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2:30

to The Old Man and the Three with J.J. Redick and Tommy

2:32

Alter. So

2:35

240, Ryan Lucillo, Tommy, we

2:37

talked a ton about Boston

2:40

Celtics. A little bit about the

2:42

Western Conference, still waiting to see what happens there. We

2:44

are recording this on Thursday afternoon.

2:47

The day of game five of the Western

2:50

Conference Finals. Lots

2:52

to get into with Rucilla. Before we do that, let's

2:56

do the Draft King Sportsbook segment.

2:59

I was thinking about this because we

3:01

talk with Rucillo about Jason

3:03

Tatum. You bring up

3:05

a great question during that conversation. There

3:09

were some back and forth on some different

3:12

sports shows about Jaylen

3:14

Brown winning the MVP in the Eastern

3:17

Conference Finals over him. Whether or not

3:20

Tatum looked happy, I just hate when

3:22

we get into that stuff. All I

3:24

know is when Boston won

3:32

game four and he threw the

3:34

ball up in the air and he went and

3:36

started shoulder bumping and he looked pretty

3:39

happy to me. It seemed like he was in a good mood.

3:41

It seemed like he was in a good mood. Finals

3:44

MVP though. Jason

3:46

Tatum is the odds on

3:49

favorite. We've said this. Boston is the favorite to

3:51

win the NBA championship. Jason Tatum

3:53

is the odds on favorite to win finals

3:55

MVP at minus 150. Luca

3:57

at plus 270. Jaylen Brown at plus

3:59

270. 600 Anthony Edwards at

4:01

plus 1500 and Kyrie Irving

4:04

at plus 2200 so

4:07

the the books Sort of

4:09

favor Tatum here and I was

4:11

thinking about you know this Series

4:14

and and we talked about with through solo and it's

4:17

like there's a scenario I think where because

4:21

of Dallas's defense and the way

4:24

They're gonna get into Tatum the way they're gonna

4:26

get into Brown the way they have size

4:28

That I'm sure Boston will try to manipulate

4:30

matchups There's a there's an argument to be

4:33

made that Christoph's persingas is the most important

4:35

player in this series It should be very

4:37

interesting with his history with the Dallas

4:39

Mavericks Extremely extremely to

4:41

think I had one question about this and this is

4:43

you know, obviously don't know what's gonna happen tonight But

4:45

you know if Dallas does advance

4:49

Drew and and Derek we've talked almost every

4:52

episode about good there defensively But it feels

4:54

like they they may have some

4:56

issues size wise with Luca What do you think

4:58

that that who's that in it? Is that Jalen

5:00

like who's that initial cover? Yeah,

5:04

I would guess I Would

5:07

probably lean towards Drew Holliday as

5:09

the initial cover Derek white

5:12

on Kyrie Tatum

5:14

Brown sort of playing off the ball

5:16

a little bit with PJ and Derek

5:18

Jones jr And

5:20

then KP and now whoever is at the

5:22

five You know, I

5:24

think with drew it's it's similar in

5:26

a way. He's probably a little bit

5:29

shorter But it's similar in terms

5:32

of strength and body type and lateral

5:34

movement as Lou dort Where

5:37

drew on the ball? Can

5:39

be physical he can slide his

5:41

feet. He doesn't really get Beat,

5:44

you know off the dribble as much

5:47

as other players And so Luca creating

5:49

angles and sort of like, you

5:51

know using his size and strength and girth to like

5:54

Sort of bump off his path and and then

5:56

create separation that way I think drew probably of

5:58

all the guys probably has the best chance of

6:00

preventing that. Um, the other

6:03

thing is like when

6:05

drew is super engaged and

6:07

we've seen this and players have talked about

6:09

this, he is really

6:12

good at not getting

6:14

screened. So his screen navigation and

6:17

being able to stay in front of the ball, uh, I

6:19

think will be huge in this series. I could, I

6:21

could see Derek on him. I could see Jalen on

6:23

him. Um, I

6:25

don't foresee Tatum taking that matchup just

6:28

because of that's typically not how Boston

6:31

sort of, uh, operates. It's one of

6:33

the luxuries they have with having, uh,

6:37

white and, and drew holiday, but that's, that's certainly

6:39

a matchup. And then, and then you think about,

6:41

you know, Kyrie as well, potentially in that series,

6:44

not giving up hope with Minnesota. We,

6:46

we, we very clear with that. We

6:49

are very clear with that. In fact, we get into the whole

6:51

discussion about why we think, uh,

6:53

this could, you know, at

6:55

the very least be a seven game series. One thing

6:57

we didn't talk about him, which I was, I was

7:00

curious, your perspective on is with

7:02

KP back Boston's half court

7:04

D. Obviously that was something that was

7:06

not great in the indie series. I mean, it's been,

7:08

it's been hard to, it's been hard to judge without

7:10

him in this sort of run, even though they they've

7:12

been winning, we've talked a ton

7:14

about his impact with them offensively. And then

7:17

also he's been great defensively all year, but

7:19

with the half court D in particular, is

7:21

there something that you sort of, is there something that

7:23

they're going to do with him with either matchup that

7:25

you feel like will be sort of a point of

7:28

emphasis with him back that might change, you

7:30

know, some of how that has sort of been for them over the

7:32

last couple of weeks in terms of

7:34

their half court defense, I

7:38

think you want to prevent,

7:41

um, Lively and Gafford getting behind

7:44

the five and pick and roll, um,

7:46

because that, you know, Dallas is

7:48

great with the lobs, I think they had the most

7:50

lob for dunks, uh,

7:52

in the playoffs. The other part

7:54

about it is, you know, if you do sort of

7:56

have KP up to touch and the

7:59

roller gets. behind then all of a sudden you're pulling over with

8:01

the low man. The other thing Dallas

8:03

really wants outside of Luca and

8:05

Kyrie looking for their shots is those corner

8:07

threes. So I think for

8:10

Missoula, who's big on math, it's

8:13

probably KP in a drop and

8:16

it's probably doing as much as

8:18

you can to play those pick

8:20

and rolls 2v2 with some

8:22

help shifts. I mean, that's the thing that, you

8:24

know, listening to him talk and pregame stuff about

8:27

the Pacers, it was a lot about how can we

8:29

be better after game one. And a lot of it

8:32

was like, how are we shifting off the ball? Who

8:34

can we shift off of to create

8:37

a little bit extra help? The thing with

8:39

Indiana specifically is like they play so fast,

8:41

you don't actually ever set your half court

8:43

defense. So they get the ball across half

8:46

court in two to three seconds, they're immediately

8:48

into action. They're,

8:50

to me, like a hard team to game

8:52

plan for just because they don't run set

8:54

plays. They don't run a lot

8:58

of stuff that's static. It's all

9:00

just make or miss. It's

9:02

getting the ball across half court and attack. And

9:04

they've been taking a lot like a truly elite

9:07

shot making. I was so impressed.

9:09

So impressed. It was great season.

9:11

Shout out to them. All right. This has

9:13

been the DraftKings Sportsbook segment. We are this

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10:24

get to our conversation with Ryan Rusillo

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and stay tuned to the end because

10:28

we do have a draft and

10:31

both Tommy and Ryan are a

10:33

little out of pocket. Stay tuned.

10:36

This is Ryan Rusillo. Ryan,

10:39

how we doing, man? Good to see you.

10:42

Good to catch up. It's been a while. It's been a

10:44

while since we've had you on the old men of the

10:46

three. So I appreciate you

10:48

joining us to talk NBA

10:50

Finals, Boston Celtics. How

10:54

are you doing? I am excited. Look,

10:56

I'm excited to be on. I appreciate the

10:58

invite. I don't even know how long ago was

11:00

I actually on? No.

11:03

Wait, was he on the ring or one? You were on

11:05

the ring or one with big cat ring of 2020 during

11:07

COVID. Oh my gosh. You've

11:10

never been on. This is your first time on the show.

11:12

Actually, big cats been on, but this is your first time.

11:15

I know I wanted to do it in person, but

11:18

you know, the finals, they don't take, they don't take

11:20

time off for anyone, even though we're going to have

11:22

like a week off.

11:24

All the podcasts run together to me. You

11:27

know, we're just doing a lot

11:29

of this. JJ is doing

11:31

with Mind the Game now too. He's

11:34

recording like nine hours of

11:36

podcasts a week. Last

11:40

week, Brian, last week I had

11:42

five, this is not including like

11:45

Monday of this week when I had

11:47

our weekly Monday show. I

11:49

did five podcasts and called

11:52

four games all on the road. It

11:54

was fun, man. It was a great week. It's

11:56

a great week. Very productive. Got a lot

11:59

done. a lot done. I

12:02

have a, I have a

12:04

general question and, and perhaps this

12:06

was sparked by

12:09

a radio appearance that I did yesterday. It

12:13

feels like the Boston Celtics are

12:15

the favorites, should be the favorites. They

12:18

have done nothing but Excel

12:22

throughout the regular season, throughout the playoffs.

12:26

Certainly you can nitpick certain things, but you can pick

12:28

certain things with any team and with any player. My

12:31

question to you is, do you,

12:34

will people in Boston be happy

12:36

if they, if they win? They

12:38

win the championship? Yeah, look,

12:40

I mean, you back in Boston for a little while,

12:43

it's been kind of interesting to remember that

12:45

I used to do the daily Boston radio show

12:47

thing for like three years. And

12:49

we found ways to

12:51

make ourselves miserable. And

12:53

now being back and listening to some of it,

12:56

I was like, Oh, wait, wait, did I do

12:58

these things? Like, is this how I talked about

13:00

it? Like already diminishing a potential championship. So like,

13:02

I don't think, I don't think talk radio hosts

13:04

that have a job to kind of engage people

13:06

is the best test for like how the entire

13:08

city feel. Of course, there would be, I mean,

13:10

this would be the first title since 2008, the

13:13

second one since 86 for story franchise with

13:15

the resume they have, like they're due for

13:17

one of these, considering this is

13:19

the what, the sixth Eastern Conference Finals in

13:21

the last eight years. I think the problem

13:24

has been for this team is that when Brad

13:26

Stevens first came in, and

13:28

they make it to an Eastern Conference Finals

13:30

in 17, it's so far ahead of schedule,

13:32

like they were supposed to be on rebuild

13:34

year number two. It's this really

13:36

fun Isaiah Thomas season, the second scoring option

13:39

was Avery Bradley. So they basically ran high

13:41

pick and roll for Isaiah every single play

13:43

and his numbers were massive. He was I

13:45

think fifth in MVP voting that year, which

13:48

is an incredible like single season, but it it's

13:51

been now when you think of it like, wait, this

13:53

is seven years of this, when is it finally going

13:55

to pay off when I feel like the 17 Eastern

13:58

Conference Finals is ridiculous, they were even in it. The

14:00

18, they went to game seven with the first year

14:03

of Tate in the second year of Brown. So it

14:05

makes it feel like these guys have been around forever,

14:07

but they haven't been able to get it done. You

14:10

know, 20 was losing, I

14:12

think to a better team in Miami

14:14

last year was massively disappointing. So I

14:16

think there's this emotional hangover with this

14:18

team where 24 can't live on its

14:21

own. Like no one's going

14:23

to be happy about anything with 24,

14:26

the spectacular statistical profile they have, smashing

14:28

everybody in the East. Nobody

14:30

cares because they feel like this group has been

14:33

around too long when I think they've just been

14:35

ahead of schedule. And that's the price that they're

14:37

paying. I think that's valid.

14:39

I think that's valid. Particularly

14:42

the part about the emotional hangover because, you

14:45

know, I didn't

14:48

do a ton of first takes this year, but when

14:50

I was doing them and when I

14:52

certainly listened even on sort

14:55

of national discussions

14:57

and national networks, people

15:00

always bring up prior years. And

15:04

I don't think that's invalid because

15:07

certainly Joe was the

15:09

coach last year against Miami. Tatum and Brown

15:11

have been here forever. Derek's

15:14

been part of these teams now for three years. I

15:17

don't think it's invalid. Al, of course, is, you

15:19

know, he spent some time elsewhere, but he's been

15:21

on a bunch of these teams. The

15:23

point that I always make, though, is this

15:26

team is so different, right? And

15:28

particularly if, as

15:31

we assume, Christops Porzingis is back

15:33

in the NBA Finals, Derek

15:36

White is a different player this year. Drew

15:39

Holliday is sort

15:41

of a Swiss army knife that has done everything

15:44

that he's been asked of. Hey,

15:46

you got Halliburton on you. Go

15:48

score. Great. I

15:50

can go score. Hey, we need you to guard and bead. We need you to

15:53

guard and be able to do that. Get offensive rebalance. Make defensive plays

15:55

like you did at the end of game three. He

15:57

just does whatever. You

16:00

can talk about the

16:02

past, but I

16:04

have a real problem with

16:06

not acknowledging, at least acknowledging

16:09

how different this team, how, dude,

16:11

how much better Joe Missoula has been this

16:13

year as a coach and

16:15

his comfort level. It's

16:17

like, yeah, that's fine.

16:20

If we want to talk about the emotional

16:22

hangover, but if we want to talk about

16:24

basketball, this is a different team. Yeah,

16:26

you're right. The Drew Holiday

16:28

piece of this is ridiculous. You

16:31

look at Brad Stevens, run through this, and he goes, okay, you

16:33

know you're going to have a really good team, so the draft

16:35

pick is probably not going to be that great. So

16:38

wait, San Antonio wants to get into the Derek White

16:40

business of moving him? Okay, done. It

16:43

may be boring for the front office and not worrying

16:45

about the draft pick and having the scout extra hard

16:47

before the draft, but these are the

16:49

kind of transactions where you think, that's a no-brainer. The

16:52

Drew Holiday one, it'd be like, okay, now you're going to flip the

16:55

Brogdon deal into that, and Rob Williams just

16:57

never felt healthy. Even when he was healthy,

16:59

it was like he wasn't healthy. And

17:01

then you somehow end up with Drew, which I'm

17:03

sure Milwaukee was like, wait, what happened? I

17:06

still think the Bucks would have done any deal

17:08

that involved them getting Dame and raising their

17:11

ceiling potentially with the talent like Dame. And

17:14

then Prozingis, where I had no issue with them

17:16

moving on from Smart, I thought in 22 it

17:18

was like the best Smart had played, but I'd

17:20

also watched enough of it to see that Smart

17:22

had moments where he kind of felt like he

17:24

was the guy because he was the emotional leader,

17:26

but that they

17:29

could have replaced that with just somebody else who understood

17:31

the role a little bit better. And Smart probably understood

17:33

his best when they went to the finals in 22.

17:36

So being fair to him, but like Drew, Dave

17:38

one is like, okay, I'm the sacrifice guy. You

17:40

know, unfortunately for like Ray Allen, when he came

17:42

in 08, like he was the one that sacrificed

17:44

the most. But with Drew, it's

17:47

like, okay, I already know what I'm

17:49

going to do. I may have my moments where I'm going to be

17:51

hitting some of these shots. And so then when you

17:53

figure it out with the final Prozingis thing, he was

17:55

so good last year. He changes

17:58

who you can be on offense, especially if

18:00

you want to start. looking ahead of the

18:02

Dallas matchup of a big that's actually going

18:04

to pull Gafford or Lively away. And they

18:06

may be challenged Dallas in a way that

18:08

they haven't been challenged at all against Minnesota.

18:10

Because you know, Rudy, like if you stretch,

18:12

it just means that you're just going to

18:14

ignore them. So you're not really changing your

18:16

defensive alignment all that much. So you're right,

18:18

they have more options, they're better, they're, they're

18:20

the best team of this entire group. It's

18:22

not debatable. But I think where they

18:24

get into trouble is when you look at like the historical

18:27

comparisons of the 16 Warriors net rating,

18:29

you're like, well, they're not those guys,

18:31

or the second three people's really like, well,

18:34

that's not true. Or the early 70s Milwaukee

18:36

bucks, like their profile tells you they're one

18:38

of their team, one of those teams. And

18:41

yet I will, as somebody who's watched this team

18:43

throughout the entire season, have these moments where I'm

18:45

like, tie ball game minute left is

18:48

tatum going to hold it in the triple threat

18:50

for 20 seconds with no one cutting and no

18:52

passes whatsoever. And his talent and his size tells

18:54

him that's a good shot. But it

18:56

just becomes really easy to defend, because nobody

18:58

else really has to move or anticipate any

19:01

other stuff, because they'll stop moving, they will

19:03

stop in those moments offensively. And that's the

19:05

part that I think drives Celtics fans crazy

19:07

and why despite those numbers and agreeing with

19:09

you that the the entire sum of this

19:11

is better than any of these other versions.

19:15

They've had this awesome record, these

19:17

dominant wins. And yet we

19:19

still have these moments like, I'm not going to trust

19:21

any of those guys as much as Luca with the

19:23

ball with a minute left. But

19:25

how much of this discourse is just

19:28

the overall tatum disrespect? And people being,

19:30

I mean, you're seeing it, we saw

19:32

it after after game four, like people are saying, oh,

19:34

he's not happy enough for Jalen

19:36

Brown, like, like they zoom in on

19:38

his face, like he's not smiling enough.

19:40

There seems like for whatever reason, like he's

19:44

a guy that we've had him on the show a

19:46

bunch. He's a great podcast guest, but he seems like

19:49

a guy that like he lets his work do the

19:51

talking. And he doesn't need to be front and center

19:53

all the time. And I wonder if that hurts

19:55

him a little bit in terms of like

19:58

his resume, like we like So like you just mentioned

20:01

speaks for itself for when he came into the league to

20:03

what he's accomplished since then Never miss the

20:05

playoff game. It's been 100 day playoff games at

20:07

this point Like how much of this is just

20:09

like tatum disrespect? the

20:12

tatum part of this always feels like It's

20:15

easy for me which makes it complicated and the way we talk

20:17

about him because he's never gonna be the best player in the

20:19

league He's maybe gonna flirt

20:21

with number five. Okay made all NBA

20:24

first team this year. He should have I voted him for

20:26

that like, you know I thought that was it was pretty

20:28

easy to go ahead and make that move to put him

20:30

on first team But he's never gonna be the best player

20:32

So you're gonna be kind of pining for like, oh is

20:34

he ever gonna be one of those guys? And

20:37

maybe there was a time you thought that could potentially happen.

20:39

But as crazy as I don't think he is like He's

20:41

not Yoko. She's not Lucas. Not Yannis. I'm

20:43

not even sure if he's SGA so

20:46

that in itself comes like this

20:48

entitlement thing where you become frustrated that he's not gonna

20:50

be one of those guys, but he also isn't Like

20:54

extremely disappointing so you

20:56

can't really dog him So we I think it

20:58

should be simple because that's where he is. Those

21:00

are the bookends He's gonna be top 10 for

21:02

a really long time But

21:05

because the top five guys seem to dictate titles

21:07

every single year. I think that becomes part of

21:09

the frustration I also think his demeanor with all

21:11

this nonsense after the Jaylen Brown thing, by the

21:13

way I think tatum should have won Eastern

21:15

Conference Finals MVP I was actually maybe

21:18

I wasn't shocked because Jaylen Brown had the two moments

21:21

But I just think as far as like which

21:23

player is Dictating what's going on more and which

21:25

player is dealing with more and dealing with the

21:27

tougher defensive assignments I was a little

21:29

disappointed to see the voting go that way But I

21:31

wasn't as outrageous say 2015 with the NBA Finals in

21:33

Iguodala got over Curry But I just think the voters have a

21:35

harder time with that stuff but Tatum

21:38

is the face of a franchise where

21:40

you know, the the dumb way we

21:42

look at this stuff Whereas like Jordan's

21:44

better off You know

21:46

not losing the finals is great But

21:49

LeBron losing in the finals

21:51

and not losing the Eastern Conference Finals is

21:53

somehow seem worse You

21:56

know, like if Jordan had had

22:00

losses outside of the finals, that's better on the

22:02

overall resume. Cause he gets to say six and

22:04

O we're like, I wonder sometimes with Pavement Brown,

22:06

if they had been better off never getting

22:09

to the Eastern conference finals as many times,

22:11

like having their only two Eastern conference finals

22:13

appearances be in 22 and then in 24, it

22:17

reminds me a bit of Ohio state, like

22:19

back 15 years ago, Ohio state gets blasted

22:21

by Florida and LSU and everybody's making fun

22:23

of Ohio state. And they're going, well, wait,

22:25

like we're at least making it to the

22:27

natural championship game. And some of you guys

22:29

can't even win seven games and you're making

22:31

fun of us. Like what's the

22:33

point? So the stakes and the attention, as we

22:35

all know, raise the deeper they go into this.

22:37

And these guys have been going so deep and

22:39

they play all the time in a league where we're

22:41

like, Hey, how many games is that guy are going

22:43

to play? Is that a good contract? Is that guy

22:45

going to shut it down? Is that guy even going

22:47

to be healthy? These dudes play all the time. So

22:49

I, I'm personally

22:52

like, Hey, I know who

22:54

he is. I know what his ceiling is. And that's

22:56

awesome. You should be thrilled you have them, but

22:58

it does feel like it's more negative around him

23:01

than it should be. Yes.

23:06

And I think this is the case with several

23:09

players where. Pundits

23:14

want them to be the

23:17

number one or the number two guy

23:19

in the league. And it's

23:22

not, it's not feasible

23:25

given given the timing of everything.

23:27

And we, we

23:30

like always want more out of guys. And we're

23:32

like, to me, it's like, well,

23:34

do you want, do you want 31,

23:36

10, and six in

23:39

a conference finals, right? Do

23:42

you want that? Cause that's pretty good. And

23:44

to your point about the MVP, I actually didn't have

23:46

a problem with it either. If I

23:48

had had a vote, I would have voted for Tatum and

23:50

that's not a knock on Jalen Brown, cause he

23:52

had the 40 point game in game two. He

23:55

had the tying shot in game one. Of

23:57

course, Tatum had 10 and overtime. Um,

23:59

and. And then, you know, he made the, he made the

24:01

point at the end of game four to Derek white. Plus

24:04

the block. Right. So I, I totally,

24:06

and he was awesome. The whole series, they had no answer

24:08

for him off the dribble. He got in the paint whenever

24:11

he wanted to. But

24:13

it, in some ways it's like, it's

24:15

not as egregious as 15. And

24:17

even last year with, with

24:20

the Eastern conference finals, what it was like, should

24:22

we give the MVP to Caleb Martin? It's like,

24:25

no, come on, man. Jimmy Butler's the MVP. Or

24:28

in 22, they're like, Hey, Wiggins is playing great in

24:30

the final. Should we give the finals MVP to Wiggins?

24:33

Just please just give it to the best player. Unless

24:36

the best player sucks and

24:38

has an awful finals and like gets bailed

24:40

out. Like Tatum didn't get bailed out. He

24:43

was the guy who, who, who did

24:46

Aaron Eastman guard the entire series? Right.

24:48

See that's Jason, my whole thing on Tatum and

24:51

I'm not going to not go long here, but

24:53

like, when I watched the way the defensive assignments

24:55

lined up throughout the entire playoffs for Tatum here,

24:57

it's like, okay, so they've got, they've

24:59

got Caleb Martin on Tatum and then heroes on Brown.

25:01

So guess what the offense does because the Celtics been

25:03

around on the smart Brown starts abusing hero. And so

25:06

then I was waiting for Cleveland. I'm like, what's going

25:08

to happen here? Okay. A Corals

25:10

on Tatum. And that means streuss is on Brown because

25:12

Cleveland, even if they had been healthy, we're going to

25:14

have all sorts of matchup issues with the four perimeter

25:16

guys that Boston has with Garland and Mitchell in the

25:19

mix. So then you're like, okay, so it actually

25:21

got so ridiculous. They switched it and put a coral

25:23

back on a Brown, but that's not how it started.

25:25

And then I knew to your point with this series,

25:27

I'm like, okay, so Neesmith, who you could probably call

25:29

a foul on every possession. He

25:31

works his ass off. He's going to be all over

25:34

Tatum. And I think that part of

25:36

it gets lost in, you know, I'm not trying to

25:38

knock Brown here. I just, whenever I look at the

25:40

two, I, yeah, it's not a knock on Jalen Brown.

25:43

There's never a moment. He

25:46

did get like, um,

25:48

do you think that let's, let's look

25:50

forward a second. Um, and, and we're

25:52

recording this the day

25:55

of game five of the Minnesota Dallas

25:57

series. Um, but I do think there's a.

26:00

little bit of a sort

26:02

of commonality between these two

26:04

teams in that they

26:06

do have two in

26:10

the case of in the

26:12

case of Minnesota multiple

26:14

bigger wing defenders, right?

26:16

Dallas has PJ Washington, Derek Jones Jr.

26:19

Sorry, Josh Green is no slouch. He's kind of

26:22

in that Aaron Neesmith mode defensively where there's a

26:24

lot of ball pressure. You can make an argument

26:26

that he fouls every play. He's going to literally

26:28

whatever minutes he gets, he's going to fight his

26:30

ass off. And then

26:32

with Minnesota, Anthony Edwards, Nikhale

26:35

Alexander Walker, of course, Jayden McDaniels. So

26:38

there's not necessarily the

26:41

matchup off the

26:43

gate with one of these guys that

26:46

they can just go to automatically. So

26:49

it will come down, I think a little

26:51

bit to matchup manipulation. And then

26:53

in either case, whether it is

26:55

Gafford and Lively, or whether it's Go Bear, Towns

26:58

and Reed, how do we get

27:00

these guys away from the basket? How do

27:02

we get them into space? Did

27:05

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27:07

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27:09

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I mean, if we're still playing with, and I

29:17

think we should, which I'm glad you did, the

29:19

kind of fairness of like history being made with

29:21

Minnesota, although it doesn't feel that likely with the

29:23

way Lucas played. But the one thing

29:25

I keep getting to is how important Prazingis

29:27

is in this entire equation. Because

29:29

even though Horford stretches you more

29:32

so than Rudy does, or more so

29:34

than Lively or Gafford ever could, Prazingis

29:37

adds a whole other element to this. And

29:41

that's just going to open up some things

29:43

where when you look at some of the paint

29:45

totals throughout these series, you're just like, look, Oklahoma City

29:47

can't seem to get there. Ants

29:50

turning down, and that's always the burden of the star,

29:52

especially with somebody as dynamic and as athletic as Ant

29:54

is. We're constantly like, how come you can't just get

29:56

to the hoop? How come you just get to the

29:58

hoop? And you'll rewatch it. And you're like, there's a,

30:01

a triangle of humans waiting to

30:03

intercept him. And we

30:06

still want him to go ahead

30:08

and attack. And yet there's a

30:10

big that's always lurking because the

30:12

big you, they can try to stretch it with cat

30:14

a little bit, but cat's been so bad shooting that even when

30:16

he's open, and I think a lot of his looks have actually

30:18

been good throughout the series. They haven't

30:20

had to pay a price for any of that stuff. So I've

30:23

felt like even though the momentum of Dallas

30:25

and playing much better teams in Boston has

30:27

played through their side of the playoffs, as

30:30

I try to figure out like, which way I want to go with this, I

30:33

think it's going to be entirely different with Przingis

30:35

being healthy because it's

30:37

adding this element of somebody you actually, it's

30:40

not just him where he's positioned. You're going

30:42

to have to contest those shots based

30:44

on his three point shooting. And Gaffran

30:46

Lively have not had to do that at all

30:48

because go bear still going to play almost

30:51

40 minutes a night in this series because the

30:54

second he's out, despite my own Rudy stuff where

30:56

I don't love all of it. As

30:58

soon as he came out and I brought this up

31:00

on my pod, look at those minutes to close the

31:02

third quarter. As soon as he was gone in Minnesota

31:04

went small, Jayden Hardy, Kyrie, they were

31:06

like, it's on. It was just

31:08

absolutely like feeding time and how easy they get

31:11

to the rim. And I've seen those possessions happen

31:13

with Luca as well. But I think the Boston

31:15

stretch part adds something in that Oklahoma

31:17

City thought they were going to have with Chet, but

31:20

it just wasn't enough. There weren't enough options.

31:23

Yeah. And I'm not saying it's

31:25

Minnesota's going to pull off the

31:27

inevitable here. But

31:31

you think about, and

31:34

I think this applies to Dallas too. You

31:38

think about the way Boston

31:40

spaces the floor, almost

31:43

always five out, unless they're posting

31:45

up. They'll

31:47

throw a little bit of Drew or Derek in

31:49

the dunker spot after a cut. But

31:52

there's inherently space on this team because

31:54

they're almost always, with the exception of

31:57

Luke Cornette in their normal rotation,

31:59

they're almost always playing. playing five shooters

32:01

at a time. And

32:03

so the Gafford, Lively, Gobert,

32:06

right, them on the floor,

32:09

what is that preventing? It's preventing

32:12

where Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum excelled

32:15

in the Indiana series, which was getting

32:18

to the basket and scoring at the

32:20

rim. Jalen Brown had 50 paint

32:23

points going into game four. He

32:26

was scoring over 16 and

32:28

some of those of course were in transition, but he

32:30

got wherever he wanted in the half court. Tatum,

32:34

the last two games, just put his head

32:36

down, got to the rim, made plays

32:38

out of that. So

32:40

I think to your point about Persingus, and

32:42

I've said this now for the last week,

32:44

his health and him just being at least,

32:48

at the very least, an approximation of who

32:50

he was in the regular season and who he was last

32:52

year with Washington, that to me

32:55

is a real advantage creator for

32:57

the Boston Celtics. The only

32:59

game that these two teams

33:01

played post trade was

33:04

on March 1st, Boston blew

33:06

them out 138, 110. Lively

33:10

and Josh Green were actually in the starting lineup.

33:12

Gafford only played five minutes and Derek Jones Jr.

33:14

only played seven minutes, but Persingus had 24 on

33:16

8 of 14 from the field. So

33:21

I'm going to rewatch the tape over the next week.

33:24

I don't really know that that's

33:26

necessarily a good sort of summation

33:29

of everything, particularly

33:31

because that was right around

33:34

the time when

33:36

Dallas, right before I should

33:38

say, right before Dallas all of a sudden

33:40

became the best defense in the league.

33:43

The last 20 games of the regular season, there's obviously some

33:45

noise, but they were, the stats say

33:47

they were the best defense in the league. And

33:50

you watch them play in the playoffs and you're like,

33:52

Oh, you know, yeah, you have

33:54

Luke and Kyrie this team, their

33:56

identity, it is based on defense.

34:00

the size, the length, Gafford, Washington,

34:02

and Derek Jones Jr. So

34:05

I don't know that there's a whole lot to gain

34:07

from any regular season matchups in that case. Do

34:11

you feel like we're

34:13

just, because I want to quickly touch on

34:16

this, and we have

34:18

no idea what's going to happen tonight, but do you

34:20

feel like there's certainly a

34:22

scenario where we see a game seven in

34:24

this Minnesota Dallas series? I

34:27

do, but I think it's stubbornness. I was

34:29

just so impressed with Minnesota against Phoenix, and the

34:31

way Ant was going at KD, and it was

34:33

fun. We love new. New is the most valuable

34:35

thing ever in sports, because we're all hoping to

34:38

see something we've never seen before, and that's why

34:40

I think, you know, women yama, there's so many

34:42

of us are like, what's actually going to happen

34:44

here? And with Ant, this is all playing out.

34:46

As much as, I think early on, I didn't

34:49

really know what to make of him before

34:51

the draft, JJ. But then

34:53

pretty quick, I was like, wait, have you guys been

34:55

watching this guy? Like this, some of the stuff this

34:57

guy's doing is insane. And then he takes to another

34:59

level. And then this year, like this guy's my favorite

35:02

player to watch. He's my favorite player, you know, which

35:04

is hard to take the belt away from from Steph

35:06

for me. But when I, when

35:08

I started thinking about

35:11

like, am I actually going to

35:13

pick a 22 year old to get out of

35:15

the West as the lead guy? Like,

35:18

am I going to be able to do that? And,

35:21

you know, there was the clutch offense stuff in

35:23

the regular season, which I think is playing out the concerns

35:25

I had about it now. I'm like, Hey, this is kind

35:27

of why you were you were, but you got to pick

35:30

somebody. And we all knew the West was was just so

35:32

deep at the top with all these different scenarios that could

35:34

play out. But for what they did against Denver, whether it

35:36

was the defense in game two, or to come back down

35:38

20 against him in game seven, I'm like, all right, I

35:41

guess I guess it's okay. Like, I guess it's okay to

35:43

go ahead and do this. And the irony of the way

35:45

this series played out is that we

35:47

were wondering if Ant

35:49

could deliver on all these things that are

35:51

so hard to deliver on. Because the normal

35:53

course, the normal timeline for NBA star is

35:56

top draft pick, score

35:58

a bunch of points, make some all. All-star games,

36:01

get your sneaker deal, get the max

36:03

rookie extension. And then it's like year

36:05

six or year seven, you're like, does this guy suck? You

36:07

know, I thought this guy was supposed to be

36:09

good. This guy sucks. Because most, most

36:11

of the guys haven't won by then. And it's just

36:14

like, imagine the way we talk about Giannis right now.

36:16

And the, and the funniest part about the way the

36:18

storylines are played out here is that Luca actually is

36:20

delivering on every expectation we've ever had for a star,

36:22

especially if you were to finish this thing off and

36:25

get a title at this age and with the numbers

36:27

and the fact from day one that he was in

36:29

the playoffs, there was never ever doubt any doubt. Whereas

36:31

when I'm watching and some of these games going, maybe

36:33

it's just not ready. Maybe he's just not ready yet.

36:36

Maybe these are part of the learning process. You

36:38

need to get from all this stuff that Luca

36:40

is actually doing the things I was wondering if

36:42

aunt could do. So yes,

36:45

that's the long way to get to, I'm always

36:48

like wondering when it's going to happen. And the fact

36:50

that we almost had it last year, but I thought Boston

36:52

was so much better than Miami and made a little

36:54

bit more sense. I'm still going to

36:56

be worried about Minnesota's closing prowess, where really, I

36:58

don't know that it was that they were killing

37:00

it on offense as much as Dallas just couldn't

37:02

hit a shot for the first time in the

37:04

series. So it's

37:06

probably because I picked them that I'm leaving the sliver

37:08

of hope, but I don't really believe it. This

37:11

is my question. I was going to ask you,

37:13

having played in a lot of game sevens and

37:15

you look at how close the series is six

37:18

games, six games sevens. I guess that's a lot. That's

37:20

a lot. I would say

37:22

that this is not for you. Why

37:26

has this not happened? Oh,

37:29

um, man,

37:33

do you remember the stat around how

37:35

many teams have actually forced a game

37:37

seven? I

37:40

think Boston did last year. Yeah. Was

37:42

Boston the first to ever do it or

37:45

the maybe the second or third? Like, I feel like

37:47

that's, that's the reason why

37:49

it's getting back to a game seven. Yeah.

37:54

And honestly, you know, Minnesota,

37:57

because of how this whole thing played out.

38:01

In some ways they're set up because they

38:04

get the game seven at home. So

38:07

it's similar to

38:10

when we lost to the Houston Rockets being

38:13

up 3-1. We have to go

38:15

back. Game five's in Houston. Now

38:19

game six it's on us because none

38:21

of us wanted to go back

38:23

to Houston for a one game situation where

38:25

anything can happen. So

38:27

yeah, in some ways it's set

38:29

up to get back to that game seven if

38:32

they can of course take care of business. And

38:34

then you feel, I think you feel a little

38:36

bit of pressure. But

38:39

in 2010 Boston Celtics Conference Finals didn't feel that

38:41

pressure in game six with us trying to come

38:44

back from 3-0 and beat the shit out of

38:46

us. It's

38:49

so hard. Every

38:53

single stage of the playoffs, it

38:55

just becomes harder and harder to

38:57

just win a game, much

38:59

less three games, much less four

39:01

games in a row to a

39:04

team that has already beaten you three

39:06

times. It's just, it's just

39:08

tough. And Ryan, I

39:10

mean, I know you've heard me talk about this.

39:13

I think the

39:15

mental, physical, emotional

39:18

toll of one

39:20

playoff game is so

39:22

high and the

39:25

mental, physical and emotional toll

39:27

of an elimination game is

39:30

even higher. Now let's

39:32

extrapolate that over two, three, four games.

39:35

I think as much as we can sit

39:37

there and digest X and

39:39

O's, I mean, there is an element

39:42

of that, and

39:44

why it's so difficult to come back from down 3-0.

39:47

It's happened four times, just so you guys know. Thanks,

39:50

Jason. Thanks for tuning in. Hey, I'm

39:52

just, I'm just trying to provide some information here. Four

39:55

times. So I think it's, yeah,

39:57

so that means what, like four times out of the

39:59

hundred and fifty? I think we've had a 3-0

40:02

series lead because I was looking at the number the

40:04

other day and it was more than half of them

40:06

ended up being sweeps. So yeah, it

40:08

doesn't, it's not like I

40:10

always have the saying about the playoffs, especially when a

40:12

team I like is down to two, I'll just go,

40:14

Hey, you can't fake desperation. Like you say all the

40:16

right stuff. You can come out of the tunnel. You

40:18

be like, Hey, look, don't even let them breathe. Don't

40:20

even let them breathe. But the team up to Oh,

40:23

cannot match the desperation of the team that is down

40:25

to two, but then

40:27

to say, okay, let's gear it up

40:29

again. Let's match our desperation that we

40:31

had yesterday. And I just love your

40:34

point because for all the projections

40:36

and this guy does this, so that means he's going to

40:38

do this. And there's just a lot of

40:40

players who I really like in their first run through the playoffs.

40:42

I'm like, he doesn't want the ball right now. Like there was

40:44

no number that was ever going to predict this. This guy does

40:46

not want the ball right now. And this is a really tough

40:48

spot for them. And I think

40:51

we forget because it's not as physical as

40:53

say football or hockey. We forget just how

40:55

hard it is, how hard the

40:57

playoffs are. And to keep this going through two months. Do

41:00

you think the, you mentioned the mental stress

41:02

of winning a single playoff game. Do you

41:04

think with where we are

41:07

in this 24 hour, 24 seven

41:10

news climate of you win a game for

41:12

you're the hero, you lose the game five,

41:14

you're a choker, you're a disgrace. You win

41:16

game six, you're back. Do you think it's

41:18

gotten worse? Yeah.

41:20

Yes. But if

41:24

you want to tune in this month's

41:27

episode of islands in the league

41:29

presented by DraftKings Sports, Sportsbook, our

41:32

exclusive YouTube video series, I

41:34

touch on this very topic, Tommy. I

41:37

will leave it at that because we need people

41:39

to watch that. What do you think? What do

41:41

you think? We

41:43

always talk in the office over here about just

41:45

like what's on first take, what's trending, but it

41:47

was, I saw it a lot. For example, in

41:49

the Pacers Nick series where it

41:51

is depending on what happened in that

41:53

series, you're like, Oh, the Pacers

41:56

are historical chokers. And then they go and they win

41:58

game seven and then they're heroes again. You

42:00

know and then they go lose game one in Boston. They

42:02

blow game one in Boston and then their token It's like

42:04

it's so some of it is just blocking out the noise

42:07

But do you think that is just as it not

42:09

even just as a player but somebody involved with a

42:11

team and an organization At a certain

42:13

point it becomes just like let these things play out a

42:15

little bit Well

42:17

somebody who did the job every single day for a really

42:20

long time I can tell you the let things play out

42:22

doesn't work when you have three hours to fill every single

42:24

day Just done it, you know

42:26

at college football we get this first committee rankings and

42:28

people are like beside themselves You're like, okay, but all

42:30

these teams are gonna play each other. But

42:33

yeah, where's your segment though? Right, so I've made the

42:35

joke that I think like Monday after Super Bowl We

42:37

shouldn't be allowed to be on the air because

42:40

that's when we're absolute dumbest because

42:43

No one would ever say like if you weren't get up for first

42:46

take and you said Coming up or like

42:48

hey this team won the championship and why I think

42:50

they're the eighth best team I've ever seen People

42:53

be like what I would eighth best

42:55

team You have to say you

42:57

have to say maybe the best team ever That's why

42:59

I always joke like after team wins

43:01

a championship. I just send out a constant tweet.

43:03

They'll be like safe to say Atlanta

43:07

Braves best baby for all team of all time and then people like

43:09

don't get the joke and I just do it every time Cuz I'm

43:11

just making fun of how how ridiculous it is

43:13

Like when Joe Flacco turned into Joe Montana for four

43:15

games and van Pelt and I were arguing all the

43:18

time because I was like I don't think black goes

43:20

that good. I can't believe people think this guy's better

43:22

than Matt Ryan Most of the time it's just the

43:24

defense and then he lights it up four straight games

43:26

van Pelt comes in being like See,

43:29

are you ready to retract what you said? I'm like, I don't

43:31

know I still think he's pretty average to be honest with you

43:33

and it was like the Monday after he just won a Super

43:35

Bowl and people think I'm the asshole and I

43:38

don't think the job like allows you

43:40

like if Luca wins the entire thing

43:44

No one's gonna be allowed to say yo catch his best player

43:46

in the world. I'm gonna say it I'm just

43:48

gonna be like yeah, Lucas awesome. I had him to

43:50

an MVP voting I think he's the second best guy

43:52

in the world out of the 8 million people. I

43:54

think there's only one person better than him That's still

43:56

a pretty high ranking, but it's like what are

43:58

you doing? He just won a title the other guys

44:00

at home, you can't possibly see that. So I

44:02

don't ever remember it being this, like,

44:06

we just turn the page so fast on

44:08

this stuff, because you almost feel like you're

44:11

the idiot for holding on

44:13

to the stubbornness of your position, where I

44:15

just don't think we should be updating who

44:17

the best player in the world is every

44:19

single year. I don't think it changes hands

44:21

that many times. I

44:23

agree with you on that. And, you

44:26

know, in particular, if you,

44:28

if you want to just every year,

44:31

make the blanket statement that the best player on the

44:33

best team is the best player in the world, just

44:35

be consistent with that. I have no problem with that.

44:37

If you're just going to change your mind every year,

44:40

based on who the best player on the best team is,

44:42

that's fine. But unfortunately, like, this is

44:44

a, this is a team sport. And,

44:47

and so much is required of

44:49

everyone, you know, coaching staff, role

44:53

players, the second star. It's,

44:57

it's, it's hard to

44:59

just change every

45:01

two or three months based on

45:03

what is happening around the league. I

45:06

think it's not clear. I don't want

45:08

to use the word clear because my words

45:10

get so misconstrued. I think it's clear, though,

45:12

that there is a is a different tier

45:15

of player. Right. And,

45:17

and in general, it feels like there's

45:19

two to four guys year to year

45:21

that are just different. Maybe

45:24

some years it's one or two. I don't know. You

45:27

know, I think some years it is like, Oh, and

45:29

I really think about it. There have been years where

45:31

I go, I think there's three guys that give you

45:33

a real chance and the rest all have to worry

45:35

about everyone else. That's how special I think that group

45:37

is and why, you know, I was talking to a

45:39

coach this week, right? And we were talking about the

45:41

Western Conference Finals and he goes, look, man, sometimes it's

45:43

just simple. He's like, when your guy's better than

45:45

their best guy. And,

45:48

and that's what this has been. Yeah. But,

45:50

but so, so I, and I'm glad you

45:52

brought up that, that statement

45:55

because I think everybody's

45:58

talking about the passing of the team. torch and you,

46:00

you know, you brought up SGA, you brought up Anthony

46:03

Edwards. We've talked about Luca, we've talked about

46:05

yoga. She brought up Giannis, right? You

46:08

know, I think having

46:11

that one or two,

46:14

the first or second best player in the world, I

46:17

think it matters less than it has in any other

46:19

point in time. I think

46:21

the depth of good teams, not

46:23

going to say great teams, but the depth of

46:25

good teams and the, the,

46:28

um, talent

46:30

being spread out across multiple

46:32

teams. And they're

46:34

being, I mean, you go down the

46:36

list of guys in the conference finals right

46:39

now, the, the amount

46:41

of really good, like guys

46:45

with stones, role players

46:48

that are able to impact in the playoffs, it

46:50

just feels like there's a lot of them. And

46:52

so the old adage

46:54

of like, well, who's the, who's the best player

46:57

in the series? That's who I'm picking that team.

46:59

I just, I don't, it doesn't feel that way

47:02

to me anymore. It doesn't otherwise

47:04

Denver would have beat Minnesota. They

47:07

would have, yeah, that's not, that's not, I just

47:09

don't feel that way about the NBA anymore. I

47:12

think you need to have a team

47:15

and you need every single guy

47:18

within reason to be good, to beat

47:21

another team at this stage of the playoffs in the NBA. I

47:24

don't think you can get away with like, Hey, we got two or three

47:26

guys and we got fucking, we got four holes,

47:29

but you know what? Our two or three guys are so

47:31

damn good. We can fill the holes. I just don't think

47:33

you can do that anymore. Well,

47:35

this would be a bad example to say

47:37

that you're wrong this season because the depth

47:39

and the way the role players have just

47:42

stepped up for Dallas where you're like, what

47:44

like, okay, all of a sudden PJ Washington

47:46

is me garden SGA. And he's

47:48

going to make all these shots through stretch. I know he's

47:50

been struggling with this series compared to the thunder one, but

47:53

then you get there at Jones defensively

47:55

and a rookie and lively, like makes

47:57

these amazing reads off the Luca double

47:59

teams, like How is this all happening

48:01

at the exact same time where the Boston

48:03

depth? There's just more familiarity with what they

48:05

have and then Minnesota You just

48:07

go through the list, but maybe we'll get to cat a

48:09

little bit later. Uh Okay,

48:12

so so maybe this is the year or maybe this

48:14

is a transition with the second aper coming into the

48:16

NBA that you actually Have to be smarter around the

48:19

edges than you have to be of just blindly putting

48:21

talent together Because right. Hold on one

48:23

second because I want to be clear I'm

48:26

not saying that this is the first year and

48:28

i'm not saying this has been a long time

48:30

tread I I think

48:32

i'm saying exactly what you're saying, which

48:34

was the league was headed this way

48:36

It was trending this way and this

48:39

year is the perfect example of what

48:41

I think will be the case going

48:43

forward I'm glad you brought the second

48:45

apron. Please please continue, but I think I think we're

48:47

agreeing here on what we're saying Yeah,

48:49

right because we had an arms

48:51

race in the NBA for like a decade Okay,

48:54

and it starts with Miami and Lebron And

48:57

then that transition to the Golden State

48:59

where the second Version

49:01

of them with the rant and then you have like okay.

49:03

So what am I doing here? Like I know everybody likes

49:05

laughing at the nets 29 other

49:08

GMs would have done that they would have been like

49:10

wait, so I get Kyrie and Katie Okay

49:13

like done um I

49:15

think Every other GM

49:17

would have done the debate was trading Jared

49:19

Allen Wait the

49:21

mixtape. Yeah, the Jared Allen part of that like that

49:23

was right that But

49:26

seriously, that was that's the guy we're gonna play Yeah,

49:29

you get you get at that stage in time you

49:31

get Kevin Duran and Kyrie every single time Every

49:33

single so like we can look at the

49:35

s the sga transaction and go wait What

49:38

did they do? You're really okay. So just so we're on the same

49:40

page You're the GM you're sitting there

49:42

with your owner and you go Okay So if

49:44

we traded these guys and like we do really

49:46

like sga hell we drafted them and it's a

49:48

lot of picks There's a lot of risk involved, but

49:51

this means we're going to get Paul George and

49:53

Kawhi Leonard We're going to have them on our team

49:55

holding up uniforms at the presser tomorrow You

49:57

do it. So whenever

50:00

Pick up Wilde. You know, the market

50:02

for theory was terrible. There's still a team when

50:04

they get nine figures because of the talent in

50:06

the hope and they were kind of not was

50:09

all and it wasn't some massive price they paid

50:11

for him, but I work on a talking this

50:13

out not so much. Disagreeing is I'm wondering if.

50:16

Like. Whenever I think about all the times

50:18

I've talked to General managers. And.

50:20

It just a false to like. Yeah.

50:22

The Crisis way better but it was kind

50:24

of my father. Clipper series in the beginning

50:26

against Dallas were like carries gone off so

50:29

that is a be a good bet. Hard

50:31

had actually a couple moments their of the

50:33

it wasn't It wasn't consistent throughout the classes

50:35

be understand Hards resume but it was. It.

50:38

Was a oh wait, this is why everybody

50:40

still keeps trading for these guys. and maybe

50:42

we'll throw a three year deal at one

50:44

of them for knife or ninety to one

50:46

hundred million dollars because. They're. That hard

50:48

to get even if some of the games are

50:50

talking about are flawed so I don't know afford

50:52

a transition worked with the league actually start saying

50:55

like i know that guy's way better but I

50:57

want fits and I need to be better with

50:59

my fists because of the second able. To.

51:02

Do you guys think in this is the sort of adding

51:04

I know what you're saying like the gaffer pick up. Around

51:06

the deadline we talked about these things even

51:08

dare jones like when when they brought their

51:10

guns and. That's. Adding you have

51:12

the guy and Luca you have the other guy

51:15

in carry. But it's adding these pieces that anyone

51:17

could have traded for Gaffer. Anybody

51:19

could assign directors in your so it's

51:21

so that that's it. That's good management.

51:24

That's. Like Nico. That's Nico. Finding this gonna be

51:26

like they sit with our star yeah I think

51:28

to Rinds point I think it is and seats.

51:31

Were. We were and I'm not saying

51:33

I'm not saying this is gonna be

51:36

definitive to the end of time of

51:38

the Nbs but where we know we

51:40

were in a cycle. Of if

51:42

you have the opportunity. To. Go

51:44

get. A top ten top

51:46

fifteen player. You. Do it every time

51:48

and you don't worry about your depth and you just. We.

51:51

Just do it and you figure out the wrestling.

51:54

Why? Think what we're saying is and Phoenix is

51:56

a great example of this, right? This.

51:58

year i think what we're saying is, is

52:01

that you, you probably at this

52:03

stage and going forward, if you look

52:05

at, uh, basically

52:08

all of the teams now that

52:11

have had success this year in the playoffs,

52:13

I don't think I'm, you

52:15

know, I don't think I'm missing anybody that made the second

52:17

round here. They all have young

52:19

stars. They all have great

52:21

role players under contract, right?

52:24

They all have, I think all of them

52:26

have most of their, if not all of their

52:28

draft picks, or at least have some flexibility. So

52:31

the roster building now is not just

52:33

a, you know, throw the

52:35

kitchen sink at a top 10 to 15 player

52:38

and worry about the rest later. I mean,

52:41

to me, if we're going to talk value now,

52:43

it's like, how do you, how do you hit

52:45

on the minimum guys? How do

52:47

you find, you know, this is every

52:49

year for since whenever, but how do

52:51

you find rotation level players after the

52:53

lottery? And then

52:55

it's like, what do you value your

52:58

role players as? What are the Nick's

53:00

value? Hartenstein has this summer, right?

53:04

That's our, that's a key

53:06

piece for them. And he's, he's going

53:08

to be wanted by, by

53:10

some teams on, on the market. If

53:13

I'm, if I'm the Detroit Pistons, yeah,

53:16

I would like that guy on my team. I

53:18

would like that guy on my team. So

53:20

that's, that's kind of how I'm, I'm just, that's kind of

53:22

how I'm looking at it. I'm spitballing here, but that's how

53:25

I'm looking at it. Yeah.

53:27

My thing with role guys, and this

53:29

was something I think was lost on some of

53:31

the rebuilds that we had and maybe some of

53:33

the more analytically driven front offices. And I'd probably

53:35

bring up Hinky as a prime example of this.

53:39

But these are just the lessons that I've

53:41

been taught over 20 years ago in

53:43

a draft camps and the combine and everything and being

53:45

lucky enough to get to know a lot of these

53:47

guys that do it for a living. But they're like,

53:49

if you have 15 guys that

53:51

are all young to

53:53

fit your rebuild timeline

53:56

and JJ knows this as well.

53:58

Somebody who's drafted 20. He thinks he's going to

54:00

be a Hall of Famer. He

54:04

doesn't think like, Hey, maybe I'll get minutes

54:06

in the right matchup here. It takes you

54:08

a little while, like any profession, but this

54:10

one's cooler to get kind of those

54:12

professional scars to go, Oh wait, maybe everything doesn't

54:14

really work out for me and I've got to

54:16

kind of find my role. You

54:18

need to have, you know, 10 guys,

54:20

eight that know they're playing four

54:22

or five that know they're never playing. And with some

54:24

of these rebuild teams are just like, Oh, talent, talent,

54:26

talent. And maybe we'll strike on this guy or bring

54:29

this guy from the G that gets like, you can't

54:31

have your entire roster being guys that don't know what

54:33

their NBA reality is right now. And

54:35

when I look at role players or projecting, okay,

54:37

what if Donovan Mitchell goes here again, I'm not

54:39

calling Mitchell a role player, but I'm like, okay,

54:42

I need role players to compliment each other, not

54:44

getting each other's way and not overlap. And it's

54:47

the same thing for the stars. And

54:49

when I look at Dallas, like Derek

54:51

Jones, Jr. is on this 15 PJ

54:54

Washington got to come home. Lively's

54:56

too young to be mad about a gafford.

54:59

Platoon like Josh green, who every

55:01

time I see him in the game, I feel like he's

55:03

impacting the game in the right way. I need to add

55:05

in the Jaden Hardy out of all people who

55:07

was, you know, the old Eddie house scattering

55:09

report joke won't shoot unless he has the

55:11

basketball. Like Hardy was that guy in

55:14

the G league. And even with his athleticism, like,

55:16

dude, I don't know. Can this guy be rained

55:18

in at all? It's,

55:20

it's part talent, but it's also

55:22

a big part

55:24

of this is your personality makeup for

55:27

accepting that, Hey, I may never dribble now

55:29

the rest of my career. I'm never going

55:32

to be allowed to like create off the

55:34

dribble. And in some of

55:36

these, these, these roster

55:38

turnovers, I think people

55:40

lose sight of that, or maybe they had for awhile,

55:42

because I think a lot of teams are just like,

55:45

Hey, cool, we have all 19 to 22 year olds

55:47

because we're young and we're finding talent and we're going

55:49

to rebuild it. Yeah. But you have 15 guys that

55:51

all think they're supposed to be the first option. Here's

55:54

a question I have for, cause you brought them up earlier and, and I

55:56

mean, I mean this

55:58

question in a very positive way. Where do

56:01

you think Carl Anthony Towns has

56:03

grown in that regard? Because

56:05

it felt like to me this

56:07

year it was a little bit of

56:09

letting go of sort

56:12

of being the guy, recognizing that

56:14

Ant is the guy, recognizing I

56:16

can still have a starring role

56:18

just in a slightly different way.

56:22

Where do you think he grew the most this year

56:24

as a player? It's probably the

56:26

only thing I like about him as a player. That

56:31

the Ant part of it was undeniable. Like

56:33

he had to. I remember Dwayne Wade and I

56:35

brought this up a few times, but when LeBron

56:37

got down there and then it was like this whole

56:39

idea after they lost to Dallas that Wade had to

56:41

relinquish the team to LeBron

56:44

and let it be LeBron's team. I think Wade

56:46

did like seven different interviews where he was like,

56:48

you know, and I let LeBron. He was like,

56:50

dude, he's better than you. Okay, Dwayne Wade's awesome.

56:52

But guess what? LeBron's like arguably one

56:55

of the three best guys that have ever played

56:57

this game. So I think it's probably smart for

56:59

whatever hierarchy you think you have on this team

57:01

to let it be his. So

57:04

I don't know how Kat, I mean Kat could have gotten

57:06

more in the way, but I don't know

57:08

how you feel about this. I find Kat

57:10

incredibly frustrating. Okay. The

57:13

level of of plays

57:15

that just are so dumb. They

57:18

keep through an entry pass to Rudy Goveira with 2.5 seconds

57:20

left in the shot clock in game four. You're

57:22

like, dude, what are you doing? And then Rudy's over

57:24

there trying to do some McKeem Elijah on workout video

57:27

and guess what? The shot didn't get off in time.

57:30

The fouls where he decides to just reach

57:32

50 feet away from the hoop where

57:35

I thought Kat's defense against Jokic with

57:37

Gobert floating, depending on which game

57:39

you're getting for Aaron Gordon is the entire reason, even though

57:41

Jokic still put up huge numbers and I still think his

57:43

third quarter game five is like one of the best basketball

57:45

moments I've ever seen. Those

57:48

parts from Kat were like, hey, this this

57:50

is Kat like finding ways to impact the

57:52

game, but it's not just his missed shots.

57:54

That's frustrating the drives like he

57:56

never seemed to understand that he couldn't

57:58

drive against Derek Lively. The only

58:00

time he figured out he could like finally lively

58:02

gets hurt. It's like, Oh wait, he's not there

58:04

anymore. So I don't think he understands

58:06

or sees the game. I think he was somebody

58:09

that was the top pick that made some all-star

58:11

teams that had a little bit of shine when

58:13

they did the GM survey. They actually start one

58:15

year. He won. Who would you start your

58:17

franchise with? Towns was the first

58:19

overall pick of anyone in the league to just

58:21

read her eyes that sometimes GMs can get it

58:23

wrong just like the rest of us. But

58:28

I, I don't, I gotta go ahead. I

58:31

gotta Google that. Why? You don't

58:33

think that's true? I will bet you any

58:35

amount of money. Don't remember that. I'm

58:38

Googling it right now. Keep going.

58:42

I think he's kind of one of those

58:44

guys with like an opportunity all-star where you're like,

58:47

wow, look at these huge numbers. And you go, okay,

58:49

but why is he getting those? It's like, well, maybe

58:52

because he was the first pick and he is skilled

58:54

and he's going to get to take 20 plus shots

58:56

and they're not going to win that many games. And

58:59

they had tried that. And now

59:01

Ant comes along where I didn't think he

59:03

was going to be this. I mean, this is incredible what he's

59:05

going to become and who knows what it ends up being at

59:08

the end of it. So I know

59:10

there's, there's like a bit of a, like the deeper

59:12

you go in the playoffs, there's this happening with Kyrie

59:14

too. It's like, hey, everybody, you know,

59:17

whenever somebody says like the, the apology needs to be

59:19

allowed as a criticism. Whenever I hear that, I'm like,

59:21

okay, a terrible point is about to be made, you

59:24

know, or I'll see a tweet that's like for the people

59:26

in the back, I'm like, okay, awful take incoming here. I

59:31

don't really, maybe, maybe I'm just being too negative

59:33

about it. I don't see it the same way

59:35

that I have to sit here and go like,

59:37

man, congrats to him for adjusting his role when

59:39

it's like, you're not good enough. But Ant aside,

59:41

don't you think he also deserves credit for meshing

59:43

with Rudy? Because that was a big, when

59:45

they, when they made the trade, it feels like, it feels like that

59:47

was the bigger question than even anything with

59:49

Ant. It's like, how are these guys going to fit?

59:51

And they have been able to figure it out. line

1:00:00

protection against the rim. It was terrible. So

1:00:03

luckily, offensively, he's skilled

1:00:06

enough, maybe the best big man

1:00:08

shooter ever stuff just I got so sick of hearing

1:00:10

it. So you take four threes a game, Derek and

1:00:12

Katie are huge. They're better shooters than you and they're

1:00:14

more of a rounded shooters than you. So

1:00:17

it's not even close. I

1:00:20

don't I just seems weird to

1:00:22

me guys. And I know I'm in

1:00:25

the minority on this one, but it just seems

1:00:27

weird to be like, Oh, so cause you're not

1:00:29

as good as the other guy. And you screw

1:00:31

up all the time that I'm

1:00:33

supposed to praise you for just taking less

1:00:35

shots and letting the guy who's clearly way better

1:00:37

than you be the face of the franchise.

1:00:39

This is all I think ant ant

1:00:42

letting chat like be cool with it

1:00:44

sitting there at the podium. Like

1:00:46

to me, ant's personality, that guy should be

1:00:49

a conflict resolution guy. That

1:00:51

guy on planes around the amazing. You

1:00:53

say that I was thinking that after,

1:00:55

after the last press conference, every

1:00:57

press conference, he gives credit to a different

1:00:59

teammate. Every time he finds, he

1:01:02

finds like a team and he hasn't talked about yet

1:01:04

to talk positively about. This

1:01:07

is before I paid attention to this

1:01:09

stuff. So you were right, Rucillo, it

1:01:11

was nba.com did a survey of GM's

1:01:13

and this was after Carl and Tain Town's rookie

1:01:16

year. And he got the most votes. He was

1:01:18

at 48% of the GM surveyed

1:01:21

would take him. Number one, Kevin

1:01:23

Durant was 20% and

1:01:25

LeBron was 17%. Now,

1:01:28

if you think we could redo this in

1:01:31

2016, knowing that we'd still

1:01:33

get these eight

1:01:35

years of LeBron, I think, you know, we'd probably

1:01:37

get some Yocach votes in there as well. I

1:01:40

think that was, I want to say that was

1:01:42

after Yocach's rookie year too. I can't remember where he came

1:01:45

in. We're all juggling so many

1:01:47

different things these days that it can be

1:01:49

hard to find time to catch up as

1:01:51

much as we used to. I have close

1:01:53

friends. I've been meaning to grab dinner with

1:01:55

for months and then things get busy, busy

1:01:57

with work, family, travel, and of course, for

1:01:59

me, golf. And then somehow that

1:02:01

dinner never happens. We've all been there, but

1:02:03

staying connected even in small ways is really

1:02:06

important to me That's why of

1:02:08

all the apps in the world Instagram

1:02:10

is the one I like most I

1:02:12

specifically love the close friends feature because

1:02:14

it allows me to stay intimately connected

1:02:16

with friends family old teammates and it

1:02:18

stays Just between us especially

1:02:20

when I'm away close friends really helps me

1:02:22

close the distance between me and my friends

1:02:24

and family I can send my favorite pics

1:02:27

to family from court side calling games or

1:02:29

inside jokes to old teammates without anyone else

1:02:31

seeing it Another Instagram feature I love is

1:02:33

resharing reels sending reels back and forth with

1:02:35

my friends and family is a great way

1:02:37

to stay in touch and have A good

1:02:39

laugh. It's almost like its own language of

1:02:41

connection. I know you know the

1:02:43

feeling finding that perfect real You just know

1:02:46

your friend will laugh at it's their exact

1:02:48

sense of humor or sending your

1:02:50

buddy a real with a game highlight from Their favorite

1:02:52

player. It's a great way to bond and show the

1:02:54

people you care about that you're thinking of them I

1:02:57

just love that there's a place on Instagram to

1:02:59

share things with people you're closest with in

1:03:01

our busy busy world Hey,

1:03:04

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1:03:36

quick because I want to get to the draft I I

1:03:40

don't know how to say this in like a coherent

1:03:43

way, but everyone

1:03:45

knows I love Derek white and If

1:03:49

you were sort of taking all

1:03:51

the stars and I mean the stars that impact

1:03:53

winning not the guys that put up empty stats

1:03:55

If you take all the stars where you say

1:03:57

hey if that guy is my one or two

1:04:01

Uh, I feel like I have a chance to win. If

1:04:03

you took all of them and you, you placed them in

1:04:06

a bucket and then you said, all right,

1:04:08

what player do you want now? I'm

1:04:11

picking Derek white. I don't fucking

1:04:13

care who the stars are. I'm picking Derek

1:04:15

white. I think he's that impactful.

1:04:17

I think he's that good. You

1:04:20

bring up the personality stuff. This dude

1:04:22

is just normal, man. He just can fit on

1:04:24

any team. He impacts winning. He

1:04:26

doesn't need the ball. He can play with the

1:04:28

ball. He can spot up. They

1:04:30

run their late game offense with

1:04:33

him and he's got Jason

1:04:35

Tatum and Jalen Brown on the team. Like he's

1:04:37

an awesome player and I'm, I'm

1:04:40

like racking my brain here. And you just,

1:04:42

you have such a better sort of historical,

1:04:45

um, knowledge than I do.

1:04:48

But is there a

1:04:50

historical comparison to

1:04:52

Derek white when we think about guys

1:04:55

that weren't all NBA guys that weren't all

1:04:57

stars, but they were on

1:04:59

really good teams and you're like,

1:05:01

fuck that guy was the

1:05:03

difference or could, or could be the

1:05:05

difference between championship and, and, and

1:05:08

by the way, a star player's legacy. Like

1:05:10

that's how good I think Derek white is. Okay.

1:05:15

Um, I had

1:05:17

a name, but I felt like I had

1:05:19

to look up what

1:05:21

his stats were because the

1:05:24

all-star part of this is going to eliminate like some

1:05:26

of the names and I'm thinking of, right?

1:05:29

So it has to be somebody who doesn't even make

1:05:31

an all-star team. Tell me who the name. No,

1:05:34

I was thinking about Joe Dumars, but

1:05:37

Dumars is historically certainly more high profile

1:05:39

than Derek white is at this point.

1:05:41

I mean, the problem for Derek white

1:05:43

is that he's just next to these,

1:05:45

these other two guys that are going

1:05:47

to be perennial all-stars. So

1:05:51

when you, okay, let me, let me think about it in a

1:05:53

second, but I want to ask you this though, and then I'll

1:05:55

come back around to it when you said normal, what

1:05:58

percentage when you thought about your playing

1:06:00

days like, Hey, this guy's normal.

1:06:02

What was that number at on

1:06:05

each team? Like this guy's just normal. He's totally

1:06:07

cool with all of it. Shows up to work,

1:06:09

wants to do a good job, does the right

1:06:11

things, isn't distraction, doesn't have bad energy. What's that

1:06:13

number at of a 15 guys in a roster?

1:06:15

On average. Yeah, I

1:06:18

put it at 20%. Three out of 15. Were

1:06:21

you normal? Some years. Here's

1:06:28

the thing though. I'm a, I'm a,

1:06:30

I'm a admitted psychopath. Like I'm a

1:06:32

sick, sick human. There's an

1:06:35

article written about him being a psychopath.

1:06:37

While helping. I think

1:06:39

I learned. And I

1:06:41

learned early, by the way, I learned after

1:06:44

like a year and a half close to the

1:06:47

end of year two, like I learned how to

1:06:49

be the same guy every day. I

1:06:51

learned the value in consistency of

1:06:54

attitude. And like, if,

1:06:56

if the best teams, the best

1:06:59

organizations, the, like, do you want to

1:07:01

go to work today? How

1:07:03

many, the answer to that question often is

1:07:05

how many people in the practice

1:07:07

facility, how many people that ride the team bus, how many people that

1:07:09

ride the team play, how many people that are in the locker room,

1:07:11

how many of those people are the same people

1:07:13

every day? If

1:07:16

the answer is, well, the vast majority of the same

1:07:18

guys every day, Hey, it's going to be a great

1:07:20

day of work. I can't, I, it's going to be

1:07:22

a great experience. This group will be a great experience.

1:07:24

So I learned, I had to learn how to do

1:07:26

that. And

1:07:28

it took, it took, let's say call it two years, but

1:07:31

I would say, I would say it's like three

1:07:33

or four on a team that are just like, like

1:07:36

Drew's normal. That's the thing with, like, Joe said

1:07:38

this after the game, when I,

1:07:40

which I found really actually just cool. And

1:07:42

he was just like, you know, Joe, of

1:07:44

course credited his

1:07:46

staff, credit the organization, but

1:07:49

he said, like, this is just a

1:07:51

great group. I talked to some, you know, some of their

1:07:53

assistants were with me and Philly. I'd talk to them all

1:07:55

the time. And they're like, dude, this is like, this

1:07:57

is not real. Willie Green used to say that. About

1:08:00

when he was with the Warriors. He's like, this is not

1:08:02

real, you know, because we have stuff we

1:08:04

have stuff And if you have

1:08:06

those guys that are just normal

1:08:08

that are great in the locker room that

1:08:10

are great every day at practice That are

1:08:12

great in the games that are not over

1:08:14

reactionary to every single thing It

1:08:17

makes the experience for everyone better. It just does

1:08:20

So I haven't been talking for both you

1:08:23

guys because I'm curious You

1:08:25

were his teammate and roommate in

1:08:27

New Orleans But Drew's

1:08:29

perception before he got to Milwaukee

1:08:31

obviously before the championship before Team

1:08:33

USA He was a max

1:08:35

guy so he was getting paid like a superstar

1:08:38

but do you think that he would fit into a Version

1:08:41

of what you're talking about in terms of his We

1:08:44

used to always talk about like every every player would

1:08:46

come on the show and say drew holidays the best

1:08:48

defender in the League and that just would happen would

1:08:50

be the first two months of the show that was

1:08:52

like a constant thing But do you feel like he

1:08:54

was there were similarities there in terms of

1:08:56

what you're describing? With him when

1:08:58

he got to Milwaukee With

1:09:00

what Derek is sort of doing for Boston now. Yeah,

1:09:03

I get what you're saying. And yeah, that's that's

1:09:05

accurate I mean, that's another another

1:09:07

guy that's just normal and and is a

1:09:10

pleasure to be around every day And

1:09:15

you know you think about Those

1:09:18

those situations so we'll just say Boston

1:09:20

for instance With the

1:09:22

expectations they have Milwaukee with the expectations anytime

1:09:24

you have Giannis on your team there's gonna

1:09:26

be expectations the impact of

1:09:29

normalcy and even

1:09:31

keeled and The

1:09:33

the same attitude in the same person every

1:09:36

day. It's enormous. It's enormous for sure. Who's

1:09:38

your name? Are you got somebody for me? Yeah,

1:09:41

cuz if we're going active right now Because

1:09:44

I thought that would be just better to play it out

1:09:46

that way and so just kind of looking up like oh,

1:09:49

hey You know, it's Kevin Willis We

1:09:51

throw him in the mix just showing up

1:09:54

battling for rebounds Jack before Jack was

1:09:56

even cool But I think

1:09:58

the list of players like I love Lou

1:10:00

Dorff. I love Lou Dorff. I love

1:10:02

what he's turned himself into. It

1:10:04

was an interesting guy because he was like a

1:10:06

big time recruit, but then it was like, Oh,

1:10:08

well, I don't think he's that much of a

1:10:11

prospect. And then you just know, like he's going

1:10:13

to figure it out and he's become even more

1:10:15

valuable. And I think in a weird way, like

1:10:17

I respect him even more, even with Lucas output

1:10:19

in that series, he just made it harder. He's

1:10:21

stouter and made it harder as opposed to Jaden,

1:10:23

who we all love as a defensive player, just

1:10:25

doesn't have the girth to slow down some of

1:10:27

that stuff that's happening in the high pick and

1:10:29

roll. But Dora can't run an

1:10:31

offense. So advantage, Derek white.

1:10:34

I love Josh Hart. I

1:10:36

love Josh Hart. Everybody should want a Josh Hart.

1:10:39

Everybody should want a Josh Hart. I love TJ McConnell.

1:10:41

There's another guy, but I

1:10:44

don't know. I don't know that Derek white has like,

1:10:47

this is the thing with Derek. I don't know that he has a major

1:10:50

flaw in his game. Does

1:10:54

that make sense? Relatives to some of

1:10:56

the other guys we're talking about. Yeah. Where's

1:10:58

like, I would even there's stuff. There's

1:11:00

stars Ryan with major flaws in their game,

1:11:02

in their game. There's

1:11:06

actually guys that have made all NBA the last

1:11:08

two years that have flaws in their game. I

1:11:10

don't know that Derek white has like a flaw

1:11:12

in his game. I

1:11:15

mean, the only thing I can think about is

1:11:17

certain times, I think sometimes defensively, he's so good.

1:11:19

He's so good with the blocks that then it

1:11:21

will be assigned to somebody that physically you're just

1:11:23

like, okay, well, this is just unfair, but that

1:11:25

would be unfair for anybody. So then like, what

1:11:27

are we even talking about? There's some, there's some

1:11:29

uprightness, some uprightness sometimes he, you know, I, he's

1:11:32

so good at the recovery part. You

1:11:35

know, the back taps from behind the blocks from behind.

1:11:38

The path that he broke up that you mentioned on

1:11:40

the call, like he had had a block earlier,

1:11:42

and then there was another play to the baseline where

1:11:44

he like reached back where you thought he was completely

1:11:46

beat, but he was still aware of what was going

1:11:48

on behind him and then just reaches up and deflects

1:11:50

this pass that would have been an easy two points.

1:11:52

And it was like a perfect read. And you couldn't

1:11:54

even believe as you watched it live. And I was

1:11:56

glad you kind of like caught my attention. Keep doing

1:11:58

that stuff. That stuff's really good. where you're like, Hey,

1:12:00

do you realize how special that is? Oh, that

1:12:02

was the OB Toppin that he broke up the OB

1:12:05

Toppin. Yeah. There's not, there's, I mean, there's very

1:12:07

few players in the NBA period. And there's, I don't know

1:12:09

that there's many guards that can make that play. Cause

1:12:12

most guards or most anyone in the league would

1:12:14

have just been like, okay, well I showed and

1:12:16

now, you know, I got beat on this one.

1:12:18

I think it was in the, it was a

1:12:20

veer switch late. He tried to peel it. He

1:12:23

got behind the five top and made a

1:12:25

perfectly time France cut from the corner. That

1:12:27

two on one situation that golden state runs

1:12:30

so well, or that Yokich throws to Gordon

1:12:32

so well in that dunker spot. And

1:12:35

it's like, holy shit. You just stayed

1:12:37

in the play and special special.

1:12:39

Is that a hammer or horns? Um,

1:12:43

I'm kidding. I

1:12:45

think it was just a normal, I think enroll. We're

1:12:48

going to get into some horn stuff at four

1:12:50

o'clock today. Boston V2, Boston horns to set. It's

1:12:53

my favorite thing they run. Um,

1:12:56

Ryan, let's do the draft before we begin. We

1:12:58

wanted to give a shout out to new era,

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see Tommy and my favorites, we've got some

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new era caps behind Tommy, Tommy's wearing a

1:13:29

new air cap. And I believe you are

1:13:31

wearing a alpha industries new era. All new

1:13:33

era. You're just

1:13:36

new arid out today. I

1:13:38

had to take care of other sponsors. BSW with

1:13:40

my hoodies. Ryan

1:13:42

loves my hoodie. By the way, you love

1:13:45

your hoodies. You're pretty classy. All

1:13:48

right. We are drafting a

1:13:50

best Boston things, Boston things,

1:13:52

Boston, Boston sinks, period. All

1:13:55

right. So you start. Uh,

1:13:58

easy. I mean, this is Shaq. fantasy back

1:14:00

in the day. Good. Will hunting smartest kid in the world.

1:14:02

What's up? That's

1:14:04

your first pick. Will

1:14:06

hunting tough and smart pulls

1:14:09

Harvard. You're picking the fictional

1:14:12

movie character and not the

1:14:14

movie itself. Just to be clear. Yes.

1:14:17

Okay. All the other guys are available. Well,

1:14:21

how things are favorite. Okay. Got

1:14:23

it. Judy was a janitor solving math problems.

1:14:25

Figure it out. I don't

1:14:27

know how I feel about that, but okay.

1:14:29

I can't believe you still available. And I

1:14:31

went first. I'm

1:14:35

going to start. I'm going to start with Paul Revere.

1:14:40

Paul Revere. No America without him. So

1:14:44

I mean, it's a great choice.

1:14:46

I'm like, I didn't think he was going to be there,

1:14:48

but will hunting, I guess. Was Paul

1:14:50

Revere a Bostonian? Yeah. Was

1:14:53

he? Yeah. Well, I was counting Boston

1:14:55

suburbs. I feel like we have to clarify this. Boston,

1:14:58

the greater Boston area. He

1:15:02

was born in the North end. Okay. He was born in

1:15:04

the North end. He died in Boston. Yep. It

1:15:06

was Lexington and Concord, where he really made

1:15:10

an impact. I heard. And a

1:15:12

silversmith. All

1:15:16

right. Uh, I don't really know where

1:15:18

I want to go with this one. Um, man,

1:15:22

I, I'm going to just,

1:15:24

I'm going to pick, um, for my first pick, I'm

1:15:26

going to pick Fenway. I'm

1:15:29

going to pick Fenway. It's a good

1:15:31

pick. And for my second pick, I'm

1:15:34

going to pick the town,

1:15:36

the movie, the town. Interesting.

1:15:38

Yeah. Big Joe Mazzullo guy. Big

1:15:40

Joe. Where is

1:15:42

that on your, on your Boston movie

1:15:44

rankings? The town. Yeah. Um, I'd

1:15:49

say, well, if

1:15:53

we're including television and film,

1:15:55

I'd say behind Boston common ahead of blown away.

1:16:00

I don't

1:16:02

I'm not familiar with those I

1:16:10

mean it's up there. All right my

1:16:12

second pick I Think

1:16:15

I'm gonna take Bo Russell 11

1:16:18

11 rings You're off to a good start.

1:16:20

I'm not gonna try to win I've lost the last like

1:16:22

eight of these you're up to I got it. I need

1:16:24

to put a good showing out this time. All right I'm

1:16:26

gonna take a look at this one Yeah,

1:16:29

okay. All right, so I'll take Brady You

1:16:35

guys are just picking people I

1:16:37

didn't even got it all really

1:16:40

had things yes, I did I mean, okay

1:16:44

Pick Paul Revere you can pick Tom you can pick

1:16:46

people it's fine. It's fine. I just I did not

1:16:49

have a person listed Boston

1:16:51

things period I Don't

1:16:53

need to take them now, but I'm gonna take them out of

1:16:56

respect because the Revere pick was wrong You should have taken Joseph

1:16:58

Warren Joseph

1:17:00

Warren was George Washington before George

1:17:02

Washington. He ultimately would have been the president but

1:17:05

he died in battle so

1:17:10

Scholars have generally come to the consensus

1:17:14

With scholars Any

1:17:17

worth their salt So,

1:17:20

yes, we got some reading to do after

1:17:22

this pod apparently. Yeah, look up Joseph Warren

1:17:25

big time He was out there. He's in the mix, too

1:17:28

All right, he was a doctor as well. What kind

1:17:30

of kind of doctor he was amputations

1:17:37

How did he die, you know that

1:17:39

to be dark Well,

1:17:42

he's not and wow he was a surgeon this

1:17:44

is wild no read about how he

1:17:46

went down at the end I mean

1:17:48

Bunker Hill was the whole reason why they were like we can do

1:17:50

this My favorite thing about reading

1:17:52

any of this history and those that have followed me

1:17:54

before know this is that there's all these moments That

1:17:57

are most Boston moments ever where they were

1:17:59

afraid to put the Capitol in Massachusetts because they were

1:18:01

like, dude, those guys might just secede from

1:18:03

the entire thing. So we can't put it

1:18:05

there. That's why I was in Philadelphia originally. And

1:18:07

then when the Virginia militia came

1:18:10

up to join forces under Washington

1:18:12

right here in Boston,

1:18:15

right on the common, which

1:18:18

is incredible, all the history just permeating

1:18:20

through the breeze around you, the Boston

1:18:22

guys and the surrounding areas would have

1:18:25

like rakes and bad outfits, like stuff

1:18:27

that didn't even work. And then the

1:18:29

Virginia guys showed up in like fresh

1:18:31

linens and polished rifles. And

1:18:33

the Boston guys are just making fun of

1:18:35

them. They're like, look at these losers. Look

1:18:38

at the linen shirts. Oh, fancy rifle, huh?

1:18:40

What are you, a badass? And then they

1:18:42

started like brawling with each other. And apparently

1:18:44

George Washington was just bigger than everybody else.

1:18:46

Now his height has been historically exaggerated because

1:18:48

the way they measured him, I think the first

1:18:51

time his feet were broken forward, his actual skeleton.

1:18:53

So he got a couple extra inches, which, you

1:18:55

know, it's kind of like the combine and the

1:18:57

way they'd measure you with the shoes. So everybody

1:19:00

was taller. So historically, maybe Washington set the tone

1:19:02

for that. So I think he was more around

1:19:04

six, two, but apparently just a beast of a

1:19:06

man. So these guys would be fighting each other

1:19:08

from different parts of the country, although under the

1:19:11

same umbrella for a cause. And Washington would just

1:19:13

rip them apart physically. And people were just so

1:19:15

intimidated by him. But yeah, the Boston guys, despite

1:19:17

the history and the undefeated record back

1:19:19

then, for the most part, not

1:19:22

easy to get along, which is I guess where we all

1:19:24

get it from. Yeah, shocker. Did you

1:19:26

know, did you know Washington's wingspan by

1:19:28

chance? I

1:19:32

know historically that's not something it's kind of like

1:19:34

TJ McConnell not being able to shoot threes. You're

1:19:36

like, come on, JJ talks, you know, he's got

1:19:38

to do this for our people. But

1:19:41

I don't know which Washington's wingspan I imagine is probably

1:19:43

pretty big because he was good at ripping dudes apart.

1:19:46

Okay. I'm going my third

1:19:49

pick. I'm

1:19:51

going to talk with your cookie. 1938

1:19:54

Ruth Wakefield, one of

1:19:56

the great, maybe the great, dessert.

1:20:00

ever Got that in the third

1:20:02

round. I got that past will hunting

1:20:04

and Joseph horn Warned

1:20:07

Warren dr. Joseph Sam

1:20:10

horn though on the board Man,

1:20:13

I really just I really did

1:20:15

not anticipate you guys going the

1:20:17

direction you're going I did not know that I'm

1:20:19

not even gonna love that pick in third round.

1:20:21

I'm not even gonna say it You

1:20:24

said Boston area stuff, right? Alright,

1:20:26

I'm gonna go with the Cape which

1:20:28

includes all subsequent Islands, so I'm gonna

1:20:30

say the Cape Then

1:20:33

that hurts the entire region of

1:20:35

the Cape got that It's

1:20:39

how'd you let that one go dude? That was that was your

1:20:41

pick and I Man

1:20:46

I Really love a good

1:20:48

park. I really love a

1:20:50

good park. So I'm just gonna go with Boston

1:20:52

Common. They just a fine park It's

1:20:54

not the show just the park just

1:20:57

the park. No, what is big park guy? No one else

1:20:59

is seeing the show on this Those

1:21:04

are both good picks Cape is a exceptional value.

1:21:06

I'm up. All right fourth pick I

1:21:12

think I'm going to go with the

1:21:15

telephone I Like

1:21:20

Santa Graham Bell 1875 I Was

1:21:23

I was I was back and forth on this one

1:21:25

because there's been a lot of bad things this telephone

1:21:27

has been responsible For but overall I can Snatch

1:21:30

that up here. I'm happy with it Okay,

1:21:38

I got two so I'll take energy in the Bulldogs You

1:21:43

Take what Barry? Eugene

1:21:45

the Bulldog Take

1:21:47

from Roxbury the Barry but not the fruit

1:21:50

y'all Don't

1:21:52

are you speaking English? What is she?

1:21:55

To take Eddie OG and the Bulldogs

1:21:59

is a rapper from Roxbury put this place in a

1:22:01

map. I mean

1:22:03

I know Guru kind of we should

1:22:06

have just said Boston people. And

1:22:08

the Bulldogs. We find it out. Yeah.

1:22:12

We find out. That one song is a

1:22:14

banger. You guys are going to be texting me in a

1:22:16

week going, we're actually going to use this in the intro

1:22:18

music for game two. What's the song? I'll

1:22:22

send it to you. Song three. Song three.

1:22:27

Song three. Hey, what CDs came around? Nobody

1:22:30

knew the names of songs anymore. It was just like I

1:22:32

like 11, four songs. Benzino was still on the board. You

1:22:34

could have picked him. Yep.

1:22:37

Could have. Give

1:22:39

me old Ironside. Sorry, what? Ironside?

1:22:42

Old Ironside. Yeah. What's

1:22:47

old Ironside? The ship. You

1:22:49

guys never, you guys never done Tall Ships Weekend?

1:22:53

It's right here.

1:22:57

This is one

1:22:59

of these things where we just don't spend enough

1:23:01

time in Boston to know if three of these

1:23:03

things are made up. We know Will Hunting was

1:23:05

a horrible first pick, but just

1:23:08

maybe people in Boston will love this draft.

1:23:10

But I personally am at a loss with this.

1:23:13

Well, I just I don't understand

1:23:15

what the assignment is clearly, but I don't

1:23:17

know that you understand like this is your

1:23:19

show and you seem to be not on

1:23:22

the same page. So I'm just going with

1:23:24

it. How do we not understand? I understand.

1:23:26

I'm picking Boston. You pick two New England

1:23:28

landmarks. You guys are picking underground fucking

1:23:31

rappers and edible

1:23:34

trips. Eddie O.J. in the pool. I know

1:23:36

when I think of a chocolate chip cookie,

1:23:39

the first thing I think of is Boston.

1:23:41

If that's in Boston, 1938. All right. I'm

1:23:44

closing it out. So I can't pick the

1:23:46

USS Constitution. You can anymore if you want

1:23:49

to pick five. You could have. No,

1:23:51

that's all I decide. That's

1:23:54

that's that's the nickname of the ship. Why

1:24:01

did you just say USS Constitution? Whatever

1:24:04

old iron times are fixed at the end. All

1:24:07

right. I got a lot of options

1:24:09

here. Launched in October of 1797.

1:24:13

I want a movie just because I feel

1:24:16

like I need some. Okay. The

1:24:18

USS Constitution is the ship. You're

1:24:20

not saying the actual US Constitution. You're

1:24:22

saying the ship is called the USS

1:24:25

Constitution. Yeah, but also people from

1:24:27

here. I want to not confuse the people

1:24:29

on social media that will see this graphic

1:24:31

to think we mistakenly added a nest. And

1:24:35

also I just put old iron sides. If they don't know

1:24:37

that, we have old iron sides. We're just putting old iron

1:24:39

side. That's it. People that know, they know. Right.

1:24:43

But it's plural. Yeah. Old

1:24:45

iron. Okay. Got

1:24:47

it. Um, I think I'm going

1:24:49

to go with the departed for my fifth pick. That's

1:24:52

my favorite movie. Best picture. Why?

1:24:55

Why is it overrated? I

1:24:57

don't know. There's some, there's obviously highlights and

1:24:59

I'll watch it if I have nothing else going on, but

1:25:02

it's just not, it's not as good as the town.

1:25:05

Maybe that's why I went later. Is it as good as Boston Common?

1:25:09

Different genres. Not fair to compare. Okay.

1:25:12

All right. I'm happy with it in the fit. Have

1:25:16

you guys ever been to, um, the Museum

1:25:18

of Fine Arts in Boston?

1:25:21

No, sounds cool though. I took

1:25:24

my kids there in the fall. It

1:25:27

was, it was a spectacular, like one

1:25:29

of the best museums I've ever been to in my life. I've

1:25:32

been to a lot of museums. I'm not going to pick that. I'm just

1:25:34

wondering if you guys had been. Priscilla, have you

1:25:36

been there? You're there right now. You can go to that.

1:25:38

I actually, I go to the Institute of Contemporary Art more

1:25:40

often. Gotcha. How often? I

1:25:43

have a membership once a week.

1:25:46

It's usually something

1:25:48

I missed. Okay. I'm

1:25:50

going to go with, I'm

1:25:52

going to go with Boston sports fans in

1:25:55

the fifth round and I'm going to include,

1:25:57

uh, as a sub, uh, you know,

1:25:59

sub. category of that. I'm going to include Boston

1:26:01

sports radio. Just love passionate

1:26:03

fans. Boston sports fans, big, big fan

1:26:05

of passionate sports fans. You know, this

1:26:08

is a very smart, he's about to

1:26:10

spend a lot of time up there.

1:26:12

He's just playing to the audience. Not

1:26:14

just love them. Love them. Smart, smart

1:26:16

pick. Love them. I

1:26:18

really wanted to go with well fleet oysters, but it's

1:26:20

too niche. You know what I mean? Uh,

1:26:23

Ryan, thank you again for coming

1:26:25

on the show. Uh, great to catch up. And

1:26:28

this has been the old man three draft

1:26:30

presented by new era. The

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early 2000s was a wild

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