An NBA Mini-Mailbag and All-Star Picks, Plus Kon Knueppel Stops By

The Bill Simmons podcast presented by Fandole Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I put up a new rewatchables on Tuesday night. We did what lies beneath. It was me and Malley Rubin and Chris Ryan. Get it wherever you get your rewatchables podcast. You can also watch it as a video on Spotify. This is my third BS podcast of the week. We had football ones on Sunday and on Monday. I have another football one coming on Thursday as I try to go. Oh, and five again with my playoff picks. Please go against me. Today we're doing a basketball conkin<|ko|> nipples coming up later at the very top. I am going to do a little mini mailbag and my NBA all star picks. So that is next. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fandole. Fando's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in lives. Okay, plus don't miss out on the NFL playoffs. One of my favorite times of the year on month long. Download the Fando app or head to fandole.com slash BS to get started. Get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. Let's be 20 plus president, select states, 18 plus DC Kentucky and Wyoming. Game promical win and 100 game or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, this isn't an official mailbag. It's a mini mailbag. I really just wanted to do my all star starters and reserve picks and just bounce through what I was thinking. But I thought it was a chance to sneak in some timely mailbag questions. These were questions that were sent into BS podcast 33 at gmail.com. First one came from Rob from Long Island. Then in princes that says Vee of the Cape. See went from the Cape to Long Island to each his own, I guess. He said with the recent Yoke Agendry was wondering if the NBA went too far with the 65 game minimum for awards, which has been a controversial topic. He said he suggested what if all players were eligible for awards, but if you don't play 65 games, you become an eligible for contract, extend incentives. He had another thing about a sliding scale for MVP points. I keep getting questions like this and it keeps being a topic and it's interesting that Yoke Agendry was the catalyst because I think people realized how absurd it would be to have a award season where Yoke Agendry was represented. As I've said many times in this podcast, for whatever reason, I care about this about as much as anyone because it all goes back to when I was working on my book. The All-MBA stuff was really important trying to figure out a snapshot of the year. This is why I've been so fanatical about they changed the rules. You can basically vote for 15 guards for the three All-MBA teams. I'm not doing that. I like to obey at least some of the things that went through the first eight decades of the week where Big Man mattered in awards, wings, guards. We had all types of players. I care about this stuff and here's why I landed on this because we could have had this conversation last year. There are other players that got hurt. For some reason, Yoke Agendry became the catalyst because he's having the best year of his career. He is one of the best players of the century and is now in the running for top 10 best players ever and he plays 59 games, 60 games, whatever. He's not on an All-MBA team. It seems stupid. I don't mind the 65 game thing and I don't want people to forget the premise of why that was created because the league was under the gun a little bit with guys just skipping games and people paying to go to a clipper game, a worse game, a Celtic game, a net's game, whoever. Somebody is going to be in town and they go to the game and that person just doesn't play for rest, for rest of minor injury, whatever it is. They're really trying to incentivize teams and players not to do that so I get it. I think 65 games is fair and I think we should keep it. I do think there should be a wrinkle that if you have a specific injury that you're knocked out and we could say it's 12 straight games, it's 14 straight games, we can even say it's 15 straight games. But let's say 12 because 12 is basically three weeks. If you miss three consecutive weeks with an injury, maybe that drops from 65 to 60. I don't think the problem with what's happened here is that Yokeh Hsu is a durable guy who is available for just about every game and is reliably there if you're paying to see the Denver Nuggets come to your town. Pretty good bet Yokeh is just going to be there. He's penalizing him for something that he couldn't control, which was he had a serious injury that knocked him out for a month. If Yokeh plays 60 games but misses 17 in a row, I still think he should be eligible for on base. That's what I would do. I would have a 12 plus straight game knocks you to a different tier where now you can get to 60 and you still play. I think that solves this Yokeh issue. That's my first one. Emails from Samir from Brooklyn via Boston. Lot of Vias today in the mini mail back. He said he was switching between the Boston and Indiana broadcasts for Celtics Pacers and he heard brands call pretty called Pritchard quote, unlike any player he's ever seen and then Quinn Buckner who's the Indiana guy called Pascal Siakum and All Star. Samir asks, why haven't we had a booth that pits local color commentators against one or another so they can bring each other back down to earth instead of having neutral boosts for national broadcasts. We could have color commentators from each team say most unabashedly buys things possible while the other says things like, wait, you just called an average player in a last place team and All Star. So home court gets to play by play guy who's desperately trying to keep the things moving and then you have the color guys from the local markets fighting it out. I love this idea. They always talk about what is the future of alternate broadcasts and normally they're pretty terrible or you're just going to end up watching the normal broadcast like the mini cast is fine. I always watch Buck and Ackman. I have no idea why anyone would watch the mini cast when I could just get the game on a bigger thing. All cast should have some sort of bent like if I'm in the playoffs and all I have is the national team. I should be able to watch a broadcast with the Celtics and answers. If I have the Patriots game and I don't want to hear a Roma, well, I don't even know who's doing the Patriots. I actually don't think it's Roma. It's Collins worth. But let's say I hate Collins worth. As you know, I love Collins worth. Let's say I didn't like Collins worth and I want to hear the Patriots and answers. That should be an all cast for that. I like the idea of an all cast where it's basically a regular season free for all between the two color commentators for the two teams. I think that would be pretty funny. They would just be incredulous with each other for two and a half hours. I don't blame these guys for doing it though. They have to ride on the team playing. They're incentivized. Like if the team wins a championship ring or something, they get a championship ring. So they really do think it's like, we that's why they get so bent out of shape with the calls, but it would be funny to just pit them against each other. Marcus and Temecula via Phoenix has a question about the Phoenix Suns. He said last year's Phoenix Suns, most unwatchable NBA team in the decade. I think that actually might be right because we've had bad teams. But when a team hates playing with each other, that's way worse to watch. She said slow old predictable stagnant offense, no defense, no chemistry. I so ball overall disgraceful effort, fresh basketball team. I grew up all that. Then he says, this year Suns an absolute delight, fast, young, unpredictable, flowing offense intense defense, amazing chemistry. Objectively, it would appear that the Phoenix Suns have accomplished the George Costanza just through the opposite of your instincts with great success. When you name another team in NBA Sports history that succeeded with the Costanza theory and is Dylan Brooks, the actual human Costanza to Bradley Bill. Lot to work with here. So the Suns over under was 31 and a half. I went under Michael Pina on the ringer wrote some, he was doing an increasingly crazy predictions piece. One of the predictions was that the Suns would have the worst defense in the league. There just those two small events. Pina making a crazy prediction. And everyone on our podcast, I think going under, has now turned the Suns fans into the you didn't believe in us. It's us against the world. It's like, well, you're over under was 31 and a half wins. Like nobody believed in you. And this is a great story. You have an awesome coach. You play really hard. Guys like Gillespie showed up, Brooks treats every game like it's a game seven. I think all this is awesome. And the crazy thing about it is it was a complete 180 from how it should be a built the team McBedner. He did the new owner syndrome. I got to do something fast. I'm going to trade everything for Durant. Oh, let's get Bradley Bill and just he's trying to put it together. Like it's a fantasy team. And now he's attempting to put it together like a real basketball team. So I think to just call that a Costanza kind of belittles how cool it is that they pulled off all the stuff they put off. The biggest thing is they hired an awesome coach. You were not. And I was I was texting somebody in league about this today about it feels like we have more good coaches than we've ever had before. And a lot of them are younger, a lot of them are analytics based nets, raptors, Celtics, sons. You go on down the line. There are just these young guys that come in and you watch the teams. They have a specific identity. They have players that fit that identity. And it's really cool to watch. So if you're going to talk about like, is this an actual way to do something? A Costanza where you just go against yourself. The obvious next team to try this would be the Sacramento Kings. A team that has been the most pathetic franchise of the century, I would say, in by NBA purposes. I don't I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think it's true. Maybe in the bleakest situation, they've been in in a long time where they just have not a lot of assets and a lot of contracts on trade, well, they're basically there. Everything is is gearing toward can they get a top four lottery pick now and yet they're still playing all these veterans trying to win games. I don't understand what the Kings are doing. There's a million things we could say about the Kings. Could the Kings go Costanza and what would that mean? I think that would basically mean they just ask the back what to do. He gives a recommendation and then they just do the opposite. That would be the full Costanza and also a pretty good idea for a franchise. It worked for the sons, even though I think it belittles how much smart thought they put it everything, but I think the Kings should be the next Costanza team and I like the theory. Next one, this is a text from every single fan, every single liquor fan friend that I have in my life because I've gotten over the last two hours and it's some combination. I just didn't know a malgam of all the texts I've gotten. You're an evil genius. You launched this game over podcast with Rich Paul, Max Kalmer and solely so you could destroy the Lakers and it's working. First of all, I'll never do that. As much as I despise the Lakers, I would never use a ringer podcast to try to bring that down. That just, that feels like bad karma. It feels like something bad would happen with the Celtics. How dare you on that? This podcast has made a lot of news for the Lakers stuff, especially this week. If you haven't listened to it, it's Rich and Max that know each other forever. It's a really good podcast. I won't call it a fear, but my one question with it was, is Rich going to be candid? He's still an agent in a power book or all these things tied to LeBron, obviously. Is he going to be candid? Is he going to be candid about the Lakers? He's been incredibly candid. I was walking around LA on Monday listening to it and all of a sudden he's talking about how the Lakers need Jared Jackson. Then it's like, well, they would have to give up something to get him and maybe Austin Reeves if they don't want to pay him. It sounded like my podcast, but Rich is the broads agent. I love it. I think this is great. By the way, this is what's happened with podcasts the last 10 years. We've had players like Dremon and those type of guys have star Paul George, Jaylin Brunson. All of these guys have podcasts where they just talk about their life and they talk about the sport, like their fans. Now Rich is doing it, but he's the most powerful agent in the sport. It is fascinating. I couldn't be more delighted that the ringer is involved. If it's caused trauma for Laker fans and disarray behind the scenes, I can't say that was the intention. It's a pure delight to me as the Celtic fans have just watched this happen. Yeah, unintended consequence, but I've been really enjoying the podcast. Go Rich. Next question, speaking of Rich, it's a LeBron question. It's from Sam. Sam says he's trying to figure out what would LeBron have to do to pass? It's a long email and I'll just try to summarize it. If you get six rings to match MJ, LeBron is at 2 Miami Cleveland, 2020. So he's got four. Yeah, four. It's behind Kobe. I mean, MJ6, Kobe Duncan 5, LeBron 4. He's asking basically what would have to happen for him to get the last two and does it count if he's like a coach or a GM or even an owner? My short answer would be no. I think he has to be a player. And I think he can win the post-playing career. MJ by all accounts, pretty horrible basketball. No offense, MJ. I think you're the best basketball player I've ever seen. You were bad on him. You just were. So he can beat him in the NBA player afterlife as a GM owner or whatever. I don't think that's going to be hard. Let's say he leaves the Lakers and he goes to Cleveland. Sam's thing is could he be a six man, lead the bench? What if he even won six man of the year and maybe finish some games for a team and won the other two rings with that discount the rings at all? I don't think so. I didn't feel that way with Carl Malone when Carl Malone was going for a ring on the O4 Lakers. He wasn't one of the two best players in the team, but he was still a really important player on the team. So if LeBron went to Cleveland, became a six man, closed some games, they won two more titles. That's six rings. I'm sorry. It doesn't just take one player to win a ring. It takes about nine and there's four or five crucial ones plus the coach, plus the GM. I think that would count. I wouldn't feel like he was chasing it as long as it was organically. He was really part of the team. So the last part of this question is, would success and a basketball role other than players significantly alter his legacy? I think it would because we just saw it with Jerry West. Jerry West was the logo. Jerry West was one of the eight best basketball players of all time when he retired. Maybe one of the six best. Even in my book now, he's in the Pantheon. He's one of the top 15 still, but then he had this whole other career as a front-off executive that made completely change this career. So if LeBron chooses to go that way, I think it would affect them. Next question is from Tyler. If Lynn Sanity happened in 2026, the standard 2012 would it be a bigger story, smaller story, or no difference? I think smaller. There was a 2012, whatever was happening with basketball in the internet, basketball writing, Twitter, there were all these variables. We were in the middle of it. It was the first year of Grantland. It felt like just a lot of things were changing. It was post-lock out. It was, you, accessible clips, was the first year like you could actually go on Twitter and watch a dunk that you just heard about or somebody forwarded you. There was really good basketball writing. I think my favorite time ever for journalism was that early 2010s, where we just had blogging still mattered. Long-form journalism was still on the internet. There were a lot of good writers. There were people willing to take chances with their voices and their angles. Lynn Sanity was perfect. That was some of my favorite stuff that we wrote at Grantland that year. Remember, Jay Kang had some good pieces. I had a bunch of fun writing about it back then. We had a bunch of NBA people that wrote good stuff. Just general, it just felt like it fit into everything that was happening in 2012. Now I just feel like there's so much stuff going on all the time. I don't know if anything would cut through like that in the same way. That's my answer. I might be wrong. Next question is from Will from Somerville, who asks, I got a bunch of these too about the Celtics traded for Jay and Jackson. They were rumors that they were interested. I'll just say when they were rumors about the Celtics being interested in players, I never believed them because nothing leaks from the Celtics ever. When they traded for Derek White, it's not like that was being rumored for a week or a month. I always feel like they're very stealth under the radar and then shit happens and then you find out about it. When I hear stuff like the Celtics are interested, I just tend to not believe it. The Jay and Jackson things interesting though because Memphis clearly should be trying to trade him and Jay and just reboot and completely start over. Will said as a Celtic fan, he likes the idea of adding as elite, rip protection and force-facing. I'm out on this one. I'm not a Jay and Jay and Jackson fan. I liked him when he was in the 25 million ranges of center, but his next four years started next year, 49, 50.5, 52 million and then 53.5 million player option, which I'm just going to guess he's picking that up. I don't love when big guys don't rebound. I actually think he needs to be next to a center like why Zach Edy was so interesting when he got to play next to Zach Edy or when he got to play with Steven Adams in the past. Three point shooter. I don't really love his low post stuff. To pay that much money to him and now Jay and now Tatum, that's my team. I can't get out of that. That leaves the Celtics with no outs. There's trades that they can do. They can definitely do the Simon's contract with Hauser, with Luca Garza. You could patch up the contracts, take the extra money and pull it off, but I would just be against it. I would not want to do this. With that side, if they ended up trading for them in two weeks, I'll talk myself into about 10 minutes. Right now, I'm against it. Next question, Matt Edwards and Richmond, Virginia, is Hillary Swank the Steve Nash of multi-asker winners or Steve Nash, the Hillary Swank of multi MVP winners, also who should be more offended from Matt and Richmond? Obviously, you came to the right place for this question. I would say I'm the perfect person in the universe to answer this. I think Steve Nash should be more offended. I say this with all due respect to Hillary Swank who won two Oscars, two best actress, not a long list for two best actress Oscars. She won for a million dollar, baby, a movie that if somebody gave me on Blu-ray or 4K UHD, I would throw on the garbage. Only want to see that movie once. I'm still mad at it. She won for Boys Don't Cry, which is a really good independent movie. She's great at that. Here's where this falls apart though, because you could say, well, then Nash won his two weird MVP's. And it's just like Hillary Swank winning two Oscars is weird. Nash won in the two MVP's is weird. Here's where the disc goes off the rails. The rest of her career just doesn't add up to those two Oscars. And really, it's one of the strange IMDb's you've ever seen. I think probably the third best movie she made was Insomnia, which I really like. It's on the rewatch. It was Christopher Nolan, Rob Williams, Al Pacino who can't sleep the whole time. I can't sleep. Next three, maybe the hunt Logan Lucky and the core for movies you'd ever want to see again. It falls off fast. Plus, she has the next karate kid, which is how we got to know her, not a good movie. And then she had season eight, not on 2.0. She joins as Carly, the waitress who works at the peach pit and has a kid and falls for Steve Sanders. They wrote her off the show. Steve Nash does never have, he doesn't, I guess you could say the suns traded him. So when they had, I think it was Kevin Johnson and Jason Kay, they had too many point cards and they traded him to Dallas. That's the equivalent of being written off a show. But I would say not being able to find chemistry with Ian Zering and season eight of a long running TV show. And they had to send her away. It was one of those things like, my mom got sick. I have to leave. And she was just gone. I think Ian Zering might have made a living cry for a brief second. But that's Nash has nothing like that. And then Nash's whole career, I mean, Nash was one of the 10 best point cards of all time. I have low 40s in my pyramid somewhere in the 40 to 44 range. I can't remember where. The O5 suns, and then that whole seven seconds or less suns, I'm widely credited and rightly so for saving basketball. I don't think you remember how terrible it was to watch basketball back then. So and it was just the defense and the shit. It was just, everything was a rock fight. And the suns kind of opened the doors for that. And then the 2010 suns team, which I think really could have made the finals and had some bad luck in the Lakers series. But he was in the title mixed air for five to six years in a real way. Plus with the O2 and O3 maps, he was in there. I think he had a way better career. So I think Steve Nash should be more offended. Mark Atkinson, I get this question a lot too about basically a Pontative's eventual return. Are you at all worried about the Celtics falling into the World Habits of walking the ball playing not to lose them in the games? Iso Ball, that stuff. Because everybody loves watching the Celtics team. So it's weird because one of the things people seem to think is that they're playing with more pace, which technically when you watch it, I test wise, it seems like there's more pace. But there's 30th and pace in the NBA. So it's not like Tatum's going to slow that down because he's not. I think the difference, the part they need to figure out is more of this is being initiated by Derek White and Pritchard and then Simon's when he's in through the guards, through Jalen Brown. And the big guys that come out and set picks for them are just better at it. Kada and Garza. So how is Tatum going to fit into this new identity? To me, it's a good problem to have. He's taking minutes from guys like Shiremen and even Subilek Hauser. Hugo Gonzalez is one of the best plus minuses in the league, but he'll probably lose some minutes. But Tatum, they're going to ease him in when he comes back. He'll play probably two, nine minute parts of the half. And with his defense and his rebounding and his scoring and the fact that he was probably the fourth best player in the league when he went out, like, I'm not worried about this. Could there be a little Tatum Brown stuff? Who knows? A little alpha doggy. We'll see. But the team has currently constructed. It's not winning anything. They're not winning a title. Tatum might change their ceiling a little bit. So please don't overthink this, everybody. Next question is from Aaron. He talked about recently we did that mail back thing about NBA when I had Mahoney under the NBA mail back about NBA awards for players that were best at certain skills. They basically named after Steph Curry, who year after year was just by far the best at shooting. Aaron says you could take it even further and recognize the best weirdo skill each year. I love this. As saying this takes over the game, let's recognize niche skills that are never captured in box scores. For instance, TJ McConnell's ability to continually steal the inbound's pass, which he just did the other day. And actually, you're like, one them a game. Like he does this sneaky, almost like he's hiding in the bushes and then pounces out. It's amazing to see people continually fall for it through the years if tape didn't exist of him doing this all year long. So that's from Aaron. I love this. So I was thinking the weirdo skill finalist and I just did this. I probably left out two people. I'll mention it in Zach Lowe's take. Maybe Zach Lowe will tackle this as well in his podcast. Weirdo skill finalist for me. McConnell and the inbound steals. I think Alvarado had that title for a second. And McConnell just took it back. Derek White guard blocks. The best bet, the best player prop you can do is the Derek White block with any other result you want from a self-again. He always gets one, especially if it's a big game guaranteed. He's also, he has another weirdo skill, which is the same one. Dave Jacobi can back me up. Jacobi, if you're watching or listening, back me up. Derek White really good at breaking up two on ones and three on ones, which is its own basketball skill and not to toot my own horn. Not to compare myself to NBA star Derek White. But I was really good at breaking up two on ones and three on ones. And Jacobi saw it for years and years. You just kind of lay low and then you use quick hands and you try to strip them before they, before somebody makes it. You kind of play possum with it and then you jump on it. And he's one of the best I've ever, the best ever at this was Jason Kid. Jason Kid was either he would strip the guy. He would draw, he would draw charge. It was almost like if it was a two on one or a three on one and Kid was the guy back, you felt like kid had an advantage. There's never been anyone like that. White is really good. I would throw him in there, guard blocks or that. The Yoke age 70 yard one handed passes in there. Pritchard's end of the quarter shots. I wish he was a little better at this. I really wanted to put this in there because they run anytime there's four seconds or left. They always have Pritchard. They cut it out and he's really good at getting the shadowy ones. But he's been cold daily. I don't think he'd win. And then this might be too good of a skill. But Michael Porter Jr's coming off a pick off balance almost like he's 45 degrees floating and being able to straighten up and shoot is unlike any other, and he's been doing it by the way since the nuggets. He's just shooting them more on the nets. But that's the one that always makes me marvel. I just think it's so freaking hard to do that. And when I watch him play in the nets, I'm always like, how does he do that? So I think that counts as a weirdo skill. But I would say Pritchard would be minus, I'm sorry, McConnell would be minus 180 to win that award. Ricky Brackett asks since it appears an NBA team is nowhere close to coming to Seattle. I have another idea. Let's make Seattle University an awesome college team that becomes the city's team. Couldn't a rich guy basically buy a coach and some awesome players and make them one of the top 10 teams in the country. Short answer. Yeah, I love this idea. This is one of the best ideas we've ever heard. Seattle's not getting an NBA team anytime soon. If anything, if they do expansion, it's just going to be Vegas and that's it. I don't see Seattle. I don't see it happening. I'm sorry. They just reached the Seattle University. Let's rejoin the WCC, which is the one with a contag all those teams. Pepperdides in there, whoever. Just blow over and out. Rich guy. There's rich people in Seattle. Just go in. All the sunsia are you. People are buying the merch. Great idea. I love it. I think El Jabella were there too. So rename the arena, the El Jabella arena. This could work. What are the games situations? Amir sure writes saying about how do we fix close games turning into a free throw parade? What if we make thousands in the final two minutes result in three free throws instead of two with that strongly discouraged and touchable feeling? I was there for three free throws to make too as a kid. I think it was the 1980 season somewhere around there. A complete abomination. Please never do that again. I would go the other way. In the final minute, if a team is up by four points or more and they get fouled, they go to the free throw line. That first free throw if they make it counts as two. And we just keep the game moving. And the guy gets credit for two free throws even if it's on one shot. If he misses the first one, gets to take the second one. So it's still a vantage to the shooting team. But I really think that would move along. I think about this. Find me somebody who disagrees with that idea. We're going to have less free throws. I think everyone's like great. I would also, you cannot call time out after a time out. I've been saying this for 20 years. I think I've been saying it ever since I've become. No timeouts after a time out. We're good. Chris Leroy asked about the where did you come from award? Which he really liked for. That was my idea for the most improved player. Instead do a breakthrough player. The where the fuck did you come from award? He tweaked it to could it be a guy last season without a no chance of having his own shoe. But now is her voted for the awards. He actually now has a chance to have his own shoe. I thought that was pretty good. So he said like people like Jaylen Johnson, Stefan Castle, etc. People that before the area who just said no way that guy's going to have a shoe by the end of the year like that guy might have a shoe. It did prompt me to look at all the people who have a shoe and I was kind of stunned. LeBron Durant, J.A. That's a lot much longer. J.A. It's going to have a shoe. Yannis, Booker, Webby has one. Cade's got one coming next year. That's all with Nike. Shazak Converse, Jordan Brands, Luca Tatum, Zion, Russell Westbrook. Probably coming on in soon. Adidas, Harden Edwards, Dame, Don of Mitchell. I mean, we're already at like 16 players. Curry is a free age right now, but who have one soon? CJ McCollum is leaning. Coise at new balance. Austin Reeves is at Rigor. Rigor? 361 degrees, 361. Whatever you call it, they have Aaron Gordon. Puma has Lamella Ball in the scute zero, which matches the number of minutes he's played this year. And then Anta has Clay Thompson and Kyrie. That's a lot of guys. So it's almost like the ones that don't seem to have one are Yokehj, which is hilarious, who's been the best part of this decade. Hands down. It doesn't have a shoe. I don't know a couple others, but I like that idea of the, oh, he might get a shoe now. It would be a fun, good few word. I'm keeping track of all these to the end next year. All right. Two more. Next question. This is from Mike Grandi. And he has a, a fear in the best trade of the year. It's a conspiracy theory. So he's activated conspiracy bill. He mentions how Howard and Hurt is capped in the finals in game two. The Pacers traded their first round pick that year for next year's first round pick to Atlanta right before game five. And he hurt the calf even more in game five. And he's wondering did they do the trade as an insurance policy for exactly what happened? Everyone keeps saying they got lucky. It was cat move. Mike Grandi thinks they did the day was insurance in case something worse happened to his calf that they knew he was playing on it was too risky. And it was almost like an insurance policy. I got to be honest, even conspiracy bill wants no part of this. It's good. He appreciated it. He likes the way you're thinking. You're thinking outside the box. You checked a lot of conspiracy bill boxes. Staying away from that one. Not staying away from this one from Marcus in New York. My friends at our 30 and we're recently talking about how crazy it must have been when the NBA finals were interrupted by the OJ car chase. I can tell you it was amazing. I've talked about this before, but I was in Portchester, New York and my buddy Jim Grady's house with him and our buddy camp at a couple other people. We were drinking and we were going to go out and we ended up watching this finals in the car chase and we never actually went out and we just could not believe that OJ Simpson was being chased around. Marcus asks who would be the 2026 equivalent to OJ from a fame talent standpoint to be in this exact situation. His first thought went to Barclay and Shaq. Then he asked if it was a basketball player interrupting the Super Bowl. If you need a cross-sport interruption, if it was Shaq with the Super Bowl cutaway, he goes in a lot of directions here. Then he asks who the least famous talented athlete they would cut away from the Super Bowl to if they were in a car chase like OJ. He said Carmelo might be the border for basketball. He thinks the news waits until the commercial break for Carmelo. If it was Duane Wade, they cut away during the game and then he asked for my lines. He said football, breezes the line, baseball, pool holes. Great question. If you use the OJ blueprint because OJ was massively famous, you could see OJ behind me. See that poster right there behind me? It's a spot belt OJ poster and it says the juices on the loose and it was made well before he actually was on the loose. It's a super famous athlete who remains super famous after they stop playing. That would be one. It would have to be a complete surprise goes without saying. It would have to be somebody that everyone likes. That's a tough thing to say in 2026 but there's a like test that you could say. People that you're just instinctively like, I love that guy. We all love Dojay and in the 70s, 80s, early 90s, especially with Nick and Gunn, we were all in on him. My nominees, none of these are the winner, are Charles Barkley, Serena Williams and Jason Kelsey. I'm proud of the Serena Williams idea because you think it's mailed but what if we switch over everybody loves Serena Williams. Serena Williams, Charles Barkley, Jason Kelsey, nominees and none of them are the winner because the winner is paid manning. It's clearly paid manning. If I think they would cut away from any sporting event if paid manning was trying to escape the police after murder involving his wife and a waiter, I don't care what the, I could be the Oscars. I could be anything. They're cutting away to paid manning in the white Bronco. Cut offline guys, I have weighed for the NBA, David Ortiz for baseball and ironically Eli Manning for football. I thought that was funny, I would all come around with the Manning brothers. So yeah, I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. I think the OJ Car Chase, which was the most unbelievable TV experience I think of my lifetime inside in the running. Pretty sure it's not roughable. All right, we're going to take a break and then I'm going to do my all star picks. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall, the divisional round. I caught round two is where the NFL's best takes center stage and with everything on the line, Fandall is turning on playoff mode. I wish I could turn on playoff mode because all customers get a profit boost pack every NFL playoff game day waiting for you in the app. More boosts, I mean, more ways to level up your playoff bets and Fandall makes it fast, easy and fun to get it on the playoff action. 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Covered options are selected by the customer, availability and eligibility vary by state. All right, I'm back. I'm going to quickly go through my All Star picks. Thanks to everybody who sent in a question, by the way. It was fun. It was a mini mail bag that somehow ended up being almost 40 minutes. So classic me. All Star picks. I had to make these really quick and then we could bring in Conk Nippel. We had to hand in starters today. For the West, I did SGA, I did Joker, I did Anthony Edwards. I think those were the three that had to be in. No question. Don't need to make the case for any of them. My fourth was Steph Curry, who is averaging 29 a game, 47% fuel goal, 39% from three. He's Steph Curry and selfishly I want to see him in the game. So shoot me. It's basically him versus Jamal Murray in Devon Booker for that spot. And I thought long and hard about giving that to Jamal Murray because I think he's been amazing this year. He's been 25 forward and the 8, 48% shooting, 44% from three. He's been awesome. You think about last year, early November, how depressed everybody was about how bad he looked. He just signed that contract and it felt like he had sunk cost potential for the nuggets. And now he's come like a bad ad hell and I really wanted to vote for him. But Curry's one of the 10 best players of all time, 12 best players, whatever your list is. He's in 10 for me and he's having a really good season. And it's not his fault that he's on this weird words team that he's on. Fifth one, you could have talked me in a Murray for this spot too. It's a begrudging one. It's Luca Donchitch. It clearly has to be honest, averaging 34 game, 34, 8, 9, typical Luca season. It's tailed off a little from the ceiling of where it seemed like we're going to be a couple months ago, first month of the season when it seemed like it was revenge, Luca. The defense is really bad. The mono ball is really bad sometimes too. I'm not positive because that fun to play with some nights. That is a force of nature. I don't know how you don't have them on there. So West Starters, SGA, Joker, and Curry, Luca, I don't think any of that is that controversial. For the East. Yannis has played enough games I think to be on. So I'm putting him on 25 games. And then Jalen Brown, if he's not out, I don't know what we're doing. I think he's an MVP candidate as well, average 38 game. One of the many reasons why the Celtics are at two seed. Three guards I have after that. I have Maxi, Cade, and Brunson in that order. And it's interesting. Some people have that ordered a little differently. I might go Cade, then Brunson, then Maxi. I would have Maxi first. I think what he's been able to do on that Kookie Sixers team where you never know who's playing night to night. The most reliable other player they have is a rookie. You never know if it beats playing. You don't know if George is playing. It's just a bizarre team. And night after night, he either brings that. They're down 10 and he'll just maxiate up for two minutes and bring them back. He's relentless. I think he's been really good at the end of games. Unusually good at the end of games, especially because he know he's probably shooting. And I don't know how he's not the first guard out of all those guards. Cade's been great. And it's the biggest reason Detroit is good. And if you want to say Cade over Maxi, that's fine. You both have to be out there and then Brunson as the third guy. And Brunson's still looming if the Nixon Gagel and his MVP candidate. So, Janice, Jalen, Maxi, Cade and Brunson for that. Okay, reserves for the West. This is what I have. I have four locks for me. Jamal Murray, Devon Booker. I still have Shengoon. And you could feel Shengoon when he wasn't in those rockets games. I have a big guy who's 22, 9 and 6. I just think he's the one that tilts the rockets so they become really unusual and really hard to play when they just seem like they have too much size and too much offense. And once you remove him out, they seem a little bit more normal. So Murray, Booker, Shengoon, and then Wembe Niyama has to be on there. I don't care that he's played 25 games. I don't care that he's probably going to get to 1800 minutes for the season, whatever he gets up in. He's 24 and 11 and 3. Three blocks of game. They played the Celtic Saturday night and he was on a minute limit. And every minute he was out there, it felt like they were going to go out and tend nothing run. The stuff he does on defense, which you don't need to hear me expound on it for 10 minutes. But it's the most important defensive thing anyone's doing. He's in everyone's head at all times. Even Jalen Brown, who all year was able to get any two-point shot he wanted and able to go to the basket any time he wanted. There was a couple times he was just like, I'm pulling this back out. But Wembe stuffed him in the second half on one play that Jalen's gotten it all year. Wembe is like, no thanks. He totes the floor in all these different ways so that a 12-footer now becomes a 15-footer. And then offensively, it's getting better and better with figuring out how to use him. It's the Celtics. They won the game by just going to Wembe over and over again, right around the foul and having him shoot over people. And it feels like he's going to make it every time. So he has to be on there. That's nine. I'm just, I tilt all star toward the proven famous guys sometimes. Everybody's got their own method for it. But to me, KD has to be in. Average is 26, 5 and 5. There's good advanced metrics with him too. And I test wise, end of the game. It still seems like he's 95% of where he was seven years ago. It's amazing. Half to have him. Abdea on Portland, doing 26, 7 and 7. Keeping them near 500, which makes no sense at all. And it was a team that, when you thought in the West, was just going to have no chance just because how lopsided the West was. But he's been, I don't know where this one ranks on biggest god, Damott's for the Wizards that you've had this century of just like, God, dammit. But he's got to be way up there. And then the last one I have, so on the bubble, before I say who I gave the last spot to, Kauai was the toughest cut. I just think the team record disqualified him. It's on his fault. They're 16 and 23, but he has been on the team the whole year and they're 16 and 23. And as good as he's been for the last month or so, I just, somebody's going to get cut and it's going to hurt. Brooks was another one because he's the tone setter of that of that son's team along with Booker. And I just love what he's doing in game to game and how competitive he is. And I think the culture that he brings in really matters. Never thought I'd say that about Don Brooks. Chad Hongren, sure. It's just weird to only have one O'Keeze guy. I'm in Thompson was another one as a two way guy. I also averaging 18 in game, marketing with the scoring. And then I would have Fox in here until about 10 days ago, but I felt like he's gone backwards a little bit and Castle is another one. I don't think they've done quite enough. My 12 spot goes to Randall on Minnesota because that team has really rounded into being an actual contender. And Randall is now at 22, 7 and 5. He's 50%. They're plus 6.2 in the plays. I test wise him in Edwards. I just like them together. I really feel like they figured out him, go bear Edwards and just how those three guys work. I really enjoyed watching Randall this year. And I wanted to reward a second guy from that team. So I would rather go Randall than Kauai. And I think if you switched Kauai and Randall, I don't know if Minnesota has a better record with Kauai. I'll just say that. Plus he's not as reliable as a dirt ability standpoint. So that's what I have. SGA Joker and Curry Lucas starting. Murray Booker, Shenguin, Wembee, and then Katie, Abdi and Randall. That's in the West. In the East, Artisette as the starter is Maxi, Jalen, Kay, Brunson, Yannis. Mitchell was the toughest cut. He's got to be in there. He's averaging 30 a game. Typically, a week after week, just a Cavs team that seems like you're on a double date with a couple of that. You're driving home and you're like, I don't mind. I think they're going to break up. That's how you feel about every Cavs home game. Jalen Johnson has to be on there. 24, 10, and 8. And they traded Dre, Dre Young to make it his team. We'll see if he can deliver. Scotty Barnes. 1988 and 50% shooting. Some, some volleyball defense, some volleyball stuff in general. There's a physicality to him that he's always had, but I feel like he's chaining it better than ever. He's got to be on it. Toronto is over achieved. He's the biggest reason. Jalen Duren, up to 1811 and two this year, 63% shooting and a physicality and intimidation presence. Just in old school, you can see him on the 2004 pistons, which is the highest compliment you could play. He absolutely could have played on that team in one of those spots and you wouldn't have lost a beat. I love how competitive and hostile he is in a good way, not a bad way. So he has to be on for me. I had to put my reporter junior on. Savage in 26, a gay mate rebounds. I look at it this way because this is, I think they have the worst record of any All-Star put on. And I'm deliberately zagging from my sync co-i take that I had earlier, but there's less, less All-Stars in the eights. So it's more defensive. If it was in the West, he wouldn't have made it. He's just been eight to nine games this year where he's just been the best player in the court or he's going against somebody who is a top ten or a top 15 player and matching that dude, which is the same case for Jalen being an all-in-b-a guy and an MVP candidate. You have to have a guy like that in the league now because the league is so deep and so good. You kind of need your very, and Abdi has been the way for Portland and Cade's been the way for the show. You go through. If you don't have that guy, you get in trouble. That's like the case for Y Sacramento is a trouble among many other reasons. They just don't have that guy to match the other good guys. Porter's just been, if you didn't know anything, if you were in a coma for the last five years and you just watched the season, you watched him play, you would have thought he was like a five-time All-Star or something. It doesn't make a lot of sense. And I think he's an incredibly important trade piece, especially if Golden State can get him, which I've talked about earlier. Golden State can get him. I don't think they win the title with him, but it raises their ceiling and he's exactly what they need. Somebody who can create his own shot, another three-point shooter, another variable, he check-eye everything if they can get him. Interesting. All right. Two spots left for three guys. Norman Powell on the heat, basically a 500 team. He's 24-a-game and has played with a massive chip on his shoulder all season because he can't believe the Quipper's traded him and I've really enjoyed it. Plus 2.6 is Advanced Metric for On-Off. Towns 21 and 12. Catch him on the right night. Seems great. It gets a little, a little gamey every couple weeks. You'll watch a game with the next every once in a while or it just doesn't seem like he's interested in guarding anybody. Zach and Mahoney, Zach's podcast last week, they talked about him and whatever Zach said I agreed with for it. It seems like he should be an all-star but something's holding me off and I feel the same way. We'll just complete the exercise here. Bam and mobile are out, by the way. They're not even in the bubble. The third one is Derek White who the way to ding him is his only average in 19-a-game and he's shooting 40%. The part of that is because if you watch the Celtics, there's times when the play's breakdown and whoever has the ball with four seconds left just has to put up a bad shot. He's plus a point two on off. More importantly, they have the second offense net rating in the league. Mahoney has the 21st rating, for example, with Powell. If you're saying, well, Powell's a better offensive player. What happens if you switch White and Powell? What happens to those two teams? The Celtics still the second best offense is Miami better than 21st offense. I don't know. It's an interesting thought exercise. I think Towns unfortunately has to make it because you really only have for Biggs, Yannis, and Durin, and that's it. You have too many guards and forwards. The next probably could get two. It comes down to White and Powell. If White was shooting 44%, 43%, I'd feel better about it. It's like 39.7. It's right on the cusp. I think he's... It's almost like if this was the MVP voting, I think he would be higher than Powell. But if we're just talking about all-star or somebody killing it, and Miami doesn't have an all-star, the Celtics already have one, I think I'd feel like a home or if I gave this to White. And I... As I joke about all the time, I'd like to take my vote seriously. So, my heart says it's Derek White, but my heart also says that I might not think about it, be thinking about it rashly. So I'm going to go Powell. So Maxi, Jaylin, Kay, and Brunson, Yannis starting. Mitchell, Jaylin, Johnson, Barnes, Durin, Porter, Powell, Towns, Toughest Cuts, Derek White, and Kauai. And I think if anyone gets injured, so we're already going to have Yoke, which is... I would say probably going to miss the all-star game, but somebody will miss it between him and Wembee. So then maybe Kauai makes it anyway. And then maybe Derek White makes it if there's an injury in the East. But I think that's the list. Those are my all-star picks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing me pontificate. We're going to take a break and come back with Charlottes Khan Knipple. All right, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. The most efficient, rookie in the history of the NBA is here. Khan Knipple. Do you know that? I did not. Yeah, you're shooting stats and all the... You're very efficient. Try to be. I'm comparing you to players from the eight decades of the NBA and they're like, you know who's really efficient, Khan? You passed... Last time I had you on the pod, people still didn't totally know how to pronounce your name who were NBA fans. Now it's like, I don't feel like you get any Knipples. Yeah, right. We got it set now. And you're having a really like steady, awesome, rookie year, which I don't fully understand because you're the youngest podcast guest we've ever had. Really? Yeah, my daughter was the youngest, but she's made 2005 in your August. Yeah, so you've been here for a couple months. That's awesome. But yeah, I don't understand why you seem like you're 27 years old in these games. So what is it? How did you fit in so easily? Yeah, I don't know. I definitely have a more mature game. Just I could grow and up playing and adult men's leagues all the time. My dad's run a men's league in Milwaukee for 20 years. So had to develop that aspect of playing off the ball that youth basketball doesn't really get you. Just kind of fit in. With the whole A U world. Like it's, you know, and the Instagram trainers and all that stuff, it becomes more about one on one skill and stuff. But playing in that men's league, I think you learn to grow and be more physical, how to move off the ball, all those things that are really important today's NBA. And rebend. rebend. That was the one thing I told you before the season. So don't forget to rebend. You're like six a game. Yeah, almost. I'm getting down there. I think I'm at five now. Well, now you're your whole team's back. Yeah. I've been watching a lot. It's been my favorite league past team. And even though your record, you're like 12th in the East, but you've been in a lot of these games. You haven't had the mellow the whole time. And the mellow as somebody I think I've changed my opinion on a hundred times. But he's looked awesome lately. Yeah. That's the first time you can see your team like, oh, this is what the team could look like, right? Yeah. And we're playing our brand of basketball. Yeah. We want to play fast, want to play unselfishly and together. And we're a good rebounding team and we can hang ourselves or hang our hat on that, you know, on the offense. Ben. I don't know if you watch Diabata at all moosa, but man, he's just all over the glass every night. You know, it's a fun brand on brand of basketball. Yeah, everybody seems like they give a crap. Yeah. So, you know, I think we're going to have a good team. Good future. All right. We did the generic basketball stuff. I want to dive into rookie season. So you go in training camp starts September. Right. You've never had a job before, really. Does Duke kind of as a job? I don't know. I guess you're getting an IOM money. Yeah, it still doesn't though here. You're like a student. You're in class and that's fun. See the job. So, all right, walk me through. Do you buy a place? Do you rent? Like, how did that whole go? How'd that whole thing go? In Charlotte? What do you do? Yeah, I rent. Okay. Do you have like family member anything? Anybody with you or you're just on your own? No, I'm on my own. On your own, interesting. No roommate, nothing. No roommate. By myself, which obviously first time ever, which I've kind of enjoyed. Yeah. It's kind of cool having own space. I was worried about that kind of at first, but you know, that's new. And to do it when you're 20, yeah, is a little bit earlier than others. But I'm in like a nice part of Charlotte. A lot of young people grow in city. So good, good spot to be. You're just so much more impressive than I was as a 20 year old. We moved off campus when I was 20 and I was sharing a room with my buddy, Jaco, with two beds and we lived with two other guys. And we thought like we were really... Boy, blast though. Yeah, we had four people cramp in a small, two bedroom place. We thought we were really living it. You're buying yourself living in Charlotte. All right, so training camp starts. Do you get a car? You lease the car? No, I'd, yeah, bought a car. Okay. See a bike car. You like a cheaper guy? You're like an extravagant guy. What we said cheaper. I got a Ford Explorer. Right. Oh, that's smart. Okay. All right, so practice starts. You're fitting in. Do you feel like the rookie or people nice to you? What's happening? Yeah, I mean, we got a great squad of just, you know, guys that kind of embrace you right away. You know, you know, sometimes it doesn't happen. Obviously we have a younger team. Which is good for you at that, right? Yeah. And we have four rookies. Yeah. So you're coming in with three other guys kind of going through the same stuff, but also just the, the vets on the team being really receptive to a rookie is not something, given us advice is not something you see on, you know, every, every team. So I hear, Well, plus you were part of this incredible rookie class. Yeah, that's, I can't, kind of can't believe how good it is. It's a good group. You know, it's fun to see the success around the league every night. It has a good group of guys. Hopefully it continues that way. And how many of them have you known since you were like 13? You know, I, I was a little bit later on to the circuit. Yeah, like I was, I was playing UBL, but I'm from Wisconsin and I was getting really invited to some of the, some of the bigger camps early on. But you, you're aware of the guys and playing in the Nike circuit. You play against a bunch of the players, right? We played Dylan Harper, Liam McNeill, like all those guys we'd, we'd play on, and Derek Queen, we played on, on the circuit. So you see the Queen staff before they trade the, the future pick form. Everyone goes nuts, including me, like how can we do that? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I didn't like that. I didn't even put a protection on it. But then he starts playing and he's just as good as he was at high school in college. And then people are like, okay, I didn't love the trade, but he's really good. Yeah, and his game just translated to the NBA. It seems like he was, he was awesome in high school. Yeah, like we're playing in the NBA, NBA has their camp in Orlando. Like he just, every time he threw it in there, it was like basket, basket, obviously super skilled. He's out in a heck of a year. And then Dylan, Dylan's fit in on a really good Spurs team. Yeah. Flag's been, I mean, that's your guy. Yeah, he's, he's awesome. Pretty strange style situation for the most part. He's following that trade. Yeah. Kyrie's not there. Davis has gotten hurt multiple times. The season started up badly. They're playing a point, were you surprised they're playing about point card? It seemed like a big ask. Yeah, I mean, I think for your first 10 games, the NBA we're gonna try to figure it out. I feel like it's tough. I think he definitely embraced it, embraced the challenge. Yeah. But you know, that's, that's tough to do. Playing out of position like that is, as we've first time playing in the NBA at all, but I actually thought he did, did pretty solid. Yeah, it was, in a weird way, probably not the greatest experience, but then also a great experience because you're literally thrown into the fire to make all these decisions with the ball. So there's no way some of that. But you at the opposite, they're just, they put you in, you're doing all the stuff, you're good at, you only have to worry about that. I don't know, I thought it was a little unfair, but it seems like he came out of it, all right. Yeah, he's playing, he's playing great now. Is there like a Duke tech thread with all your old guys or no? We do, it's Coach Carwell, C-Well is assistant, and he'll text us on a group chat at certain points. But you know, well, when we were in Cleveland, me and C-I went over to Tyree's Proctor's Place for a little bit, just hang out and enjoy some time together. Well, the most fun thing you did was you brought your entire team to your house. Yeah. Which went viral for like two days. People love that, just a reason. Yeah, I don't, I didn't, we didn't think anything that it was that big of a deal. Yeah. But yeah, we're, I think people like knowing that NBA players are normal and that you would just go to somebody's house when you're on the road. I don't think people think of the players like that sometimes. Right, I mean, you know, we were on the plane and I was sent from Milwaukee. So grants like where are we going to eat, grant Williams? I was like, well, I'm going home. And they're like, oh, we're going to Contas, I guess. And then I thought about it, my parents were like, invite whoever you want. I was like, I think I'm gonna invite the whole team over. So yeah, the guys came and it was great. So would you want me? It was great. Fajitas, chicken fajitas. Oh, wow. Yeah. There's a nice Mexican grocery store in Milwaukee, L. Ray. So she got all the the fixings and everything from there and just in the Krakpot. And the guys enjoy it. Like we don't get to do stuff like that. Yeah. Very often, especially when you're in Milwaukee, Detroit Cleveland, like it's cold. You don't really want to get out of the hotel. So that was a good experience for us. Yeah, I mean, when I talk to different coaches, players, whoever they all say the schedule was, so I'm forgiving with not being able to practice enough, not being able to actually do anything. Like you're in LA right now, you're the game Monday, it's Clippers, you have a game Thursday, you actually have a couple days to kind of hang out, maybe you could have a practice, work on some stuff for LACS. The schedule doesn't really work that way. Yeah, it's interesting. Like I can't remember last time we had practice like in our facility in Charlotte. Like it was probably two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago. Yeah, that's not good. And that's, I mean, we're just without the schedule change, where you're basically playing every other night. Yeah. It makes it, I mean, it makes it so hard to practice because your body can't really physically handle, you know, practicing on the in between day. Right. When you play every other night. It needs a catch up there. I mean, the good news is the travels, can you imagine doing this in the 70s when they had you on the train, like coach doing trains and stuff? That would be crazy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and then we're in converse. Yeah, we're in the shitty sneakers, like all that stuff, eating like cheeseburgers at three in the morning. Smoke and cigarettes at halftime. Like, I don't know how guys did it. Yeah, it's a little better now. Yeah, so you played 39 games the season started. I guess like October 24th range. Bill. So it's like 39 games in two and a half months. Right. And we played 39 games at Duke last year. That was a real season. So where are we in rookie? Well, when is the rookie was? If 50 games are 40 games, I can't remember somewhere around here. I'm not sure. Did you feel it yet? Do you feel it in your body? I think, I think it honestly, I feel like it's more mental than anything else. Like it just gets really repetitive. And you know, it's just the same thing like your shoot around again today, going over to the gym in the morning. Yeah. I think that finding a way to embrace that and enjoy that every day, it can get tough, especially for younger guests. Well, you have the wild card of you play with Lamella, who is such a wild card game to game and can go on this. I can't imagine what it's like to play with somebody like that. I mean, that in a good way. Like you just don't know when he's going to go off. Like he had that game the other day, when he had 33 of the bench. Yeah. And it seems like there's, it definitely seems like he has his bounce back. Yeah. And he's got his first step back and it's starting to seem unstoppable again. Yeah. I've only seen a stretch like this in a while where he can just stay healthy for four months. But when you're playing with him and then you're seeing the other guards in the league, like it feels like athletically and talent wise, he's with those guys, right? Right. Yeah. And I mean, he's doing a really good job and I think training staff, just trying to like manage his minutes to maximize the amount of games he can play. And that's tough to do. Like when he's, it's tough to get into rhythm sometimes when you're going like, you know, 28 to 30 minutes. And you know, you're gonna come out or there's sometimes in the fourth quarter when you want to be in there and affect the game. So he's been battling that and I just, he's been really locked in this year. Have you gotten to the point playing with him where you can kind of tell when he's about to go off? Like you can notice when he's feeling it on the court almost? Yeah. And there's just some situations where he has the ball on, and especially in like transition, where it's just like he has those all you passes that like half court, it's like how do you, how do you throw that when Brandon Miller's at the free throw line? And he's throwing, he's throwing it, but it's like a quarterback anticipating just some of those plays he makes, pretty headscratchin'. Yeah, and then you had Miller come back and he's shown flashes of like, if you catch him on the right night and feels like he's like gonna be an all on the A guy. Yeah. And he can rebound. He's a little, in a weird way, like a really nice compliment to you because you guys both rebound, you guys can both shoot three, you can both handle the ball and play without the ball, but I like the combo. Yeah, I think, you know, he's a really talented player and just the athleticism and, you know, it's some of that like chased down block stuff too that you can just make plays like that. You know that a lot of guys can't make just with his frame and his athleticism. And it's a fun group to play with. Yeah, he seems easy to play with. Like all your bigs kind of know where to go and what to do. And it's a fun team to watch. And I'm not even sure, I'm sure in the summer when they try to add to it, figure out what's next. I'm not even positive. I'm sure like rim protection would be something, but for the most part, it's got a nice nucleus. Yeah, I feel like, you know, when we have all our guys playing, you know, we're in a good spot every night. It's a good upset team. It's like one of those teams you'll be like a giant underdog somewhere. And I'm like, I don't know, they got all their guys. Watch out for, watch out for them tonight. All right, so you're going through the league. You played just about it. You haven't played the Celtics yet. I haven't played the Celtics. One of my, they're one of my favorite teams to watch. Especially, especially on film. We were watching, because they played the Clippers recently. I went to that game. Kind of killed them. Yeah, we were watching with Jim Brown right here at 50. We were watching them just defensively and how they guarded, you know, Kauai and, and, and harden. And they just have a bunch of guys that are always in their position defensively. Yeah. So we're just watching them, you know, how they shipped off a ball. It was, it was a good game, good game to watch, just how they go to the Clippers. So is that part of the process you try it? You guys try it because you have a really good coach. We had them in Boston for a little bit. But you try it out. If you're playing a team, you watch a game where somebody did something successful against that team and figure out what they tried to unlock what they did. Yeah. So we have a bunch of clips that we'll watch together as a team, just from games. But I think in general, just as a player in the league, like if you're, no, who you're playing on the schedule or just, just catching a game, as we all get league pass, right, just catching a game of, you know, who you're going to play is always good and see what, see what they want to do. Seeing it for it for a whole 48, just as a, as a, as a watcher. Figure a hotel room at like one in the morning, just zipping through the NBA app, trying to watch for your watch. Yeah. Yeah, that's got to be so much easier than the 70s or 80s. Yeah, the tape delay. It's a, well, yeah, tape the way you have no game to wrap things on. You wouldn't, if you had to queue up something, you would have to go into like some video room and they would have to have like the projector showing you clips. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the video, the video guys that we have, like, do a really good job or even, I don't know, synergy, have you heard of synergy? Oh, yeah, yeah. We just, you just look up, I want to see all of Peyton Purtridge shot attempt or whatever. Right. And you can watch them all. Well, you can scout yourself too, right? Yeah. Like you can look at every single time you dribbled off the pick going right in what you did. Yeah, like each, each move, hot spots on the court, all that stuff is really interesting. It's the league. I was trying to figure out my all-star stuff because I have a vote. And I was, and I was right down, everybody's point three bands assist stats, and then they're shooting splits. And I'll do like PR, a couple of things. And I just put everybody on a list. The shooting stats are unbelievable now. Yeah. And it's like, and you're kind of the poster boy of the next generation of that, like just efficient, everything. Where everybody's kind of like high 40s feel goal. Yeah. Somewhere between 38 and 42, 3.78 to 85 free throw. And it's like everybody. Yeah. Like Maxi's 31-a-game. Yeah. But all shooting splits are really good. It's not like he's like a buying shooter. Like they're good shots. Yeah, I think the shot quality throughout the league is a lot better. Yeah. Where it's just an emphasis on, you know, at the rim shots, at the rim twos, free throws, and, you know, quality threes. Open threes in the spots that you know are the right spots. Right. And, or, and then I call them like shots of mastery. So, you know, like a guy like a hardened, like his step back. It's a shot of mastery. Right. Or like a Kauai, you know, mid-range fall away. Those, those type of shots that are really maybe not, or maybe not efficient for everybody. Yeah. But for certain guys. Well, you have one of those. You have to like right around the foul line. Like when you do the hard dribble. Yeah. You come back a little bit. A little bit away to the left. Yeah, yeah. That's that one that feels like your shot. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like that 2.15 footer is coming back. Jaylin re-advented himself to share with that. Like he added two moves and he became an over 50 percent. Right. 15 footer guy. I don't know where. Yeah. I mean, if you can add, add one of those shots in between, you just become a little, a little bit harder to guard. Yeah. Keep you honest. And you can shoot it really efficiently. Those are good shots. Yeah. It's felt like the league was two three happy there. I mean, there's still a bunch of threes, but the pace is, there's just more shots. Yeah, the pace is crazy. The pace is crazy. The pace is crazy. Like, Denver was at 124 a game before Yokech got hurt. Yeah. You think like that's like, that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. Right. That anyone would average 114 a game. Right. You know. Yeah. But I like it. I think for the most part, they've really figured out the rule stuff. I mean, I'm sure like when you're out there, like how slow the last five minutes go must be annoying, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just trying to stay like the challenges and stuff. But I think the challenges are good. I think they were good to dish. Pro challenges. Have you played the FIBA where it's like it kind of just goes like soccer on us? You haven't played it in that game, right? No, I haven't. No. It'll probably be on one of the teams we have pretty soon. I would guess. I predicted you for the 28 Olympic team. You were my dark horse when I went on Zack's bike. Yeah. And he got the whoa. I saw that. Now, like feeling like I might be in on that one. We'll see. We'll see. That'd be awesome. You're in a good pace. That'd be one of my better predictions. My football picks have been shit this year. But it might only good prediction. Yeah. That would be pretty sweet. Yeah. I'll prove you why I don't know. But yeah, it does seem like there's more to the games of Margin. There's more big guys to it. I feel like we have the most big guys we've had in like 25 years. Yeah. The small ball thing was getting real popular there for a good. Can't do it anymore. Yeah. You got to have a good big. Even you guys, the question with Charlotte even being competent this year was like, well, who's playing center like the Trader Mark Williams. But you've patched it together. There's like, we did it with the, I say, we look on the assault. We did it with Kaden and Garza. Kaden Garza. And all those guys do. They set picks and they protect the rim. They can stretch it. Kaden knows he can't shoot three's. Garza shoots three's a little bit. But. So I don't know. It's a, your generation is coming in and all the big guys know how to play 20 feet from the basket instead of just like clogging the lane. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like something has shifted. Yeah. I mean, I think just from an earlier age, I think guys are, you know, learning, learning to play basketball in an applicable way. Right. Maybe future levels or higher levels of hoops. Well, the big guys want to shoot three's right? Every big guy who plays with probably one or two wants to stretch the floor and affect the game in that way. So I think I think we're going, moving in the right direction, basketball wise. Can we go through some of the guys you played against without getting even trouble? So you play Yannis a couple of times already. What's that experience like? I mean, there's no way you ever played against a seven foot alien who's just made out of concrete before, right? Yeah. Just, just so strong. Did you bounce off? Do you have one of those plays where you're just like, get swatted like a mosquito on a windshield or something? You know, he gets, he has a little chicken wing. Yeah. That he gets guys with and it's really hard for the officials to see. What is it? Explain it. He just, like he loves going baseline. So he's on the baseline and he'll kind of get you with a high elbow. If you get to up and push you back a little bit, he'll just, no, he'll get it around you, round your body and kind of, kind of, it's quick. So it's hard for the officials to see and he's really, really good at it and that chicken wing just kind of gets you off and it'll get you baseline. It's really hard to stay in front of him. Then obviously in the, in the, the full court, how he's mastered, like the gather rules and all that stuff, it makes it really hard to guard. It makes one of us because I have not mastered the gather rules. I just, I think I'm too old. I think it's a travel night. Every time. I just, every time I travel up there and call it. Yeah. What's one of the things that I've really had to work on? Yeah. That I've, I've gotten better at is like, we've been working on like the low pickups, but as soon as you put that second hand on the ball, you get, that's a zero step, the step you're on and then you get two more. Yeah. It's, it's a different footwork. It's hard. It's a little bit tricky to learn, especially coming from college and high school where they're calling euro steps of travel. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think the, the way he does it, especially in the full court, how he can throw the ball to himself and then gather and it looks like it's three steps, but it's not. Well, you played, we're taping those two's that you played hard in last night. Who's the other one who's, I don't understand how he does it where it seems like he's going 12 feet with five steps, but it's two steps because he used to gather. Yeah. So and he's going right left right. You can't even keep track of what he's doing. And yeah, it's a gray area too. And it's, it's really hard, sometimes, to appreciate and the guys that are good at it and, and, and work on it all the time becomes really effective. The Mello's got a little bit. Yeah. He'll throw it out from time. He'll throw in the slow step too. Did you have to guard? I didn't see the corporate game last night. Did you have to guard Kauai at all? Uh, I was going hard and, uh, oh, Jesus. What was that like? It was good. Uh, it was fun. You know, I, he, at the third quarter, he's, they put about, he moved in a ninth. Oh, yeah. All time scoring. Yeah. So they put that up on there. I'm like, man, this is pretty, pretty cool. I'm going to go to the top 10 score ever. Yeah. No, it was great. Who's been in the league almost as long as you've been alive? Because he was 2008. 2008, yeah. So I was three. I'm believe it. Yeah. Wild, wild. How these guys can, you know, reinvent themselves and, like, Lopez too or Penn Lopez last night and even him. Right. That's a, that's a guy who's reinvented his, his career to be able to play. Yeah. Him and Alhorfer. There was a couple of them. They were back to the basket guys who just, like, all started back to the basket guys who can reinvent to themselves. I love shooting three, stretching the floor. Just stick around and be effective. Did hard to get you at all last night because you're trying to play in a certain way, right? And he still gets the shatter once anyway. Yeah, we got me with a, a fall two. I was, oh, you get the flop. No, I had my hand in the, you know, the one I had, I got my hand in the cookie jar. And he did the, and he did the, went right into the three. Um, you got your hand out here and he got me. But, uh, probably my least favorite call. Yeah. I think that should be a foul. I don't think you should get free throws for that. Yeah. But that there's a bunch of things that would change. I'm feeling shading ways. It's, it's really hard, um, because the guys like him and Shay, like the, the, the way they, it's, it's a skill. Yeah. It's a skill you feel the guys hand on. You just rise up and get somebody's hand caught in there. Have you played OK? See? Yeah. We put them twice. So did you have to, who? We got it. We got our general whims, uh, a lot. Um, but you know, you get switched on Shay a couple of times and he's, he's really, he's really, he's really hard to guard. You just gotta, gotta stay solid. Stay square. Keep your hands out of there. I'd be so scared. Cause you think you would get him and then he can do like one more spin or like a second stat and then all of a sudden he's going another way. Shot fake. Gotta stay down on the sho fake. Yeah. I think we're allowing our arms. Guys are really, really skilled. You know, it's fun, fun to compete against those guys. Yeah. We have, uh, Maxie's another one who has just become almost impossible to guard and we have Jordan Walsh. I say we like him on the team and it was one of like Jordan Walsh's breakthrough games. Like he kind of figured out how to defend Maxie for like two minutes. I don't know if it's sustainable, but he kind, he just kind of unlocked what to do. And Maxie was getting bad shots and was like, oh my God, somebody unlocked Maxie and then Maxie probably fixed it next game. But the, the, when people have like the three moves they can do at any time and you just don't know what they're going to do. And they can just, and then that's it. Those are like the best scores and like Brunson's like that too. Yeah. Brunson is, is, um, we point them twice as well. He's different than some other guys because all of his stuff is, a lot of his stuff I should say is off to two feet. Yeah. And the pivots and the shot fakes, um, in which is, and it's almost like he's like posting up at like 16 feet and he's sick. Crazy. He's like this. Herky jerky. Stop and start bouncing off you. And he's six foot tall and strong and those, uh, he's, he's, he's got a little different, different, herky jerky game. Yeah. Um, but he's, he's just as fun to, to compete against as any of those other guys. Did you have Ananobi and Bridges defending you that game? You must have. Bridges, um, Brunson guarded me a little bit. Um, yeah, I, I don't think Ananobi played when we played them both times. Um, who, who was the one who, um, that offense up where we were like, oh my god, I'm in the NBA. First game, first time we played OKC, Kason Wallace. He's a nightmare. Yeah. He was, they had a tough game. It was a back to back. We had just played the bucks in Milwaukee, came back home to play that unit. Great game in the Milwaukee game. Yeah. Good game. We lost an overtime. Yeah. Like a, I played like 40 minutes. It was a tough one. It was like one of our first back to backs. And then you have to play OKC at home off the fly. We get in it like two. Uh, because you lose the hour coming back to his coast. Yeah. That was tough. Kason Wallace is waiting for you. You're up for a good night. Yeah. And I don't think Mellow played because there's a, there's a back to back and he was resting so it was a, there's a tough one. Oh my Lord. Yeah. They have darts, no prize either. No, he's besides the doubt. He's, he's huge. He's, yeah. The crew so is doing the, yeah, sweeping and everything and bouncing. Yeah. They're, they're, they're tough defense. Yeah. That, it's weird. Because they, Hardenstein is so like, because we put him, we put him the second time in OKC and, yeah, we beat him. Um, yeah, that was one of the upsets of the year. Yeah. We played great. Um, but Hardenstein was out and he makes such a difference for them. Um, just, uh, he's, he's physical on, on the glass. Yeah. Just defensively and what he can do and, and the pick and roll defense. Um, and, and what he does offensively to run in all the, you know, the dribble handoff actions, right. And zoom actions, all those guys. He's really important piece for them. And you played Joker, right? Yeah. We did play Joker. How's that? Uh, yeah. Yeah, he seemed like he wasn't even like trying that hard and, yeah, he seems like that look up and it's like 29, 13 and nine. Yeah. He just moved that at 30 seconds. I can't see. He just dominated the game. Right. He seemed like he was jogging or at, we played them too. Murray had a really good game. He had like 20, 25 in the first quarter. So, yeah. Yeah. He, the Oak Ridge was impressive. I have Murray. I was every week I do my all NBA team. Yeah. Cause just as a process, cause I'm one of the few people that actually cares about the shit who has a vote. Yeah. How do you feel about the, the non, um, I've decided I don't like it. Positions. Positions. Oh, I hate to position this. I always try to make it look like at least somewhat of a basketball team. Yeah. So even if it's not like necessarily a center, I have to have a rebound. I can't have four guards. Right. I really want to have a, like a wing forward. I try to have on each team. I think it's kind of a disservice to where you can just get like five guards and it's kind of a disservice to the history of the game. You look back at like the 80s or whatever. I agree. You have three centers or, you know, like Andrew Bogus on third team. Right. Like you're not, you're not going to see many of those anymore. Um, well, there, there's really, there's guards. There's wings and there's bigs. Right. And I feel like each team should have at least one of them, at least one of them. That's one of those three positions and then you can go nuts with whatever I also want to do or two guards, one wing, one big and then you can get wacky with the flip spot. It should be five guys that could conceivably play basketball together, you know? So like for me, I still have Shenguin on my second team, all NBA. I don't think he's been one of the best 10 players in the league, but I think he's been the second best center. Right. Yeah. So he's going to make the team for me. But yeah, I, uh, Jammamur is definitely going to make it for me. I mean, we're halfway through the air. He's, especially what he's doing without Joker is nuts. Yeah, they're putting their point well. They came in and kicked the Celtics ass. I'll tell you that much. Um, I feel like the guards are as deep and scary as we've ever had. I mean, there's like 30 good guards. Yeah. Like all of, I think there's like 30 capable all-star guards. It's insane. Yeah. There's no, even you see like teams like Garland who doesn't have an all-star case this year, but even he, if he had his own team, I feel like he would probably be putting up 22 and nine on his own team, you know? Yeah. Yeah. We played them a couple of times too. And he's, he's quick. Yeah. He's tough to stay in front of and he's got all the boom, boom, boom, boom, handle stuff. Have you played Indiana? Yeah. We put them, we lost them twice. So you had, so you had your first McConnell experience. He's unreal. He's one of the hardest guys to guard. He's another Herky Jerky. Weird can't figure him out. And he's so low to the ground. Yeah. Like his center of gravity is so low. He's really hard to stay in front of. And then he has that rise up like mid-range, like 10 footer, where he's got the ball like way above his head like that. He's really hard to guard. It's like the, it's brought back the golden age of these guards that can go in the paint and bounce off people and do footwork stuff. Like Pritchard does this too now for the subjects. McConnell does it, Brunson does it. There's a few guys in the league now. I don't know where it came from. And nobody wants to foul them because they're always going to call it when you're trying to foul a little guy. But yeah, McConnell, they beat the Celtics last night in a very frustrating Celtics loss. And it was like they, you realize how good the league is? Because they're finally healthy. They made the finals last year. They don't have Halber and they're a mouse turner. But they still have a lot of the DNA of last year's team. They're not easy to play. Yeah. You know, they're, they play hard. And you know, Carlisle obviously a great coach. Yeah. Yeah, we lost them at the buzzer. And then they go, I watched that game. Yeah. It was a little, yeah, it was a defensive mix up at the end. It was frustrating. I've always written for the Charlotte, Charlotte Frances. They're my league pastive. We appreciate it. Yeah. I was like, why don't you switch out? Don't say the team because I don't want to get you in trouble. But did you have an NBA experience yet where you played a team? And it felt like the team didn't like each other. Or there was like the vibes were off and you could just feel it on the court. You know, Mason Plumley says that half the battle in this league is having everybody still like each other in February. That's a great quote. That's what he says. So maybe you're not there yet. Maybe I'll see you a couple of times. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe you'll see the Thursday night. But yeah, we're right around the time when some teams start getting gaming. No. Maybe you're not as good as you thought you're going to be. Or you're about to start tanking. Guys are in trade rumors. You guys, you haven't had any trade rumors stuff with Charlotte. I don't think you're one of the, one of the few non-playoff teams I haven't seen anything. But there's other teams that the names are just like trade season now. It's going to flow around. Yeah. It's great for a content of people like me. Yeah. That's got to be, I mean, just ignoring the noises. There's a skill that I think teams have to have to, you know, kind of keep it together. And still compete at a high level every night. How online are you? Yeah, how are you checking the stuff for you like going to NBA Red Hat places like that? You know, I don't have like social media on my phone anymore. Great idea. Just kind of just kind of deleted it. Really smart. See, this is why you're the most efficient rookie in NBA history. You deleted social media. More so just like, I don't want to be like scrolling on my phone and be like, oh, there's three hours that just went by. Right. I'm not that than anything else. So I've been off it for, you know, almost a week and a half now because it was kind of a recent thing. That's really, it's a good news resolution. Yeah, I guess it did kind of fit around that time. But yeah, so I've been off it a little bit, but obviously, you know, keeping up with podcasts and stuff like that is something I like to do. So you listen to some of the NBA stuff? Yeah. Oh, yeah. NBA NFL. I've got a big, big sports sports podcast listening. I listen to a bunch of stuff. Oh, I want to talk NFL with you in a second. We got to talk about a couple more players. You played Kauai. Yep. One of the strangest games of, I mean, he's one of the top 30 players of all time, but the shot release, the line drives, yeah, line drives. So it's a strong shot release. Yeah, physical as shit, crazy hands on defense dribbles the ball like harder than anybody. I've played against like just like pounds the crap out of the ball. It's weird. Um, but I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't speak. Doesn't lose, yeah. Yeah, he didn't say much. No, it's not talking shit. He's not there to make friends. No, I, but just one of the more impressive players, uh, I've played against like just the shot making ability. Yeah, Kauai is back all business. There are 16 and 23, which before they were like six and 20 or something. So they're like, I don't know. They're not going to go to run here. Yeah. Um, and he's, yeah, he's, he's unbelievable. And you got, you got hardened still too. They're just really, really tough to guard. What about Minnesota? Did you play them yet? We played them early. Um, no ant. So I, uh, well, if you're ready for somebody to talk shit to you, he's your guy. He's great for the league. He's been awesome. It's good to have a guy like that. You know, just I, you know, I didn't get the chance to play against him. But he was talking shit. I could see him kind of in the corner. He was talking, talking stuff a little bit, um, which was, which was, which was cool to see. Well, in 28, it'll be you guys leading America against the, against France and Germany. Be the two of you. Um, I love the way they've been playing lately. Randall, Randall, I think is going to make my all start team. Go bear. If Wembee doesn't get the, the limit, um, the 65 games, go bears probably the defensive poor of the year, but I like the way they're playing. And spend unbelievable. I mean, he's just a top five guy now. But I wouldn't relish you. And I mean, this is a shooter too. Like, like, does it miss? Yeah. You shouldn't tend to read the game. Make sure to grade before. Yeah. It's ridiculous. And he's been quatch. The thing I love about him and I think LeMelo has this quality to actually, um, these guys that really do think they're the best guy in the court. They might even be wrong, but they, they think it, like, he definitely thinks he's the best player in the league. And I think LeMelo, sometimes you can see, like, he just thinks he's the best guy in the court. It doesn't matter who else is out there. But I, I do think you need that if you're going to actually try to win the title. Yeah. You know, for sure, like plays OKC's like I'm definitely not afraid of these guys. I think I'm better than Shay. Right. I'm better than all these guys. We're going to beat them and he really does believe it. Yeah. He's, I mean, he's exuberant, um, confident, very confident. Um, I just, like I said before, I think it's just good for the league to have a guy like that, um, super confident, talk to his game, he was in hustle when he was young and like, it was good movie. Yeah. It was great. I mean, he's great in it. Um, and I just think having, having guys like that in the league is really, really good for it. I think Wembee has that too. He, but they beat Boston on Saturday night. Yeah. I think, and I think, I think Wembee thinks he's the best guy in the world. He kind of came back in with three minutes left and they just kept giving it to him and he just kept scoring. And he would have had like a real disdain for the subject. It was like one of those. Yeah. An opening night when he, who they plan on opening night, I forget or his first game of the season, this, who were the spurs plan? I forget we had like four. Rockets. Yeah. Somebody that and I was like, oh my god. Like you played him yet? No, we haven't played the spurs yet. It's like, oh my god, we'd like to leave my being trouble. Um, I think the league is in trouble. Yeah. I think so. He's so freaking tall. I just, I worry about him over the course of 10 years. Like, how do you stay in the court? Like there's no room for error with guys around his legs, you know? Yeah, everybody's around his legs. Yeah, everybody. Yeah, he, he looked. That team is really scary. Yeah, they're very good. Because way before your time, the 1986 Rockets, your guy, Bird, Bird, wasn't your guy. You're a Milwaukee guy, but he's my guy. He's one of my, he's one of my favorite guys. Okay, get the 86. We were supposed to play the 86 Lakers in the finals. It was like head in this way. We'd put them in a 45. And then the Rockets had who came and, and they just like killed the Lakers. Like, I just like, I don't know where they just beat the shit out of them. And it was like a mismatch. And they were just too big and too. And I do wonder if the Spurs can do that to a couple teams in the playoffs, where they just. But they're kind of a little bit ahead of like, out of schedule. Yeah. I think it's in play. We'll see. They're healthy. Trying to think who, uh, what are their, what are the other great players? You didn't, you didn't play against Jalen yet. That's coming. Uh-huh. And then Joker, I think we covered everybody. Other. Was there any point that we put the Lakers already? You have to guard him. Uh, a little bit. Um, not just a couple of, a couple of switches, not really. He's one of those like, you just can't talk shit to. Yeah, he's, he's talking a whole game. You almost have to go the other way and be like, Luke, that's an honor to meet you. I can't wait to play basketball, get you for the next three hours. And just like butter butter him up. He's, he's great though. He'd mean some of the, some of the shots, some of the difficulty of the shots he was, he was taking and making against us. You know, just 19 footer. Yeah. One leg edge off the glass. It's crazy. Yeah. He's, he's really good. Reaves, he's really good too when we played. I mean, he, he had an off night shooting, but man, he's for the calf strain. He was having a heck of it. Heck of a season. He's another one of those guys who just knows where to go and what to do. Did you have a holy shit? I can't believe I'm playing against this guy guy. Like, who's your hero growing up? Or did you have one? Do you have a favorite that you had to be in the court against our third game of the season? We played the Wizards and we played Middleton. Middleton was being from Milwaukee, like one of my favorite guys. And so most of our staff, you know, Charles Lee was a assistant for Bud and Milwaukee. Yeah. So most of our staff was in Milwaukee and they're like, oh, yeah, well, they're all saying what up to Chris Middleton. And you know, I got to meet him after the game. And that was like the first, first time after that, after a game or something. I talked to a guy and that was pretty special. Oh, that's awesome. You know, rooting for him all the time growing up and he's some, some of the simple is, you know, just like nice, meet you. Appreciate all you did for the city. These was a good basketball role model for you too, right? Just like completely additive player. Right. Newer to anyone to defend it. Yeah. You know, good shot maker in the mid range, three point shooter, knows what to pass, knows how to play. He was, he was awesome. Are you ready for all this all star weekend stuff? It's going to be an OA. Yeah. Yeah. I assume you'll be in the all rookie game. That's the most efficient rookie in history of the league. I think they're going to invite you. Yeah. I think that'll, that'll be cool. I can't remember the last time I watched the Rising Stars game. Yeah, I might have waged on it a couple of times. That'll be the only reason. They're a little gambling. Yeah. But it has the money. It'll be sweet. It'd be cool to get out there with some other rookie guys and see them again. Well, it's good because it's like the way the league goes. You start there, get to go to all star weekend. You're like the wide ad little baby of the league and get to go through. And then by year five, you're an all star and you're like, oh, I remember that time when I was. I was like the wide ad rookie. Now I'm used to this. You know, you get to do up. Then you'd be the grizzled guy trying to make it one more time. Try to have the long career. Yeah. Um, the last time you were on, we didn't really dive into your brothers. And I was told that it was the one of the great misses of my podcast year last year. Um, this whole, by who? This whole, uh, one of our ringer guys, J Kyle Mann, who's obsessed with the Kinniple family and thinks you guys have a chance to potentially have three to four NBA players, conceitably. We'll see. What? What's through the proper date? So how many brothers are there? Four, four brothers, five of us total. Four brothers and all of them are good at basketball. Um, yeah. So what are the ages? Um, my brother, Kager is a junior. Kingston is a sophomore. Cash is a freshman and Kidman's in eighth grade. And do the high scores play to get there on the same thing. All three of them are on the same on the varsity team. But the eighth graders and the eighth graders on, he's just the middle school, middle school. So the, the law of professional sports says the eighth graders going to be the best one. Right. Cause he's trying to get that's what I'm going to drink. May because when I started like getting in the gym every day, I was in fifth grade and he was five. So he's been, been shooting and getting shots up. He's trying to catch up with you guys. Yeah, he's annoying. So I got to get out of here. You're not big enough to play yet. Yeah. So typically the youngest is supposed to be the best. Yeah. That was the Drake May thing. His brothers were like great, great, great athletes. Drake May has seen the video of the draft video. We're like, pretty boy. Yeah, that video's great. He was good. Hooper too. Yeah. Do you see the videos of him playing? School. Yeah. He's like, he's Charlotte. He's a, he's Myers Park. He's a Charlotte kid. So he's a horned fan. He wants to come, come to a game. No, he's a Celtic fan now. We've, we've corrupted him. We brought him over. So what are the heights of the brothers? Cajer is six nine. He's a set. Yeah, he's huge. It's what I taught me. Kinson is six six. Cash is like six two and Kidman. It's like five 10. Yeah. Cajer's Cajer's big. So five 10 eighth grade. Yeah. Six nine. Yeah, he's so he legitimate big man. Or is he like a six nine shooter? Like no, he's a shoot like shooter. Stretch for super long arms. Guard the best player. That's one of the other team. Yeah. So what is his like, like, is he on the list? Is he, I should have researched this. I actually wanted to find out from you, but I didn't want to cheat. But is he like on the list? Like, is he going to play like high dip one? Yeah, he's, he's got a couple of offers. Butler, the Paul. I'm just going to a couple of visits. Purdue, Marquette. Xavier, they're there as one of his high school games. So we'll see. You know, he's only a junior. So he's still got a little bit of time. I will, we'll see how he keeps getting better. At worst case, Nair, you can just have your franchise guy for a team and just all your brothers have contracts with their, they're all with you. You just have like the three guys. It's a couple of times 15 man roster. There's like, there are four cannipples on the team. So the young one. Five 10 eighth grade. That's the one with the most pressure because of the younger brother thing. Yeah. I guess we're putting that on. Hi, yeah, I'm going to throw that on right now. So what has the family after the Packers thing? That the one of the worst playoff losses of the decade. Yeah, I wonder how many of those like, did you put a list together? If I did it on Sunday night, I went through like 20 losses. 20 losses. How many of them were Packers losses? No, I did all the Packers losses. All the terrible ones they had on. I mean, like, I was putting on five and overtime games. Yeah, I was putting that together in my own notes. The one in Seattle is one of the worst. I was like nine or 10. Yeah, because even that involves when the onside kick gets involved. That goes to another level. Onside kick. I think of well, my Morgan Bernat had an interception in that game with five minutes left. Yeah. And he's slid down with like 30 yards of running room in front of him. They slid down in my grandma who's a Vikings fan was watching the game with us. It was like, looks like the Packers are going to the Super Bowl. And my dad was like, no, I don't know. Yeah. So I mean, there are a lot of, you know, playoff hard break. I think of the Cardinals when Rogers had the two Hail Marys. Yeah. And then the phone was it a fumble touchdown or something? Or that was the far. Yeah, far. Had a fumble touchdown and his. Oh, no, that was that was Rogers. First game. Yeah. So you had two horrible losses in Arizona and the playoffs. We had the you're too young for the Freddie Mitchell of fourth and sixth. That was a bomb. My dad, my dad has horror stories about that one. Yeah. I think of Rogers last playoff game in Lambo. Block Punt touchdown for San Fran. Yeah. And then there's just ones where we just got smoked by Atlanta. San Fran, when he mostored at 200 yards. Yeah, the case of it. I think this one is made to the Bears. This one was way up there. This is top two. I think the only difference with this one is I don't think anyone thought it was a simple ball. Right. Right. But you lose to the Bears. So that kind of it would have been a successful season with all how the all the injuries went. If we were to beat the Bears and the playoffs in soldier field, I feel like it would have been successful considering the Parsons injury and and all that. Tucker craft. Tucker craft. Yeah, I said to sell. It's weird because the Packers have won two Super Bowls in the last 30 years, right? Yeah. Like if you're the Jets or the Bengals, like you take one of those. Right. You're made. Yeah. But you've also had all these awful playoff losses and they never get the Packers never get thrown into the torture fan base list because you won the two Super Bowls. But then you had all this other pain. Yeah. It's also means the most there. You know, it's like. Yeah. And to have, you know, far from Rogers, it's the me too of like the top five quarterback severer depending on. I want to look at it and to have those guys and, you know, they each of them gets one. But, you know, you feel like the window was open basically every year. They were they were the quarterback. Yeah. That's tough, tough feeling. I was talking to one of my teammates. It's like he's a Panthers fan and they've had a couple of Super Bowl losses. But like when you're out of the playoffs, it's you'd rather you'd rather be in the playoffs, like rooting for the Packers in the playoffs over here. But it's way more painful to lose like a game away from the Super Bowl or just like a heartbreaking way in the playoffs than it is just like, oh, we missed the playoffs. You want to be in those situations as a fan. You want to be in the playoffs. But sometimes it's like, all right, we missed the playoffs. Not it's a little, a little more painless. You're walking me through where I might be on Sunday after Pat's Texans. If the Texans defense kills the Pats, I actually think the Pats are going to be in good shape. But they've been able to variables awesome. We have a great coach. And I think our quarterback is like legitimately has a chance to be one of the great ones. Yeah, it's crazy how quick that happened. He's awesome. Drake made it awesome. Good demeanor too. But it's interesting. The way that teammates talk about him. I think you almost have to like, I always look at that stuff when the other guys are like this guy special. Yeah. Like this guy is a crazy competitor. Like I love that like they just kind of go out of their way to say these things. And after a while, like maybe they're saying this for a reason. Like I've just seen this in the past. Usually the guys special when the teammates are. And I love how he deflects in the in the post game. Oh, yeah. Just like the MVP chance. And he's like, I think that those might have been for Baker. Yeah. How he deflated or you're leading the league in passing yards. And he's like, that's because we haven't had a buy yet. Like I love that stuff too. Yeah, he's not cocked, not remotely cocky, but he's crazy competitive, which is a good combo. Great combo. He's definitely not one of those. Look at me. Look over here. We'll see what happens. It's everything's heading towards Josh Allen potentially coming to New England. For the Super Bowl, who's the mountain that they now have to get over as a franchise anyway. He kind of took the Brady spot. Yeah, but it's really fun football season. I'm getting killed in my picks, but I've enjoyed the games. Yeah, it's it's been good. And it feels kind of with everybody we have left. It feels kind of like I feel good about anybody when in it. Yeah, whatever team. It's a good season. Yeah, it is. We tell the story about you trying to find out what the Packer score was when you were playing. Yeah, we were playing the, uh, playing the jazz, killed the jazz. Yeah, we're up by a bunch. But I watched the whole first half and, uh, it's 21 to three at halftime. So I'm like, great mood. So you're playing during the second half? Uh, the Packers get. Yeah, yeah, our game is happening in this. Our game starts. We're up. We're up. You were up like 77 38 a half time. Like it was, wow. It was blow out. And so we have an assistant coach who's a, who's a Packers fan as well. And you know, the game, the game was over, um, later in the fourth quarter, I'm like, yo, what's the score? And it's like, you guys are down four and we're with like a minute 40 left. And we were like, what? Like we're up 21 to three. Um, yeah. Yeah, that's probably one of the worst, worst feelings. I got a bunch of shire from Duke as a Bears fan. I'm getting all these texts. I was talking shit. Yeah. Just kicking me while I'm down. Come on. Yeah. Which jerk. Yeah, definitely a brutal, brutal night or like after we went by 60, I was great. Did you have any bears fans on the team? Um, and your team? No, no, no, no bears fans. Well, Drew Peterson, uh, Celtic as a bears fan, uh, we waved this year, but he was, he texted me after the game. I hate you. It was, it was, it, I mean, you're glad I didn't get to see it. Well, you, you two first downs on that last try, but you're up, you're up three with the ball. They have two time outs left during their 21. And it's like there's no scenario where they should win the game at that point. You're either running the clock out or you're killing enough clock that they can't do. I don't know if you saw the graphic about teams being up 10 points with five minutes left. And like the record. Yeah, it's one day like it's like the second one ever to blow the lead. Everybody is like 300. Since 1970 is like 300 some and two or one. Uh, and the packers this year were six and three. We lost three games this year with a 10 point lead with less than five minutes. Jesus. Did you have a playful power now? Yeah, I played in high school, uh, played my freshman year. And then you realized it was, yeah, they'll take it with soups. Yeah. Yeah, which is tough. You know, that's kind of how it goes nowadays. Yeah, I mean, more specialization. Um, football is a tough one though, because that is, there's somewhere in Terry. You probably need to run the option to quarterback. It's hit every play like it was a putt cube. So you played QB. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So you're getting, you're getting hit every play. Could you do any, uh, little like side flag football stuff with, with the hornets? Could you have a game? I could, couldn't you, couldn't you guys? So good. Organize a black football game. We should. That would be awesome. I thought to see Lamello running. Uh, well, he can, he can throw the ball. Miles bridges would be crazy. Yeah, it'd probably be a pretty good. Lamello could do the QB. So you go back and you get Brandon Miller, Lamello and Connitton can throw the ball country mile. I forgot the Connitton piece. Yeah. Connitton, I think played, didn't he? You played baseball. That's what a way to picture. So yeah, we'd, we'd have a couple of good arms. So you guys have, you have a couple of really good vets on the team. Yeah. And the whole concept of a vet, I think is. I've been around the block. I've seen some things. Let me impart my wisdom. Yeah. And yet most NBA teams forget to put vets on teams with young guys. But the hornets did not. Yeah, we're plumbly in Connitton who've been around the block. Pumbly Connitton, even Grant Williams. And Grant, yeah, Grant's been around too. So, you know, those guys have been great. Seen some kind of spending, some different situations. Yeah, yeah. Connitton taking us under the wing too and, you know, treating us just like any other teammate, which has been great. Not really getting that the rookie, the rookie treatment, I go away. Right. Which is carrying bags. Yeah. Which has been great. Connitton won a title. Anyone else want a title? I think that's it. I think that's your only title guy. Miles didn't win a title. No. Yeah, just. Charles Charles Lee won a title. Yeah, Charles Lee, most of our staff was in Milwaukee or Boston. Yeah, that was a good hard. Connitton, Josh Green was in the finals, but he didn't win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Connitton. Milwaukee, baby. What's going on with the ladies? Is there time? You have a girlfriend? I got a girlfriend. How long have you had a girlfriend? Uh, three and a half years. Yeah. All interesting. Where? In where she? She's at Marquette. She's a freshman at Marquette. So, your long distance relationship? The Marquette. Okay. Yeah. How's that going? Good. Yeah, she's, she's great. You know, she comes down as much as she can. We expecting that answer to how? Long distance with the Marquette student. I knew I was. Yeah, we were at the same high school. Yeah, she's great. She turned breaks. She got to come down a couple times. Yeah, she's awesome. Maybe you'll end up like Drake May. Marrying a six grade girlfriend. Is that what it was? Yeah, that's what it was. Sixth grade. Six or seventh grade. Yeah, that would be awesome. It just stayed together ever since. The Paths fans loved it because they were like, obviously like incredibly loyal. Yeah. And she's cool. But it's like, well, he's, that means we'll have him for 20 years. So, you're loyal dude. Yeah. That's a great call. And so girlfriend, long distance girlfriend. Wow. Yeah. So you're on the road a little face timing. Face timing. But then when you go and know Wisconsin, she can come to a game. Yep. Going to Milwaukee. She came. Chicago, she can come. Yep, she came to the game. Yeah, it's great. You're getting updates. She loves pictures of the hotel room. All that stuff is for the nice, the nice resort that we're in here in L.A. or the, we did a tour of Sony Studios today. So we're getting pictures of the car from Ghostbusters, the original. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or the RV from Breaking Bad. And so, Senator, all that stuff. And you said you'd never been in Los Angeles before? Never. First time. Is there any other? It's a shame. Always great. Yeah, it's really nice. January. January and it was walking on the beach. Well, you can see why all the NBA players end up coming this way, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they've signed all these free agents. Right. It's the best time when you, it's everybody looks forward to the trip. Yeah. Out here. Um, that's the other. The other. The other big trip that everybody loved, but doesn't exist anymore. It was the Portland, Seattle, uh, Vancouver trip for some reason was a popular one. And then I guess Texas would be a trip, but I don't know if that's as exciting. I have a funny story about my mom. Um, she, she knows best she played. She knows basketball. Yeah. She doesn't really keep up with professional sports like that. So we're getting my passport. I had never been outside the country. So before the season we were getting my passport. We played Toronto kind of early in the season at Toronto. And so she's like, all right, when you play Toronto, like we got to get this. And I was like, we were playing in November. And she's like, okay, what about Vancouver? Oh, she thought they were still around. She's like, yeah, they haven't been there since like, I don't know. 2000. Maybe she was factory in expansion. Yeah, maybe we're going back. Going back to Vancouver. That was the last thing I wanted to talk to you about was the parents thing. Yeah. Because you have a pretty close family with parents like it. So how, how much do you check in with them? Do they check in with you? Do they make, I'm trying to think of what I would be like as your dad in this situation and be mad. We didn't hear from Connie played last night. He even sent us a text like, how much parent maintenance is involved here? Um, my mom. She kind of works for me as far as like, oh, handle. Now you're off the course of course stuff. She really helps out with that. So she, she comes down a decent amount, you know, to help take care of things at the house, but yeah, or at the apartment. So she does some of that stuff. But you know, they come down probably for a game once a month, maybe. Are they sending tips? She's like, I watched, I watched the Wizards game last night. What were you doing in the third quarter? Crash the offensive glass. What are you doing? No, they'll text me before every game. My mom was be aggressive, play hard, dad will be, say something, line him up, DM up. He always text me that, text all of us that. So they'll, they'll hit me with that stuff before the game. And then they're going to all their kids games. Yeah. So it's, it's awesome every day. So my brothers have a high school game tonight. So in the family group chat, line him up, DM up, cash, kinsk, cage, whatever. And then it'll be the same thing if I'm playing or a kidman's plan. So yeah, that's, that's kind of cool. But no more, no more tips really anymore. Did you, did you win it title when you were there? In high school. Yeah. Yeah, a senior year, undefeated, 30, you know, wow. They're, uh, yeah. So we won my senior year. They won last year. So my brothers, what school is this? Wisconsin Lutheran. High school. So my brother was on the, both those teams. So in the, they went 28 and two last year. So they were 58 and two and two years. And, uh, they have two state championships. So Kater likes to brag. Like I got, he'd even play as freshman year. Everybody likes to brag. I got two losses and too many, as many rings as losses. Yeah. Yeah. And they have another great team this year. My cousin's on a team. Your cousin, what the hell is going on? He's a stud. He's going to Northern Iowa. And then the coaches kid is on a team and they all, they all play. So it's a, it's a heck of a, heck of a high school squad. Did you get used to the eating schedule and playing at night and all this stuff and traveling? And like, when do you, when do you eating dinner at 11 o'clock at night? All that stuff? Yeah, we're like a team dinner after the game last night. And it's like 1130, but it's 230 on the East Coast. You know, like kind of barely adjusted. Yeah. I'm waking up at like 5am out here, but no, I, the eating stuff, it is, it is kind of different because I was never a big. I wouldn't eat much on game day. Yeah. It's like we play 82 games. You got to, you got to eat food. Right. Because you don't want to lose weight. You don't want to be like skinny. So I've got a good kind of operation where I'm always eating a big like brunch after shoot around. And there's that really time to work out, right? Or like, like, it's almost like recovery stuff. You so yeah, a lot of recovery, but we'll lift up before and after the game. Like it'll be kind of split in half. Because you want to take advantage of the days where it's like, like this is a high effort day, we're playing a game. So we're going to lift on game day. And then tomorrow will be a complete off day. So what's what's the right number of like what would be a crazy number of minutes for you to play this year? Oh, looking up. When when someone we had Brandon and Melo auto, there's a couple games I played 40. But I'm saying for like, for like the season, how many minutes is like total? Yes, like or just like, 2400 realistic for you. About the math is hold on. I'm looking you up. So you're playing 32.5 a game. You played every game. I missed one. So you played 39 of 40. All right. So if you're on a pace of 80 times 30 tests, like 2500 minutes. It's impressive. So long. Yeah, I was ticked. I missed that game. Where'd you miss the game? I sprinted my ankle like pretty bad in or alive. I thought you were going to be out for like three weeks. Yeah, we did a great job training staff that a really good job. And it wasn't. They played it Italy. It wasn't as bad. No, in the Kobe jet. The Kobe jet. No, it wasn't wasn't as bad as. I broke both my ankles in middle school. So every time I roll my ankle or spray my ankle. Play basketball. You broke your ankles? Jesus. It kind of feels like that pain. Yeah. And it's because your mind just kind of does that. Or like it feels like that sharp pain. So I thought I broke it right away. But then as soon as I could put weight on it, I was like, okay. Like that's kind of the tell tale. If you can't put weight on it, you probably broke it. Right. So I missed that game. I missed the game in high school or college. I was ticked. Oh, man. You're like putting together the who's the street guy now? Bridges. McEl Bridges. Did he cheat? That would do the thing where he came in for one minute. He did. Sam against that. AC Green started that. You're just coming. Josh Allen did that. We did. Those little Laker guys started to keep. Can't look at it. Classic Lakers just starting some of them. Yeah, Josh Allen did it. He played, came in for one play left. Yeah. And it was like, come on. What's your theory for all the tentative injuries that we're having in football and basketball and like all these calf strains and the killy stuff? Is there something we're doing? And they're being really careful with it too. Like if a guy has a calf strain, like, now they overreact. We're shutting it down for a month. Yeah. They just did that to Reeves. Reeves. Yeah. Mason Plum we had one early in the break in the off season. So you think they just know more about it now that they could be more careful than they used to be? Maybe or they're just kind of scared from seeing it happen. I think we are playing a lot more possessions in games and the pace. Like everybody's playing fast. But it's happening in football too. Right. So I don't know. So I think it's like combo. You think it's maybe the specialization? Like I've heard that where it's like guys that play at a bunch of different sports are more durable because they're using different muscles in high school. I don't know. You're playing like I've been playing basketball for basically year round for. Yeah. I don't know. 10 years. Like it could be that maybe I don't know. I think basketball. I argued about this with Eddie Johnson, the former NBA player because he is that serious NBA show. We argued about it once because he's like basketball is not harder to play now. And I'm like, do you watch how much running there? Like I guess there's no way to really measure it. They'd have to have somebody measure all the games in the 80s versus now. Yeah. There's no way you're not running more now like because you have to run out on defense. Well, you just look at the possessions. Yeah. Like we're playing way more possessions than teams did in the 90s. No question. And it's like, and then you talk about the spacing. Like we get a rebound. Most of the time it's like sprint to the corner for the spacing. So like you have been really a shape of sprint to the corner. And like you're doing that, you know, 30 more possessions. But then on defense you have to sprint to the corner to go get a shooter. Right. And so you're just covering a little more surface area. Yeah. No, I was looking at something that the guys that cover the most ground and the league like it was like top five. I was running like two and a half miles. And that's just like a game. You're just running to the corner. The fucking refs are getting hurt now. The Kennedy just got hurt. Yeah. That does seem like way more running. The used to be a lot more possessions. I think that might have something to do with it. Because if you watch the 80s and 90s games, stuff's packing in. It's more physical. But there's more time to kind of your playing but you don't have to move as much. Now I just feel like guys are chasing. They're chasing guys around picks. Yeah, I mean, if you watch like 90s or early 2000s, like Mark Jackson's bringing it up back and down. Yeah. Running the show. All right, we're going to dump it to this guy on the post. Everybody kind of space that. No matter who it is. Like what you're all spree well in the post or something. Right. Posting up your three man, your four man, your five man. Kind of. And everybody's, you know, kind of watching. Just a different, different type of game. I got to say it's amazing to watch now. And I was there for all of it. And now when I watch it and I see the spacing, I'm like, how did we not know? Think of this. Yeah. How do we not know that you're posting up, McAill and two other guys can just jump down on it. Right. Because the shooters can't feed away from it. Like, what if you not just move back? What are they doing? But they just didn't have any idea. Yeah, it is, it is different. And then it's hard. It's so much harder now to compare. Like you're, you're in the business of comparing eras and. There's no way to do it. Yeah. Like when you come up, fucked up now. Yeah. And when you came out with your book too, like, yeah, you didn't really see that coming either. Like, it was hard to, 2010. Yeah. You could still kind of compare, you know, 80s to 2008 Celtics. You know, it was a similar game. Yeah, I was thinking about it. Somebody sent me a good email about maybe there's like four different errors and you just have to. There's like the era before Russell. Then there's the era from basically Russell all the way to when the leagues merge 76. And then it's basically 76 to when Curry has his first good year. Yeah, like, all that's a big. So, all that. The stats kind of make sense. Pace of play. Some, some seasons are fast. Others are smaller. But around 2013, 14, it shifts. And it's almost like once Hordeford and Brickloba start shooting threes, the games. Yeah. You know, and even I think I saw something like the Warriors offensive efficiency from like that 14, 15 season is like middle of the pack. Right. You're like 17th, which is unreal. Like we're even now at a higher efficiency from 10 years ago. The thing that's that's to me, like, the Celtics had the second net offense this year so far. We'll see if it drops down a little. But no Tatum. Yeah. Can you look at the team and it's like, this is one of the 20 best offenses in regular season history. Like with the guys we have, like, I don't know. But they've just kind of figured out all the math and the possessions and the pace and the right shots and crash the offensive Got a lot of play together. Yeah. The offensive boards is a big thing for creates extra possession and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So it's like more shots. Like we defend. Don't care if you give up a fast break basket because the offensive rebounds more important. Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll see. Like we put a huge emphasis on crashing off into glass. Yeah. And so you'll have, you know, like a wing like me is getting one offensive rebound to game or one and a half. You know, getting a hand on a ball. All that stuff is important. Just gets you maybe one more, one more three or one more. Right. Opportunity to a shot. So Doc Rivers like his last couple of Celtic seasons. When they almost made the finals in 2012, but and they were older team. And one of his rules was we're giving up offensive rebounds. We don't want to give up fast break positions at all. So it's basically one shot as many people. The defense said. Yeah. It's completely different the way you do now. Now Doc's coaching Milwaukee, probably telling everybody to crash the boards. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's the math. I think they just figured out some shit with basketball. Yeah. We just didn't have this stuff 20 years ago. Right. The analytics, like basketball, baseball, it's harder to do harder in football. It's almost like defense came back a little bit in football. Oh, yeah. You know, definitely. I mean, just how they disguise. Yeah. It's just harder for quarterbacks now. To decipher defenses. But it's a little bit hard like the analytics decisions are harder in football. Because at the end of the day, you still got to go execute. Like it could tell you to go and go for it on fourth and two. Like we should go for it. But you still. You still have to be there and get the first down. Yeah. Yeah. This first round, you would probably miss because you were playing. Yeah. They were a way to fourth down heavy in this first round. The bears. And it burns some teams. Bears were on four and fourth down and one somehow. Or one in five, whatever they were. Yeah, we'll see. What did you learn anything from all the analytics about you of things not to do? Like do you think about that stuff? You know, I like I said about the synergy. I try to look on that a little bit. Like what your weaknesses? Yeah, or just like, man, there was like halfway through the season. Like one of the corner three is it was like below average. Really? And I was looking at it. I was like one corner. I'm like 56% and the other corner. I was like 38. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. It's evened out now, but it's kind of. Yeah, because that could just be a small sample size. Smaller sample size, but like I'll look at that stuff. And it's kind of interesting. You can kind of use, you can see in different areas where you rank. And it's just like a scale of like excellent, very good, good average, below average, poor. So you can kind of look at that stuff to, you know, maybe get a. It's depressing. Get a grasp. Oh my god, I'm poor. I'm in the poor category. Do you look at like five band lineups and all that stuff? I looked at that a little bit. I did that in college. There was there was a Evan Maya did something that I was looking at. But I enjoy that stuff. It's interesting to look at. I look at I look at different players to see, you know, who's really good. Like, Shay's is unbelievable. Yeah. I like green everywhere on the. Yeah, he's like 18 no matter what the line up is. I like looking at the three man stuff sometimes. Because sometimes there would be these weird combinations. Combinations are like good. Yeah, you wouldn't expect. Like what? Well, with the Celtics, like you would expect it's like Keta brown and white altogether. Yeah, they play a lot of minutes together. Yeah. But with those three, you can kind of fit any other two around them. And if you have those three, we're going to be good. But sometimes there would be ones that surprise you. Yeah. And there would be ones where like, okay, see, we'll have like Wallace, Dort and Caruso. And it's like small minutes, but they're defensive ratings like. Right. 88. Incredible. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. Those guys are like three pit bulls trying to bring the ball. But. Yeah. All right, we covered everything I think, right? Yeah, I think so. So rookie wall hasn't happened yet. Girlfriend's still going. Ground pace for 2500 minutes and incredible efficiency. Teams coming together. Lamella's got his mojo. It seems like you get to play the Los Angeles Lakers in LA. It's amazing. LeBron James. Take any better. This could be his last year. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be, that'll be sweet. All right, well congrats on everything. It's been fun to watch. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Trying to think when we do the third pod together, it would have to, I don't know what the, what the inciting incident will be. This was, we did one before you got drafted. Now we have one halfway through your rookie years. We got to figure out like the next for the trilogy when that is. Maybe that's like right before the playoffs or something. First playoff. If you can make it probably not this year, but maybe we'll see a year from now. All right, thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Khan and Gahau and Eduardo. Don't forget rewatchable is one of two's tonight. What lies beneath. And don't forget, I have another podcast coming on Thursday. Football podcast. So that would be the fourth one of this week. You'll be able to watch it on Spotify. You'll be able to listen to it wherever you want. You could also watch it on Netflix. 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