He's the same age as my dad. I'm like, imagine if my dad had to do a press conference about a player. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
I went to go see Gillis and Bill Burr last night for the fire benefit. And Gillis had this whole routine of like, you know, Biden didn't really get enough credit. Like imagine, imagine if you had someone in your family who was 84, who had to like go out there and speak to the world. It actually could have been that much worse.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Now look, Riley, at no point do I think like what's going on with this guy. But he deserves like Riley's done enough in his basketball life to have this stance. And then when I think about like how other teams operate, everybody operates in absolute fear where they have to when their best player goes off, they have to find some way through PR to craft some way that they're supportive.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
But it's like, so what, so what happened? What if Riley had said nothing? The bottom line is that they didn't give him the contract extension. They probably be in the exact same place. So like, you can tell me that it was insulting or that that was the thing that I don't, when he didn't get the extension, when he felt like he was owed this, like why?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NBA Trade Value List With Ryen Russillo
Cause you went to the finals two years ago, which was like really fluky. And what five years ago last year, which is, and he doesn't play, he doesn't play enough. And look, when he was playing this year, You could see, you're like, what's going on with him? Before this even got publicly bad, and it's like, so you want the extension, but you're going to mail it in for stretches?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Luka Gets Traded to the Lakers… What??? | With Ryen Russillo and Rob Mahoney
When you move from prohibition to legalization, it takes time to significantly reduce the size of the illegal market.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You can have an OG game. Hart can go off. Brunson's still going to be the focal point on all this stuff. He's a stretch five, which I think is almost mandatory if you're trying to be a title contender. But we know their defensive numbers are not good. We know what they are against those other top teams. And today wasn't really close, man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Did it feel like it was anything that was happening to them? Because Brunson got off to a really slow start, and then those guys go nuts. I mean, what was it, 38 points in the third quarter?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Because Brunson got coronet a couple times. And then I thought there was another time where it was like the same movement where they're going to get Brunson down the left side. And they brought Tatum over as like a third defender. And just were like, fine. So I thought there was these little moments in there that kind of back up what you're saying. So go ahead.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
No, my thing with Tatum has been pretty consistent that as much as I loved him, and I think I appreciate him, that there was never going to be a time where that guy's the best player in the world. That seems like an impossible goal to accomplish.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, he's... Look, this is the most I've ever appreciated him. Me too. His passing... The way he beasts guys, like a team the other day, we were just kind of like bullshit because Goldsberry and I had done constructing our most complimentary starting five of today's players, right? Yeah. And I just, I put Tatum on it because I felt like he provides so much.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I mean, he's basically playing point guard at this size. And I don't know that that gets talked about a lot nationally.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Right, which is what he did in the NBA Finals. Now, granted, the game's different, so it's not like he's down in the post against Moses Malone for 40 post-ups a game. But he was a center on defense. and he's playing point guard. And, you know, maybe somebody else brings the ball up, but then they bring it back to him, and it's his decision-making.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And so, you know, maybe there's some output stuff that doesn't line up with the SGAs or the nights where Ant goes fucking crazy, you know, which is just so much fun to watch. Like, Ant having one of those nights is probably still my favorite thing other than just a reminiscent Curry flamethrower game. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Honestly, I'm probably... I would tell you, like, there's certain moments with Ant that I probably still like more than any other single player in the league. But... Tatum just has more options around him. I still would say Boston at its peak has more options offensively than even Oklahoma City does. I don't know if there would be much of an argument there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So even though you're not getting that peak output that would maybe put him in the belt conversation, I am so happy with his approach. that it's, I'll take this. His assist ratio on the advanced stuff has never been better. You know, a lot of the advanced metrics are like peak for him, but there's also, it's not just a counting thing. It's not even the metrics.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
There's just an eye test thing with him where how steady he is. Like he had a baseline drive on OG where he went right into him and moved him off the spot and got the free throws. And I'm like, how many other guys 20 plus feet away would have the balls to drive at OG and look like the stronger player? So yeah, I've never been more in love with his game than what I've seen this season.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You really think it's... Well, I think you've already answered that it's kind of a closed case, but... I mean, at any point, do you think, I mean, I guess he's got a couple years to go, but is he going to surpass SGA?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, but, I mean, aren't they, are they 12-3, 11-4 in the last 15? I mean, I know it was 12-4. Yeah, but I'm talking about, like, the stuff they were doing last year where they were just, like, ripping people's heads off for three straight weeks. Yeah, they're 10-2 in their last 12. Yeah. This kind of feels like it, other than the start. Maybe we're in the middle of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
They also had that, I don't know, what is it, seven-game stretch there in November. So the weird thing was just a couple games against lesser opponents, a Toronto game. They could have lost a New Orleans game. And the standard for them is so much higher. But that first quarter was so impressive overall.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
that, you know, I was just a nice little reminder, I think on a national stage for everybody of like, this is what this team is capable of. And I don't know that there's anybody else. I've granted you talk about the OKC defense, which I'm sure we'll get to a little bit later today. Might be the tiebreaker for a lot of different people, but those first 12 minutes were just awesome.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I agree. And it's the defensive numbers. Like you mentioned it. If you go back the last 15, that's the number one defense in the league. They're 12 and three is the best record over the last 15. Do you understand that?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, I think having some of the pieces... I thought Rui played his ass off last night, both. I mean, you can look at the points, but it was what he was doing defensively. Now, granted, Vando comes in and just hacks the shit out of Jokic, but it's like they're not going to call all of these, although they tried to call all of them on Vanderbilt because he didn't play a ton of minutes. But...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You know, the Cam Reddish thing seems over. The Dalton Connect minutes are limited if you start looking at these things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So I think we gave Vincent being healthy with Vando being healthy with them liking this Rui center matchup stuff because they're basically forced to figure this out because the Jackson Hayes minutes usually aren't that great because the longer he's out there, the longer there's going to be something that happens. Yeah. And specific to last night, Bill, I loved that game. OK, me too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I thought it was really impressive because we look at the playoff and you go bracket wise, like how far can L.A. go as well? They're going to run into Denver again. So that's not going to work. And last night's one result. But I thought this coaching staff showed the difference where it's always about the roster for me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But there are little times like Kenny Atkinson this year with Cleveland, like clearly there's something better with this, with his approach to basketball. I think JJ and the staff did such a fantastic job of last night's preparation. the possessions when you really looked at what they were doing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
There's these non-spacing lineups that Denver runs out there outside of Jokic where the Lakers are like, if this is what you're going to run out, we are not going to pay attention to Aaron Gordon. We're not going to care about Westbrook. They had a play, and I'll finish here, but LeBron was on Jokic kind of in the paint, left side. Dalton is in the dunker spot, ignoring Aaron Gordon.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
He's basically under the rim. The other two wing players to the right the Lakers defenders are in the paint. So that's four players in the paint against Jokic. The only one that was providing any spacing was Michael Porter Jr. At the top of the key and Rui was defending him, but Rui was only a foot beyond the free throw line.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And you saw possession after possession where you could see the Lakers, like specifically the way they prepped that game last night. I think that's a credit to JJ and the staff going, we've got to come up with something new. That's Jokic specific and, And it worked in, you know, really wasn't much of a game on top of all the Lucas stuff that I know you want to get to.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So are you in? Are they your fifth team? Are they the first team outside of your tier one playoffs? Like title contenders?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Campaign was nice, though, that first shift. He was. He made three in a row. That's probably the best thing ever for a Knicks opponent. Be like, hey, don't forget, like, tight game second half. Campaign made three in a row in the first half, so that's good for us.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, he has been good. I think some of the worst anti-LeBron content that I've ever seen was Luka's stat lines those first three games with LeBron. Like, I get it. If you hate LeBron, you hate LeBron. But come up with better evidence than that. Because I went to Luka's first game that he had played in like two months. I went to Crypto that night to watch him play against Utah. And...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
He was so tired, like four times up and down the court. I'm like, oh man, I'm like, he's so tired. Like he doesn't even, you know, he hasn't been complaining. He's on a new team. Like you haven't seen him. And it was kind of funny. Like obviously last night's the best that he's looked with the Lakers. That first half was incredible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
The way he was kind of getting into a shot, not like basketball is funny, man. you can be this incredible player. Here we are talking about somebody who has a chance to be the best player in the world. And it's like, I'm, I'm new here. So I'm just trying to fit in for a little bit. Yeah. And if, if you're a coach and you're, it's Luca, you're like, don't be trying to fit in to just do what you do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And then we'll figure it out around you. And just because the stats were bad and then they had the weird breaks, like all that stuff was so stupid. He was great last night. It was funny too. Cause he, he made a play and then he cycled out of the three point line was wide open and he didn't get the ball back. And it's the first time I've seen him pissed with the Lakers.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And he put his hands up like, you idiots. Like, what are you doing? And I'm going, this is great. That's what you want out of this dude. You want him pissed that he didn't get the ball back. So I'm shocked the defensive numbers are that good the last 15 years. It's been a big part of this turnaround. They finally beat Denver, so I'm not ready to say that they've solved Denver.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You know, there's just going to be some spacing stuff in the playoffs where if it's Westbrook or if it's Brown, and I think even Michael Porter Jr. 's like such a coin toss game. Gordon is a matchup specific guy, but they're going to ignore him even though he's shooting like over 40% from three. They just did a great job of loading up on all this stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But look, man, you're closing group in a tight playoff game if the three perimeter dudes are LeBron. Luka and Reeves, I have a hard time believing that defense is going to be just living on stops, though, in the playoffs. Right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I would say if over 50% of your tweets are about LeBron or Jordan, then you should just be banned from the platform.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I don't know. That sounds great. Thanks. What is it?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Weren't they below 500, too?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
It feels like the Knicks are on the Lakers' line of this, though, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Okay, but here's something that I like about the Lakers because I think this is always an important thing. Because I think guys play more often now, because this could get really misleading sometimes. You're looking at matchups against the better teams. You're like, okay, who was there? Even when I go through those Knicks seven games, it's basically everybody played in those games for the Knicks.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I think OG missed one. There's different times where you go head-to-head and you're looking at it and getting ready for the playoffs. How do they do against each other? You're like, all these guys missed these games. Again, like I said, it's been a little bit better. The Lakers are one of three teams in the West with a winning record against teams 500 or better. So clearly OKC is 20 and nine.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
The Rockets are 20 and 15 and the Lakers are 15 and 12. And I think that's important. Memphis is under 500. Denver's under 500. The Clippers are under 500. Minnesota's under 500. So again, like I said, only three teams. The rest of them are all under 500. I think for me on the Lakers part of it is we're totally aligned on the Luca thing. Like, give me a break.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Like this guy at this age with his track record and because he hasn't played in two months. So you're like if you were watching these early games going, what's wrong? So this is what you think it's going to be now. You just think this is going to be like, it's going to be a mess. You know how absurd that is. So it's we're not even at peak Luca. They're putting together this performance.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
They have this defensive profile the last month or so. But, you know, bracket it out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I'm great. A lot of reading, a lot of history, the beginning of civilization. If you have any questions, we'll get to them maybe after the basketball. I'm ready.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
four or five they're playing houston you're probably picking the lakers because you trust their offense more than you trust houston's offense right okay then then guess what's waiting for them on the other line sadly i sadly i did this and as you know i hate the lakers and this made me sad okay but how i mean by serious i was like oh my god they're gonna fucking make the western finals so they're beating oklahoma city in a one four matchup you're crazy
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Right. And then you think they're going to beat Oklahoma City?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, I want to see more of the Chet stuff, but defensively, the Chet stuff has been really good. It's not the same as the Luka thing, but we're looking at Chet missing three months and then trying to come back. He's not taking a ton of shots. I can't wait to see what that guy looks like and what this team looks like. They still have a massive issue with certain matchups and bigs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Normally, I would say, what are you going to do against Jokic? Do you really think you're going to survive seven games against... Rui was great last night. But let's not lose our minds about who this team is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
No, I'm on this huge Susan Wise Bauer kick. But again, I think we should table it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
It isn't a very long list. I mean, Pat Bev really went for it last night. I think he tweeted out they have the best one through four in the NBA. And I was like, who's the fourth? It was like Rui. I'm like, all right. I think you're forgetting about Boston. And then OKC with Chet. I think there's a lot of guys that you could pick from there that would be in the conversation.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But as far as like number three guys with Reeves, I mean, is it Derek White?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Is Mobley Mobley? It's just a completely different kind of player. Like I'd rather have Mobley than Reeves, but offensively like initiating your own stuff. It's not even a conversation. Reeves is so good at it. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I wasn't shocked. Yeah, but the other starters are Dorian Finney-Smith, who, by the way, we hadn't even mentioned yet for the defensive part of what they've done. Huge. Getting D'Angelo Russell away from this basketball team. I try to tell you guys, Lakers fans, I know, I get it. He makes a couple threes and points, and you guys are super into that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But getting him away from this group has also been a big transition from who they are right now. I feel bad we didn't even mention Dorian Finney-Smith at this point. I mean, he made one shot last night, and he was a plus 20.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Why?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I know. I just don't think Philly was ready for the Keon Johnson-Watford two-man game to close. They had no scattering report on that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I tried to turn that game off like four different times last night. Yeah, you couldn't. I hate watching the Sixers play basketball. Yeah. They are disgusting. Okay? I can't. But I can't turn it off. And then I was like, that's close. And I'm like, look at Brooklyn. Look at this team. No, they can't stop. Now they're ahead of them. They're ahead of them in the standings in the East. They flipped it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Exactly.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
What's his F per 100? Do you know?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
His life looks a lot easier having somebody like Jimmy Butler out there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And the shooting numbers would back it up. The three point shooting would back it up. Even watching the beginning of today's game, even though it wasn't just super aggressive, like having Butler just be somebody else that people are worried about. And of course, they ran some other play where it's like Curry's the lead block on the cut.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So everybody freaks out and then Butler kind of slips a screen and then he's the second cutter behind it and he's wide open. in a way that, you know, he's probably like, this must be, I just can't imagine playing basketball for a living and then getting the chance. Like, no wonder everybody's in a good mood. So like, this is what happens. Like when he moves, all of this other shit happens.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And then now my life is like this much easier. Although I do have to point out on a couple of broadcasts, like our memories can't be this short. Like Butler has a nice game. He's super aggressive. I mean, he was taking 10 shots a game for Miami. It was the lowest field goal. Not going to foul on at all.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, no, he was actually still was like not he's he's one of the most like hyper free throw rate guys in the league because he pump fakes at the rim and guys just go for it all the time. So like if you played him in a series, you go, you guys going to stay down.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
against him now he's shooting a million free throws but he's just more aggressive now you can tell he's taking 13 shots a game again the shot count goes down because he's taking so many free throws right but he for all the stuff that he talked about in miami like they took my joy from me like he broke up with a quarterback uh you're just going like we just saw this guy
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
destroy his value around the league. And he makes a couple of cuts and hit some free throws. And it's like, man, golden state, like, you know, everybody who's golden state is probably still scared to death of like what the longterm thing could be here. But in the short term, it's, it's awesome to see, you know, some of these possessions late in games where you could just see step being like,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I'm running around, I get the ball, I'm trapped, I throw it to somebody else, and I don't even want to take some of these shots. And then you have people being like, oh, his shooting is dipping. It's like, well, no shit. So I think his life is going to be a lot easier now. I still don't even think they're in the Lakers class, though. Do you have them in the Lakers class?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
It reminds me a bit of when Brian Heideck was cast as the pool guy in Melrose Place, and he was like, look, I'm just happy to be here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Heideck. Who's that? Brian Heideck? Yeah, he played the pool guy in Melrose Place. It just reminds me a lot of that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Google it. Right. Hi, Nick.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Late bloomer list? Is there any hope for a healthy Orlando?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Their offense in their last month, they're the third or fourth worst offense in the NBA. And boy, when it's bad on offense for the Magic, I'm surprised it was that high, that they were only 27.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
How many people do you think right now know what seed Detroit is?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You want to do a little Clippers profile or do you want to save it? Want to take a break? Yeah, let's take a break.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, I'm glad. I don't think we spent enough time on Minnesota because I think we did 10 seconds on it. And I know they lost in the Houston game. That was just kind of a frustrating game. They didn't have Rudy, but sometimes is that play to their strength now when you look at some of the declining Rudy stuff?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But then that also means Houston can go small because even Houston against Utah last night, they lost because Utah's size bothered Houston. And granted, Houston's kind of rotating some guys in and out, so they're not playing with like the full cast of guys. So, look, sometimes you're just going to lose to Utah when George decides to go all first team NBA.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But let's just say, OK, open, like open to the idea. Like, I feel a little bit better about Minnesota maybe than I did because in the beginning of the year when it was frustrating, it was like this team's healthy and these other teams are hurt and they're losing to these teams. Um, but there's just a Randall stretch here where it's like, man, this, they might just be better without this guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
He doesn't care. I mean, I'm sure he understands it. In the brief time that I had access to him, we were at ESPN together. He's so smart about basketball. Like, I think I left the room just going, do I know anything?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And they haven't had DiVincenzo for a month either. You're going to go might for that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
He's good for 20. And it's like, okay, but there's just a lot of other stuff that we need from him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
25, 28.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
No, they've done a good job. Like Terrence Shannon's been playing well. Clark, this other young players coming in, he's been good for him defensively. And, um, yeah, like I'm not disagreeing with any of that stuff. I just think there's certain dudes that maybe I defend because I like them, but I think I like and dislike players for very valid reasons. Um,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And for the high-volume stuff with him, I think the ball just ends up back in his hands. And he's getting trapped, he's getting a ton of attention, and it's up to you to figure all that stuff out. I mean, he had a play against Houston where he split the screen, and it was...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, because, I mean, I've told this story before, but we were watching a game together. And then it was an inbounds. It was a simple inbounds play. And I just went, what? And they ran through like seven different things that you could do defending this inbound. And I just was like, Jesus. And look, this is what everybody says about him. We know that he's brilliant, but yeah, he doesn't care.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
it was two defenders that came with him and he just split it in a way where I just couldn't believe and believe like it was physically possible. And then he almost throws it down from there. And so because he's capable of doing some of that stuff, I don't know that he wants to take those shots. Like some other players, like again, you just go through the list of guys I don't necessarily like.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I think they're totally fine being like, cool.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. Per 100, he's like 2006 Kobe. Yeah, like we haven't seen somebody take that many shots per 100 possessions. That guy should be in the all-star game. He should be. Well, the other reason he got so many all-star votes is somebody pointed out to me after the fact, and they're like, do you realize like if you...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, the voting was still open, but if you went to the voting tab, it was done by points per game. So he was like the first option when you went to the page to vote as a fan. Also, he's popular.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
We are going to have a lottery ones as well.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I really, really enjoyed it. That was one of those deals where it's like, whatever I'm doing tonight, I'm watching Minnesota and Houston.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Are you serious?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Do you remember him in that Lakers series? Where people thought his career was over?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, he did it to LeBron in a way, but LeBron was just not going to fall for it. But the thing that turned everybody off... Yeah, LeBron was way older and smarter. Right, and then Brooks couldn't make a shot, and then he didn't do a media availability, and it was like, what? Yeah, I didn't like that either. Nobody liked it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
it was an awful lake. It was like, people were going, get ready to learn China, buddy type of stuff. Yeah. I mean, he was a China meme dude. And then all of a sudden he gets a huge contract from Houston and to Houston's credit, like they desperately need him. And yeah, you know, I, what I liked about that game is this amend Thompson, uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
progression is like nightly man you have to watch him every night to see it and you know you and i were talking about him we did that pod for the trade value thing i was like yeah doing this at the worst possible time because you're gonna lose your shit about thompson but i feel good about i thought we were properly careful while also respecting the moment where was he again he was like 19 Okay.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And I think when you looked at the earlier part of this week, because New York, we know the record against the top three teams, Boston, OKC. In Cleveland, they're 0-7 now. But they played in Chicago on Thursday, and it was an overtime game. And here are the minutes. Precious, 46. McHale, 44. Cat, 43. Brunson, 38. McBride played 42. And then he played three other guys, 17 minutes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And I had said something and I remember I was pissed when we did it. I wasn't like mad. I wasn't like mad the next day type of mad. But I was like, you know, are you still going to run like pick and roll for him in a late possession? And you were like, well, they did on the game winner. And I was kind of like, I didn't want to get into it with you. I was like, there's four seconds left.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
They inbounded it to him and he uses athleticism and he hits the game winner against Boston. The stuff he was doing against Minnesota and even some stuff that I saw last night against Utah, like the drive and kick stuff that he's showing now. Granted, we know he can't shoot yet, which is the funniest thing about how much we all love watching him play.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
The joke is he's not even good yet, and it's this much fun. But he hit a shot because Utah just didn't respect him. He hit a shot late last night where it was like, I'm catch and shoot three. I'm not even going to dick around with this. I'm getting this shot up. I'm going to make you try to come out here a little bit more.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
There's more and more ball handling with him where they trust him, where there could be this amend Thompson reward of these Van Vliet minutes as disrupted as they can be because clearly they need him to organize them on offense, even though they have all these clutch wins, but all their clutch numbers stink, which is one of the weirdest profiles. Well, then nobody can create a good shot.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But he kind of does know that there were these kickouts in that Minnesota game where it was a very clear, like, when he takes off, he's going, if I don't have this, I know where to kick it out. And it's also just awesome having Jabari back as, you know, the stretch option because, you know, it gives you some more flexibility with Shingun.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Because I'll admit, there's some, as I can't say it, some Shingun nights where, where I'm like, what's up with him? Are you there at all with that?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, and Adams at this point is kind of... Do you know how old Steven Adams is? Isn't he like 28? It's like some crazy number. Yeah, he's 31. Right. But he's been in the league for 25 years? Yeah, I don't think he should be this bad. So having Jabari back is really important for them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I was looking at some of that schedule stuff in the expanded schedule where if you look at games against teams 500 or more, which we've already gone through in the record stuff, but Denver's played 26 games against teams with that, and Houston's played 35. So scheduling-wise, they've been a little unlucky.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But then when you look at the remaining schedule stuff, I mean, it's the top three most difficult remaining schedules. It's Phoenix, Denver, and L.A. Houston's like down at 18. So it should, because of that number in the record I told you about, it should even out. Like, I can't wait to see what L.A. does. Yeah. Torrey missed the game. So, you know, I'm not putting a ton into the Utah loss.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I put way more into the Minnesota win.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So they go into that Cleveland game fresh off of that. Where Cleveland, I think, was coming off a back-to-back. And you could see within that game, you're like, they're toast. Boston had the extra rest day. New York had the rest. So, you know, that third quarter was awesome because Brunson and Cat are awesome. But, like, I couldn't believe he put Cat back in after he left with the lift.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Give it to us. There's no other word. Body language, Bill.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, it's not Bud's fault that people can't come over to help on cuts. And Durant had a bunch of those. Swiping late, out of position. And if you don't believe me, I think Van Gundy was on the broadcast of that one too, being like, what? It was tough. What are you doing? And Durant puts up these numbers, but I mean, there's some stuff here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And look, the worst thing Durant did was tweet that the NHL has loyalty and doesn't trade his players, which is still one of the dumbest tweets I've ever seen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, it was during the whole stretch where it's like, why don't you watch something else? And you're like, all right, dude. When you look at their whole thing here, I don't know. Rebound is usually a number where you see rebounding decline. It kind of speaks to effort and all that kind of stuff. I mean, he's under five rebounds a game in February.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
The crazy thing is some of the other numbers are nuts because the guy can't miss a shot right now. The shooting splits are incredible. Right. Free throw attempts are down the last couple months. I don't know if this is part of this little decline here with him, but he still gets his numbers because the guy is so brilliant offensively. It's kind of up to you, man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
It's kind of up to you to be a part of the solution here. They've tried some different things. And they're just not very good, even when they're winning games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
After he twisted his ankle. They were down 18. It's like, do you want to get stuck with some Tatum isos? Yeah, with two minutes to go, let's do it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I don't think he's wanted to be there, man, going back to last summer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
No, I don't think. I think there was pretty strong indications that if he could have gotten his preference to go somewhere else this summer, he would have done it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You don't think so? You didn't hear anything?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Um, I don't really enjoy them. I looked at it last year. Remember, we kept waiting. Hey, I don't care about any of the stats. And the fourth quarter stuff didn't make any sense. It was so bad, it had to be an anomaly. And that part of it's been fixed a little bit. But even with last year's injuries and guys missing games, they were 38-28 through 56. They're 27-29 now after an 8-1 start.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
They're bottom third in offense and defense the last month. Katie's only missed 13. Booker's only missed three. The Beal bench thing, it doesn't matter because I don't think that dude cares at all. You know, I really, I just don't. So they're just, you know, they needed those three guys to be just top level, not to sound like a soccer analyst, and they've rarely gotten that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Although Dallas in the running.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I've done this assignment. If you go through every ownership transition, the new owners fuck up so bad within the first 12 to 18 months. Like even Cuban, when he brought it in and I never forget him being on with Dan Patrick talking about acquiring Rafe LaFrance. And I remember thinking like, what the hell is he doing?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And then Cuban just so good after 10 minutes of Dan Patrick, I was like, oh, I guess getting Rafe LaFrance is a good idea.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I would be so determined if I owned a team to not screw up in the first 18 months. I would just be like, say no to everything.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, the fact that he changed course so quickly after he'd already started like, you know, it's like digging a hole for a house and going, you know what? It should be over here now. No, you can't. I mean, even then, eventually you'd have a house at the end of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but the problem is there's no single piece that's as damp. I mean, I guess you could get into the Tatum and the draft picks and all that kind of stuff, but Tatum wasn't playing for that franchise and having everybody fall in love with them over the course of seven years. I saw a quote the other day on the Luka trade where somebody had said, we had underestimated the reaction to this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Multiple people said that. What did you think was going to happen? And it just sucks even worse because AD gets hurt immediately. But the other thing that I love too about this, and I'm going to make this joke throughout the rest of my career, is this stupid fucking timeline people do and talk about and how married they are to the age timeline of NBA rosters. Like,
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we need somebody on this timeline it's like so if cooper flag if you had like the number one pick would he be too young to put with kairi and ad now like he's not on our timeline yeah right like as if every rebuilding team everybody has to be between 18 and 22 and then any team that's like going for a championship it's like this guy's 25 and good what the fuck are you guys doing it's way too much of a gap with the rest of our timeline and all this stuff so
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Or when I thought you nailed it when you were tweeting out about that really good feature with the owner who's, what is he, the son-in-law? Married into the family. Patrick, is it Dumont?
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No, I go on Instagram and constantly like single daughters of NFL ownership, their pictures. I'm like, oh, killing it. Nothing creepy, just really tasteful stuff. Be like, oh, it's such a great sweater. That party looks awesome. Yeah. Oh, my God. You guys, that's so great that you guys reach out to the community like that. Keep doing you. He went through all of these players.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Clearly, Niko had gotten to Patrick. It was basically to be on brand here. The messaging should be like, we here at the Dallas Mavericks want people that are fully committed. And clearly, look, it's no secret on the Luka thing. He wasn't committed enough. I'm not going to make the argument that he was and was misunderstood.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But you can't then run through all the list of players and be like, Kobe and Shaq. When Shaq himself would admit that I could have done a better job, and that was the whole reason of the Kobe-Shaq divorce, is that Kobe fills line to him being like, your 10 is unattainable for everybody else. Your 10 is their 7, and they don't understand that there's a higher number. That's your gift.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's what makes you you. So holding everybody else to that standard is completely pointless. All you're going to be doing is wasting your time. So getting on Shaq's case, because he's not going to approach the offseason the way you are, that's unsolvable, man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And so when he went through the list of players that he admired because of their work ethic and their conditioning and all that stuff, and as much as we all love Shaq, he'd be the first to admit that he didn't take it serious enough while he played. So it was an awful quote. He wouldn't have been in my top 700 list for that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Did he, did he say that to you? He didn't. What did he say to you? What's the most meaningful thing that he ever said to you?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. I didn't realize that until recently. And he didn't say he recommended game change the book, which I did enjoy that summer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's a good book.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Let me ask you a Philly question off of what we just did.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Does anyone actually make a baked... I've never even seen one. It's the most referenced food item that I don't even think exists. Never seen it on a menu. I've never seen a presentation. I've never seen anybody order one. I think it's fake.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So you're shutting everybody down?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There's no point. Why is this NBA thing going to look better this year?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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If I were a CEO of a company and I wanted to short my own stock, but I couldn't just say it outright, I would hire Paul George to run PR.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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See, the problem with it was is that on one hand, you have Daryl pulling a rabbit out of his hat in a way that very few GMs can. You know, whether it's having a top five player in the world when he's healthy in Embiid, because that's what he was. I mean, but, you know, even if you don't like him now and I don't like him now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Um, you have a guy who's going to make multiple all-star teams, most likely in maxi. You hit what? 21st pick. And then all these other little things and you delay the maxi extension.
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You figure out a way to move Harden out because you knew after that playoff series, it's like, I don't really want to extend this guy to whatever was talked about and how many different versions of that story you've heard. And then you have this cap space that almost never works out for anybody. And then you have this rare instance where the, um,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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In this case, the Clippers, the incumbent team, decide they're okay losing the asset for nothing and not giving this player who's all NBA level a fourth year. Like everybody just gives him the fourth year. Like, why are you not giving the fourth year? So you have this one team that's deciding to not give the fourth year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And it's not like they weren't going to pay him a ton of money in the three years, but they're not going to give him the fourth year. Like, who cares? Just do the fourth year. You'll figure it out later. It's better than just letting him walk. And they let him walk. So now you can use this cap space on a guy who in theory is all NBA, even if we would say that he feels like with all of his talent,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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like at the end of it, Paul George is probably going to be kind of a disappointing player for his, for his career. And now he's even worse. Like when they've needed him, when other guys have been out and you've needed him to be this alpha, he's just incapable of it. And then on top.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So like, it's all of this credit on top of, to your point, like is George personality wise, the guy that fits into Philadelphia and knowing what the standard is and knowing what the expectations are. And it's been, is it more disappointing than Phoenix?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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We've spent so many years, though, talking about guys not playing with effort, effort, culture. All that stuff came up big time this past week with the Four Nations Tournament, how great that was. And I spent some time talking about just like, look, the sports are a little bit different. But I think the NBA is a much better place than when you go back five years ago.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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If Melo had been in the East, I think he probably... If you go through all the Melo playoff stuff, for the most part, every time he lost to a team, it was a team they were supposed to lose to.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's fine. In that series. All right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, there's nothing. He doesn't even have a moment. That used to be my Vince Carter argument was like, where's the playoff moment? Because for the longest time, and I know you'll be right down the middle on this one, people were actually trying to argue like Paul Pierce against Vince Carter before the 08 title. And you would just go, come on.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There's a level to like, you've got to have some kind of playoff moment. And for Vince, for the longest time, he didn't have anything. I mean, it might have taken all the way until he hit a corner three for Dallas. So... Maybe it's just because Paul George at one point was in this conversation of like, could this guy be the best player in the league?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And, you know, I guess you could do the same thing with Mello because early on, that's kind of how you looked at Mello. And then the playoff part of it, I can't sit here and defend it because it's generally really disappointing. But I think for George and some of those Pacers years, you were like, is this guy? And then it took forever for him to have like a playoff series.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You felt like you could trust him. And that, that was like Harden-esque, you know, for him, it was like, what is going on? And then they had, they had lost Kawhi. They had that Utah series where Utah, I think had that really good record in that two-year window. They, you know, they kind of got Gobert stuck in a spot where he's trying to defend everybody. So he was really, really good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It was like, okay, well that's like, finally, like there's something there to kind of point to there a little bit, but. And he just needs to be, I mean, we're back to the beginning of this whole thing. He is incredibly disappointed, but he's so bad right now that I can't believe he's doing podcasts. You tell him to take a break. I would just be so embarrassed.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Obviously that's not going to happen, but I would be embarrassed. Being a dude who comes in with the four-year max and like, hey, we need you to be the guy throughout all this Embiid stuff. And Maxie's numbers aren't as good because I think Maxie was pressing and trying to go like, all right, I guess I'm going to take 25 shots and I have to raise the risk of what some of my shots are here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I mean, it depends on which snapshot you want to take of like, man, these guys miss a lot of games. And again, a lot of that stuff was team mandates. So I don't know that any of it like I know that actually the answer to it. None of us loved it. So I do feel guilty with what I think is Tibbs approach that, you know, when you're on his team, like this is what we do. Like, this is what we do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Is there any part of this that you would disagree with? Because even if he's older and all this different stuff, like, man, year one, this is what it looks like? It's just so frustrating.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but you know what, dude? I'm sorry. I'm actually going to re-push back on your pushback.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, right. Because if you look at the Thunder during those post-Durant seasons, they're getting blasted out in the first round. They lost to Portland in five games the year he was third in MVP voting. You know, and he has one of those horrible, horrible game sevens where you don't even notice that he's out there. And like, look, we've made this joke before. You know, it's a really simple test.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like, do I forget you're out on the court? Paul George should never be somebody with his skills, with that contract, with Philly's injuries this year, where you forget that he's on the court in the fourth quarter. And it happens all the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Let me just finish this Clippers point, though. Oh, please do. Because, you know, their defensive profile is incredible. Lawrence Frank in this front office, they deserve all the credit in the world for doing something that I just don't think a lot of teams would have done. Most teams would have given Paul George the fourth year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And to your point, like maybe that tells you something if they were so adamant of not doing it. But then again, it's like, well, it wasn't like he was going to play for free on the other three years. But I just laugh when I think about the Clippers transactions this year, because it's almost like, hey, who are all the players are still doesn't like, let's bring them in. The hardened one they need.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They need his usage, the highest usage that we've seen from him in five years. But it's not just that. I mean, they have brought in Kevin Porter Jr., who they moved on from, who, you know, you want to talk about playing your own game when you're out there on top of all the other shit you can get into with him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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This is how hard we play. And this is this is the approach. And it seems like the players don't mind. It's just funny when they do those player surveys. It's like, which coach would you least want to play for?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Bones who couldn't make it work with Jokic like if there's hey man all you had to do was cut all you had to do was cut and you would have got second contract it would have worked out Mo Bamba who is going to just forever trick teams they brought in Kai Jones And then they were like, while we're at it, let's add Ben Simmons. This is an absolute anti-Rosillo heater of roster movement.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And they're pretty good. I kind of like the Ben Simmons move.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I tell you, that guy is like, all right, this Brooklyn thing's over. And then, you know, I just love that it was actually like a story of like, ooh, we're on Ben Simmons' buyout watch. And it's like, of course he gets to go to LA. Of course he does.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And if you want to make all your off-season videos, make them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Awesome question. Awesome question. Yeah, he's still young enough, but I've been worried this year. You?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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No, it isn't. And I do wonder if it's kind of like the, the disruptive pattern for him. Like, Hey, he's back. He's not back, but I know they'll rest them sometimes in there as well. It just, it feels like a 25. Like I'm not there yet, but watch. I'd like to. Yeah. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Jaw was really good against Orlando because Orlando never changes defense the entire time. So that was good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right now. Are you suggesting a seasonal friskiness update ranking?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Last 28, I'll say 18 and 10.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Don't dunk the other night. What was it? Just... He almost got, like, horizontal to the ground. Like, at rim level. I don't know what was going on. Because I was watching... I forget which show I watched. Again, sports consultants available per diem. I guess you should say pro rata. But... There was a show the other day I was watching where they were showing like something from track and field.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There was a track and field meet and they were showing the high jumper and he was like jumping over the thing where he would like there was no Fosbury flop. He just jumped over it. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. So there was no one apparently on the set that would have been like, hey, you realize no one would ever do I jump this way. Yeah. And they didn't do it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And if you had had Dern out there, he'd be like, this is how you do it. Because it looked like he was trying to high jump the rim when he hit this dunk. I'm so happy. I think scholars will look back at the Zach Cram, Cade Cunningham tablets as the turning point of his career. Because Zach did a piece that was like lit him up. Like, hey, this is who this dude is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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An incredibly high volume, inefficient dude. who may not have one go-to thing that's all that great. And it feels like from that point on, he became the player we all thought he could be. So I think the tablets will be a turning point on his... Interesting.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's amazing what shooting can do when you have a guy who's going to have the ball in his hands as much as Cade. Because I've watched an Orlando game recently, and we all love Paolo. I think that's established. And whenever I watch him, I just think of like, there's just not enough spacing. Because Suggs is out. This is too hard. It's...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like if there was ever a team that would love a prime stretch five per Zingas to balance out all the other stuff the guys could do. And it's not like they had this massive overhaul this offseason because all the young assets essentially are still there. Although Killian, how about his possessions and passing the other night? Was KFC wrong or just early?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Killian back in the league. Just the simplicity of a little bit more spacing. You know, it's what every team, maybe there's just not enough shooting to go around, but every team should aspire to do that because it's just different. Your job is different now as his primary ball handler when there's just some people that you have to worry about.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And look, last night's Denver game is a perfect example. The Lakers did not worry about any of those other guys all night.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You realize, though, this top, they have the sixth-worst record right now. Imagine if they tank and they end up with the seventh pick and it goes to OKC.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, and everybody lost their minds because they didn't want to be a 10 seed when it was like actually smart for them. I was just one of them. Right here. Yeah, I'm looking right at you. I was talking about you. Right here. Who gives a shit? Are you still bothered? Do you ever drive around? Are you going down Sunset? You're like, I'll tell you what, though. Fucking Mavs a couple years ago.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Have you done zero times?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think the criticism was outsized for what they actually were doing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I don't know how they're going to fuck up, but they seem pretty happy where they are. Or then they'll run a play where Keontae George in that Lakers game that I was at. I almost tweeted it out. Like, will you remember where you were when they came out of a timeout and Keontae George threw up a left-handed floater in the lane? I think it was actually a left-handed jumper.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Maybe it wasn't out of a timeout. There was another play out of a timeout where I think they turned the ball over immediately. They have a lot of on-ball guys with confidence. I will say that about the Utah Jazz. But who do you want to have win? If you could go right now, win. Because, I mean, if you think Scoot and Cooper flag the next 10 years over under three and a half titles.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There's it's still breathing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I'll probably like them better than the Clippers. When they have everybody? Yeah, I might even like them better than Houston. Here's the thing. I liked the healthy them. I thought they were better this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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before all this trade stuff like they were always a team that i had to say don't don't lose sight of them with all of this lucas stuff like i think denver paid this weird aaron gordon price where people were looking at what they were doing or what they weren't doing and you go i don't really care like if aaron gordon's gonna miss this many games he's so important to what they do let's see what they look like when they get him back and clearly lucas even beyond that and 80s even beyond that for aaron gordon on that part of it
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So I, I think you still have to keep it open for them, even though, I mean, imagine having three centers like this that you would feel so good about. None of them are playing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't think it's going to be. You think it's going to be San Antonio in the 10?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think it's Sacramento. I mean, at least with Sacramento, I kind of know what I'm getting. You know, I know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You're right, and it's not just today. I thought Boston came out with a great, just an awesome approach, just pushing the ball in transition. That's when they're starting five with those five guys playing, and you're going, okay, this almost looks unfair. Jalen Brown was awful. I know he has points. So bad.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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No, I care about you sending me a deep dive thing that you've been just YouTubing it out like a high school kid with no friends. You want to do that really quick? I do, because I have one for you, because you gave me the assignment. Mine will be quick, but I know you really want to do this, so go for it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I'm not. I mean, I'm, you know, look, who doesn't love a little Fleetwood Mac in the background, but go for it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, that must have made him want to get back together.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You just couldn't understand what his approach to the game was today, even though if you just box score, you'd be like, what are you guys talking about? It got better.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's evidence. That's usually good evidence. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I think that's time well spent. Thank you. That's good, because I'll get into a band, whether it's new or something I want to revisit, and I'll be like, all right, I'm going to read about Dwayne Allman for an hour. So I actually do kind of like this stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Anyway, because I'll go through some like talking heads phases. I love them. And I like them so much that, you know, again, it's I'm not going to get to experience it the way people get to experience when it first happened. But I always think like I'm having less Claypool of Primus on at some point here soon, who's generally considered one of the best players of all time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So, you know, you're down 27. I mean, we could talk minutes because you're right about the minutes part of it. But to get it from 27 to four is exhausting. Yeah. Right. On top of whatever Tibbs is doing in the sub pattern. And then Boston, you know, the the only blemish on the entire like two year resume of this team is that you'll go. Are you guys shooting the other team into this game right now?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And in the beginning with Primus, you were just like, what the fuck is this? And I'm, I'm so fascinated to think of like what it was like when Les Claypool was like, well, I want to make the bass, the feature thing, and I'm going to sing these songs and they're going to be a little different. And my voice is probably not the most traditional rock star kind of voice.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
But then once you kind of buy into the whole thing, you just appreciate how great the music is and how great he is. But I can't imagine how many people told him in the beginning, like, are you kidding? This isn't going to work. And when I think about the talking heads, like I just imagine was New York so cool. Cause I read that. Please kill me. Punk book about just punk. And I read that city.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. And I, I'm glad I read it. And I'm also like, it was so disgusting.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
that I couldn't you know what I mean like I'm gonna get through this it was so gross in so many spots and I certainly don't feel like a prude but after a while you're like alright I got it it was a weird time wait can I read you Silver Springs lyrics really quick and then you go to your deep dive yeah but you have to sing it just a couple samplings no I'm not singing time cast a spell on you but you won't forget me I know I could have loved you but you would not let me
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
She screams you man whore, I think, too, in there. No? I don't remember that part. Okay. Yeah, so I referenced her, I think, at the very top. I'm reading all three volumes of Susan Wise Bower's. The first one's The History of the Ancient World. And I just love it. She's a complete pragmatist about things. And I'm going through some of the early Egyptian dynasties.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And so I just finished the chapters on the pyramids. And I... don't understand why people love conspiracy so much. I know it was conspiracy bill. This may be offensive to you, but usually there's a very simple, the, the Occam's razor, you know, what's the simplest explanation? Be like, that's probably what it is. So there was another author, um, a Swiss author named Eric Von Dyn, Dynikin, Dynikin,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
who wrote this book about how aliens essentially built the pyramids. And he wrote this book in the 60s and it did really well. And then, you know, you always kind of wondered, like, what the hell is going on over there in Egypt? And if I had a kid and I couldn't answer that, I, you know, again, it's probably why I'm not a parent. You don't have a kid? No, but I feel like ill-equipped.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
If I had had a kid, it was like, what's up with the pyramids? I go, you know, shit. he's got me. I haven't done a ton of research and I want to just go based on the Swiss authors thing from the 1960s. But Susan's explanation of it, like after you read literally two pages, Bill, about the history of like how the pyramids get started, like, One small, it's six levels up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So the next guy's like, well, mine's going to be seven. And then the next guy's like, well, I'm going to do like eight, but then that one doesn't get finished. Then another one doesn't get finished. Then there's another one called the bent pyramid where, uh, They're just kind of like moving them further away from everywhere after the previous one was built, by the way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Like what the hell is going on? And a lot of that happened in the third quarter. But like back to your original point. Did you have an open mind before today about the Knicks being in that one line? Right. Okay. Because let's run through the resume. It's 0-7 now against the three teams in Boston, Cleveland, and OKC. And it's also not close.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And that's called the bent pyramid because they realize halfway through construction that their angles are off and it's going to be too steep and that it's not going to hold up. So they have to like flatten it out a little bit. So there is physical visual evidence to this day of what would be kind of man's attempt at building these great works. And she just goes like, look, this one was small.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Then they tried to build this one. It didn't really work. This one was unfinished. And then this one's like really screwed up. And yeah, they've done a good job with the corners and it's a massive undertaking. But they just basically asked their citizens based on the Pharaoh's power of like, no, this is what we're doing, dude.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Like we're building it and we're moving these stones around and it can take forever. But we're going to leave you some water and maybe like a sarong or something. And then they master. Like any civilization, they become better at building these things. And all it took was like a couple pages for me to go, okay, well, that's the answer. Like, that's it. So now you're set. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So I'm going to have a kid is my point because now I can answer that question.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
That's a really good, it's exactly, well, it's not exactly because I don't think anybody's ever accused despite some of the weird Vegas stuff of ever being built by aliens. But like, Yeah. Right. It's like, OK, now we've really got this thing locked in because we've been trying to build these things for years and years. And you go, oh, wow. All right. Yeah, that actually makes a ton of sense.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
That'll never happen. No. They'll still mess up some pyramids. They'll probably still mess up some trades. It's 2025 and Luka just got traded. That should have been a 1975 trade. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
In those seven games, they're losing by an average of 20 points. And they're down big.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I think because they get older, and I'm going through this a little bit with my dad, where he'll complain about something sports-related, and I just go, what are you talking about, man? Do you not watch? Does your father not watch enough other games? Will he watch other NBA games that are non-Seltzers? No.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
These are blowout games. And they've allowed 125 points per game against those three teams in those seven games. So the data... Like, I really enjoy them. I think they're fun. I can't wait to see what happens with them in the playoffs. But... as great as cat has been, you can see against big wings and what Tatum's looking for.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, that's what it's like. I think it's a common thing with guys past a certain age is they're just so much older. They're selfish. They're incredibly selfish about what they want from their sports teams. Yeah. I don't know if it's a counting down the years. I'm not trying to be like morbid about this, but it's possible. it like my father can be so incredibly difficult.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Like I went to a sporting event with him. And now, meanwhile, the guy hasn't had to pay for a ticket because I've helped him, you know, which I'm happy to do as a payback for all the years that he took me to all the games growing up. But, Like if the Celtics get up big, he'll want the other team to make a run for his soul. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And I'll just be like, Hey, you can't, you can't fucking be doing that. All right. Like you can't, you can't be rooting on the other team for this five minute window. And he's like, I only get to a couple of these a year. It's like, well, you know what? You didn't pay for anything. The seat is awesome.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And you need to not root for the Cavs for six minutes just so you get not only a win, but a close one. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
None.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Home row splits. These guys don't care.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah, see, that's always like the funny thing with, you know, we're terrible because we live it, but Your dad, and I don't even mean your dad or my dad, but everybody listening to this right now, like your dad's advanced scouting is if the guy had two doubles in like a three-game series once.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Was there any part of you that immediately looked up Bregman's deal and then compared it to the average annual salary of Mookie Betts?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Well, I'm all over... Baseball America again. I renewed my subscription. It had been a few years. The Prospects? Yeah, Big Farm. I mean, that was my lunch reading for years and years.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Like Tatum had a couple, like end of the first half, he had two switches into cat where he drives right on. Right. Yeah. And, and I think one work, one didn't, they weren't like, one was a really tough make. The other was a decent look. And then that play at the very end when he hits the three, he knew like Cat was like, I don't want to run up because this guy's like attacking the shit out of me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. The Bregman thing pissed me off just because I can't think of any transaction without Mookie. I'm surprised. I would say 38-year-old Bill probably have 7,500 words on the Mookie Luca thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
No, there was a lot of preparation on the Mookie thing. And I know it's not fair to do average annual salary because the Bregman thing can be a one-year deal. But one of the things about these commitments for these position players that historically have been so bad in baseball, with him, you figure he was going to age right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And you just go like, look, what his deal will be in seven years, average annual salary, compared to what you're signing for now and then what it will be as salaries keep going up. Um, although, you know, that's another topic that we could probably spend a lot of time on. Cause I thought that ESPN baseball news was crazy. Like it was like, wow, you guys are actually opting out of live rights.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
You're going to do it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And if they're doing it, they're 60 years old. Do you remember when you used to do it? Because I did it religiously. It didn't matter who was playing. It was Sunday Night Baseball and I couldn't wait. Yeah, days are over.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
That'd be good to get some Celtics content in the pod. Fire it up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Good to see you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. Tatum comes off the screen knowing he's pulling up because Cat is so far away from him. And that's just what they're going to do. And you're right. Like maybe Mitchell Robinson helps. Of course, he'll help if he's healthy. But solving this seems like a massive ask of that guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
They were so lucky with the injuries last year, and then facing a Dallas team that wasn't going to be able to exploit some of the weaknesses to the point where they didn't even really need Porzingis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
So the whole design of this Celtics team, the whole reason why you move the assets you do at the time, and then remember the contractual obligation to Porzingis, because even if you liked him in that Washington season where he's pretty good, you're like, man, that is a leap. That's a leap of faith, but they had to do it to get him to opt out. So...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
Look, when they're right, that first quarter, you're right. I don't know what it looked like in person, so I'll defer to you here. But that first quarter was just a nice little reminder. And they've been on a really good run here, by the way, too, after that weird 500 play stretch, which basically is going to happen to anybody in today's NBA. But that first quarter, I was like, man, is this nasty?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
And they just do a great job. And here's the most important stat. Like, I'll ask it. What do you think the most important stat from today's box score was in this game? What was it, rebounds? Brunson, zero free throw attempts.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I actually have to put him... The reviewed play or the inbounds when he was coming right to left?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
He didn't even get any free throws, though. I mean, this is a low free throw attempt game. I think at the end of the third quarter, there were 16 total. Or I think Cornette then took a couple. They were letting them play. Especially on the Towns drives, they were letting them play. Yeah, but see, Towns... You know, it's it's amazing how productive.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo
I don't know if there's anything in the NBA that I dislike more from start to finish that's more productive than his drives. And I think they're better this year than they even were at Minnesota. Slinging them up. The Minnesota tries are like, what are you doing? And he's been so good. This is the perfect role for him because there's all these other guys. You can have a McHale game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But nobody's going to do that. There's 30 of these.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
So you would disagree with my tweet about this being the second worst thing a front office has done, unless you'll allow me the...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
the leniency that i'm including ownership in that because you're right i mean nobody nobody goes as an owner like there's so much stuff that happens with ownership making the final calls and these things i think even sometimes i'll forget that not that i don't know it but i'd like that you're reminding us of it because it's never happening without him saying yes okay i'm in
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
It's three years, $192.9 million. He has a player option in three years for $70 million. He's out for the season. And then when you start hearing about breaking a bone in the leg to help recovery, and I think there was a lot of stuff that was kind of nasty about this where, I forget who it was, but basically laid out all the options for the 76ers.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Then it got turned into the 76ers looking into the retirement exemption if he can't play again. It's like, look, we're not even there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right. My point of the entire extension was I remember when it happened. All I could think of was you have him... I know there was all the Knicks stuff, but you have somebody who's basically missed half of their career. Yeah. And you haven't really done anything with him. We know what the playoff regular season splits are. You made the second round twice. Right. So... What's the rush?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, you know, Luke is on the Lakers now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I'm Mr. Laker right now. Yeah, you're just going, you know, just seeing him progressively get better and better, which I know is shocking to some that he had missed two months. A big guy who weighs 270 didn't look super crisp right out of the gates. Yeah. And just seeing his progression, uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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continue and the comfort and what comes with him being comfortable like as soon as he starts yelling and getting pissed off you're like okay this is this is heading in the right direction that's why i thought that first game that he played against utah was so funny because he was so tired yeah he didn't have time for any of that stuff and i think a lot of basketball players even the greatest ones
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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they'll try to just find a way to fit in a little bit. And with Luca, it's like, no, don't try to fit in.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Just go ahead and play your style, which I know we're going to do some Lakers stuff because I saw your clip this week and I'm with you that the biggest compliment is that now I don't even know what the ceiling is on the possibility for this team, which I think a lot of us thought when this trade happened, it's like, okay, that might ruin 25, but it makes all the sense in the world because now you get to reset your franchise.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And now I think that conversation has shifted quite a bit here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Like he's as active as he's been in a couple of years, but the defensive stuff that LeBron is doing, cause I think it's totally fair. We're, When they're bad defensively, a lot of it, you know, there's stuff that I know that we'll get into, and I don't know how much rotational Lakers stuff you want to talk about between now and where they were, they were a bad defensive team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
But, you know, he's had ups and downs, but they're, I mean, this group where you went Luka, Reeves, LeBron on the perimeter, now no AD behind it, like how good can they be defensively? And they've been incredible defensively. And I'm actually going to give a little credit here because Greg St.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Jean, who's the son of Gary, the longtime Warriors exec, he was with the Lakers when LeBron was there before. Then he was at Dallas with Luka. Then he comes back on a JJ staff. And I know him a little bit, so certainly I'm biased. Be like, hey, you doing anything tonight? And he'll be like, I'm installing our entry passes against the Utah Jazz.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And it's like, all right, he's just one of those guys. He'll be a head coach at some point.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, we're working on a lot of side-out-of-bounds stuff today. Yeah. I think his relationship with the players, like in the fact that these two superstars, you know, been there. I think JJ has a lot to do with it. They're just so much more prepared as a basketball team. And there was also stuff like at one point when the record wasn't that much better. We're like, oh, JJ read it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Because let's face it, like most people were rooting against JJ being successful because of the background. But NBA head coaching paths are...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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are very non-traditional okay i mean this has been going on for 20 plus i don't even know maybe even longer than that you would know better than i would how many times you're like okay i guess they're just going to make that guy head coach and i remember when the records are similar there was a bit like oh well this isn't any better than darvin ham and you watch them now and how prepared they are and whether it was the denver game we were talking about just a week ago this team has has figured some stuff out on den on defense that i just didn't think was possible
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The crazy thing about the Suns group is normally you could point to lack of rotational consistency last year, and yet they still hadn't. You look at last year's season, And you thought last year was a disappointment because you just go, imagine if they had all three guys. They were the sixth seed, weren't they? They were like 47, 48 wins.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
You have this quirky clutch stat that doesn't even make any sense of how bad they were offensively. And you're just like, well, there's no way that'll happen again. And then when I was looking at it for my show, you look at the three dudes and you're getting this elite shot making this incredible output.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
It's almost like 80 points per game, I think, in February when I did the numbers for those guys. And then it's like, yeah, but everything else. Like, does it work? I know Bull Bull's had a really nice run here, but let me actually Laker minute rotation you. Scattering report. If he has a clean look on the catching three, he's probably going to reset himself and move. All right. Long.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Long length. Which is one of my favorite things I've ever seen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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In November, the Lakers were 25th on defense. They were 8-6 that month. They were 25th on defense, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. You're looking at it going, probably going to be their thing. They're just not going to be very good defensively. Why would that be? Well, D'Angelo Russell for that month, 26 minutes a game. Cam Reddish, 21 minutes a game. He's making threes, but he's playing 26 minutes per game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, I don't know. I was looking at some old pictures of myself. Well, I usually break this out a couple of times a year and I did it when I got my license picture taken last summer. And the picture of my license is just horrifying. And so for whatever reason, I don't know. I just I used to do when I was in my 20s. I usually do do it every now and then. So we're we're back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You look at where they're at now in their last 10, and then if I give you their number two defense in the NBA behind your Detroit Pistons, who are just their own story.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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When you shoot it well and you play defense, you're going to win a bunch of games. So the February minutes, look at the breakdown. So you're replacing D'Angelo Russell 26 minutes a game, depending on the month. Again, I'm just using November. In February, Dorian Finney-Smith, 30 minutes a game. Vando, who just hacks the shit out of everybody, but he's in there for 15 minutes fighting his ass off.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Dalton's only playing 13 minutes a game. He's also not shooting great in February. Then Jordan Goodwin comes in and wreaks havoc on everybody. And LeBron's had the second or kind of tied for second best defensive rating of any of the main regulars. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's the point. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Do you want to do some reckless speculation?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I just wonder if there's a playoff exit from Houston that motivates them to go, okay, look, we have... A one-timer? Houston has done a really good job here. I don't know who I'm picking them against in the playoffs. Again, we could sit here and go through all the seeding stuff, but I feel like we'd just be changing it every couple days.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I wonder if there's a Houston exit where they went, you know what? Like we can't pay all these guys. We don't even have minutes for all of these guys that we've hit on. Yeah. And it does feel like, you know, you talk about the two timeline thing that it's just hard. It's really hard to thread that needle.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And you go, is the two timeline Brooks Van Vliet with the young guys or is the two timeline Jalen Green and Shingun with a men Thompson emerging? You know, is that, is there any version where, Green and Shingun are totally fine realizing that like Thompson might be the best player.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I like the Luca Milwaukee, Minnesota one. There's more, there's more reporting on the Minnesota stuff, but like a couple of times that I had heard was like, yeah, they called, but weren't offering Luca.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Even if I hated you, I would have to admit that you're right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Honestly, if you went clean shaven, you're just getting ahead of where this is all going. That's a couple of years because there's going to be a stretch like anything that's whether it's fashion or hairstyles. I mean, this is not insightful. It's all cyclical. But there's going to be a stretch years from now where you're like, what the hell was going on?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I just have a followup. I mean, why, why would you make that claim? Why would I make that? Why would you say? Because I don't know if I agree with you. I need convincing on this because my whole point is no one's ever had more access to hate, which I've talked about a lot. And I think a lot of these players just consistently think that they're hated all the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think anybody that does anything that is publicly consumed is
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Sell me on the point of those decades being more negative towards their stars.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Everyone just had a beard like everybody just had a beard. I remember being so early to the beard that I showed up to the national championship game with it when it was Oregon Auburn. And Todd McShay and Jesse Palmer on the sideline being like, you, you didn't shave. And I'm like, I'm at a football game. I'm not even on TV. And they're like, yeah, but dude, like you look terrible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There was so much. We've definitely progressed with you go all the way back to the strike in the NFL in the early 80s. Right. And how much society there wasn't one person going. You realize you're arguing for the owners to make more money. And that's what always pisses me off.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's like, okay, you want to look at these players and look at their salaries and say that they're selfish and they're entitled and all this shit. But ultimately, what you're saying, when you hope they get paid less or lose at the collective bargaining agreement table, you're hoping these owners make more money.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, look, I know enough about those timelines. Like, I just remember, you know, when Jordan scored all the points against the Celtics and then lost, and you'd be playing a Little League baseball tournament, and every coach is sitting there in his bike shorts, you know, shitting on Jordan. Now, granted, growing up in New England was the wrong place.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Because all these guys are going home to worship their Larry Bird altar. Maybe you should add 68. Yeah, right. The collective, yeah, cool scoring, bro. But the lack of respect for who Jordan was because he was losing to these older, more superior, battle-tested, well-rounded basketball teams. Jordan would have had a very...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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People would have destroyed him if he played now through the first seven years of his career without winning anything. Because it's like, if you're the best, you have that kind of attention on you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But here's the thing. We don't even do it with baseball anymore. So like that's... Because I was thinking about this face of the league stuff. Yeah, I want to get to that too. Right. Like LeBron, when you are... As great as you are, unfortunately, part of that deal is you're held to the standard where everything is dissected.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And Ant got a little taste of that because Ant was coming up, approval rating through the roof. He's so much fun. He starts talking a little shit. And then they get eliminated. They get eliminated on May 30th, right? I looked it up. And then he had the receipts commercial on May 31st. Like they had that one ready to go. where you're showing like how much this is impacting players.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I know Silver talked about this years ago where he just said, look, we have a league where our stars, and I'm paraphrasing here, so I hope I'm not too removed from the tone of what he was saying, but I think I have it. And then it was like, you kind of have a bunch of guys at the top that are pretty miserable. Like a lot of players that are really miserable.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right. So, you know, Ant has had probably this shift because the Olympics didn't go the way he thought it would go. I mean, he wasn't even out on the floor for some of that stuff. He didn't look super comfortable after talking a lot of shit. And again, I don't look at it and go like, oh, man, now I have to reevaluate what I think about you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But Ant is very predictably going to have if he doesn't have some kind of playoff success here in the next couple of years, it's going to turn back to everything you just said in your timeline of like, hey, I thought this was supposed to be the guy. You hope you're one of those guys in this sport. Because I was thinking about Ant relationship. Has anybody ever talked about De'Aaron Fox?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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De'Aaron Fox is a really good player. Makes a lot of sense for the Spurs. I think it's a bit like the Donovan Mitchell thing. Where it's like, yeah, it's not perfect, but he's really good. And if we keep waiting around on what this magical acquisition will be, then we might be waiting forever. But De'Aaron Fox has never talked about that. So there's this group outside of these...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't know, seven to eight players we obsess about every single season. There's this group that's not even part of that. And again, baseball, the sport, we don't even have any of those dudes anymore right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Basketball is just way more personal than the other two sports are.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Don't you think? Doesn't it feel like the attachment? I mean, sure, we could pick a bunch of quarterbacks that are as big of stars as any NBA players.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't think I've, I've allowed you to go for it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That was really the home run PED phase of beards. We were like, Luis Gonzalez has how many home runs? It's the early 2000s. Yeah, because then it's a bit like the arm sleeve thing. Like the early arm sleeve tack guy, you're like, all right, I probably don't want to mess with that guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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He has the belt. He had the belt there for a little bit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Just so you get the most attention. I think we know it without defining it. You think Steph's the face of the league over LeBron?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't know, man. I mean, you could point to all those individuals. It's really a talking point, okay? And I think what happens is there's this cycle of Ant going, I don't necessarily want it. Because then it's like, what are you supposed to do? What does he want?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Don't you also have to be the best player, though? Because even if Tatum... I mean, that's a lot of work to do, by the way, for Tatum just, hey, let's add two more titles to this. As great as he is, he wasn't very good today, which I know we'll get to later, but I don't know that he would ever be... To face the league, because I've never thought of him as the best player in the league.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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At least with Steph, there were seasons where I thought he played better than LeBron. I never thought he was actually a better basketball player than LeBron. So to be face of the league, you also have to be at some point, because I know you've done this in the past with your belt hole. It's just a really good way to look at the league. Like who has the belt? Who had the belt then?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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How many belt transfers are we talking about? Jokic just had the belt for a really long stretch, which is really hard to do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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What did you think of LeBron's quote?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Basically, it was like, I didn't ask for it. And then it pivoted into everybody that covers the league just shits on it, essentially, that we're all too negative.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You know, it's like somebody who's really friendly, but they blink a lot and just go, I might want to stay away from him. So overblinking is a fair thing for you a little bit? Yes. Certain size, a guy that blinks a lot, want nothing to do with it. Never thought about that tip. No, it's a good tip. Yeah. It's a good tip for everybody. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But I do wonder though, like the negativity thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like I'll have pods where I'll think, are you harping on the same stuff? Yes. Um, but again, if we're doing a basketball pod and like whatever the headline was that week, like you're going to stay topical, you're going to play the hits, but there'll be certain players. I'm like, there's just nothing else for you to say anymore. Like it's established how you feel. There's nothing new.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right? Like I've liked to rant for such a long time, but this past year plus, uh, And not to bring up the hockey tweet like a third time, but he's just like, how could you possibly think that that's a good point? How could you think just basically telling everybody fuck off when it's like, man, you're the one. And that's also like part of it, too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's like this league is so different with how powerful the players are that. you know, did you think you were going to get no criticism signing contracts and then asking out before an extension and I kicked in?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, it's like, okay, the window is finally shifted. Like, you are outside of the football shadow. So, like, own this week. And it's like, nope.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Not only are we not going to own the week, we're going to embarrass the league again. And I don't care about that week. I haven't cared about it for years. I think I've watched the game once in the last 15. This is not new that the players don't necessarily care, but they're not making the most of our opportunities. I think all of us are more negative than we are positive, okay? I think that...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So anyway, I think the sleeve, the sleeve thing turned into, I just felt like there should have been some prerequisite. Like you're going to get double sleeves. You're getting arm sleeves. You know, now I don't. And so I think the beard was some kind of transition off of that. I likely will never be clean shaven. Like I cannot even remember the last time just full up lather.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think it's going to be low. I mean, the way you're leading this, I have to pick a massive split on it. So I'll say 80% negative.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, getting a fan removed. And then it becomes, because the player has the power to have that happen now. Yeah. And it'll become kind of like a topic. And then, you know, if it's a really slow day, you know, you'll discuss like, what, what does this mean? Yeah. And I think there's some players that actually like look for it a little bit more than other players. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And you realize like this thing that is definitely an improvement to the experience for the player, a massive, because you're completely right about that. Like going to some of these crowds, going to baseball stadiums, going back to Foxborough in the day. I mean, just, you wouldn't even want to bring a kid.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The bleachers used to be about how drunk were you going to get and how many fights were there going to be.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right. So then when a player has a fan removed, then it becomes kind of this think piece of the dynamic of respect and all these different things. Like, what can you have happen? And you're like, yeah, but... no one was ever removed in the past. So it actually happened at a much greater rate.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't even have shaving cream at my house.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The players call way too much shit for that, though.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Absolutely. I'm not saying like that's going to be the worst experience, especially you don't have the budget to go to more than one game a year. And then you bring your kid and he's all fired up. He's got the jersey on and they're not playing. I think there were certain teams like I really think what the Spurs did. in a very Belichick way to just be like, Hey, you know what? TNT Thursday night.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And remember, remember the ABC game, how bad it got there for a while where you were like, are you guys seriously serious? like giving the league and your television partner this much of a fuck you just, Hey, we're just going to sit everybody. Yeah. And I understand like what the science, and by the way, the science has proven very little because it's not like we go into the playoffs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like every playoff story is littered with like two or three major injuries. So I'm not sure. I'm not expecting that everybody was just going to be healthy all the time, but I don't know if that's had the positive impact that everybody thought it would be when they wrote about it for nonstop for years, wrote about it nonstop for years. But that, That's part of it. I don't know, man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I guess sometimes I wonder, you know, clearly with this pod, we've got a large audience. Sometimes I feel like I'm too negative. And instead of like having LeBron give this quote or some of it, like, look, with his quotes, I don't love all of them. All right. But he's been giving us quotes for two plus decades.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So which public figure would I ever be like, you know what, everything he said for 20 plus years, I've liked everything he said that that person doesn't exist. It's impossible to have the Chalamet approval rating after the two decade plus run for LeBron. But when I started thinking about like just negativity, him saying everyone is too negative. Well, no, that's not the case.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But then I'll know like of all the games that I watch, especially when it's on like the national broadcast and like Bronny comes into a game and then the broadcasters start talking about like how hard he works. You're like, dude, he's got an NBA uniform on and he's not good and he shouldn't be out there. And this whole thing's kind of a joke. So let's evaluate it that way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But there will be no like that won't happen. So it actually strengthens your point. Whenever those broadcasts like that's when I feel like, am I being negative or am I being like just a basketball fan that's frustrated? with the way that the national broadcast is discussing a game or discussing certain players when you just go, Hey, this person.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And again, maybe I shouldn't even use Ronnie, but that was just one that jumped out. It's like, you guys are going to do four minutes on like the positives here.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's just... Are we supposed to be positive about Embiid? Are we supposed to be positive?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I just like calling out the bullshit because I think there's a lot of it, whether it's another media members quote, because then there's some guys that are just only positive. And I think, are you just this much of an ass kisser? Like what, do you think you're going to hang out with these guys?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You know, is he going to be able to like the next time they have a, they rent a boat, they're going to invite you like what?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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fuck are you doing and so I know I'd never be that guy but you know kind of your point about like Philly or even the Durant part like I think I've I mean I didn't even really get on his case during the Golden State thing because I thought he wanted to get away from Westbrook and he wanted to play perfect basketball and he wanted to he wanted to like you know back to the joy topic he wanted to experience like absolute pure basketball joy
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But when you have a four year extension and you want marks and Nash and everybody fired before it even kicks in and then you come back and play and then you ask out and now you've put together a season, I would say more so this year than last year. But I mean, they got killed against Minnesota. Like that's when the Suns died. And I was dumb enough to think that they weren't dead yet.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And they were already dead, but they just had another season in this season. So. What does Durant expect? Did he expect that people are going to be like, man, he's still getting you like twenty nine thirty every single night? Because if you look at the little stuff in between, it doesn't always show it. This is not a locked in group. This is a group that seems to be really down on each other.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I thought the coach Bud stuff admitting that he had told Booker to tone it down. Like I, I just wondered, I was like, man, I wonder if that'll be.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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the sideburns thing is again just the cycle of let me see how low i can bring these down and it was fine and then everybody was like all right get rid of these but i remember the first moment i mean i couldn't even shave like who am i kidding but the first moment guys in junior high for like travel basketball you know there'd be a couple early bloomers if you know what i'm talking about and you're just like what the hell is this guy doing he's got a shaving kit
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So you really disagreed with Arenas' point. I think that's fair to say.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's just the rate, man. It's the rate of it. And I do not understand. I couldn't believe the first time a coach told me, he's like, yeah, players come in and check their mentions at halftime. You didn't know that? And I'm thinking like, what a ridiculous, but then I thought, okay, well, every single ESPN host, as soon as you go to break, does the exact same thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That always, I could never believe that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Maybe somebody will say I look ugly. Hey, I'm guilty of it. I used to do it. And then I stopped because I realized you were coming back from break, like talking to one person. You're arguing with Motorcycle69. Every single guy did it. Every one of us. And it made all of us worst hosts because... You know, you're you were distracted. You were talking to this one person.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You were focusing on the one negative because nobody was going to be like, hey, you know what? Really good job making a point and a really solid conclusion. No notes. Can't pick holes because I mean, everybody's favorite hobby now. Like even if I do a monologue on something for 10, 15 minutes, usually 15 means it's too long. I was like, oh, did you think about this?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like, well, I could have done 30 left out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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like that is everyone's favorite hobby right now at least for what we do is that well here's the point that you didn't make and then a lot of times it'll be so obvious it's like well i didn't even point that out because i don't even know why anybody would even bring it up and what we do isn't even fucking cool so when i think about players basically doing the exact same thing elected officials do the exact same thing i remember i got into it with van pelt that was like why are you arguing with somebody right now you're broadcasting the fucking masters you were broadcasting the you're on like the seventh hole and you know he
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I realized like kind of no one can help themselves to different degrees. And what I like about our age group is that we know what it was like before this. And we certainly are in it deep now for years and years. So we've experienced both of it. Imagine being a 20 something basketball player. So like you're always going to be more impacted by the negativity, the access to it, the rate of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think it just fucks a lot of guys up. So it's hard to tell players you're wrong about the negativity when it's all they've ever experienced. They're not going to do what you did because they weren't around when you did it. They're not going to go back and read Sports Illustrated articles from the 70s and go, you know what? I have greater perspective on this. I don't have it too bad right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So I don't think anything LeBron said was necessarily wrong.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. Yeah, the X player thing...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And like, is this guy from Willimantic? Like what's going on? And so then dudes who couldn't even shave me being one of them, you just felt left out. So guys started shaving their sideburns up as high as possible. Right. That was really, I didn't like. Yeah. I hope that never comes back. But yeah, there was also there was just a lot of chin shit in the early 2000s out of boredom.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That was so good. That clip was so good with those guys because Max respects them. And look, Barnes is a wild card. And Steven Jackson, I think people would say is a real one. So that was, I'm totally with you. I mean, look, if you want to talk ex-players, I don't know if I trust anybody more than Jeff Teague right now. Jeff Teague's been great. Every Jeff Teague breakout is incredible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. It doesn't happen without... We don't decide. No, and there was that push to try to figure out who the post-Jordan guy was, and that void did go on forever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It was the Kobe All-Star game where it just was going to be too early for Kobe to take that on after some of these other misses, and Iverson didn't have the playoff success other than the finals run, but the team just wasn't good enough for this to be like, oh, this is phase one of this sustainable thing with the Sixers. It was kind of just this...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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remarkable defensive run with an offense built around one guy just hopefully going crazy enough to get you some playoff wins so I think the lesson in that is that that face never like that face storyline never developed like that person did not present themselves and whatever that void was it didn't mean the league was just going to swallow itself up and cease to exist and I mean we can get in some of the rating stuff the popularity whatever which I there's one piece though which is different there's a personality piece that I feel like
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I thought during the broadcast today that was really interesting because it then turned to another face-to-league conversation and Doris was talking about Tatum and essentially saying, if you're that person, then you shouldn't even have to address it. And I love that Breen was like, okay, but he was asked about it. While there was also a game...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
where there was an ad that started with Tatum in a press conference in the commercial where the reporter, again, it's an actress going, you're on top of the basketball world right now. And you're like, okay, he's got the title and he's the best player on a title team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I think you're rounding up a bit on like what's possible for him because I know we're going to get to Cleveland and all this other stuff. But I liked it. Breen was like, okay, but of all the superstars, Like, this guy is incredibly polite, and he also plays, like, every single game. So, yeah, I think there's a personality thing. Yeah, there's a personality disconnect.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like, Iverson was the coolest thing ever, all right? Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but he kind of lost me a bit there towards the end of the Philly stuff because it's just... Mid-2000s on, we're not awesome. Yeah, there's an approach to... Like, if you're setting the tone as the best player on a team and then you're taking off and doing your own thing all the time and just can't be bothered... Like, I don't know how that's good for the team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I don't know how that's good for yourself. So once we had access to a little bit more of that stuff, I think that's also something else too, is like guys used to be able to hide. Guys would be able to hide. We didn't know what was going on with them. We know what's going on with these guys literally every single fucking minute. So the relationship is so much more intimate.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And when it is that more intimate, then you're much more likely to find things that you don't like about some of these dudes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Think about how many people impress you in the first five minutes and then ultimately let you down. Like, if you think about your professional career, the number of people that once you had more exposure to them, I mean, I know that's the case for me, so I don't want to speak for you, but then you were like, oh, man, I had high hopes for this person.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's why now, seriously, if somebody nails it with me in the first five to 10 minutes, I'm more worried. You're suspicious. Yeah. I'm like, you were so good in the first five to 10 minutes. I thought, now I'm like, what's wrong with this person?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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What is her favorite podcast?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I can't imagine though, not wanting to be the face. How could you be a pro athlete?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I was not surprised by that part of the quote, but whatever. I like that he's candid, though.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I know that I care a lot about what we talk about on this, what I've talked about on my pods and the shows in the past. I mean, I really, I mean, I really cared about putting a lot of thought into what my opinions were going to be. And yet I always knew like, Oh, you don't, Like, do you know what the help rules are? Do you know what all the terminology is? Second April? Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The white beard call is right though, because now I'm at the point where if I let it go, it's patchy in areas where it's not colored. And then I have buddies that are dying their beards. And then I, all I can think about is Richard Kimball. And I just think like, I don't know, man, like I might, I might want to like at this point,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, no, that kind of stuff. I used to really, then I realized it's like, you're spending way too much time on this. Like I would, I would study the CBA pretty religiously because I wanted to have it like down and I used to have it down and now I'm like, I think I'll be okay.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, because I felt like, you know, there's always the like unintended consequences thing that is just hard to factor in. I was thinking about this the other day, like the timeout for three minutes to go where you lose the timeout because it was like, hey, here's Silver and the competition committee. I don't even know if that's what they call it. It's what the NFL does.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But they decided, yeah, there's too many timeouts at the end of games. Like, let's take a timeout away from them. Okay, what's happening? Yeah, no kidding. Everybody just calls it now. So you could come out of commercial break. One possession of the other team looks up and goes, oh, we're going to lose this time out anyway. Yeah. So let's make sure we take it now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And so we're not getting any time back because the unintended consequence was that you ended up with coaches going, I'll take it before I lose it. So now my solution would be just give them one less time out. Um, and then you'll be fine. And back to the original plan.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Anyway, the reason I use that as an example is that whenever you're on the fly trying to read his CBA and the highlights from the whole thing, like we were kind of going, this feels like a hard cap. And I was almost scared a little bit to go, is it a hard cap? Like, is, is this going to be a hard cap? Um, but yeah, back to the original thing. Like, look, man, I, I do put a lot of thought into this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I, um, always wondered if I could get to an age where I'd be like, you think at this age you'll just go like, ah, fuck it. I watched the fourth quarter. I'm good. I haven't read anything. There's definitely ways to cheat. Yeah. Right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And then I think about the guys that played and I think about the coaches and a lot of the people that work in our industry, you know, whether it's, you know, it's, it's not perfect parallel to it, but there's so many players that I'll listen to and go, okay, wait, you have a problem with me and I didn't play. Like, have you heard your shit? have you heard how dumb all your arguments?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I mean, there's one person in particular that I'm thinking of right now. Like if I really wanted to do a 10 minute monologue, destroying this person's takes and how fucked they are. And I don't know what the motives are behind him, but like I could, but I really don't want to get in a fight with anybody about that kind of stuff. But that's, it almost brings me back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's, it's like being a screenwriter where you get really discouraged and then you're like, holy shit, they greenlit that. Let's open up the laptop. Uh,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't know that you're necessarily hiding your age, but there are definitely dudes that when they go full beard now, I mean, even though you've got this salt and pepper thing, you're going way more salt than pepper. Yeah. And you've aged yourself so much. So, you know, I don't I remember when Cowherd's contract was up. I think he had red hair and I was like, well, he joined FS1.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's the only thing. I love them. I absolutely love them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, the only thing I would say, and it's not fair, and it's probably because I watch them too much, but I think they get almost too hunt happy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I get it. Expose the weakness. Find the bad matchup. You have these two incredible on-ball wings. You have a third guy in Derek White who can do some of that stuff too. When it is clicking on offense, the offensive numbers are outrageous. They're terrific. Who am I to sit here and criticize any of this stuff? I criticized some of it last year. It did not matter.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
But they can get so hunt happy that I wonder in the way basketball is connected that if other players are just watching somebody hunt the entire time, at least they take turns with it. Some teams will just have their main ball handler hunt the entire time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And it's a minor thing that I notice, but I'm probably too critical of it because there's no offensive number that tells you, oh, yeah, like, uh-oh.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They have lineups that they run out there where, and maybe it's a regular season thing. Look, no Aaron Gordon today, who's their best defensive player and has been shooting it well from three, but he's still somebody that I think teams are going to test and
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Um, but you know, so it's not entirely fair because Gordon's missed a couple of games here, but they had a lineup where it was Michael Porter jr. Surrounded by Westbrook Brown, who was great today. But I mean, what was his shot total? Like if you go into a game 22, he took 22 shots.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So if you're sitting there prepping out what you want to do against Denver, you're like, Hey, if Christian Brown takes 22 shots, it's probably a win for us today. Right? So it's Michael Porter Jr.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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who I think is, you know, if you dig into his advanced stuff, he's not the same guy that he was the first couple of years on the scene, even though defensively he was such a disaster then that Malone didn't really even trust him. I wouldn't say he's a plus, but I think he's a total coin toss guy. If he had 21 or he had three, I wouldn't be surprised.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I also think he plays a little soft, but back to this lineup. So it's Porter Jr., Westbrook, Brown, DeAndre Jordan, and Strother. And when you're looking at some of the three-point shooting against these guys, like Westbrook's going to be open. And when he hit his first three, I thought that was a bad sign for Denver with this stuff. You can also see Westbrook decide he's not comfortable shooting.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
You can also see Westbrook, you know, it's great that he's probably understood his role better here than a lot of the other places as he's tried to become a role player. Like I'd say, what, this is stop three as a role player because Washington, he still was clearly the guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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you'll see him be in a hurry to force it back to Jokic, which is showing him being deferential in a way that we weren't used to with so many of the prime Westbrook years. But I think it can also mess them up a little bit. So whether it was the Lakers matchup or the Boston matchup today, again, without Gordon, isn't entirely fair.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I know you weren't expecting this long, so I'm not going to go this long on the other ones, but I've talked about it being four teams because of the respect for Jokic and Denver was fourth in the FanDuel title odds. It's those three and Denver's in a sliver tier by themselves because I just don't think they're as good as Oklahoma City, Cleveland, or Boston.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
And I don't see how they are going to be as good as those three teams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I had a really hard time having that ball patch in my head. It was just brutal.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They were two for 11 on their first 11 wide open threes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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On the game, they got it back to 34%, but they're last in the NBA in points from the three. So their percentage of points, however many they score a game, they have the last or the lowest total of points via the three-pointer of anyone. And so then they come to a game like today. That was going to be really weird if Boston had blown this because approach-wise, hey, here's the plan.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Here's what we want to have happen. It's exactly what you would hope to do to Denver. Like, yeah, great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The high camera shot. Yeah, I mean, if I see John Barry to this day, it might be on. Oh, he mentioned it? My buddies wanted to kill John Barry. Did he make a joke about it? He talked about it the entire fourth quarter apparently. I can't even go back and watch the tape. It's too traumatic. Wow. I wonder if that's on the YouTubes. Oh, it's all over the place.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
It'll be interesting if Shea gets his points, Jalen Williams gets his points. Chet, as you'd expect, taking a little time. I thought he was so great in that Brooklyn game when they gave up, what, 76 points to the Nets of all teams with this kind of defense, this historic differential defense based on the league averages. But it might just be, does Isaiah Joe Dort Caruso, Aaron Wiggins.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I've joked about him being one of my favorite players, but as far as a role guy and stepping up and then what he did in February, every time I watch a Thunder game, I'm always like, man, there's Aaron Wiggins.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I, too, am fond of Ty Jerome. We have him on the pod coming up this week, by the way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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There was a moment when Ty Jerome was playing and trying to figure out where his basketball life was going to go. Van Gundy was on the broadcast. And this is when I knew. And again, anybody that watched him in college, he's very different in that the play is open. There are options open on his plays. that are longer, if that makes sense.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's almost like a quarterback watching routes develop and he finds a way to give the receivers the extra beat to do whatever they need to do so that you're still defending more shit than you want to defend with Jerome. And that's why he screws up so many of these defenses because you're like... there's no way this is going to work.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And it's a lot of that Nash wrong foot thing, or it's the takeoff to pass where guys started. Remember like almost running out of the way of Nash's drives. It actually opened up things for Nash because people were closing out and so freaked about his passing skills. And Jerome has these runners where everything is kind of wrong. And then you don't really know what's supposed to happen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Anyway, Van Gundy was on a broadcast and it was almost like your grandfather watching Christina Hendricks on an episode of Mad Men for the first time. Like just this erotic, slightly, like the way Van Gundy talked about Ty Jerome's game, it was like he needed a breath. Like he needed a moment. Yeah. And it makes all the sense in the world.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So my friends, I'm talking about, again, Massachusetts friends that aren't exactly the most supportive people. Scholars have argued. They don't even argue about it. And so they were like, hey, what the fuck is up with John Barry? And I went, I don't know. Is that beef? I just got done with the game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Like Cleveland, when they came back, what was really interesting about their game, they went to 10 guys, I think 14 minutes into the game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They were at 10 guys. The Friday night game you're talking about. Right. depending, maybe you take a coral off the table, shot selection, some of that stuff. Let's say nine. Nine of the guys for Cleveland now are really good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Even when they were arguably the greatest team we've ever seen, they turned the ball over.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They played better defense than everybody, too, on top of being unguardable.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I've watched him a lot. The last, I don't know, 10 plus days, I watched the Clippers loss. I watched the Phoenix win. I watched the Phoenix win in overtime. The Knicks lost, which could have gone either way. And they lose to San Antonio. But Ja didn't play last night, right? I don't think Ja or Bane played. That's right. Yeah, because Bane was in a sick, sick hoodie. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I want to be fair about Memphis, you know, because I think that the most dismissive thing you could say is, hey, they've never done shit. Because I hear it a lot. Like, if I talk to teams, like, hey, who do you like? Who do you not like? What would you think about this matchup? Whatever. There's a lot of never done shit. About a million different teams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Because you know what it's really hard to do? Win. It's hard to actually do shit. Like, you could even... I don't even know how Wynn Horst... Again, it's not a criticism of Windhorse, but I was a little shocked at how often he was talking about how disrespected the Thunder were. Whereas once they get into the playoffs, that a lot of this stuff isn't going to work.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And that one, I don't quite understand. I don't think it's even fair to judge the Thunder as some finished product. Did he say that about this season's Thunder? He said about, I mean, do I have to bring up the quote? Because I brought it up with Slater. I brought it up with Slater this week.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I'm sitting here trying to ISO against Hunger Games, and I got the secretary of education telling me to calm down a little bit. And then I had to sub myself in. Which Hunger Games person? Was it a Josh or something?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
where he was basically saying, again, it's not like he's pulling the entire league, but it's like a player thing. There's just players that look at the Thunder, look at their regular season success. Now, last year, you could point to it and go, hey, look at their health and look at their available guys. They had basically played.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Sacramento had one of those seasons where it's like, okay, you basically ceilinged out this entire time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I don't understand. Why wouldn't Shea? Shea's just going to be as good. Maybe he has a couple games.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So which team has not won that people were like, hey, that team's going to get it done?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Are you ready to pick them over Boston in a series?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Did you see what else they did too? They sat Allen to close.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but think about that sentence. Did you think you would be saying that, I think Boston could beat Cleveland two months ago?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, I pushed him pretty hard at one point because I just wasn't playing well. I'd actually had like a crack in my leg and Um, you know, whatever. Now I'm making excuses.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So Mitchell, this season in three games against Boston, is averaging 36, 7, and 4 on 50 and 38%. Feels even better.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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First of all, he's just that good. The best version of him. He also rejects the screen in that Dwayne Wade way where I think when you're really good at that, because I just don't know that there's enough guys that understand when you turn the screen down and you go the other way. He also splits it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Again, I'm not trying to compare him to Kobe because Kobe would split screens in ways you were just like, oh my God.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Well, it's probably not Hauser. As good as Hauser holds up, that was one of the things that I was looking at the last few days with Boston where every one of these Hauser minutes or every one of these curl handoffs where you're getting Cornette trying to figure out which side of the paint he's going to try to Contest a shot on like those are Porzingis and drew minutes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So even if drew doesn't end up on him, you're now switching into whatever version of this was. And now pre Deandre Hunter, I didn't care what Mitchell did. I didn't care about what the regular season stuff. And again, it had gone Boston's way. So you could at least point to that as evidence of,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But there was always a bad matchup waiting for Cleveland, whether it was finding Garland or Strews having to start on Jalen Brown or, you know, Allen is on Tatum. They clearly like bringing Allen all the way out away from the rim. And then if the Mobley lineup is out there with Allen trying to keep him pinned to a three point shooter.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I didn't play Russell Westbrook. I didn't look, I shouldn't, I was not a celebrity. Um, ESPN was usually pretty good about trying to get somebody on air involved in some of that stuff. I liked it. A little cross promotion. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So like basically you can't have Allen or Mobley ever freelance to the rim. And I actually think in the matchups where Tatum had Allen, like he did a really good job with it because if he wasn't going to be able to finish at the rim, he kind of knew. And he had a massive game there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
But now that they have these Hunter minutes and they closed with Mobley, Hunter, and then the guards because Garland played and had his moments even though he's been hunted. And then you have... So Cleveland now has put together spacing options and the Hunter part of it, even though it was expensive, I love that they did this because...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Now it's like, look, nobody's stopping Tatum necessarily, but at least you have somebody size-wise who has a defensive thing to him. It's a chore to score against him, and he can shoot threes. Look, the point is, even without Przingis and Drew in there, maybe it feels like a mistake. Cleveland's the favorite.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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and i think atkinson has a real feel for what the team is but um and he has all these different options i guess i just don't like the default and i'm guilty of it too like we have a really hard time with new it's hard to be ahead of everybody going you know what like but if i were to listen to somebody like cleveland hasn't done it boston has and that be the reason that's not a reason it's ignoring a lot of basketball stuff there's not a reason now
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Obviously, I'd want to do it, but I clearly wish I had gotten a play before that because then when I went back home to talk to buddies that I played with regularly, they're like, you're terrible now. We talked so much shit about, they were like, look out, he's going to go off in this thing. And I was like, yep, I know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
And if they want to go double big, you still have to respect... you obviously have to respect Porzingis. Like you feel like Boston has the stretch options and we might be both making mistake declaring Cleveland the favorite right now. The whole point is being out, but I just think they're that good, man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Well, they went to seven games at Orlando. Yeah. And Orlando, who, if you really want to have a bad time, watch them on offense this season. It's funny, too, because Cleveland ran the zone where they had Ty Jerome and Sam Merrill at the top of the zone. Yeah. And you're looking at Orlando's options and you're like, I know with the zone it can mess you up a little bit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
And it also screws up Orlando's offense that their top two usage guys are 30% each from three in Paolo and Fran. So that's going to put a dent in your plans. But I was watching this going, how can you guys not figure out a way to attack front of the pod Sam Merrill and soon to be front of the pod Ty Jerome? Like how...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I know they're in zone, but teams will stop screening with zone or they'll stop cutting. They just get freaked out. Orlando's offense is terrible against everybody in every incarnation. But this is...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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this is one of those deals where you're like, everything seems to be working out for them and they can be a really like, you know, we could say how depth is overrated in the playoffs, but there's nothing to me that's overrated about options and they have depth and lineups, lineup options. Yeah. And okay.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But then on the other side, it was a bit like when Kyrie was having his playoff run last year, where even if he went four for 20, people be like his joy is back and it's unbelievable. Yeah. So the threshold for like a good Kyrie stretch was pretty low. And I think it was the same. And so when I got back to ESPN, people were like, oh, you played really well. And I was like, yeah, not really.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I just don't know how the Knicks defense is going to be enough. It's too easy scoring them. I know they have Mitchell back now, and the lack of depth isn't really an issue.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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That's a massive leap to be like, that team is going to get through. Unless somebody does them a favor, so they only have to face one of the two top teams to get through it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I love watching the Knicks, though. Like, even with my doubts, that Knicks-Memphis game the other night. That was awesome. We didn't really do a very good job on the Memphis thing. So let me just end it this way. Yeah. There's so much that I like about the team. I think Bain is just solid all the time. I don't know that Aldama gets enough credit. You know, they're working a couple other pieces in.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I think the Edie thing is still not necessarily great. And I don't know if it's because Bill Gurley.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I was shocked. Bill Gurley had kind of a tweet that was like, I'm really smart and you draft guys are kind of fucking morons. And it was like the general premise of overthinking something and ultimately becoming wrong when he was taken. And it's like, look, man, I think you're not really...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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understanding the NBA part of this, where there's a lot of teams that'll sit there in the war room going, Hey, the guy we're about to draft is not nearly as good as the guy we're passing on. Right. Yeah. Like they know this, these teams are not as stupid as people want to make them out to be. But if you're a team that doesn't have a, a track record of attracting free agents, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So you're not a destination franchise. You never use a cap space on anybody. Maybe you don't have necessarily trade assets.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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The reason why players like Edie would go a little bit later in a draft, which we've already covered some of this stuff before, is because you feel like they're already close to their ceiling and you're like, hey, I know that Amin Thompson is this or Sir Thompson is this, but what if this raw... like one percent athlete who we like his personality, like what?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And then you got called bald, I guess, for a straight hour or so.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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And I'm not comparing like Thompson going where he went. You know, it's also different draft classes, but. There's something you have to understand with teams that when they're selecting guys, they know the mistake they're potentially making, but they're thinking about the high ceiling part because the addition of talent is so incredibly challenging in this league. More challenging.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's tougher to be a GM in basketball than any of the other sports. So for teams that are watching, what's that?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Do you want to do this? I don't know that you're prepared to do this with me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but the cap thing is the same for everybody. There's no soft part of it. There's no like... there's no massive advantage in the five destination cities in the NFL that you have in the NBA. So if you're a have not in the NBA, like Utah can be putting together the best plan ever. Is anyone ever signing there? Right. The NFL doesn't have that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You don't even have real, you don't even have real free agency in the NFL. So on top of like when a guy wants a trade, uh, Or we'll just franchise you and you can miss out on like a top five salary at your position.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but he can't drive receivers. So that's not a good argument.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Right. Because then it becomes a debate. Is it easier to draft in the NBA or are they better at it? And I just when it comes down to the quarterback part of it. It's something that we can't criticize for an officer getting wrong. It's the process of evaluating these guys. It's just no one's figured it out. It's too flawed of a thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I'd like to be watching somebody run really fast in basketball and his dunks are awesome. And then being like, look at all that athleticism and quick twitch stuff. Now he'll be good at quarterback.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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We thought he was a rotation guy, but a closing guy for the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah. So you're drafting him and you're asking him to post up 1.6 times per game.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Another thing for my NFL NBA thing, we have seven conversations going on at once here, by the way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You can't bring in a new coach in the NBA with basically the same roster and then just be a completely different team. And there's also the math of the games where a team, a couple of one-score possession games go their way. All of a sudden, you're a four-win team and you go to like a nine-win team. And you're just like, man, we really figured it out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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It's like now actually just recover more fumbles. But there's very little that you can do
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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um and then also look in the nba with the way the drafting works the second round guys again the second round thing was like the most overrated thing ever and people just love that hanky was stockpiling all these second round picks but it was so fucking stupid there's no nba draft part where you're like oh in the fourth round we grabbed an all-pro middle linebacker right that doesn't happen so i don't know maybe we can maybe we can do this on the hit show ringer.com
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Because you actually have to factor in the pre-miserable. Yeah. You can't just pick somebody who's happy all the time. You have to get somebody who's a really moody dude. Yeah, that's tough.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Wait, so now I don't even know if we're arguing the same Zach Eady point. How about we do this? Do you like Memphis in the playoffs?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But is it too early for Memphis? Because that's something... This has been a very weird three-year stretch for this team. To say the least. Yeah. So you go back to 22. And I always like Memphis. I like their rawness. Their anti-establishment. The next generation of...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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of grit and grind and then when they played whoop that trick in game five against golden state you never got over that yeah yeah and i i actually i think i did a monologue because chris vernon sent me just a tear emoji after the open where i went i want golden state to beat their fucking brains in yeah when they play in game six because i was like you guys are really really feeling yourself
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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You're down 3-2 in a series. Maybe don't play. It was an elimination game, 3-1 to 3-2, but it was a lot. It was a lot from those guys. And so then you have the Jai issues, then you have the injury issues. And so that was a... They had a seed not that long ago when they were hurt against the Lakers, right? Where no one gave them a chance necessarily in that series. That was the Dylan Brooks thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Everybody ended up not liking him all that much. So this is kind of like year four of this group. But I don't know that it's like, oh, they're incapable because they haven't done anything when they weren't really fully formed in all these versions except for 22.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I mean, wherever Durant ends up.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, but they're defensive numbers because I looked it up the other day.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I just, I'm still on the pyramids to be honest with you.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, just because like the last guy that built the pyramid after his, you know, the lineage of rulers, he was like, okay, well, my grandfather did this and then my father did this. So how about we do this? I'll build a slightly smaller pyramid just because the other guys, like, you really had to sacrifice.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Because basically people were like, hey, these pyramids take a fucking long time and a lot of resources. And maybe this isn't the sweetest deal for your constituents, right? Yeah. So I like that it was almost like an ideological shift of the pharaohs that it was like, if we're going to do a pyramid, how about a little smaller? Yeah. It felt like a real transition of like, I still got to do one.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I still got to do one. But I'm going to take it easy on you guys.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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So is there a pyramid? Is there a pyramid version of OBP that matches not putting the ball in play in too many relievers?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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They never perfected? Right at the end of the third dynasty, maybe. I could have my tables wrong. But yeah. I'll check on that. What do you got?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Could there be Kyrie joy is back voter fatigue? Cause he would have won it last year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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I saw the couple of beers thing. I haven't watched it yet. I did watch the monologue because I mean, he even talked about the first monologue. I think he was nervous. Like it was. Yeah, he was. So I've seen him, I think, four times now whenever he's around. Like, I want to make sure I can go check it out. And look, I like him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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But last night, I think there's still this disconnect of people can't understand where he's at.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
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Yeah, like there was obviously like peak time. Whatever political lines you want to argue SNL was aligned with, I think there was a peak where it was probably a lot for anybody. I remember they did a weekend news thing or whatever, and they went to some correspondent that was talking about
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
the movie lineup and that essentially every movie was centered around white male rage right yeah and so whoever the correspondent was that was doing the spoof was just yelling like white male rage white male and i wasn't offended as a white male i was offended because it was so stupid it just wasn't funny at all yeah i felt like because of
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
wherever we were at in our discussions at least as a country at the time it was like almost a cool thing to try to do and it just didn't didn't work it wasn't really funny and now i've looked at different snl clips it's like oh you can see the shift a little bit be like maybe 100 maybe some of this pandering stuff that we were doing or maybe it was people internally that worked on the show we're like no these are important things like we're gonna do you can see there's been a very clear shift of like let's actually start making fun of
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
both sides a little bit more than we were so then i don't know if that sets the tone for like what gillis is walking into but i think some people look at gillis and think was he talks about trump when he comes out says i'm going to miss trump being in debates that for some people it's like this massive red flag that goes off like oh this guy's a trump guy you know he's yeah white he's from pa like clearly he's a trump then he goes right for biden right after
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Right. So I don't think first of all, I don't think he's conservative. Some people think he is. And the way that like that'll like it'll happen with certain people like they'll already be like triggered to go. Oh, no. Like this is a pro Trump comedian out here because he just said, I mean, and then he makes fun of Trump the whole fucking time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
When MB is on another team, when they do the joy is back, sit down feature for.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
So he's kind of just making fun of everybody there the whole time. I'd ask you this, though, like him getting bounced. I knew who he was, but not as good. And then pretty quickly, I was like, man, this guy is... He's probably my favorite going right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I think he's really smart on top of being like... The guys that play the goofy thing, but also are incredibly smart with the way they structure the stuff that they're doing is always going to make me want... I'm like, okay, I'm in. This isn't just set up, set up joke or whatever. I think there's some layers to the stuff that he's doing that's really impressive to me. But do you think...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Do you think that changed? Cause it, at the time it felt like, and I'm doing a bad job with this. That was the best thing that happened to him. Cause it put him on everybody's radar, but you think the long-term ceiling for him back to the Zach, I don't think it was the best thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. You can't even.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
The ISIS thing. When I saw the ISIS thing live in Arizona, uh, I mean, he just had everybody. I mean, his whole premise was, and again, like, that's a pretty good example of what we're talking about. I don't think he actually is cheering for ISIS. Right. But his whole story and playing it out of getting you to understand why he's rooting for ISIS for all of the reasons that he's laying out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Like, that's brilliant shit, man. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
And now you think he has a Sandler like potential Sandler timeline. That's not reachable now. What do you mean? Well, if he's the main guy and he's really funny, he's on SNL for 10 years feels long today.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Every Jimmy Butler quote, I feel like did Aaron Sorkin write the perfect like recovery? Like every quote, it's not just one good quote. They're like 12 for 12. They're all perfect. Yeah. And you think like, hey, Sorkin, come up with a script of this player that basically sabotaged himself, destroyed his own market value, destroyed his own free agency.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Oh, Les Claypool. Primus, Tuesday. Already taped it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Keep it a secret. Who do you want to win the Oscar?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I thought she was great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I only watched those two movies. Oh, and I saw Dune. I saw Dune. I saw Chalamet at the Lakers game. I know. He was sitting a couple rows in front of me. I wanted to go up to him and be like, hey, here's the deal. It's not about me. Will you go on with Bill?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Yeah. No, no. I want you to just I want you to ice. I want you to hunt him like Darius Garland. I think it's very clear. Chalamet would come on with you if he knew the request was in. I feel like people don't know how big I think there's a pretty big PR armada. Yeah. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
I'm not worried about it. They're turning down everything. But any kid that waits outside MSG to meet Amari Stoudemire when he's 10 or 11, that guy wants to go. He already name-checked you. So this is an auto. So I thought, is there any way I'll get him? But as I've gotten older, I'm like, I'm never going up to anybody anymore. Yeah, it sucks. Because it just doesn't work. You can come up to me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Like, this isn't new, even if we could get into some of the debates, which I think there's some fair criticisms of Sorkin.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
some of the miami stuff but i mean ultimately it was butler that just checked out on the whole thing they're like okay but when he goes to this new team and everybody starts making threes and they win a bunch of games like give us perfect quotes every quote butler has for like two weeks has nailed it it's one of those situations where you're like oh i forgot this guy had teeth we hadn't seen his teeth for like three years because he hadn't smiled since like 2021 2021
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Just all you have to do is play with them and then go when everybody, this is what happens when you cut. Yeah. Like you cut and then all of this stuff is just wide open. I mean, still even at Steph's age with this. So, Butler, it was funny because we had Anthony Slater on who, you know, from the athletic, he's national, but you know, his background is the Warriors.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
And he made a really good point because I think anybody that knew about what was going on before the trade deadline and all the different conversations you hear, like the Warriors are a little split.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Well, ultimately it matters if Lakob or Dunleavy care, probably more so Lakob because Lakob is the one that's going to have to, as they have them void out the player option, you give them north of a hundred million bucks and you're like, all right, you know, like I would never want to be an owner or a GM in that situation. We're like the way we can,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
take a chance here is giving jimmy butler a two plus you know 100 million plus over the next two years but slater was like whatever the internal debates were it was what are we disrupting now a maybe non-playing team so who cares uh yeah and that kind of ends the argument really especially when you see these results yeah i said on the on the pod right after that it wasn't a hail mary
The Bill Simmons Podcast
Talking Basketball, NBA, and Hoops With Ryen Russillo
Are you saying, I'm just to interject quickly, just are you going off of like the rumbling of like Josh Harris really was like, Not sure that he wanted to do this.