And now below. Welcome to the low post podcast on a Friday morning, 13 days from the NBA trade deadline. It's rivalry week had no idea rivalry week was a thing. Ramona Shelburne, how are you?
You know, I learned about rivalry week a couple years ago when they were hyping the NBA schedule and I was excited about it. I think this is new development. Can we have load management abatement week? Oh, well, yeah, it's good.
Yeah. I think there's also some classic rivalry that makes sense like Lakers Celtics. That's a good one. But then who do you match up Atlanta with?
Who do you match up? Atlanta, New York, Denver, Denver. We can think of some good ones for Denver Clippers has become a guy after you. So if you know what has happened for that to be a rivalry, the Clippers have to win a game from Denver at some point for that to be a rivalry.
Ramona Shelburne, we're going to hit a lot of topics today. You had a sit down with Pat Riley. Let me tell people before we get to that sit downs with Pat Riley. Don't happen sit downs with Pat Riley are really, really hard to get.
I had to get one for a Bam out of bio profile a few years ago. And that was a lot to get that. It doesn't like to do media. So we're going to get to that first.
Let's react to all star starter announcements and we were both voters. So let's start Western conference. And now starters vote the winners. The all star starters guard Steph Curry guard, Luca Donchich, front court, LeBron James, Zion Williamson, Nicola Yokech, Ramona Shelburne.
What was your ballot? I do not think I had Zion on my ballot and that was not enough on him. It was just everything's a knock. Everything's a knock.
Everything's hate. It's all there is is hate. He's hurt. So I did factor that in when I was voting.
And I'm trying to remember exactly where I had everybody. I think I had John my ballot over Steph or Luca over Zion. You got to have two guards. You got to have two guards.
Yeah. So I think I had Steph and John. Isn't that right? So no, Luca?
I had Luca in the front court. Can't have Luca in the front court. Luca's a guard. Then I definitely had all those guys.
Let me find my ballot. You go with your ballot. I'll do my ballot then Ramona. I had Luca Donchich a guard.
Shay Gilders Alexander at the other guard over Steph. Explain this. I explained this in my call. We all know Steph's better.
Steph's a top 10 to 15 player of all time. We all know he's better now 400 something minutes. Shays averaging 30 a game. I'm rewarding him and LeBron Yokech and I hit Sabona.
This is my last front court player. Over Zion, overmarketing. Zion, look, you got in. I had marketing in my ballot.
That's right. I remember in that moment I went to bonus or marketing. Marketers to bonus. And I just went with the whole crowd pleaser.
That's not a right reason to vote. But I did. He's going to make it anyway. He's going to make it anyway.
But I thought he's had a great year for them. The games in Salt Lake City. And I felt like Sabona was going to make it anyway. Marketing would make it anyway.
And yeah, I did go marketing. That was the last one. Do you have your Eastern Conference ballot prepared? I remember, yes, I remember that one off my head.
I did both Cleveland guards and I left Durant off because I thought he was injured as well. So I did Embiid, Janis and Tatum. Both Cleveland guards? You had Garland starting?
Yeah, I think I did both Cleveland guards. Wow. Yeah. What'd you do?
I mean, there's no one inside a really good season. But I had Donna Mitchell, Jalen Brown, by a hair over Tyree Saliburton who should be in lock. Let me let me clearly tell her. Yes, how rich it has to be.
It has to be there. And I had Janis coming off the bench. I had Tatum, Tatum Durant, Embiid. Embiid.
There's really. Embiid got right. It has to lose out of those four guys, which is stupid. It's stupid that we can't have all four of them starting.
The numbers say mostly that it should be Janis. Durant being injured gives voters a window to just be like, he's verbalized if he wants to play. And he's played more minutes than Janis. I think he's been better than Janis this season.
And so if I have to pick on picking on us off the bench, it hurts. It hurts me. But Embiid got robbed. Embiid is like, remember when Durant was like, I'm always number two.
I'm sick of being number two. I was number two. It's becoming Embiid now. It is.
Like there was a time when in the Western Conference it was like this with guards too. You could never choose between Steph, Hardin, Chris Paul, and Dame. And you had to choose two guards out of the four every year. And they really had, you could split hairs.
Like I always think the All-Star vote. I don't think it's split so many different ways. Like the fans have a vote in there. We have a vote.
But it's not like all NBA where I feel like it's as serious as all NBA where there's legitimately millions of dollars tied to it. And we really have to take all that seriously. And so I think like with Embiid, that's why I think this game on Saturday is going to be fun. And I think we're going to talk about it anyway.
Embiid, Yolkichu is on Saturday. Let me just be clear. I love Darius Garland. I have sung his praises on this podcast many, many times.
I have said that I feel almost more comfortable with the ball in his hands late in games than I do with it in Diamond and Mitchell's hands. I just don't, I can't vote for him over those guards. But that's just me. I know, I think I wanted to vote for Halliburton and I just felt like Garlin, yeah, he's into two.
And like there's a, there's a, that is weird. I tended to dock points for somebody who I think may not play. Right? If they're in the, if they're hurt, it's like, well, then maybe I won't vote for them and I'll vote for the person who I think is going to play.
So at the time, I think Duran wasn't going to play. One of the cool things about how this voting works now is the NBA will break it down for you and say here's where, here's where everyone finished with media, with fans and with players. And I love to look at the player votes because there's always one or two or three where it's like, oh, the players think really differently about this guy than we do or, or just I'm surprised that we're in agreement with them on this guy, like his maybe our tastes kind of diverged. So there are a couple I wanted to highlight.
Yolkich, Yolkich finished first among players in the front court balloting over LeBron. And I think what's happened with Yolkich is interesting. And that Draymond Green telegraphed it after the Warriors beat the Nuggets for one in the playoffs last year. And all the Philly fans were like, well, this is why NBA should have won.
And Draymond was like, dude, that guy is a monster. We have more respect for him after this series than we even did before. Something to that nature. I'm paraphrasing.
Yeah. And I think the same thing has happened with the whole fretting over. Is it okay to give Yolkich three straight MVPs? That's just faded.
Like everyone is just kind of recognized like this dude is amazing for him to beat out LeBron when the players was interesting. I have another one that surprised me. Okay. It's in the Eastern Conference.
The player vote in the Eastern Conference. Can you guess what it is? The player vote in the Eastern Conference. One of the player votes that was.
Is it getting somebody who's high or low? Low. All right. Well, there's Paolo Bankaro come in at eight.
That's pretty good. Oh, Kyrie at number one. Well, okay. I meant like low, like low double digits low, like bad low, not hot, not like high low.
Kyrie. Kyrie at number one is what it is. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. Trey Young.
Young at 12. Yeah. So Trey Young, it's like, yeah, the media talks about Trey Young a lot. There's always a lot of discussion about his style of play.
Is he going to go down as a coach killer all of a sudden? Why is there always drama in Atlanta? People are stepping down thinking about stepping down. Everyone's stepping in various directions and Trey Young's the fulcrum of the whole franchise.
So all of those things are somewhat connected to him to me some degree. But you figure, you know, he's an incredible player, right? The numbers are what they are, the style, the passing, the sort of long range shooting, the Steph Light in terms of his range and all that. And the players voted him 12 among guards below the mellow ball, Darius Allen, Jalen Brunson, tomorrow's in Tyles, Tyree Saliburton, James Hart and Jalen.
12. That really stood out to me. It's like, huh, I kind of thought he would get like a player bump and it was the opposite. The media and the fans were way higher on Trey Young than the players.
That's interesting, don't you think? Yeah, that is, because last year I remember when we were doing all NBA. We all like, there was a little of this talk a little bit. We all still, I still voted for Trey on an all NBA team last year because his stats really backed it up.
And even though they were in the play in, that's a disappointment off to the year before, but I think if it's year after year, there's not two or three years now where they've underachieved, right? Since they've been to the Easter conference finals that one year, the, the, the, the, yeah, it feels like the same story and the same narrative, the bad stuff is coming out, right? Where when's the last time you heard the good stuff? It's a good way to put it, right?
When it's just like the narratives of anything bad is coming out of Atlanta. You haven't heard of like a really good Trey Young story. Oh my God. Wow.
How great that last game was. We haven't had those stories. I think when the narrative goes in one direction on a guy, it's hard to turn it around. But for the players are clearly, oh, I don't want to say I'm bivalent.
Everyone realized how great you are. And I don't know how close the, how close he was to fifth or something while finishing 12th among the players, but that was, I even when I had Kevin Herder on this podcast a few weeks ago, I asked him, this was right after all the drama with Trey and Nate McMillan and his name McMillan reportedly thinking about resigning, which Nate McMill denied publicly in an interview. I asked Kevin Herder and they had just played the Kings. The Hawks had just played the Kings.
It was fresh in his mind. And I asked him, what was it like to, did you like playing with Trey Young? Like what was it like to play with Trey Young? And I expected him as candid as he was for that whole interview to just sort of give the, oh, Trey Young's a great player.
And like, can we please talk about some bonus or something? And he politely was kind of like, it's a double edged sword. He got me a lot of open looks, but of course everybody wants to touch the ball and do stuff and be involved in the offense. And if that's the public answer to a question like that, I think the private answer is probably different.
That's all I got. Yeah. I mean, I do think it was interesting. I thought the Zion vote was interesting as well, right?
In terms of player votes for Zion. Player vote was there. He finished higher among players third among players. Fans fourth, media fourth.
I mean, I think that's impressive. Like, because like, I know when I watch him, I'm like, oh, wow, he's really good. But he has been, there hasn't been a lot of him, right? He's sort of in and out.
He's been hurt a lot. He's still hurt right now. Is he gonna be back to the All-Star game the last up that we got was he'll be back in two weeks. So that's really cutting it close.
But that's a real sign of respect from your peers. Usually I thought Zion would be very high in the fan vote. And the media would probably vote for him in the middle of the pack because he's been in and out. But he's across the board.
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Bigger picture Western Conference is a little teaser for later. The Pelicans are three and 11 in their last 14 games. For a while, the conference was like bifurcated between the top four and everybody else. Now it's the top two.
The Kings kind of in a tier by themselves at three. And New Orleans is very quietly with nobody watching because Ingram and Zion have been heard and just came back their last game have fallen to 26 and 23. Three games or 500. They're tied to the Clippers for fourth fifth.
Like four is now in play for almost everybody in the Western Conference. And not only that, the Pelicans own draft pick now has a little bit more potential trade value than it looked like it was going to have a month ago when they were like a new brainer top 14. That's for later. Talk about Pat Riley and how you got to Pat Riley.
LeBron James is LeBron James right now as of this recording is 157 points away from tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most hallowed individual record in the NBA. We've all been doing LeBron stuff, LeBron thinking LeBron watching LeBron all of that. I did not expect a Pat Riley just bomb to drop in the middle of my life a couple of days ago. Just on Kareem.
What Kareem meant to him personally, what Kareem has meant to the game as both a player, a champion, a statesman, all of that. How did you arrive at this with Pat and what did he say maybe that you didn't expect in that piece? And people should all go to ESPN every day. Because like I said, Pat Riley is Pat Riley seen everything.
He's seen everything. He's been around everyone. He's done everything in every role in the NBA for a gazillion years. When he talks, it matters.
He and I had been talking about doing something for a while. I was in the place where as we approached the record, and we talked about this at our summit at the beginning of the year. I do remember the summit. I felt like we really needed to write about Kareem a bit more.
We really needed to focus on Kareem as we approached this record. The classic sports talk radio discussion is, oh, who's the best player of all time? It's okay. Do you have LeBron?
Do you have Michael? This generation will say, well, what about Kobe? They're older generations when you have that conversation that Kobe's usually further back, like fifth or sixth or something. But I feel like we've almost forgotten to mention Kareem all the time.
Kareem gets lost out of those greatest of all time discussions a lot. And I think it's because of his personality. I think he played alongside Magic, who's megawatt, smile, personality charm, everything. You can just forget anyone else's in the room at any time.
Magic's there. Remember their first game together. Was it Kareem that hit a buzzer beat during their first game together? And Magic was running around going crazy.
Kareem was like, dude, it's a long season, the joy of the smile are cool. Chill out. And so I felt like this is a moment and it's an interesting parallel discussion with Kareem and LeBron because they do have a lot of parallels in their careers and in their way that you think about them. And this is really a record of longevity.
And so as a kid growing up in LA, I grew up on the Showtime Lakers. So I have my real time childhood memories of Kareem. So I was born in 79 and I started watching basketball probably let's say around 84, 85, right when the Lakers Celtics things get going. What a great time to come of age.
And I was about to come out. Atari was sweeping the nation. A little little actor called Harrison Ford is on top of the world. Yeah.
It's like the early 80s. That's like my era. Those are my formative sports watching years. And I remember Kareem and Magic and where the environment's gone.
All these guys. But I don't think I realized how old Kareem was at the time. I don't think I had any idea that this was like I wasn't reading the newspaper at that point. It was five.
So looking as I have gotten older and looking back on that era. What I wanted to talk about Riley about was how good Kareem was back in 84, 85 when I'm like little Momo watching TV. He was like 38 already. He's 38 in 1985.
And they want and every year there's this talk of is he gonna retire. There's three more titles coming. Yes. Like that's amazing.
When you think about how good he was at that age and how his best years right in there were like right now every night we are a guest and marveling at how good LeBron is at 38 on a fairly bad team right now. They're what 12th in the West. Now they show glimpses and glimmers. But Kareem is he was the finals MVP in 85.
He led the Lakers in scoring. I mean as it was like 22 points a game. It's not a big number. But in 10 out of 10 years there that he led the Lakers in scoring.
And so I felt like that was something that I in my looking back on it did not realize growing up and I kind of wanted to talk to Pat about it. I think I had some sense that he was into yoga like that was something that got a couple of them. Kareem. Kareem.
Yeah. But I didn't realize how well he took care of body at a time that nobody had that consciousness of how you take care of your body. Like Pat I like what I talked about like he'd go into a game and Kareem just sitting in his locker meeting before every game. It was just very calm.
He would often find him meditating. He's like the rest of the team would be doing stretching circles and they're mostly just like goofing off for 15 minutes and Kareem was like twisting himself into a pretzel. Like he was really ahead of his time in terms of taking care of his body. And he played all the way to 41 and he's still pretty good at the end there.
Even the series gets a piss. It's like I love Riley just out of the blue with his two of the biggest free throws in Laker history and that series gets a piss effect. By the way I do not ask anybody from Detroit about those throws. Because they will all tell you and I think the video kind of agrees with the Pistons.
That was a bogus foul that got Kareem done and swung the whole finals for the Lakers. But that's. Hey, hey, hey, hey, that's history now. But the way I got Riley to talk to me Dax to go back to your original question was that I had this sense that one I was curious.
That's always the best thing is a writer's when you're curious about revisiting a time in history. And two I had this sense because I had been hearing about this Showtime Lakers reunion that they all did in Hawaii for a couple of years. It was supposed to be done before the pandemic and then they had to cancel it because COVID and they ended up doing it this September. But they basically re did the Showtime Lakers reunion in Hawaii like a training camp.
And now we've all been watching Showtime the show on HBO. But this was like the real show time Lakers having their reunion. And so I just had been wanting to ask Pat about all this for a while. And I know some of the impetus for that reunion was that these guys are getting older.
Kareem was turning 75 this year. They all had a birthday party for him in a game at crypto.com this year where a bunch of the guys showed up. And I just felt like Pat would want to talk about Kareem. And maybe I would, maybe I could ask him about LeBron at the same time.
But he felt like the right person to talk to because how many people are close to both Kareem and LeBron. There's not many. I mean, I guess you could say magic also because he was an executive, but not many. And that's why it's a big deal.
And in this piece, Pat Riley tells you Kareem is always going to be the guy because Pat Riley runs the Miami Heat and signed LeBron as a free agent in the greatest for agent coup in league history other than maybe the the Shaq Kobe double summer in LA that Jerry West pulled off, which was a free agency half trade, obviously won two championships with LeBron witnessed LeBron, no pun intended, transformed and diversified as both a scorer and a playmaker and a defender into, I think, the greatest years of his career were in the peak of his powers was I think in Miami, even more so when they wanted to clean one. And it did not go unnoticed around the NBA, around Miami, around Los Angeles, around LeBron that Pat Riley declared to you that Kareem is always going to be the guy. Now I perceive that as had being very protective of Kareem and his legacy and also wanting to point out and there's a quote in there. This is such a great Riley quote.
Do you like the part where he goes? To me, the biggest numbers were always 906 and 1128. Randy Smith's all time record for consecutive games played and then AC Green, AC Green never missed a game. The first game he missed was when he retired.
But anyway, let's just stop it. To say that again, AC Green never missed a game until he retired. The first game he missed was a game he retired. So the easiest stance to take in media right now is that load management is bad and teams are over doing it and the league has a problem because it's a populist stance, right?
It's for the fans, the fans are losing out Richard Jefferson told an incredible story on NBA about being a kid and going to a game by himself because his parents could not afford all the tickets for all the family. He wanted to see David Robinson specifically was his favorite player, play and how heartbroken he would have been. He had David Robinson sat out that game to do what was then known as load management, manage in the loads. And it's an easy argument to make.
It's low hanging fruit and all that, but it's true. And I think the only bill Simmons had a rant on this week on his podcast too, because you'll catch this game in Milwaukee now. You'll catch this all the time. I don't really know what went into that.
But it's true. The only, the only solution, the only realistic solution is the season has to be shorter. Because this is not going away. The start, everyone is going to rest all the time.
And Steve Kirk talked about 72 games. I just think either the season has to be shorter or the penalties and the penalties have to be stiffer and the rules have to be clear about what you can and cannot do. Um, I just don't think there's any other solution. This is just what it is.
But I, I felt like a lot of what, I mean, there was, there was a bit more to that rant that I'm not recounting to you right now in the pod, but it's, it's in some of it's in the story and some of it's some of it, I mean, you know, primarily when he talks, you don't interrupt him, right? You let him go. Oh my no, you're not. You're listening to him or listening to him is that you do not know what direction he is going to go.
I mean, you could be talking about Kareem and then you could be talking about Schenectady where he's from in two seconds. We got on a, I got to say that right. You're going to really pause and make sure you pronounce that right. You'll end up with something wrong.
Um, but like Pat enjoyed telling me about. He played Kareem in high school. Like Pat Riley is two years older than Kareem. That's another thing that's cool about Kareem in an era where now everybody, everybody knows every good high school player that's 14 and up.
They all have Instagram accounts. They're all going to have NILs. They're all going to be famous immediately. Kareem was already famous as well.
As well, Cinder, power Memorial high school star in New York City. He's the greatest high school player ever. He's the greatest college player ever. And he is for another few weeks, the all time leading scorer in the NBA.
He was a celebrity in New York City in like the 50s or whenever he was in high school. Yeah. Um, you know, that that's another just Kareem. Yeah.
And so Pat played against it. So Pat's two years older. So even so he's playing at the much younger player, right? You know, in high school, but he was, isn't it amazing that this guy that I played in high school who I think Kareem was probably six, eight, six, nine in high school, but he was still really big, powerful and really good player goes on to become the greatest player of all time.
He said it multiple times, right? Greatest player of all time. And he means he goes, Michael's up there too. I mean, he did it.
There's a line where he allows that Michael's up there too. But for Riles, the amount of games and the longevity that Kareem had being as good as he is. And remember, Kareem played in college too. They didn't have the age limit rules.
That's why his age. By the way, I met 60s, not 50s. I'm aware of when Kareem was in high school. It's okay.
He, you know, he, it's a made like he could have had two more years in the NBA if they didn't have the age limit rule back then. Okay. He couldn't play as a freshman. Right.
And you say, you're not allowed to. There's stories about how the freshman team with Lululele Sundor would beat the hell out of the actual UCLA team and he couldn't play for the varsity. Yeah. So I feel like I was glad Pat spoke on behalf of Kareem.
And I have a feeling, you know, there won't be that many Kareem stories that as well, which is why I wanted to run in early and set the idea early of, Hey, this is Kareem's record. And I know that people know Kareem from that show that we've been watching. And he's the tall guy with the goggles and the sky hook, but he was, he was a lot more than the tall guy with the sky hook, you know, like he was, he was an incredible player for, you know, until age 41. And some of his best seasons were later in his career.
And that was, that was the other subject of our interview, which we, he talks really eloquently on, which is that when you play this late, it's not just that you can't think of something else to do with your life. Okay. There's Kareem had plenty to do with his life. LeBron has plenty to do with his life when he gets done playing basketball.
He's already has a thriving business outside of it. But you have to want to still play. You have to have a reason to still play. And to get up at five in the morning, like LeBron does and post those Instagram videos of him working out to do what Kareem did.
He was always year to year. Like there was always this sense of, Oh, this could be the last year, this could, you know, but they were contenders every year. And he wasn't going to walk away. Like, and Riley had this great quote saying, you know, Kareem was 32 when magic first got there.
And I went back and I checked the stats and I was reading some stories from right before then Kareem had kind of fallen off right before. There's a great quote from Doug Mo and a sports illustrated story I found. He was like, yeah, six, seven years ago. He wasn't really all that good anymore.
He looked like he was falling off. And then magic came and he just got reinvigorated because, you know, they got, they got magic and Mackadoo and Byron Scott Cooper and Worthy. And they, and he just felt like, wow, I have a chance to win every year. And I think that that's part of Kareem's legacy as well is that he not only kept playing that long, he wanted to play that long.
He was still really freaking good for a long time. And in an era when nobody played that, like when he was in his 17th year in 1985, that was the most seasons anyone had ever played up until that point. Now we have plenty of 20 year guys. So you anticipated where I'm going with this, but first I did, should I get an Instagram account?
I never posted I don't even know the past. Should I start posting videos of myself waking up at six in the morning and like watching Clippers Spurs from last night. Just log on, just me logging on to a computer. I love that.
Do it. Yeah. So inadvertently in that PyReilly interview, I think one of the themes was one of the reasons Kareem played as long as it was because there were stakes. He could win.
He had a chance to win. And I read that and I thought he's probably not doing it on purpose, but that's just sort of throwing more pressure at the desk of Rapa Linka who made one trade last year trading three second rounders in Kendrick Nunn for really how Chamara trade already talked about on this pod and like still has two first round picks. So has Russell Westbrook still has other stuff to do. Where do you get a sense of what?
And as I said, I mean, number four in the West is now three games over 500. The Lakers three games under 500 and there are nine teams in between them. So there's a lot to do, but there's the ceiling on what they can do if they get hot is actually, you know, they could get pretty high. Where do you think they are trade wise?
Right? No one is more plugged into LA sports than you are. Where do you think the Lakers are? I think they are going to try to do something else of the same magnitude.
If it says we're going to use earthquake terms, we just had a little one out here. Little one, like barely, barely even qualifies as like a 4.3. LA, one of the only cities in the world where a 4.3 magnitude earthquake is less of a big deal than a routine rainstorm. Yeah.
Yeah. Four points. It's got to be over four or five. Four or five is really the gets close to five.
That's when people go, when it rains, when it rains, you try to make plans with people in LA. They're like, are you, is this, are you joking? Anyway, I'm not going out. So Lakers, Lakers, another move of the same magnitude.
No, I think that's about right. I don't see anything big unless, and the way it's been phrased to me is they're always, they're, they're going to listen, but they're not, but it's something big. It's probably not something they're proposing. It's probably something somebody comes to them with to loop them in on something, right?
Um, like the hachi Mora trade, I think has been, that's a pretty good, it's a good trade for them, but it's not a large scale. Let's call it a 4.2, that a 4.2, like, like maybe if you were tired, you could have slept through that, you know, 2.8. It's over three. That's over three.
When you're not, what's the scale of which you stop feeling the earthquake when you just don't even know that one happened. Oh, the three is most of them. You, you, you just kind of go, you're not quite sure if that was the inner squink. You're like, was that an earthquake?
I don't know. Maybe three point one. Yeah. Yeah.
It's like you felt it, but it's like that. Okay. So let's, let's go over some stuff. Boy, on Bogdanovitch has been mentioned at nauseam.
As we approach the trade deadline, I am actually starting to believe the pistons rhetoric that they are unlikely to trade him unless they get an incredibly good first round pick and maybe a little bit more than that. If you ask me right now, is he getting traded? You have to pick 12 days in advance, 13 days advance. Yes or no, I'm actually going to say no.
And that's different from what my answer was two weeks ago, because I just thought they were kind of bluffing. I don't think they're bluffing anymore. I don't either. Yeah.
The Indiana thing I think is, is despite the fact that they slid down the standings, I think it's gone. Yeah. With no, with no, with no indication that this team is ready to do anything. The team that I'm still keeping an eye on is I am so sick of the Chicago Bulls.
Yeah. Every time here they come, they're 1,500, they go to Paris and they go to the Eiffel Tower and they win and everyone's happy and that they beat the Warriors and things are going great. They had a chance. They had a three game stretch right now.
Charlotte, Indiana, somebody else bad, I think Orlando to go over 500, which would have been sadly enough a landmark moment for this particular Bulls team. A moment where they could have said, now we're going to be now we're in the running for sixth. Now we're running to be a frisky low round playoff team that we were last year. Is that what we wanted to be when we went all in?
No, but it's better than being tied with the freaking wizards for into the East. What do they do? They blow a 20 point lead against the Pacers who have no Tyre Salburton and they lose by 16 to the Hornets who stink and all the Hornets had Lomelo ball back and Gordon Hayward back big freaking deal. Are you a serious team?
Are you a serious team? Beat the Pacers and beat the hornet. The Bulls are not a serious team. Yeah, this this team, it's been over for a year.
The idea that this team has a path to ever contend for a title over that's been forget a title, a second round playoff for that's over. Um, now it's like they can't even get out of their own way. And every time they have a stretch like this, they are, I'm not making that up. They are tied with the wizards.
They're actually behind the wizards. I guess because of head to head, they're 11th in the East right now. And I think, well, I would pause it this to you. If the Lakers have had the eye on the Bulls since September, since September, the Lakers have been saying we want to see what happens if that team craps the bed this season, what might shake loose?
And you don't have to be a brain surgeon to think to understand that in September, that meant to Rosen, the free agent who wasn't, the free agent who almost was and instead became Russ. Um, the name that's become more interesting to me as this season has gone on and it's become clear and clear that the Bulls are not going to get it together is Levine, who is a clutch client who is on a gigantic contract. Yep. Who I know there has been some thought about with people around the Lakers as a potential trade slash, that's kind of our cap space acquisition.
Obviously they sacrifice a lot of cap space potentially in Hachamara, which I think I read that also as a signal that, um, maybe the Kyrie thing is, is over for them too. Did you read it that way? Like if they're going to use X amount of room on Hachamara, like, and then Chris Hain's reports that, not reports gets to say we would be interested in coming back to the Nets. And I think the Nets have started to have internal discussions about that themselves.
Like what does that look like? What kind of years, what kind of money? Um, anyway, what's the is the Levine thing? I think they would, the Lakers would be among several teams that would be looking at Levine, right?
Another team. I mean, if I'm Dallas, I'm picking up that phone too, if it was available. Okay. Um, it just like teams that really need another playmaker, another, another guy who could score, another guy who's got some oomph to his game.
Um, he's younger now. It's just a lot of money. He's just got a lot of, and it would, it would be sort of reminiscent of the Blake Griffin trade from a few years ago where, um, the first year that you signed the supermax contract that's supposed to show how much your team loves you, you get traded at the deadline. Like that was, that was a rough one.
Um, for Blake, for the Clippers, for the Pistons, for everybody involved in that. It's, it's in that category. Um, you have to, somebody has to really believe that you're an answer. You don't just take on a contract like that, you know, because for a one year deal, I mean, that's your committee, 200 plus million dollars.
That's your guy for a long time. So I generally think feels like that. Don't get done at the deadline. Somebody with that much money on their deal, it's, it's a hard one to do in the middle year, I would agree.
I don't know, Chicago keeps all their cards pretty close to the best. My best read on them all season has been they do not even want to hear this discussion. They don't want to, they don't want to contemplate that this team may be a failure. They don't want to contemplate breaking it up in any, in any real sense.
But I said earlier this week, if the Lakers came to me as the bulls and said, you can have both picks, unprotected and whatever minimal protections we put on the second one and Russ, I have to think about that because it might, to use your Blake Griffin example, it might end up a get out of jail free card. I don't think Zach Levine has hit that point. I think he's actually looked a lot better as I said earlier this week. In the last six weeks, he looks more like Zach Levine.
He's in a swamp again now. I've never been a huge Levine guy because of defense and I think overall feel for the game, just not my kind of player. Now, the scoring and the shooting is undeniable. And I could, as the bulls retool around a Rosen, it does as a downside.
I think lock me into resounding butch a bitch, which I don't love because it gives him leverage over me. And I get some picks back in the kitty. I just, I'm not saying I would do it if I'm then because Russ by himself has to have a pick coming with him because he's negative value contract. Yeah.
And so I'm really trading Levine for like one pick. That's, that's probably not enough for me, but I think it's interesting. Um, but the more Chicago just can't get it together. The, and here are their next, here are their next games.
Saturday at Orlando Tuesday home against the Clippers, then Charlotte, Portland, San Antonio, four of those games are winnable. Four of the games are against teams like the bulls under 500. Even the Clippers is like, you can be the Clippers at home. I know the Clippers have on a nice four game winning streak that spurs, Lakers, spurs are three of the games.
So I'm not reading too much into it. Um, another bull's trade target is, uh, for a lot of these, we love Alex Caruso, um, a team that I've speculated about with Alex Caruso before. And I don't necessarily see it as a fit, but, uh, stylistically, it's a fit is the Warriors. Um, yeah, you're also very, like ever since he was a rookie.
Now, my thing with them is I've got curry, clay, pool, and Demon's, who's playing great. So I have four guards. Uh huh. How can I fit another?
Now Alex Caruso can guard, guards force a lot, like you can guard up a lot of positions, but I don't have a ton of space for him and the price that's going to cost, I think is wise men plus a pick at this point. And that's, that's, that's not, that's a lot of fun, but it's something you are as well connected as anybody to the Warriors. Uh, the Bob Myers dirty laundry was out this week. Um, they are another team that just can't seem to string momentum together, even within games, what's your read on, on their aggression level here?
I don't think it's very high. I think their aggression level has to be tempered by the money that any trade would bring in to next year, which is already a complicated year, right? I mean, obviously Bob's in the last year's contract. Everybody on that team gets very expensive.
By the way, imagine my surprise when suddenly on the low post podcast feed. Yeah, my last name is low. I am the host of the host. There was suddenly a Bob Myers interviews, Steph Curry, a episode of the low post podcast on the field.
I don't remember doing that. What happens with by my eyes already like preparing for post Warriors life on my podcast feed. Yeah. How many questions I got about that?
Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Well, I mean, look, it's, it is, um, I feel like they, uh, their ownership group has shown a willingness to spend money on championship teams. Right now they don't look like a championship team. However, neither you nor I will ever count them out because I, we know what they can be when they turn it on.
They just have to string together a stretch here. At some point, we got to see an extended stretch of warrior style dominance and play. And you just, you haven't seen them. So I think, um, I could see them do something, but I don't think I would, I would, I would be surprised if they did something that added a lot of money to next year.
Like if you have a player who's on an expiring or maybe there was something that gave them some flexibility after that. Okay. But I, I, every, every time I've called about this, it feels like that's a concern right now. I don't put it.
I don't sense a lot of urgency either. I sense a lot of not just, not just money realities, but also a lot of, a lot of faith in what this core can do. The faith is, I don't think say it's wavering, but it is there, they're just like I was saying, I thought 50 games in, we'd be a little, we'd have hit a run by now. And I've said before, I do think a run is coming.
I think the data suggests a run is coming, but it hasn't come yet. And you know, they've had some injuries. They still have some injuries. I do think the time has come where for me, James Wysen is going to be in his fourth year next year, his fourth year.
I know the Warriors picked a number two overall over. We all know who was also on the board, right? And how those players would have fit. Yeah.
Yeah. That's, that's, that's, and teams are always reluctant to punt on picks that high, that defining, that beloved by the ownership group, that, that's sexy when they're catching lob dunks and here's the vertical spacing we don't have. And I do think fans have been too hard on Wysen considering how little he's played. There's a, there's an interesting player in there somewhere, but this is, this is year three and he does not play ever, ever.
And he's not going to play in meaningful games. There's no past. It's over for this season. Next season is his fourth year.
I do think it's time for them to not be so precious anymore about, well, we couldn't trade James Wysman for that sixth of seventh guy. We couldn't trade James Wysman for Alex Caruso. Really Alex Caruso? He takes two shots every 26 minutes.
I get all that. It's just what they have now is really precious with Steph. And it just doesn't feel like this is happening for James. Well, and it'll happen somewhere someday.
And if you want to wait on it happening in Golden State, that's fine. That's your prerogative. Yeah. If it's me and I get a good deal.
Now I have to get a good deal. I've already said to me, Yaka Pertle is like, well, I have Looney and I have Dream on Playing Center all these minutes. Like, why am I giving up a lot for Yaka Pertle? You're really going to play that much.
I just went through all the guards they have. Like to me, it would have to be a Kuzma type player, another big wing that can come in. Like they're starting this pool party lineup. Now that's too small.
They all know that small. They don't want to start that lineup. They started coming all last game when I think Wiggins was out. Like they want, they want to be a little bigger.
That's the kind of player I'm looking for. Obviously, Kuzma now the Wizards either are hell bent on keeping him or a good demanded Kings ransom after the Hachamur deal makes puts out the appearance of their hell bent on keeping him. I'm at the point with the wiseman thing where I get the preciousness and the affection you feel for him. I just don't care anymore.
I need to be a little more pragmatic than that. Yeah. So they're a team that I think the next, what is it two weeks now until the deadline? I think that matters.
It matters. Like these next two weeks matter for them. Quick hitters. You mentioned six six sixers nuggets this Saturday.
You'll get you in Bead. You know, and Bead cares about this game a lot. A lot. A lot.
I want you to just take me inside the sixers a little bit because I don't feel like and I've said this to our people on TV. I don't feel like we're talking about them enough. They are one game in the lost column behind Boston. Now they've got a lot of games in hand.
So they're like four in the wind column behind, but they're not getting on the door of first in the East. I am on. I can't believe this is now falling to me among others. I am on the James Harden is having a wildly underrated season and should be all star lock parade float.
I don't know how I got there. I just sort of woke up and like, whoa, I'm on the James Harden team. Okay. I think.
And not only that, I keep saying this and I feel similarly about Milwaukee with Chris Middleton. No one is talking about how Chris Middleton like is, contract is up potentially after this year. It's kind of a big deal. It is a big deal.
I just think the stakes, I maybe the Clippers are the only team that has higher stakes to what happens the rest of the season than Philadelphia, because as I've said, many times we are eight months removed from hard and whimpering out of another elimination game. The sixers whimpering out of another second round playoff series that they arguably could have should have won now and beat missed the first couple of games. It's a whole different series of. And all the talk then was what a disaster.
What a disaster. This is, they traded Simmons after a year off and they got hardened and this is all they got in a hard and entering free agency potentially or is eligible for a new deal, whatever it is, how are they going to upgrade this team? And then they quiet all that noise with a summer and off season that we all agree is a home run Tucker house, hard and back on a. Melton.
Melton, great trade. Memphis could use Melton hashtag cap circumvention on the hard and the hard and Tucker house stuff. And that quiet is it, but it's still here. Harden can be a creation after the season.
Well, it's reported that Houston, his hardens potential interest in a reunion with Houston. Now, I think you and I have both heard the key figures on the rockets may be there may not be total universal agreement about whether that's a good idea. They do. Oh, the thunder, their top four protected pick next season, which is one reason it would be nice for Houston to not be crappy and why James Harden might be a fit there, but just like, and be seen a lot.
He's seen a lot. Simmons is gone. Yep. And Simmons, it, Harden has been up and down in Philly.
Houston, Harden is gone forever. That kind of bruising powerful gets to the rim at will finish. Yeah, guys, not going to be there. But Simmons is a car crash right now in Brooklyn.
You can't look away. And so it's hard to argue that like the Sixers shouldn't have made that trade. Now, where they're alternatives, like whoever you can make it up, but that's done. What's done is done.
Just take me inside a little bit, the mindset there and the stakes and the pressure. Um, I think there is a sense that they have to, there cannot be a second round playoff. Thanks again. If they got a breakthrough that second round of the playoffs, do they have to win the East?
That will be an ownership question. Is it enough for them to get out of the second round? I kind of think they need to get out of the second round and do something beyond that. And it also comes up because James Harden has a player option for next year.
So it's, he could be a free agent as well. And that means that you can renegotiate with him as well. It's not just pick up the option. Like you can do another deal with him and then we go back to right where we were last year, which is, are you doing the max for him?
And last year, there was a sense when he, when the trade was completed with Brooklyn, like it was almost seen as a beta complete that he was going to get a max extension and he sort of played his way out of it. Sure did. Okay. So think about how much money James Harden has left on the table.
There was that giant extension in Houston before he was traded the first time. It was like what two years, a hundred million dollars, whatever that number was. Um, then there was, he was offered, I have confirmed this. He was offered a max extension in Brooklyn that summer.
Katie, Harden and Kyrie, they were supposed to all sign together. That should have been the first tip off that things were not going to go well when Harden wasn't ready to commit. Katie did it and he didn't wait for the other two guys. He just signed the extension.
Harden was not ready to commit and then Kyrie was not ready to commit. And then there was the whole thing with the vaccine. And so that is so much money that he has not, that he's not accepted, that it was offered, which may never be there for him again. That's, it's, you have to think about it in those terms.
Um, I talked to him for, it was the longest conversation James and I had ever had. And when he was out in LA a couple of weeks ago, probably 10, 15 minutes in the hallway, we really talked, he looks great right now, Zach. This is, this is the one thing that I will say about him. He seems like he's in the best shape.
He's been in like two, three years where whatever soft tissue injuries he's had, all the, all the, um, I think the hamstrings and all the, the domino recommend, he really seems better from all that. I agree with you. He's never going to be the same Houston, Harden. But I would say a month or two ago, this team very firmly decided that they are going to play through Joel and B and James Harden seems to have gotten on board with that.
And in our, in our, for this team, with this guy at center, the current James, Harden, 22 and 11 James Harden shooting 39% from three, that's fine. That's, that's all I need. All I need. And this, I know this is going to sound big, Ramona.
All I need is for that guy, 22 and 11 guy to show up in the biggest playoff games. That's all I need. Like if I get that and I got a healthy MB without a phantom of the opera mask, that's all I can ask for. But think about like if they don't get out of the second round, I think everything's on the table there.
I think you have to understand. There's only one thing I care about on the table. On that table, like really, there are big names all over the table. Doctors is a big name.
There are more. All the famous. Darrell Moore is a big name, huge name, an icon among a certain level of doors. Yeah.
Hardin. Her girlfriend, as your friend, Bill Simmons, likes to call. Harden is a harden, a first battle hall of fame or an all-time great score. There's only one guy on the table on that table that I actually care about, really for the next five years of the NBA.