76ers lose to NY Knicks, then Fire Daryl Morey

Michael and Kevin Lake host Byron and Jason to unpack the Sixers being swept. We talk through the Knicks series, as well as the roster philosophy going forward.

Recommendations:

• Byron: Robo-vacuum with mopping function
• Jason: DC Compact Comics 
• Kevin: TV show "From" on Amazon
• Michael Lake: LEGO Minus Tirith set 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I like you watching.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Welcome to the Lakeview podcast. I am Michael Lake, and I'm joined today by my cousin and my co-host, Kevin. Kev, what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Uh it's you know, just another day in the life of a Sixers fan. So excited, uh excited to get talking here.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

Yeah. Yeah. Being a Sixers fan is always exciting, which is fun. Always news, and nothing is ever stable. Uh Byron, how are you doing joining us today?

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Doing good, yeah. Thanks for asking. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Yeah, I don't know, but that means you're a Sixers fan if you're here. Is that good? We'll guess we'll find out as we talk through this. Jason, welcome aboard, buddy. Hodi, thanks for having me. So, as you guys will come to understand, we are all pretty diehard fans. Um, we've done a number of episodes. I think we did a season prediction, and it's just kind of sad to watch the way it went after the whole Boston thing coming back from down three, one, having all that happiness, and people just like texting each other, like I cried for the first time since I was a baby, stuff like that. And then it's just ripped apart in a week, and everything sucks, and I hate Knicks fans and all that. But we're gonna find a way to move on, and we're gonna discuss everything that happened between the Daryl Mori thing and where we're gonna go from here. So, May 13th, here we have a long summer to go. Let's figure it all out. Jason, I want to hear your riff first before we get into anything, because you had a whole little playbook that you texted us, and I know you have some passionate thoughts. So if you want to take us through just a little bit of that Nick series, what specifically bothered you, maybe like technically, and then go from there.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Cool beans. Thanks uh for the big responsibility here getting started. Um putting it all in my yeah, my first thing that I started with just yesterday was um before going backwards to like the next series, was just kind of uh the two overarching pathways, I think, that are which is like with Embiid and without Embiid. Um, so I think that's also kind of been the exact pathway that they've had to process through the last 10 years of even having Embiid is what do they play like with and what do they play like without, which is part of why we're all here. Um basketball-wise, I think it was it was really crazy just to see the matchup from Boston to New York and everything that happened. And as awesome as it is, I think it also maybe showed a little bit of Boston's own hazardous style of play. Um, to some degree, their their lack of willingness to break identity. And I was talking to Saya, who's a big Celtics fan about this. That um, you know, their style on court, they didn't really break away from identity, but they did a little bit in the way that they used their bench, which was a big part of who they are at their best. And in those playoffs, they did kind of shrink that up at stretches until they, you know, played guys who never played basketball for the first time and started them game seven. Um besides that, though, they definitely did not, you know, rely on some of the things this year, scheme-wise and play style-wise, upside of you know, being a heavy drive-and-kick-based offense. Um, going into you know, the Knicks series, though, it felt like just riding high. Like, oh, this, you know, I didn't frankly didn't think it was like a we were gonna win the series per se, but I was like, well, I could see it happening in the same way I could see the Sixers coming back from 3-1 against Boston, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

It felt more likely than doing that against Boston. Like I thought being the Knicks just in a vacuum seemed more likely as a Sixers matchup, but clearly I was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, I mean, I thought we'd it would be like a good six-game series, though, in like a practical sense, even even not being biased, like maybe Knicks win, but it's like tough fought six, they steal two, one competitive road game, and then you know, maybe the Knicks win two or three handily. Um what happened was just really, really awful because it sucked all of the joy out of what was a really cool moment for the Sixers in the the Boston series. Um I mean, I think it just exposed a lot of roster issues, weaknesses of nurse that were strengths in the previous series, and just a little bit of everything. I think it showed all of the about every negative thing possible that could have been identified in the Sixers roster and on court was identified and exposed, I think, in that that next series. Um particularly just with the depth, and I think, you know, that's also why having 10 guys you can play during the regular season is helpful because then at least when your coach shrink, you know, inevitably shrinks the roster down in the playoffs for the rotation, you it's nice to shrink to eight and not four and a half. So I think that's I think that's that's a shared Josh Harris, Darrell O'Mori, and Nick Nursing, in my opinion. Um what was the point of converting Dominic Barlow and Jabari Walker and these guys if you're not going to really give them a runaway to end this season to make an impact in the playoffs? Like, so it's again, there's just collaborative things that I think were just top-down failures and top-down head scratchers. Um, some of them are identity-based, and and each one of those people in Maury and Harris and Nurse. Um, I think all of those led to bad things. Um I'm gonna give Maxi a little bit of grace because of the finger injury. I think that across the board for most of MBA and like national NBA fans outside of Philadelphia, people probably don't realize he dealt with that at the end of the season or like late mid-year to the end of the year. And I don't think he really ever was quite as efficient shooting from the perimeter. Um, obviously that was aggravated again, but I still also think he needs to, he needs to start. Not that he doesn't, but we, I guess should say. Um, the fan base and national pundits, I think it's time to start giving Maxie a max player share of the failures and his performance. Um, it's really easy to just tack everything on to the process stuff and say, oh, it was an MV failure, it was a process failure. This was probably still Sam Hankey's fault. But Tyrese Maxie is an all-NBA guy, and you can't play hurt and still disappear and not have any onus, in my opinion. Um, and I love Maxie. I just think it's a little bit needs to be worn by I can understand, you know, it's hard for him to hunt his shot maybe or his perimeter shot in the same value he would like, and this and that, but he looked like he forgot how to move the ball at times. I mean, they blitzed him high, and it was a live ball turnover run-out almost every time he turned it over. It's not like he was turning it over in a dead ball, and you know, it was a deflected pass out of bounds. It was a turnover to a rotating guy leading to a layup the other way. So his turnovers were, you know, happening at the top of the key or at the hash in the front court, where one tip is an easy layup the other way. So, you know, there's just a lot of nuance to the way that things happened. Um, VJ, you know, frunk down to beat, not trunk down, but going back to earth being a rookie in a really high competitive series where they had good guard depth defensively. Um, Paul George did the thing where Paul George is really good in the playoff moment, and then you forget he can do what he can do, and it looks like he forgets he can do what he can do. I think Nurse went away from that, and I think Grimes was just awful, just abysmal. Ubre was bad shooting, good at other things, but you need him to be good shooting, frankly. Um Drummond, I think, gave you about all you could ask for from Andre Drummond in that series at this point.

SPEAKER_05 8:25

The only thing I can ask for is for him not to return.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, hopefully he gives you that. Um and then after that, I mean Barla showed flashes and kind of made you wonder was it worth actually trying him earlier in the playoffs or earlier in the no end of the season when it mattered? Bona I seems like a really nice, passionate kid. I can't I can't conceptualize what his actual NBA value is if he's like a fringe rotation guy or if he belongs playing like volleyball in Europe. Like I he's really hard to actually gauge in terms of what he can do in the future. And I would strongly lean on the side if he should be your 15th guy more than he should be your eighth or ninth. Um so you know, getting abused and embarrassed is kind of what the Sixers have done at times over the last six or seven years in the playoffs for a multitude of reasons, all at different times. Um I'll probably more often than not be an MB'd apologist, but I'm I'm also gonna, you know, discuss the later stuff as objectively as possible. Um, but it's still kind of funny that it's you know, everything is MB's fault. But he was he scored 24 points on the perfect shooting. He had one missed free throw. He was eight for eight and six for seven at the line, and he was diving for loose balls and forcing tie-ups. I mean, it's you know, yeah, this all really rests on his health or his lack thereof, but to really crucify him after he's the only one that actually had a a positive performance in a horrible game is like just kind of, you know, it is what it is at this point. I think that's what everyone does is you know, Stephen A. Smith had a about a four-minute segment today saying that Maxie should consider asking out a Philly and this and that. I'm like, okay, but he also disappeared. He wasn't good. He was not only was he not good, he was bad at times. So I mean, it's you can't to me you can't look at like you know, the guy who's supposed to be your 1A and completely absolve him from being that level at all and say you you need to get out of there because it's a mess. Well, it's like okay, but why? So that's I think a good rundown, hopefully, and I think that at least gives us to you know the end of the season from Boston to New York to you know a little runaway to what they have what they look at going forward. It's not a huge ex the nose, there's a lot more, but I think that's broad enough to give you guys jumping points.

SPEAKER_05 10:53

Byron, what was your viewing experience of the next series? Did it ruin your Mother's Day?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

So fun uh funnily enough, we were like kind of caught up in Mother's Day festivities, and then I checked the score, and I saw that the Knicks were on pace to put up 80 points in the first half, and I made a responsible family decision and said, you know what? I'm not gonna turn this on right now. And I checked again later and it wasn't any better. And I didn't even watch the last game. I watched all the others, but I was I I was just so done at this point then. Like, I'm not gonna torture myself if this is what they're gonna do. And you don't want to get a divorce over that? No, I mean, I don't know, maybe that makes me a bad fan, but it was it was I don't know. I I couldn't do it again. I just couldn't. Um I'd say touching on some of the things that Jason um mentioned or didn't mention, I I I will say, and I don't want to make excuses because the Sixers have done this for years now anyway, so this isn't the reason we lost. But can we just talk about how stupid the end the NBA playoff scheduling is? Like how like I get that uh a team that closes out a series early should be rewarded for that and get more time to rest. But how can you say, like, how can it just be like acceptable that a team like the Sixers can close out game seven and then get one day off, a travel day, and then play start a new series after one day? Like, what is the rush? Like, it's not like you're still a rush. Yeah, like you're still gonna get your games and you're still gonna get your TV money, but you're gonna get a better product of like better games, maybe less injuries because players are like not playing through like as much exhaustion. And I I'm not saying give them a week, but like, can we get two days? Like, God, that was I that was just stupid to me. I don't I still don't understand. We still would have lost anyway, obviously, but that just like irked me. Um, because it made me feel like watching the way they played game one, we were almost just doomed to lose that game just based off of scheduling. Um we probably would have lost all the others anyway, but like didn't the Lakers get two days off in between?

SPEAKER_05 13:15

Yes, but we didn't.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Correct. Is there reasoning for that? Uh probably because Adam Silver's a bad word, and this is a family this is a family show. Um, but yeah, he's they just hate the Sixers. I I think they they they take every opportunity they can do something little to just twist the knife over the process that anytime there's an opportunity to spurn them, they will.

SPEAKER_05 13:41

Kevin, what was your viewing experience here?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

I have the same viewing experience as Byron. So I was on a Hamlet vacation and I watched game three because it was in the evening and kids were asleep and stuff, so that was kind of easy. But uh it was in the middle of the day, and I was like score tracking just a little bit just to see if they would get anything going, and then I did the same thing as Byron. I just kept looking and it's kept getting worse and worse. And I was like, all right, this is good for my happiness because after game three, it just felt like the Sixers were like a deflating balloon like through the whole for the second game seven ended. It was just like in every game, too.

SPEAKER_05 14:22

It's like the first three possessions, they'd be trying really hard, and then you would just see the air come out in every single game. They looked gas.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Mentally and physically.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

I truthfully, I think I maybe was a little bit unique in this. I don't know, but like I told Melvis after we watched the Celtics series, I was like, that was my NBA championship, and that's how I'm doing it. And they're gonna lose to the Knicks. Like, I've seen this before, and it's gonna happen again. I did not think they were gonna get swept. I didn't. I thought they were gonna lose in five, maybe six, barring like injury luck and stuff like that, but I still thought they were gonna lose.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Um but uh like in our preseason pod, I predicted us losing the second round. I could be around bold.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Bold.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

But I mean, yeah, like having watched the the Knicks Hawks games a little bit, I was just especially like near the later part of that series. Knicks are just like so much more like bigger, physical, more talent, like their individual players are just more talented. I think what we saw at the end of the Celtics series is that it became a situation where I was like, wait, are the Sixers more talented than the Celtics? Like maybe uh but it was immediately clear that the Knicks are more talented than the Sixers. So I feel like that really played out and the momentum piece led into it too. And I think it played in opposite directions for the Celtics series, where like when everyone was healthy on the Sixers and the momentum was going their way, they played hard and they showed that they had talent. But then it went in the opposite direction with the Knicks series. So uh it was like kind of a bummer because it's like you do often remember whatever happened last, but I mean I was like on top of the world with those last three Celtics games. I went to game six, and that was like uh that was like just absolutely awesome, like the best game I've ever been to. And uh game seven was obviously amazing. It was like just sitting there in disbelief almost uh most of the game that it was like possibly really gonna happen. And it did. Uh, and so I try to just tell myself like they're gonna lose this series, like try not to get too upset over it, but it's kind of tough. Um, only one team you know is gonna win. I mean, it's the whoever loses the next series probably gonna be mad what from the other the other. I think the Knicks are gonna be go to the finals. So uh and then they're probably gonna lose, and the Knicks fans will be pissed off that they lost, and that'll be fun at least.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

But yes, that'll be fun. Um I want to address the us being bad fans. So you guys made that comment about ourselves, and I think Philadelphia fans are being put down right now as being bad fans. I wanna so I looked into going to a game with Jason on Mother's Day, and to sit in the lower bowl, for example, it would have been a thousand dollars a ticket, and to go in the upper bowl, it was gonna be like three hundred dollars a ticket. So for just for the two of us to even walk in the door, we're spending six hundred dollars, and then if my wife wants to go, it's over a thousand dollars. If I want to sit in the lower bowl, which is like a reasonable thing to think about, it's gonna be literally like four thousand dollars. It and I have a family, so that is unreasonable. So I was not able to go, and then you turn on the TV and you see all the Knicks celebrities in the front row. So this is all about the fucking ownership, not defending, like, yeah, they're putting out there that they're selling the zip codes in Philadelphia, and then you show literally like it's just all you're letting the whole whole front row, you're letting all these people in, and then everything's a thousand dollars, so your own stands. You have a larger city in New York, 90 miles north of you. That obviously there's a lot more money up there. It's the same thing that buy real estate down here, they buy tickets down here. They can get around the zip code thing. It's just a lie. And clearly, everything here was the whole goal of the Sixers was about money, and this is a business, and not make this basketball team as good as possible. We didn't pay the luxury tax for multiple years in a row. We didn't try and add to our roster, we only subtracted, and then our tickets are still obscenely expensive. We get outpriced by the city above us, and then we get called bad fans, and then we get obliterated at home in every game, and this is our fault. Like, fuck off.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah, I think that's like completely outrageous. Like, it just I feel like people that were making that take are just like dumb because it's like, okay, like it takes you to get from New York City to Philly, like Mel does that all the time to go to work. It is not hard.

SPEAKER_05 19:17

People do that every single day in their commute. They live in the greater Philadelphia area and commute to New York City back and forth. It's very normal.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

And it's like the volume of like well, you have to well, you don't have to, but like just the volume by just the nature of the city of people who make like above X percent or X dollar amount just to live there in New York is like obscenely higher than Philly. So just like a basic math problem. Like, I I don't understand, like it looks bad, but it's like use your brain for like approximately 10 seconds, and you realize like this is just like a basic math problem. This isn't like a like a passion, whatever problem. Like it's just I don't know. I just yeah, seeing that those takes like I am like it bothers me to work on. We looked into game six too, Kev.

SPEAKER_05 20:08

We had the same thought about going to game six. I I looked into one with Jason and with you. It's the same thing, it's impossible.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

So the yeah, like the it bothered me to watch and like see the camera panning to the next fans, but it's like, what are you gonna do? Like, I don't know. I don't I don't I don't even know if there's like really I mean maybe other teams have come up with solutions that like actually bar fans. Like if it was even really possible, I don't know, maybe there's a creative solution and the the like social media teams and all that were just putting on a front of like making it look like they were trying to bar Knicks fans, but uh either way, it's like you're probably not gonna solve the problem. So yeah, I I agree. That was like really frustrating commentary.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

It's not like it's the Miami Heat fans that like leave in like the like thing. It's still like in the third quarter, 10 minutes left in the game.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah, I would be curious to see like what is if if like Cleveland wins the series, I don't know they're gonna win, but if they win the series, like what is what is the Knicks representation gonna look like in that stadium? Because that is obviously harder to get to than Philly, but it's not impossible, and clearly Knicks fans can afford it, so I don't know what that's gonna look like.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

I don't know if you'll see Timothy Chalamet step foot in Cleveland. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

We'll see. It might be too icky for it would be in the conference finals, like chance to go.

SPEAKER_05 21:40

Would their owners allow that? Would they just let 50 celebrities come down because they're rich and famous and it looks better for you and your brand? Like probably all of our priorities are backwards.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

The Sixers probably give them the tickets and they ask them first. I followed the link down here.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

I followed the link, logged onto the website at exactly 4 p.m. Or whatever the time was. I wasn't trying to buy on the secondary market. So you can't even make that argument.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

All right. Do we want to talk about Maury stuff or player stuff? I feel like those are like the two obvious paths for like looking at the offseason. Anyone have a direction they want to go.

SPEAKER_05 22:18

Should we go through the roster real quick and just say like if you want them back or not? And then I think the player stuff's probably more fun.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

It's hard to talk about the GM because like I don't like honestly, like I don't know what their options are, like who they can get right now.

SPEAKER_05 22:32

Yeah, they're working with Bob Myers or whatever the Warriors guy is to consult and find a new person. And then Nick Nurse and I guess Elton Brand are still there, but that's just as of today. Who knows if that'll change a week from now? But yeah, let's get through the players first, and then we can kind of dive into more fun stuff after that. Like theorize some stuff. Uh, I guess just starting off with Embiid, would I take him back or not? Uh technically I would. I think the fact that they're moving on from Maury and changing things, they're probably looking for someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to get off of him because his contract is in Albatross and they're just trapped now. And they can't really grow as high as they want with a max salary of a player that plays 40 games at best, and also can't defend and rebound and move like he used to. So that's just tough when your defense is built around a center that can no longer really defend, and it's 60, 70 million dollars. So I would take him back because I still like him, beat, and I appreciate everything he's done for the city. I just think they're going to try and move on from him.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

I agree. I think um it's almost funny. Like if he was to reverse, like a lot of times you get old, old guys that like can't score like they used to, but they can still like rebound, like they still stay on the court with their defense and their rebounding. But and beads like the opposite, like he can still put up 30 points on like on half a knee, but it it's his rebounding, is it was never like actually all that great to begin with, and now it's just like very poor.

SPEAKER_05 24:14

Yeah, and and he can't defend the pick and roll anymore, like that was just exposed completely.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

And he's not a good rim protect, like he can't get up, and he was never like had a great vertical or anything, but he could at least like get up there and continue to get the stuff.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

Yeah, he was a great rim protector in his prime, but he's no longer.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Yeah, so I mean it it's tough because uh like as as much as it I'd rather have a center that can if I can have a center that can only play like only be good on offense or only be good on defense, I'd much rather have one that's good on defense, just the way the NBA is, and that's not what embiat is anymore.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

I am so torn on this because I feel like to get rid of him, obviously we're gonna have to attach stuff to it, right? Uh, or or we take back a player that is like equally disappointing. I don't know. I saw a lot of I don't even know what that would be, honestly. Like CJ McCollum. Sabonis was one that I saw thrown out there.

SPEAKER_05 25:17

Uh Sabonis plays a lot more.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

I mean he has a lot of weaknesses as well, but I feel like he would solve some of like I don't know if he's the rebounder he used to be, but the six years haven't been a good rebounding team since Ben Simmons left, so that's at least exciting. But like you said, he has his own problems.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah, so what I mean regardless of that situation, like I feel like it's gonna take picks, and I just like really don't want to get trade picks away. Uh I'd almost rather you don't want to just get rid of acid on top of like just sit on him and like let the time run out, but that's like also terrible because then just like fucking with the maxi and edgecomb development and like building the team around them because every time Embiid's on the floor, it just like I don't know. Maybe a new I mean Nick Nurse is still gonna be the coach, so I don't know. Maybe he'll change up the way he does things where they just like ISO Inbiad and throw it into him. They do that maybe like a hair less often, and this is the playoffs too, but like obviously we're trying to think about what the playoff offense would look like. So I don't know how it looks with Embiid out there if the ball is not like mostly running through him, uh, which I just don't want to see anymore, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Um could you see him beat could you see Embiid retiring before his contract's up? He is a guy who's talked about quitting basketball multiple times.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

I could, but not it's before he was getting paid$70 million a year, but yeah, maybe, but he's definitely still gonna play at least one more year, and I don't think he's gonna publicly come out saying I'm gonna retire after this year. So teams are gonna assume, and we're gonna have to assume that he's gonna play it out. And honestly, trading him for Sabonis would just be sad. I don't want to do that either. I don't want to trade him to the Kings. Fuck that. Embiid doesn't deserve that.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

I would like to see Embiid go to a team where he has a chance of getting a ring. I like you said, I have like no like um I love Embiid, he's the man. Yeah, I've like I think this series more than ever, like I think a lot of Phillies fans have been very hard on Embiid. I think this series has kind of like won one uh won their hearts over again a little bit, and like like coming back from the appendectomy and and gutting it out and showing up in in big moments in spite of all the things that would have been easy excuses to make or easy obstacles to just you know buckle under the pressure of. But he I think he really showed his true colors here, and it's a shame it came now and not like five years ago. Um so yeah, I mean, I won't be upset if he's back, but I I don't I don't know if we can have a championship championship team with him. But I don't know if we can have one if we spend uh what we need to to get rid of him either. Yeah. All right, Paul George. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. I'll so I'll tell you what. Um I wrote I wrote down a little thing while while we're talking here, like reasons for for hope and reasons for despair. And I have Paul George under the reasons of hope. Um, I will say in this playoff series, even though Paul George is 36 and he's getting paid more than he has any business getting paid, should be getting paid at his age for in the length. I'll say Paul George did basically everything we could have asked him to. He shot over 50% from three. At times he was like your bucket getter. I think they got away from it at times. Um, like I think Jason alluded to, where there it seems like they're running almost solely through a beat or maxi, and then Paul George was just like limited to catch and shoot shots in the corner. I do think there's some times where he force shots or whatever, but that's also kind of like his role of like being the breakdown mid-range kind of like guy that can play with a different pace than Maxie. Um, but yeah, I think he played great defense. I think he um I mean there's times where he was defending towns when Embiid was wasn't playing. Um I think he did pretty much everything we wanted. It's just he's old.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

So he was defending towns and Brunson on different possessions.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Yeah, like if he can keep playing like like this level for another two or three years, the contract doesn't look as bad as it does, as it does. I mean, it's still not like what you would want, but it's not like a disaster, like when we're I don't know, paying some absolute bum that kind of money.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

Jason, what are your thoughts on PG?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Bringing back or not? Um yes, but if you I think he's the one that you can get younger by moving and not have to eat a whole lot. I think you could I could reasonably see like you could probably find 10 to 12 teams that would have the conversation with you about what that looks like to to acquire Paul George and it be moderate. Maybe you have to give up, you know, put a second or two in there and sweeten the deal and give up a little more than you bring back. Um, but I don't think you have to, you know, eat a whole lot of dead value. Whereas Embiid, I think, you know the first team I'm calling, regardless, I'm calling the Golden State Warriors and saying, which one of these guys do you want? What do I have to take back? And how little can I give you to take out of freaking one of them? I don't care which you can take one or both. If it's Embiid, how do I do this with at most one first round pick, if not just a couple seconds? If it's George, let's let's look pretty even, or maybe I'll give you a second round pick in addition. The Sixers have, I think, 12 second-round picks over the next so-and-so years that are movable. Um, they only have a couple first round picks that they are eligible to trade. So they have more than they are they can give up, but how much do you want to give up again? Um, and we can get further into that when we get to some of the GM stuff. But um, Paul George, I'm 50-50. I'm happy, you know, to see if they can bring him back. Great. Um, I'd probably be more at this point though, more energized at the idea of what can we what can we do to move him for a equal value.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah, let this is just a I have actually not seen this at all, but I feel like it maybe kind of makes sense. It's kind of disappointing a little bit, but what about so would you trade for Jimmy Butler coming off his injury to get off of Paul George's player option in 27-28? Yep, completely. Is Butler expiring? Yeah, next year's last year, and no player option after that. So I feel like maybe both teams would do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

I think Butler bringsers. I think he brings the well, yes. I think it shortens the the commitment for the Sixers end of things, which is nice. I think I I don't want to discount Paul George's um perimeter. Rather than Paul George, unless we're getting more stuff back. He was the only consistent three-point shooter this playoff run. Other than VJ was kind of streaky. Um yeah, and he was part of the reason we beat Boston.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

We're losing money, we're losing a year of contract, we're getting back Jimmy Butler's like you could just write him off almost. So that would be the idea. Like, he's coming off of Achilles and he's not gonna be good. So we're we're sacrificing like being good because we're getting rid of a better player.

SPEAKER_05 33:11

And that does nothing for this offseason, though. We still have him coming off an injury, and then he's gonna want to resign or something.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

No, no, we we just let him walk, it'd be his last year, and then we'd free up 27-28 money.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

That would be the idea. I think that only works if he can also move out of Embiid somehow. Um, because I I think I I think that idea is appealing for the reasons we said, but I don't I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 33:38

I think um But what they could what can they bring in? So next year they're just gonna have a worse roster and just yeah, it'd be worse.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

It'd be like it'd be like punting on next season and then hoping you can attract a f a free agent, which we've almost never been able to do.

SPEAKER_05 33:55

The thought of punting on a season with I guess you have to let VJ get a little older, but I don't ever want to punt on a season with him.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

If you're in my mind, like I'm not a I'm not a punt on a season guy, but I think if you're in if you're looking at the reality, to me, there's like really two to two and a half ways that you can even just approach the offseason. Am I moving either of these guys or both? That's like one and a half. Am I willing to move one or am I moving both? So that's like one and one A. And the other is just I'm not moving either, and I'm just trying to improve what we have. If you're just trying to improve what you have, Paul George for Butler is not logical. If you're willing to say that even if I keep both of them and we're fully healthy, do we have enough around the margins moves to beat the Thunder or the Spurs? That's what you're really like. The reality is, can can the Sixers with perfectly healthy MB and Paul George be good enough at rebounding and shooting the three with some ancillary pieces that they can go beat the Spurs in seven games next year. That's who you have to beat next year is the Spurs or Thunder, regardless. They're they're literally like walking dynasties as we speak. So I don't think anybody in the East could probably beat them in the next five to seven years, realistically, to be honest. Minus the world changing drastically. Um, I mean, not to go crazy. Like if you just look at the way Dylan Harper's playing as a rookie, the Spurs might be unbelievably good that it's like disturbing for a long time. Does the pacing sticks in the second round make it worth it?

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Maybe. The Pacers took the spur the Thunder to seven, and I think they probably would have won, to be honest. The tires. So I think that I think the Thunder, there is a very good team, but I'm still not totally sold on the Thunder being like uh end of all, like a dynasty dynasty yet. I I do really worry about the Spurs, and I agree between those two teams, the chances of the Sixers winning a championship with any semblance of our current roster is basically non-existent. But I if if you're moving Paul George, I think you have to move Embiid too. And I don't know if they can move and bead.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

So I almost I don't think you have to do both because of what you said of like taking back or what you would Kev. Like if you take back one dead contract, 27 is a really big free agent class, you then then you're one year closer to MB expiring. Can you get rid of him next summer versus this summer? If you can get off of even one this summer, it if that's the path you want to go, I think it's worth it.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

So you're saying that you you get rid of Paul George with the intention of getting a new guy the following years, like with the Jimmy Butler ideas. So you get rid of Paul George, you have Jimmy Butler for a year, Jimmy Butler leaves, you get a max and give a max deal to an appealing free agent, and then that year you still know you're not really going to be a true contender, but it's getting cheaper every year to then to then offload embiat or wait them out, and then you have a core of VJ, Maxi, whoever this free agent is, and then hopefully embiat at that point is you know off the books, and you can bring in someone else or a more dynamic center to okay. That means yeah, I think I'll review that just to also add to that.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

I think there's like the idea that like it that the sal open salary is going to a max guy, I don't think that needs to be the case. Like given the depth of all these teams, like you throw you, I mean, maybe you're you're looking at like a a mate, like a$30 million guy, and then like a couple, like a mid-level guy, and then you actually like have some pieces that are like complementing a maxi edge come backcourt, and like they don't need to score as much, but they're doing the the Josh Hart stuff, they're doing the whatever, you know, there's other guys that are that are would be nice, nice ancillary pieces. Hopefully you have like one front court scorer, whether that's just a Carl Anthony Towns perimeter shooter kind of guy or whatever, but maybe not like he's a max guy, but um I feel like it doesn't need to be a max guy, and I think there's room there to build out a team, you know, over the next like two to three years that you know obviously we're waiting, but I I just think that this roster right now is a sticking ship. And I don't know, the sooner you can start like bringing in guys to do like a uh a Pacers adjacent kind of build, the better. I don't know. That's sort of what I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_05 38:27

Do we have our pick next year? Uh like are we if we're gonna take a step back and then we have our own pick, then I know we have the clippers pick next year, I think.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Um we do have our own first, yeah. Okay, we have the clippers pick in 28.

SPEAKER_05 38:45

Okay, okay. There it is. And then I think we have a swap maybe after that as well. Yeah. Okay. That helps a little bit because my fear is just that we're gonna waste Edgecombe's rookie contract. And I just think it's valuable to have a player that good on a rookie contract. But I know it's we just might not have the assets in place to like flip a roster in a proper way, anyway. So it's obviously not that simple. That's just my like thought process. If we kind of like punt on next year and we're like a 30-win team or whatever, because we have embied for 12 games and Paul George was traded away, so with Jimmy Butler rehabbing, and then we don't even have a first-round pick, and then all of a sudden we're not in any better spot than next. Like, we have money, but then nothing else really to get excited about. So just trying to put all the pieces together.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

I do worry about our ability to track free agents. I think um we haven't really ever. I mean, maybe that's a Daryl Mori thing and uh Elton Brand and whatever that clown show was before. Um I mean, Paul George, Paul George is the only like major free agent we've brought in um in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Um I think the best thing they have going for them is not even Philly, it's you get to play with Maxi and Edgecombe. It's like it's kind of exciting. Not that those guys are like crazy facilitators necessarily. It's definitely fun.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

They have fun vibes.

SPEAKER_05 40:19

I can see people being reset the culture for sure.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

If you could do all those things, that'd endorse those moves. I just I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

I mean, just strictly, strictly talking about it business perspective from the GM lens, like if you're writing MB down for half of the season next year, what value does keeping Paul George really get you? You get 43 wins instead of 36. What's the difference? We have a just strictly from a business perspective. If if you don't see MB being healthy enough to win a championship with Paul George as the third guy, I would say if if Paul George has any positive value right now, it's probably worth looking to see what that value is. Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

But I would want him to see the Sixers play in the playoffs perspective. I think they can make the playoffs next year and be competitive, but we can have that top two.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

My thought is more not necessarily is trading Paul George, like reset the roster, like you said, maybe get younger or split that contract up into smaller contracts and get just more depth of like just good starter quality people to build out with, like stuff like that, or maybe even get like some first round picks back, and maybe can move up in this draft and get one maybe not a top four pick, but into the lottery if someone falls and just have more leverage because we I think we have this 22nd pick, so just all that all that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

I think Paul George's game might age a little bit better than so that that'll kind of like help buoy his his um his value. I I mean he couldn't really get to the rim this this series, which was unfortunate. Um I mean he did play, I'd say at least good defense, if not great at times, and he was shooting over 50% from threes. So that should excite other teams if the Sixers put him on the table. And um, I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Like I also feel like from the this is like again, I have the fact that I haven't seen this rumored at all makes me think that I'm just like make pulling this out of my ass. But I'm just looking at like the contracts. But I feel like from a Warriors perspective, there's this like LeBron talk, at least that Bill Simmons puts out there, which sometimes he's kind of right on that stuff. Uh he was right with the Lakers. So like a Steph Paul George LeBron team, while like dinosaurist, dinosaur-ish is like moderately interesting, at least. And like the Warriors are just gonna be desperate to do something with Curry, obviously. And taking on an extra year of Paul George is like nothing to them. And I don't I don't know what Jimmy's recovery prospects are gonna look like. He's 36 years old, so but I don't know. I feel like the like the M B thing is just gonna be so hard to deal with. Like, I mean, he has I mean we like obviously we're we're probably praying that he retires. That's like the solution, but the real solution is like it's not gonna be pretty. Like if 50, so just to like because we haven't said it, 58 million next year, 60 almost 3 million the year after that, and then a player option, which you would obviously pick up for over 67 million in 2829. Just for reference, Maxi in 2829 is gonna make 46 million. So, like it's not like oh, all Max contracts are huge, it's like No, in Embiid won Mvp, his Mac. Super Dupermax. So it's like, Jesus, man, like that, I don't know. It just I don't know what the solution there is, but it's it's not gonna be appealing. Whatever it is, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

Uh let me ask you this. If if Embi if Embiid played if this was Embiid's floor, does that change any of your thoughts? Like if if you knew he wouldn't be any worse than he was this series or this this playoff run?

SPEAKER_05 44:32

I just think that like what this is an impossible scenario. We're saying that he's more likely to play more and be better.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

No, I'm saying that like in terms of like where his knees are at, like they won't like deteriorate more. That's what I'm saying. Does that make sense? I feel like he's Because what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that like if if you don't think he was good enough this season to win it, then they should just trade him because he's gonna get worse. Like if if this if this level indeed is not good enough now, then there's like absolutely no sense in keeping him, and we shouldn't even like entertain it and we should look for any way to get out of it because uh what you just said.

SPEAKER_05 45:17

Yeah, I think any reasonable way, but uh there another team has to uh agree to that, and it can't just take every single thing we have, otherwise we have nothing.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah, I just think Embiid is such a like one of one player right now in his strengths and his weaknesses, that I like can't even envision a team like any remote version of what he like we just watched him as being on a successful team, unfortunately. Like, because you could say, like, oh, we'll we'll like cater his role, play him 25 minutes a game when he goes out there, just we'll drop his usage a little bit. He'd be the best six man of all time. That just like isn't gonna happen. Like, because when he does get the ball, like sometimes it's like, Well, how do you stop that? How many times do we hear the announcers say, like, how do you stop what he just did? And like sometimes he does that, and so the ball just like ends up in his hands. But it's just like that's not a productive team because and then when he's out there like on defense, he would need like Jaron Jackson Jr. and like Jaden Daniels surrounding him to like be anything of a of a defense. Um, so I don't know. It's just like you just have to there's so much catering required.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if we feel that way about beat now, then we should just try and rebuild whenever the opportunity presents itself.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

My biggest fear is that we trade the 28 Clippers pick to get off of him, and I do not want to do that.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

That's a nice one. Well, that's a nice thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Yeah, I would assume as much as we don't like this ownership group in much of any capacity. I would assume they probably have a pretty strong pulse on whoever coming in and and will kind of lay the foundation of here's your options. That's your one your one saving grace is that pick. Especially now that the the Clippers landed the top five pick, they're gonna sell Kawhi, right? They're gonna get rid of Kawhi. They have other pieces that they could move, you know. They can get somebody will give up something for Derrick Jones Jr., a good playoff team. Maybe somebody gives you a couple more seconds for Chris Dunn. So you're the Clippers should really be bad for two to three years.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

They could, I mean, like they could trade the pick for a player. Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I think they're contortion. Yeah, that would be that would be something Daryl Morey would do. But they're building a new arena. I mean, yeah, they got the new arena, maybe they want to just keep butts and seats.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

It doesn't feel like Bomber would tank. That dude is just yeah, yeah, but yeah, who knows? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

I mean, sometimes you can't help it. Paul George for Kawhi.

SPEAKER_05 48:09

Yeah. They could just keep Kawhi. They have Garland paying the Paul George back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

What do you guys think about some of these like fringe guys? Because obviously, we like we're gonna have to pay some people, um, whether those are already guys on our team. So it sounds like there's there's a consensus on Grimes, maybe. Well, I guess we've heard what Jason thought of how Grimes played. Like, if Grimes came back at the same money, like eight mil, what would be what would be the the rumors? I mean eight military.

SPEAKER_03 48:47

Yeah, for eight mil. The problem with Grimes is that he was like our sixth man, he was like our only guy off the bench. Like if you're paying him eight mil and you have other options off the bench, it's not a problem. But the problem is that he was getting like 30 minutes in meaningful playoff games. And I think um I think on the defensive side of things, he'd get some stupid fouls, but at least he was like kind of like a little bit of a bigger guard. Yeah, he was pretty strong, which we lacked with I mean VJ's young, so hopefully he'll bulk up. Max is not he's gotten a little stronger, but he's still never gonna be like a stout uh kind of build. Um so it was nice having that body available, and there are times where he like flashed some really like really good tenacious defense and and stuff, but the shooting was streaky, and he's just very haphazard with the ball in his hands, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Um it was crazy. Well, I guess it maybe it reminds me of like a little bit of Melton a touch, but it's just like whenever Mel and I were watching the game, he'd be like, No, Grimes, you're not a dribble that much. Like, stop it.

SPEAKER_03 49:57

Yeah, you he gave himself a license to kill whenever he had the ball. Like, he was just doing he would do the craziest thing, he'd be like, I'm just gonna fucking yam it on him. Like, not even a prayer, or like he just I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 50:12

He plays at like 1.5 speed, and he just can't like turn that down. Like his brain is just going nuts. The ball's like uh out of like yeah, he can do exciting stuff, but yeah, at 8 million, I'd certainly bring him back. Not at 20 million, like what he was looking for, and probably not even he's not getting that money anymore.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Yeah, he lost that bag, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

I'd have to look at some like comparable contracts from last offseason, but I don't think he's getting much more than 12, and that's like optimistic. That's like a bat, that's like a king's 12. Uh, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 50:49

Yeah, like I don't know who else we're getting at that price that's gonna be better than what he gave us. He was solid as like a third guard, I guess. We could use like a point guard off the bench, but that's a different story. Yeah, I we don't really have like a true point guard on this team.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

We don't have I would definitely rather play a point guard. Yeah, somebody you can dribble, that would be nice. And maybe even pass.

SPEAKER_03 51:13

That would be whoa, whoa. It's not overdo it here. I I feel like one of the the the sixers too are just the like the zone defenses have always been their Achilles heel. Maxie still hasn't really progressed in his game of like he can he's he got a little bit better at like slowing things down and breaking down defenses. Uh I saw flashes of it in the Celtic series, but like still like too downhill to really do that consistently. So, and if that's the case, that shuts down Embiid and Maxi. And then then you're just counting on people hitting shots. And that I mean, that's probably why like you see those stats where like the the games where VJ was hitting his threes from the corner or whatever, the six weeks won all of them, and when he wasn't hitting them, they lost them all. So I I think whoever they bring in, they just if they're keeping this core, they could definitely benefit from more shooting. We don't really have any knockdown shooters. Uh Maxy's good shooting with the ball in his hands, but he's not really I don't really I don't know. I don't really see him take too many shots off ball.

SPEAKER_05 52:28

Um in the very beginning of the season, he was trying to do a little more of that. I feel like he's trying to like mimic some of McCain's off-ball movement. And I do think it went away a bit.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

VJ, VJ has definitely shown a lot of promise. Uh that was unexpected. Like I remember when we drafted VJ, we were all, I think we were playing Warzone, and like, oh, if this guy can like shoot, he can be really exciting. And they like came out like day one, like like at least an NBA average three-point shooter, and he's shown like he definitely has the room to become a very like serviceable three-point shooter. Um, he might be my favorite player.

SPEAKER_05 53:03

I'm I'm pretty sure he's my favorite player, he's which makes me feel bad saying because I love everyone else so much, too.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Well, and that's one of the things that does give me hope about the Sixers, even if they do have to keep this Paul George thing and uh Embiid stuff, like you still don't know. Like you're scratching the surface of what VJ could be. Like, think about how um how much we liked Maxie after his rookie year. VJ, I think VJ's rookie season was significantly better than Maxie's. So, what is VJ's ceiling then? You know, like if Vijay developed into a player that is even better than Maxie, then maybe this isn't like I don't I still don't know if we beat the Thunder or the Spurs, but I think it's a lot more within the realm of possibility. We maybe we get out of the second round, who knows? Um if if VJ turns into that. Maybe and maybe I'm just overexcited about a young new prospect, but I think um I think he's shown um a lot of a lot of the stuff in between the ears, and Jason probab can probably comment more on that. But he's like, even though the rookie never shied away from huge moments, and that's that's hard to do, and he's done a lot of things a lot of different ways.

SPEAKER_05 54:26

His effort and like just everything about him would turn up in bigger moments, in my opinion. Just like watching him game after game, like he would try and just fit in for most of the game, and then he'd realize we're running out of time, and he would just start going ape shit, and it was awesome. And anytime he was challenged, like when he went against like Stefan Castle during the year, I feel like like he would just step up, like people like that, or like other rookies that people were saying were better than him. Anytime he was challenged, he was just so excited to jump across that.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

He reminded me of a Jimmy Butler mentality, but like less crazy, like that same level of competitiveness, but like less psychotic, more friendly.

SPEAKER_05 55:06

Just such the perfect like him and Maxie, just they have the greatest personalities ever, and they're both so good and so fast, and they complement each other too, which we haven't always had with our two best players. Uh, VJ talked about this offseason trying to work a lot on his just on ball skills, which I think would be huge. If he can get more like guard, point guard skills, and just a tighter handle and like going around screens better. Obviously, his pull-up game is kind of atrocious at times. He had a lot of air balls trying to pull up. He was good catch and shoot, but so just doing that and taking stuff off of maxi, I think they would be able to beat all those traps and stuff, just to have another another maxi on the floor, basically, and then you can get maxi in movement and off-ball stuff, kind of like what he did in college a little bit more, and being able to like interchange between two of them, I think would be huge. So, and I know he's gonna do it because listening to him speak, he means everything he says, and I love that.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

I think um, I don't know. At one point, I think Maxie was playing the most minutes in the NBA. I don't know if the season ended that way, but I think that also was a factor in the Knicks series. Like what we asked him to do, and with the the the speed in which he plays the game, I don't think that's like sustainable for success. Um, to ask him to do that every year. So if if um if VJ could, like you said, take over any of those responsibilities, that would be that'd be huge.

SPEAKER_05 56:39

Yeah, if he could run some offense and just be the backup point guard, or like I said, just run a lot more. Because he showed some real capable, like touch on his passes, some vision this year, like we said for a rookie. I I think he's a solid passer by nature. He might not be a 10 assist guy, but like if you get both of them averaging like six, seven assists, that that'd be incredible. And again, like just get tighter handle and all that, it'd be very nice.

SPEAKER_03 57:05

Yeah, I think his his handle and his pull-up could definitely um be like he was already a very good player, and there's a lot of room to grow in just those two areas, and getting stronger on defense would be probably the next thing.

SPEAKER_05 57:21

Yeah, I think that for sure. Yeah, strength is just a big thing, and like he you can already see like his build is like he's gonna fill out nicely, he's already strong looking. He's just compared to like NBA athletes, he's not there.

SPEAKER_03 57:34

He's 19 years old or whatever. Like, of course, he's gonna get bodied by like grown men in their physical prime.

SPEAKER_05 57:41

He said this offseason he wants to work out with Maxie, and that is just the most exciting thing I've ever heard. These two guys, like, I want them to just become two P's in a pod and just like get up every morning, like have their protein shakes, get in the gym, all that stuff. I feel like a proud father watching these guys.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

Thank thank God we didn't draft Ace Bailey.

SPEAKER_05 58:05

Yeah, I still like him as a player. I just I just love VJ. Like we talked about the con Kanipple stuff before, like if he would have moved back and maybe pick up another asset, but he got exposed in the playoffs. Like he they had to bench him in what the play-in game, and then they got knocked out. So, like he is a good player, but like Vijay was the opposite of exposed, like he was keeping us alive at times, he won us games, and he's just incredible. It's a player that we've never had before, like someone this athletic that can has this between his head, like can do all these different skills. It's very exciting.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

Any uh desire to bring Ubre back? I don't know again. I guess that I don't know what like the antennas and all that stuff, but I feel like I would involve go ahead, Byron.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

No, I I interrupted. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 58:58

I was just gonna say I would involve Maxi and VJ in some of these decisions because I want them to really be like the face of this team. So if they like truly enjoyed playing with Ubre, I would bring him back if it's a reasonable deal. Like we were saying with Grimes. Like, I love everything Ubre's been giving us. I don't know how well his game will age because his like his handle's not super tight, he's not the best shooter. I know he didn't finish great around the rim, but he gets to the rim well, and I think that was partially his injury that like his ex his explosion just his legs weren't there quite as much, but he's defended when we've asked him to. So again, if we're bringing him back on a reasonable contract, I'd be happy to, but I think he's seeking like a more stable thing since he hasn't since he's left the Hornets, he's just kind of had these like minimum deals with us. So I wouldn't be surprised if he walks.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Yeah, I think um I think his three-point shooting was disappointing. Um, but he he honestly does a lot of the things that we need on the wing. Um, in terms of like you said, being able to guard and having length, and um, I wish he was a little thicker.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:10

Um yeah, our problem is we didn't have a power forward that was playable in the playoffs. It wasn't so much Ubre. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

I think he yeah, I think you said reasonable, reasonable deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:24

What about you, Kev? Would you bring him back?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

I would because it just feels like one of those things where it's like I actually like what he brings to the team, and it's yeah, I just don't think the grass is always greener, is gonna work out with like another player. I feel like it's just like I you know, I would like there to be another wing brought in that can shoot a little bit more, maybe. Um, but I feel like what Uber offers is is pretty solid, and I do feel like he's sort of in that sweet spot where I don't think he's gonna get paid a ton because the grading's not quite there. And so I feel like he's like right in that that sweet spot where like unfortunately for him, I don't think he's gonna get a big deal given his age and sort of where his strengths and weaknesses lie. And I feel like it would be nice to kind of actually have some, you know, developing chemistry. I know he's older, but he's not like super old, and I he's still incredibly athletic. So I feel like that will hold up at least a little bit. So I wouldn't mind like a little, you know, three-year deal kind of thing and like a reasonable range where he's just one of the guys on the team that you know, whatever it is, like eight eight million, ten million. I feel like that's not unheard of.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:38

And we probably asked too much of him in this these series, too. I don't know if he's he was a starter for us and he filled that role pretty well. But like if he's just kind of one of the guys, that's that's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

The the the like backdoor cuts and all that stuff. That was and the offensive foul drawing. All those, those are those. I mean, yeah, I I really do want them to bring him back. There's so many things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

Why why is he the only guy that can do a backdoor cut? Like, why is he the only guy that can do an off-ball cut to the room?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

Well, I mean, he I don't know. I mean, he was that is clearly like his role. So I mean, yeah, maybe why he is that well, why like I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

I felt like I don't know. That's just maybe that's more of a Nick Nurse grime gripe, lack of off ball movement.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:26

Yeah, what are you gonna say about the offense?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

It just looks like it had no identity. Um Kelly Ubre would also um significantly increase our team's aggregate handsomeness. Um, I think I said this multiple times, but the Celtics, um the Celtics might have the ugliest team in the NBA.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:50

I don't think the Knicks are that attractive either. They got rid of Tom Thibodeau, which certainly helped. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

Um the Knicks are pretty ugly.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:03

Um like Brunson looks like Bella Ramsey, and I don't know, they all just they're all funny looking. Oh god.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

The Celtics man, the Celtics were ugly though. Oh my god. It was so infuriating. It's like like they just kept bringing out these dudes, and like they get uglier and uglier the deeper they go on the bench. I'm like, how do they even find like that? Uh what's that Luke? Jordan Wall had the yeah, Walsh Garza's like big ass Muppet mouth, and Walsh like Slender Man or something, and he's like just tufts of hair coming out of his like bald head.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:43

It's scary.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

Derek White's all goofy looking. Jalen Brown's got like the shoe polish on his head. Like that's a bear thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:53

Yeah, Tatum's pretty handsome, but we don't have to get into the handsomess people, just the ugly ones.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:58

Celtics could really use a Kelly Ubre on their team to just up the up their aura, so to speak.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

Yeah, they'll get more girls at their game for sure. So just all the scumbag people losers that are good in the game. All right, uh, what other role players? So we have like Trennan Waffer. We have a couple guys just still on the roster, so they're just gonna be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

I like we um we can't go like say yes to all of these guys and expect a different result.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:25

I know exactly really love this team, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

I guess to clarify, Trent Waffer's a team option, but it's only 2.8 million, so I don't know. That's like nothing. That's like virtually minimum.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Uh I mean he just did nothing for us, in my opinion. So if it's a team option, I might I mean, I know like Maxie's friends with him, but like we have enough bench spots that are just taken up by Kyle Lowry's and Trend Waffords and people that just aren't gonna play in a meaningful game.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

And then Watford actually had skills that they never attempted to use, but he also got hurried and threw off any rhythm he could have had. But yeah, I thought he was using the connective passer for that role.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:05

Yes, he was, but then you would have to play through him more, and I don't think he he just isn't as athletic. I think part of the reason he was so good in college is because he was just his athleticism didn't matter as much, but in the NBA, yeah. I feel like in real games he's just either undersized or not athletic enough, and then again you have to run through him, so you're taking the ball out of like Maxie and everyone else's hands.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

Um they actually had guys besides Uber that cut, it might be good to have a backup guy that doesn't.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:35

I mean, I'd be fine with bringing none of the power forwards back because I don't think any of them are that great. If we bring one back, I guess Barlow, but I'd rather him come off the bench next year. I mean, I guess he came off the bench this year, too. We just didn't have a starting power forward. I'm forgetting about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

I think Barlow's a great guy if you can keep them just like just to have when you need that type of player, and yeah, they already have them cheap. Um

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Team option for 3.4.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:02

So that's but him and Bona kind of the same thing. I'd keep him up with Bona.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

I think Barlow's a lot more like polished. Like he won't foul out in five minutes. I remember my dad, like he doesn't watch games real close, but he's like, Why isn't Bona out there? I'm like, he's gonna foul. Like, as soon as he comes in, he will get a foul. He came in and immediately got a foul, and then got another like one minute later. He's like, Oh wow, you're right. Yeah, he's shocking.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:29

Yeah, and he can dribble a little bit and decent touch around the rim to finish. He just can't shoot.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

So it's like he is more polished, but yeah, he just looks like he belongs on a basketball court more. In fact, I remember when I was watching him um in the playoffs, I was like, I feel like this guy, and I didn't know, but I was like, this guy feels like he was on the Spurs at some point, and then I looked it up and he was on the Spurs.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:54

Yeah, he was, yeah, he came from the Spurs actually. If he was like two inches taller, he'd make a very good like backup center, but I think he just needs to be able to shoot to play power forward more.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

If he went to the Andre Drummond School of Corner three-point shooting, he could be a very serviceable player.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:09

That's yeah, so 12 years from now, he'll be a great three-point shooter.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

Um I'm always gonna have the Barlow perimeter defense on Brunson in my head, and like I was like, wow, this this is great. I enjoyed watching it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:22

Yeah, yeah, he's certain definitely serviceable as opposed to the other six guys on our bench that just were completely unplayable.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

I'd probably be between the Barlow and Uber and just everybody else was gone honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

I mean, the so uh Edwards has a night regular contract at 2.4. Bona doesn't, it's not guaranteed, but it's at 2.3.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:46

Edwards was team or player.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

No, these are these are guaranteed actually. Edwards is 2.4 guaranteed. I'm fine with that. Uh and Bona's 2.3 not guaranteed, but not fully guaranteed. I don't know what that actually means though. Uh Broom, unfortunately, is guaranteed a 2.1. Man, that is just and then Walker is not guaranteed a 2.6. And Wadford and Barlow are the team options, both per pretty low. And then obviously, we're we're Lowry's gonna retire. Uh, and Drummond.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:18

Edgecombe's gonna change the seven, and then we can all buy his jersey. I'm perfectly happy to not resign Drummond. We need like actual bigs on this team, especially Frank.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:33

When is we've never literally never had a competent backup center for a team that has a center who is since his like freaking birth has been like perennially injured. And it's like, huh, we'll bring in the corpse of we'll bring in Amir Johnson, he'll be our backup center. We'll bring in Greg Monroe, we'll bring in the corpse of Dwight Howard, we'll bring in the corpse of fucking who was it? Al Horford. Al Horford, we'll bring in the corpse of uh, there's some other corpse after Howard, I forget who.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:05

Kyle O'Quinn. I don't know. We've had a million random dudes.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

Yeah, pathetic. Like how hard, like I look at all these other teams we play, and they get these bum ass guys that are like seven foot or six ten, and they'll play like 10 minutes and have eight points because they just do like these stupid little play, like like what's his face that the Celtics had, um, Keda or whatever. Like I he's not like a tremendously talented player, but he knows his role, he's tall, he uses his size well, and he's like makes good decisions and things. And maybe, I mean, I don't know, maybe he's more skilled than I'm giving him credit for, but have we never been able to find that in 10 years?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:47

It does feel like there are a lot of bigs who have flaws, but I uh I wish that the flaws of our backup bigs were not the flaws that they they are. It's like our backup bigs have been like kind of skilled or like a little bit more like head on their shoulders from like a veteran perspective, and it's like no, I just want a guy that like is long as fuck, and you just go tell them run and block shots and read.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:15

A rim running center is our backup center, yeah. Yeah, like a block shots, like a Jelman.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

Maybe maybe that'll be the 20-second pick. We'll see. Yeah, I'm sure I feel like they have to go four or five.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:28

I don't know exactly what, but which somewhat creates a problem when you're forced into picking a position because if the draft doesn't fall in a certain way, so I'm a little nervous about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

I think there's a decent number of the that kind of archetype in that range. I think it might be the back end of that. I've been looking through some mock drafts.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:48

I'm sure we'll do it an episode as we get closer to the draft about like who specifically we're interested in. Yeah if we still have it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

But yeah, they gotta make that pick. I they I don't know. I mean, maybe if they traded for like a 24-year-old or something, like sure, but they gotta make that pick. I don't know. I just like we're we're seeing it, and and I think Byron mentioned it, like you need you you just need to like hit on a guy that is making you know four or five million. And like I would love to get, you know, there's guys over the past years that you know are like a I mean Khalil Warer went like a little earlier, but um, and he's not perfect, but he ri played pretty darn well, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

And think about how many years like think about how many years like the Plumleys gave were serviceable backup centers for like the the Hornets and stuff. Like that's all we need. Just like somebody who's not like a total embarrassment, ideally like able to either be a really good rim runner or step out and hit a three or something, and be a spot spot starter for the games Embiid can't play.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:59

So really, we need like two other bigs if we're gonna be be trapped with Embiid. So if we can't get off of him, which is again creates a problem because you only have so much money. But like we said, Paul George, I guess, is the skeleton key because it's the only real way to posit, which is sad, but you have to sell high on a 36-year-old.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

Yeah, I mean, I guess if there's a silver lining, I think he played well enough this playoff run that teams would probably be interested to some degree.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

Yeah. That's what they should have done instead of signing him to begin with. Realistically, but that's a whole that's a Daryl Mori thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:37

Yeah. I still I guess we might as well transition to that. So they got rid of Maury. So I was okay with the Paul George thing. It didn't really run its course as much as I had hoped. Him and Embiid were basically both out almost the whole time. So we I don't know how many minutes they've actually played together, like our starters in regular season, but I think it's essentially less than I don't know, 10 games or whatever in a couple years. I might I'm sure I'm exaggerating, but I'm thinking of Edgeco more specifically, like the four of them. So we've got to see that, and now it's played, it's played out, and we can sell on positive value. So what else were we gonna do that was better? But now that Maury's gone, again, I'm sure that's gonna shake things up. So there's gonna be big things that will happen, and the new ownership's gonna want to put their stamp on it. So they have no connection to PG, obviously, no real connection to Embiid. So they might be willing to do that. Um, are you guys happy with the Maury thing? To me, I don't see him as our biggest problem. It seems a little more like a scapegoat, and maybe that's a hot take, but um, I see the ownership constraints more as the bigger issue, but I don't think they're self-aware enough that they're gonna fire themselves.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:52

I think um, I don't know if I'd say he was the problem, but I don't think he was his I don't think he was gonna be a solution. Um, if that makes sense. Like I don't think moving forward, the types of moves that he was making were gonna be enough of a difference to get the team where it needed to go. But I don't I I think he I think I said this in the group chat at some point. He was dealt some really bad hands. Like, think about how much time and how much of his uh resources and assets he had to to spend just getting out of the Ben Simmons debacle, the James Harden debacle, the there's another one, uh Horford. The Al Horford, the Al Horford one, the P the PJ Tucker one, which was his fault. Um I get and I guess we could maybe argue that the Harden one was his fault. I don't know what he actually said to him, but yeah. I'm just excited for something new.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Yeah, I feel like the the thing that like it's just hard to know is like the public will say, like, oh, this move was this person's idea and this move was this person's idea. But I don't think we're like really gonna know that. Like we can say, like, oh like the McCain trade was his fault. It's like uh do we know that? Are we ever gonna find that out? I don't know, maybe if there's a leak, but like it's just hard to know like whose fault is whose and all that stuff. I I feel like uh that makes it kind of tricky to like really evaluate like his quality. I do think that the Maxi and Edgecomb picks were like undeniably great, and maybe there was some luck involved there. Um but I was actually like at the time thinking and I mean this is sad to say, but I would say the McKing pick was pretty great too. Um and I was actually thinking, like, you know, the 22nd pick in this draft actually was like there's a decent chance they get a good player based on their track record. Now I'm like, who's making this pick? Is Bob Myers making this pick? Like, when's the replacement gonna come in? Like who's doing the work and like making the decision here, or is this just gonna be a shit show? Uh so that actually doesn't make me very excited. But the the like if you're gonna blame Maury and maybe behind the scenes, this is the reality, blame Maury for like the embied contract and the McCain trade, and like that was really him, then like sure, fire him. I don't know. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:21

I mean, that might have been him and the PG thing. I don't think ducking the luxury tax was necessarily his idea. I mean, sure, he was part of it and was willing to, yeah, that's fine. But yeah, I I don't think he tried to outsmart himself too much, like early Hallie Hallie Roseman used to do, where he like would try and draft someone off the board. It's like Daryl Mori would usually pick the pick that you think he should. And again, like we were talking about Ace Bailey before, like there was a lot with that, a lot with Con Kanipple, and here we are with Edgecombe. So again, I I don't know. It's who again, is this all Daryl Maury's drafting, either? I don't know. So my big point is just the luxury tax and letting the celebrities take up all your front rows. It just shows bad face to what your true priorities were. So I just think this is a little bit of a scapegoat for someone that seemingly got stuff done, at least, and did bring in some players that people care about.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

I think it was I think all of that's true, and it was still the right decision.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:28

I think he just fine, but we don't have a replacement yet. So I just no it's hard for me to see.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:34

Yeah. It's it feels obvious to me that he is on the other side of what used to be an innovative strategy. Like he was a he was a trendsetter with his mindset and the way he approached things. And I think that has very clearly surpassed him at a rate that he was not either willing or or cognizant of how to catch up to. Like this, we are no longer in a star-hunting league. And from the Paul George move to the concept of was he trying to trade McCain to get an asset to flip it for a bigger next move, there were ways that you could have operated without ducking the luxury tax that looks different than this. There's ways you could have put players. Paul George is a really great basketball player. He's a Hall of Famer, in my opinion. Um I just, I was excited when after it happened because Paul George's name rings loudly for me. But when we like went into that offseason, like I still have all the stuff I broke down. I have it on Google Drive and I have it written down in a notebook. And there were just so many different ways that I thought you should have cut up that free agency and that money. Um, and I think that's just more a little bit of a testament to like Maury's still overly attaching to the idea of that that big three is the right way versus one in one A or you know, Batman and Robin, and then a bunch of other Leicester Robins. And I think I think he got that vehemently wrong to the point where that's why they are where they are today beyond MB's health. Um MB's health is not his fault. The extension is I think someone on Twitter I saw made a really good point. I think the Paul George signing made MB's extension kind of almost have to happen because it would have been really in bad taste and in bad faith to sign a lot of. So he had to marry them together in a sense. Right. A 34-year-old Paul George to that kind of money and then negate to give Embiid, who's actually played here and you know, put it on the lines of the Sixers organization, to not give him money is probably a really bad look. Um, but that one is still his doing. So he kind of trapped himself into having to do that. I would be shocked if Josh Fairworth was demanding he spend that much money on Embiid, because clearly he doesn't like to spend money, period. So I'd be shocked if that was a presidential or you know, an ownership group was you have to extend Embiid. They probably were like, do whatever you see fit. Come or go, take him or leave them. Um, who knows? I mean, and so I think Mori's done a lot of really good. I think he's got a good eye for talent. I think he does not have a good grasp of building a chain championship roster in 24 through 2030 range. Um and I it he didn't show a willingness to catch up to this deadline. There wasn't a whole lot to do, but I I've had so many conversations like the last like from the deadline through the playoffs of guys that were traded for very little and are playing in the playoffs more impactfully than the nobody that the Sixers traded for. Luke Kennard was traded for Gabe Vinson in a second round pick. Sixers could have done that with ease. There's other guys that were, you know, now all the reports today came out that he tried to get this guy and that guy and this guy and that guy and you know Tari Easton and this and that. Corey Kispert can just run around and shoot threes. He was traded for nothing. Like there's guys that can shoot the basketball that the Sixers could have traded for at the deadline instead of trading away someone that did. Um again, ownership is a big part of it, but I think he also misread the tea leaves and further kind of wrote his own destiny here, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:09

It does seem like the big three model definitely like definitely gone. And I think I think it's good news for the NBA that a lot of the popular teams are or not the the good teams, the best teams, the ones that are winning titles are teams that built their team. Like the Celtics built their team through the dream. Like that's what you uh I that's what you want. Kind of, I mean, you still want free agency to be exciting, and it's definitely made helped keep teams relevant and things. But like I think it's good that teams like the Celtic ew, that teams like the Celtics can beat the build their team. Uh the Thunder, although it's annoying that the Thunder did it in a way that people celebrate when the Sixers got crucified for it. The Spurs built their team, you know. Like I think even like the yeah, I just think that's cool. And I I didn't really think about it that way until you said it, but yeah, I think the era of like the big three is kind of over, and it's about having your 1A, 1B, like your, you know, your Jokic and uh Jamal Murray or or or whoever it may be.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:15

Yeah, I think that's just from a fandom perspective, but like with basketball forwardness being my intent, like I think Maury is a is a good GM. I think he's lost just a little bit of of the structural reading of what's the most valuable way to do that. And I think the Paul George thing was really a bad blunder. That um I get the concept of why, like, I completely get the attractiveness of the fit. Basketball-wise, it's a good fit. Um I just think you had to, you should have had a better concept of of your roster and knowing that Embiid is going to be even marrying the perfect, you know, next level star next to him as good as that is. You're gonna need a lot of other pieces to get through that journey together. And I think overspending on just one really hamstrung their ability to get another backup big, a rebounding four. They haven't had a good one of you guys said that they haven't had a good rebounder since Ben Simmons. I mean, that's just Maury was here for six years and he didn't want to address rebounding in a meaningful way. Drummond could rebound, but never a rebounder that could play with indeed. Um, he did a lot of good with you know getting out of Horford and all those things, like taking no credit away at all. He did, he really helped the orc. I think from a him perspective, I think he also wrote his own ticket out. I don't trust ownership at all. Um, I just also think I I at the end of this year, or even at the deadline, I felt like I no longer trusted Maury's modern basketball acumen for roster construction. Um but I think he helped the Sixers in ways that is valuable. I think he also unhelped them in some of the his aspirations. Like his aspirations make sense, they're good. I just think he he read the lead wrong and it hurt the team's build going forward.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:05

Sometimes I think like the I don't I don't know. I just don't know enough about like what the job is really like. But I know like the way Maury thinks because he's talked about on the Ricky, and he's like, we need to give ourselves, you know, a whatever, 10% chance of winning the title, and that's all that we can do. And sometimes I think that the way that he thought about it is the volatility of embied like was the right move because if we catch the right embiad, then that is the 10% that we need. And it was always like most likely going to result in failure, but it was the ch the best chance that they had. And there wasn't an obvious move to like uh turn embied like you know, one for one into like a better team situation for like you know, whatever, whatever modern big man you would prefer to have over Embiid to play with like a maxi George or whatever. I mean again, and this is we talked about the Embiid being tied to George thing, but I I I think that it uh it didn't work. Um and I think that there's probably a situation we could be looking at that would be different where this team like got rid of Embiid two years ago and didn't get George, and they had Maxi, and Maxie's still as good as he is now, and they're just like ascending like a Hornets-esque kind of ascension. Um, and I think that's like very that'd be a very plausible alternate reality, but I don't think that there was any realistic organizational patience for that outcome. And I think that that's probably one of the bigger factors for why we are where we are right now in like kind of an unpretty situation, and the 10% swing that we took just missed and and now it's just sad.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:59

But yeah, uh the unfortunate thing about the Sixers is I feel like ever since Embiid came, like usually like stars don't get as good as Embiid was as fast as he did. I think once they showed, like, he showed how good he was, and that in conjunction with his health questions, and even just the fact that any seven-footer is gonna have a limited shelf life, it just put everything on fast forward, and the Sixers never had a chance to really like build a team, and it seems like they were always just trying to build the ship as they build the plane as they flew, and never had any chemistry, never had any, like there's always roster turnover. Like, how many how many players other than Embiid or Maxie at this point have played for the Sixers for more than three three years? I don't think any maybe Kelly Ubre played three three years this year, but like seriously, like that that's insane. That's just Tobias, I guess. Yeah, to bias back then. One of the guys we a lot of people didn't even want um on that contract. Um on that train. But yeah, um yeah, I I as much as I love him beat in a way, like if he were ever to be traded or gone or whatever, I will almost just like breathe a sigh of relief. Not that he's gone, but that like the future is our own. Like we have optionality in like the way we can build our team, and we're not pigeonholed into a timeline or very specific roster construction. And I think for Daryl Mori, that that's like I think like Jason said, um it's very difficult to navigate that. And I don't think he made the right decisions. Um I think kind of like what Kevin said, it he was probably just looking at it like if we if if we can win a roster, it's because Embiid's healthy and he's playing like an MVP. So we just have to assume that he will, otherwise we won't. And we just it just didn't turn out that way. I guess the downside of that is like uh it's not if you're thinking about what happens if you if it doesn't work out, then you're just kind of cooked for multiple years. Whereas it's just it's not just like, oh, we didn't win this year, there's always next year. You're just kind of at a certain point, there isn't next year anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:29

Yeah, I just hope that the guy they get is like just some young gunner who has some patience coming off of a good organization. Like that's what I want. I don't want, no offense, I don't want own brand. I don't want some like seasoned guy who like had a little bit of success and now he's like moved on for whatever reason. I just want like some young up-and-comer off of a good organization, like the Spurs or the Thunder or whatever. That would be my ideal scenario.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:04

The one name that I saw that people were like clamoring about today was a guy that was was here, like Vince Rosman or something. He was here, and then the that's the only yeah, like who really knows like the market of DMs and front office people, it's not like free agency talk, but everyone was talking about that. So then I like looked a little bit at like how long he was here and this and that like that would be kind of cool, seems like. Um and then yeah, hopefully we get Jeffrey Lorian to buy this fixer's from Josh Harris, and then Kelly Roseman can help.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:54

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I just hope that this situation doesn't like screw the draft pick over. Um, but yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:02

I have all kinds of names of cheap free agents if you guys want to go there at some point.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:06

Oh, I just I just was looking at him. There's not a lot, but I did see Colin Gillespie and I got a little bit interested. Villanova guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:13

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean I saw him play in high school. Nice. Yeah, the Palestra. Palestra.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:24

Yeah, I'm curious. Like, I don't know, some of these guys, like, I've just you couldn't give me plus or minus 10 million, and I would guess what they're gonna get paid. The guys that are actually, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:36

Some of those guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:37

What are like interesting people? Is the Sunmu playing himself into like 25 million a year? I mean, he's gotta be at least 20, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:45

He's I'm sure they gotta keep him, they need him. The point guard, that point guard spot is because I mean, what even is that position anymore? That's the hardest one for me to really project meaningfully.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:56

A lot of times when people have point guards, they don't run through the point guard, anyways. Right. It becomes a somewhat meaningless position when you're just taking the ball out of their hand. Yeah, which is weird and sad because I like point guards.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:10

Yeah. Um yeah, um, I agree. I think fringe guys, to me, like um John Collins, like, yeah, he's not a fringe guy, but he's not gonna get the money. I don't think he's gonna get big money. He might be a 15-ish guy, but 12 to 15. Being weighed from the Cavs is gonna be a free agent.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:31

He's gonna sorry, I was looking at John Collins. John Collins is 28 years old. I feel like he's like an Andre Drummond, where he's been in the league. Like I mean, Andre Drummond's like the four-year-old version of him.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

I feel like John Collins has been in the league forever. Yeah. Back when he was getting dumped on in Atlanta by Embiid. Yeah. And dumping back on him. Sorry, I didn't mean to open for you, but that's no, no, you're good. Here's a weird one, and I don't know. I feel like people forgot about him, but he's actually carved out a decent little backup role for his career. Now stay with me, it's crazy. Margaret Bagley.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:09

Yeah, actually, I'm in. He was on the Wizards earlier this year, and uh I thought he looked pretty solid.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:15

He's there two years now or a year and a half, and he's he's still there 10 and 6. Yeah, this is that's where he finished the year.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:21

I think he's accepted a role as like just literally a role guy. So he's doing starting to do more dirty work, and just with his size, like he can just do some interesting things. I wouldn't hate it just as a bench guy, he's more useful than most of the bench guys we had.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:36

Yeah, 60 60 games this year. He's finished at 10 and 12, 20 minutes a game, 21 minutes. I think that's crazy. 6'10, he can yeah, just probably today. Yeah, today he's probably at a real five, but can you play him with Embiid occasionally if you need? Uh maybe, I don't know. Um, a lefty, which is always just weird matchup, a lefty big body.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:59

We're just gonna need size to pair with Edgecombe and Maxi because by nature, our best two players, or the two players we're building around, are both pretty small.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:08

And Embiid can't rebound.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:10

Yeah. Yeah. I know I don't like him right now, but Jeremy Sohan will be a free agent. He's just kind of weird and crazy, and yeah, you can get him to rebound a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:20

He doesn't even play for this. Yeah, he had a decent chance of playing for us. I don't know what's going on there. Yeah. But he was pissing him off in the playoffs. I was gonna beat him up.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:30

I agree. Um not a rebounder, but a perimeter player. Harrison Barnes, he'll be off the spurs, I would assume, unless they just keep him as a vet. He's just a filler guy, but if you if he's like a vet minimum, maybe, but I don't want to pay for that. Right, that's yeah, I mean, completely. That's all he's I would think. Easton will be a free agent. I don't know. Houston can keep that intrigues me. Houston can't keep keeping all of these young guys that can't shoot. Something's got to be.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:57

Houston's an interesting trade candidate with us if we were to go in that route. Because obviously, like the Durant thing went sideways, so they're gonna have to do something and they're gonna have to pay people eventually. They've kind of too many guys. Yeah, Fred Van Fleet's coming back, so that's good for them in a sense. So I could just see some. I don't know if I necessarily want Durant, but like get us involved in a three-team or whatever with Paul George's salary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:26

Precious beat that minimum guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:30

I think Easton's interesting because I don't know like with how he shot the second half of the year, if people are just gonna ignore that. I don't believe it. They probably will ignore that because like it was so bad and like uncharacteristic. In which case I think he's probably a little too expensive for us, but maybe the shooting will like dampen his value enough because I feel like I mean he was shooting, I forget, like 45%, like the first full half of the season or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:58

It might be good for us, though. Like if he were to he'd sign a smaller deal if he's if he's a free agent, just because like how true is the shooting? But on a team like us, he 6'8 or whatever he is, he can run the floor, he can rebound, he can defend. He's the type of player we need that'd be a much cheaper than what we already have. I mean, but he's a slightly bigger body than Uber.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:18

That's the world where like venturing down that pathway, like that's the world to me where if you can move Paul George and then you can get an ESI and a you know, get E Son and Sohan, and then you get a cheap center. You can get. I mean, I have six or seven names of centers here that none of them are gonna command much, and they're all backups. Robert Williams, his injury history is gonna keep him. I'd be fine with bringing that as long as he's cheap. Right. Nick Richards, he'll be coming from the Bulls, Mark Williams, Jackson Hayes, Jock Landale, through Eubanks. All of these guys are productive backup centers, and none of them are gonna command more than I would think, you know, around Drummond or maybe a little bit more. So, like that's that's the world where to me is like if you know, if you can get one of these guys and keep Paul George, fine, but like can you now talk yourself into the range of Atari Eason and a backup center if you have to move George? Because then you're getting younger, but you're staying competitive. So you're not telling Maxi, because yeah, you know, the other big thing that we can really say is like, you know, while I don't think Maxie should ask out, like Stephen A. Smith said today, I think you you from the organizational perspective should kind of run things by payment and say, like, are you comfortable with this two to three year process? Yeah, so um, I think you can, you know, you can trade Paul George and not tank your season, but also realize you're getting a little worse for the right reason. You're getting a little younger and a little faster. So I don't know. I mean, I think that's why, or but yeah, again, if you keep Paul George and can you, you know, can you get one or two of these guys then, you know, at the lower, you know, maybe instead of Easton, now you're looking at, you know, so uh instead of Robert Williams, maybe you're looking at Jockelande. Like there's to me, there's ways it can be done. Maybe now you're looking at Gabe Vincent instead of a better backup instead of Colin Gillespie or whatever, you know, whatever it is. Like guys who have played playoff basketball kind of bounced around the last couple of years, but have an ability to show that they can defend and play in the playoffs. You go crazy, and if you get rid of if you don't have Paul George, I think you could strike up a conversation with Rui Hatshimura. With Paul George, obviously not. But again, I think there's ways that you can do both and and build.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:36

It might be like a cheap version of that. Right. But yeah, we we'll need some shooting, obviously, if we're gonna bring in a bunch of those types of players, but definitely like I just don't want to throw away Maxi's prime and give VJ nothing to work with, and then like I don't want just a true throwaway year.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:54

I got yeah, no, I agree. I just I think you can trade George. Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm definitely fine with that. And still get a guy, a decent player. John Collins can shoot well enough at this stage of his career. Is he perfect? No, of course not. But you know, he can shoot NBA average or a tick above. Again, there's guys playing in the playoffs right now that are gonna be up for like it's not a sexy name, right? But like watching Dean Wade play on the Cavs, he's guarding Cade some moments, he's this and that. Like he's a good blue guy. He can play NBA basketball and start on a playoff team that's as good or better than the Sixers. You know, can you work in the margins there and find those types of guys too? Can you get, again, the Clippers, are they gonna sell a couple guys? I thought Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. were both people the Sixers should have signed before Paul George two years ago. Can you get one of them, preferably Derek Jones Jr., because he can actually get a corner three? I think Philly, too. He is. Nick played against him in high school. Yeah. He dunked on their whole team or whatever. Yeah. So I mean, there's just, there's also like, you know, trade candidates. Like, I just I think there's I don't know. This is all these are like all thoughts I thought two years ago before they signed Paul George. And then I got on board with the Paul George thing because he's just such a good ball player. It's it's hard to not be excited. I just I never fully thought that that was the most logical way to do this for the long term because they also they created their own market for Paul George. Nobody was paying him that much. That was the other part of it, I think, that was a challenge too, and that was probably ultimately part of the challenge for more. It was like, you kind of created your own market and were bidding against yourself. But that's where I get like I can talk myself into a little bit of excitement. Like Gary Trent Jr. will be a free agent again from the Bucks. He's always been a guy that's always beaten the Sixers for whatever reason. He just loves to play the Sixers. Like he can be a good six man. Can I replace Grimes with him, who I know can shoot the three-ball a little bit better, and is still a big body defender? Like, I don't know. That's where I think you can work in the margins, and I think that's where the last couple years the Sixers have lost the vision of doing that efficiently and effectively.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:03

Do you guys have anything else on the Sixers? I still hate them and love them.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:08

Yeah, okay. I mean, I'm just like happy that I mean like after last year, like we were, you know how like close we were to not having a VJ, just like just not even just not having them, like nothing. Like we were we were. I don't like that's the darkest timeline. I don't think about that. But like, man, if we were sitting here right now with like this team with just not VJ and just Maxi, that would this would be kind of tough. Like, I feel like to be a f a fan. Like, but like I I didn't really chime in when Byron was talking, but like I think VJ is gonna be an all-mba player. Like, I would bet I would bet money on that. Uh I don't know how long it'll take, but I feel like with how he showed he showed his ability to improve at at skills, shooting being like the most important skill. So like he he's and I I feel like just the way he carries himself at his age is very in a in a different personality way, so reminiscent of Maxie. And I feel like his raw ability as like an athlete will lend itself towards improving skills. Like he's just he's just an athlete. Like he's gonna get better at stuff. Uh and uh some of like what he has, I feel like you can't teach. And I just think that him and Maxie as a backcourt for the next like five years is gonna be insane because BJ is gonna get bigger, which is gonna make him better than defense, and he already is a pretty good defender. Yeah. Uh and he's just gonna get smarter like all around off ball. And like what Maxie's done, Maxie's, you know, there's a little bit of like the the riskiness that has led to Maxie becoming a Steels leader, which maybe isn't ideal. Uh, but you know, VJ is gonna become a better, like a much better defender than Maxie in the next like three to four years. And and Maxie, I think, will be like a pretty solid defender. He's only in his mid-20s, so like I don't think that is gonna trail off anytime soon. And so like the combination of what those guys bring, like as a complimentary skill set, being like the backcourt that's gonna play 38, 40 minutes a game across the two of them, is just awesome. And like there's a lot you can do with that. Uh it's a great place to start from as you're building a team, I feel like. Um, so I think it's really exciting. I I really I know the 26th pick is not like prime real estate or the 22nd. 22nd, yeah. Uh the 22nd pick is not prime real estate, but I really I really hope they get like a serviceable, like exciting big wing. I would prefer they go with like a big wing who can start off of Maxi and Edgecombe, and maybe not go the like backup center, maybe real center route. Obviously, whatever the value is of that pick, if something's gonna be. I think a four would be nice, like a starting four. Like, I don't know that he's a perfect compliment, but a guy I've seen mocked, who I watched a lot because he made it to the final four, uh was Coa Pete, and that dude's like a tank and super athletic, and he's not the best shooter. Uh, but I mean, he was a freshman playing like big minutes and like getting buckets in important games, and and like was super athletic and is already built like an NBA player. So if that's the kind of guy that falls to them, uh and and hopefully like his shot projects to improve, but that would be I'd be pretty excited. So there are there are gonna be guys there that are are really interesting. So I'm excited to start thinking about that more. But I just really hope they make the pick.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:51

In retrospect, with the Jared McCain trade, I think um if you told me that you trade we traded Jared McCain for um another young big wing or backup center, I wouldn't feel good. It's just like in the time in the moment, like trading Jared McCain when you're supposedly trying to compete, compete this year, and replacing it with nothing of value right now is frustrating. But if that pick does turn into something um like like Kevin just described, then all of a sudden that trade doesn't sound so bad because realistically there is a log jam at guard. And even if Jared McCain was like a like a pretty good um player, which uh you know Jerry's still out if he will be um a guy that you know sticks around and plays significant minutes on winning rosters. Um even if that did happen, he's stuck behind VJ and and Maxie, where you could maybe basically reset the pick and try and get you know a better position of need. So maybe that makes more sense. I was kind of bitter about that move for a while. Um and I don't know, I keep thinking this, and I feel wrong for thinking it, because I don't want to think about Vijay and the Celtics in the same sentence. But whenever I think of VJ, I feel like he's like a guy that would have ended up on the Celtics. Like it's just like the kind of guys that they get that like they just like they get these like kind of like high character driven, like just smart players that they can just mold into these like good players, like like they kind of did with Jalen Brown, although I'm not sure if Jalen Brown's actually smart. Um and yeah, I don't know. I I'm just so glad we have them.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:44

One question very hypothetical in a full blow-up scenario, is Maxi untouchable?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:53

Uh I say yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:56

I think everyone has a price, but realistically, probably I don't even know, like, yeah, I I there are players in the NBA that I would consider trading him for, but I just feel like it's so rare that both teams are willing to even like give up that guy. Like, you know, there's I don't know if it's just like ownership bias, like the guy on your team is more valuable in your eyes because they're on your team. Um but I just feel like there's so few of them, and like the I don't know. It's just I mean, untouched, yeah, like like Byron said, there's always a price, but um I remember like at times last offseason, like there was there was ideas floated before Maxi was like an un undeniable L NBA player that like what a what would you do it for like Paolo? Um and I think that you know I I I mean what what I'll say is that I watching Paolo in game seven, I was like, this dude's got nothing helping him, and he's like he's like doing it. Uh I know that he had didn't have a great year and I didn't watch all the magic games, but um I I I don't think that's enough at this point with how good Maxie is, but uh it is approaching the approximation of a player that I'm at least like, hmm. Uh you know, interesting. Because I I I don't know. I guess I I understand the idea that it would be nice to have a young, like star-level, large wing. Um, because it feels like good teams usually have something that approximates that.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:38

I'll say on that note, as much as I love Maxi, and I don't think it would happen or anything like that. I think there is something to be said about like having your star player or the guy with the ball in their hands be a bigger wing or a bigger guard. It seems like that's very much the trend. And as much as I love Maxi, I think his his ceiling on the court, at least defensively, will always be capped by a size. Whereas if you're looking at like a roster that like the Thunder can put out, and if they have Shay, who's what, like, what is he, 6'5? Like it's just gonna make defensively things difficult. And I'm not saying it is a problem and that we can't win with Maxi, but that that is like a a handicap that Maxi can't be their best player, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:48:31

The sixers probably can't reach their ceiling until either edge comes their best player or someone else comes in.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:37

But even the edge comes like not that big, let it is something that worries me about. He's like six, four and a half, maybe that like we'll just get like out-muscled out length by like length is very much like the the what is in the NBA and having these bigger guards or these wings that you put the ball in their hands, and like you said, like like Jason said, the point guard's kind of gone in a lot of teams, like the traditional point guard. And then what the it leaves you with one one less guy that's like under 6'5. Um I'm not saying you can't win that way, but it is a little concerning to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:18

I'll throw two quick names out just to just to see if either of those would actually interest any of you. Scotty Barnes or Jalen Johnson?

SPEAKER_05 1:49:27

Both. They both interest me. I think they would both fit pretty well. Scotty Barnes may be a little better, just because he also is just great on defense. Uh but uh Johnson, I I think is just a good offensive player, and at least compliment them and help that guards get points as well as himself get points.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:48

But just to be clear, this was a maxi for Scotty trade.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:52

Okay, never mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:53

Okay, I before this playoffs, I did not think Scotty Barnes really. Had a offensive ceiling above what we saw. He kind of plateaued regular season, like right around the same mark, minus like a point and a half or so. Um these playoffs, though, man, he was uh he was looking good.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:14

He was looking like their guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:19

Yeah, that definitely got that his game became more interesting to me. Um, Jalen Johnson did the exact opposite in the playoffs, but it was his first time, his first go-round. So I would just I'd be a little cautious on him yet. I don't want to see him do that for another season now with the expectation now. Everyone's scouting the Hawks with him as the best player. It's not post-deadline, and people are like, Oh, yeah, he's the best player, but like they're the Hawks. So those are good names, though.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:48

I wouldn't trade him for Jalen Johnson, and I don't know. Honestly, I don't know if any of the three teams would do it. Like, I don't know if they would trade Johnson for Maxie and at this point. And I don't think yeah, I'm fairly certain they wouldn't trade uh Barnes for Maxie. Same thing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:07

Yeah, I mean would be too so they would both be too small then.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:12

You're probably right because the other teams just realistically, the the ceiling of Barnes is like like a really, really good player. He really is. I mean, yeah. Uh I think Maxie's like almost at his ceiling. Uh I would agree.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:27

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:28

There's not he can't really get much better.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:31

Yeah. Did you think he was uh is he completely untradable and like complete uh reset scenario?

SPEAKER_05 1:51:39

I'm not making that decision this offseason. I want you're gonna do that to VJ. It's like, hey, this guy's amazing. We want you to be just like him. We want you guys to grow together. Just kidding, we're just gonna trade him. Yeah, no, just so no, he's untradable as of right now. Uh relook at that a couple years from now. We can but just like the the mindset that Maxi has, and he showed up in big moments too. Like we've talked about the next series, like he's clearly hampered by his pinky. He might need I I guess he doesn't need surgeries, just rehabbing, but like he didn't shoot the same, his dribble was off, he was turning it over more. Um, so I I just think you have to build around VJ, and then Maxie being kind of his Robin in a sense. Um, but I think Maxi has to show VJ how to do that, and he's the guy that I want to be the leader in the in the locker room for VJ to become a vet himself. So I'm not trading him just to theoretically have a better fit that then you have less shooting and other issues and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:50

Yeah, no, I think that that makes sense. I think that's a good point. And I think the like this is I knew this is all fun, hypothetical anyway. And honestly, the Scotty of Maxie argument wasn't then thought of until Jason brought that up, and it actually made me kind of like I enjoyed thinking about that for a moment. Yeah, I don't think they would do that, like I said, but it is fun to think about. Um but I I really want to see a version of this team where like the VJ and Maxie are the best players, and the front the big guys are like the compliments off of them, and hopefully there's some shooting, there's some defense, there's some scrappiness, there's some like like mean I just want like a yeah, I wanted like beef stew on our team. I want a Josh Hart.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:34

Uh can we just like like clone Josh Hart and like put him we should sign Josh Hart and then get like Jaden McDaniels, Beef Stew, just people like that. Surround him with length and physicality and effort.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:50

Yeah, I would I would and I feel like that team would be really fun to watch.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:54

Yeah, and at least a little bit of shooting too, and like all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:00

Do you think there's a world where Indeed can um like you can tell? I do you think his lack of rebounding and rim protection is partly by choice and like trying to preserve his body? Do you think there's a world where you could say, like, hey, like now we want you to like hand over some more of the scoring duties to VJ Maxie, and you can focus more on the defensive end, or do you think that's just that's just gone?

SPEAKER_05 1:54:26

You have to get him to buy into that, but I think that's a better scenario if you have him try and average more like 18 points a game, but eight assists or something like that, or just touch the ball less in general and just focus a little more on setting screens, and also probably just playing 28 minutes at the most for the rest of your career.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:47

Yeah, I think that's I mean, I think that's the pathway that I've of the last couple years that should have been the the strategy they should have tried to get the buy-in towards is like let's lower the usage rate, let's let's get you to be a little bit more of an you know a facilitating hub. Um, some of it I'm sure is him, but I I mean who really knows? But in my head, I'm like, you can't tell me for somebody that wants to win this bad that he's not willing to try playing differently. Maybe he's not, I don't know, but I just have to imagine like every time he gets a catch at the nail or the elbow, once every three weeks, Kelly Ubre makes a 45 cut or a backdoor cut, but nobody else, like you talked about earlier, Brian. Like that can't be an offensive philosophy and identity type of thing. Like when you really look at it, there's so many times where this the span of Nick Nurse to Doc Rivers, the offense looks so similar. And like, yes, Embiid is a common thread there, but I'm also like, you guys are also both like stubborn styles of coaches, where there's like, so is where does it all come from? Like, I don't know. Can you can you get the buy-in? Can you not? I'm I'm curious. I would like to think you could do that with Embiid. You're playing 28 to 30 minutes, 20 to 22 points, seven, eight rebounds, five to seven assists, a block and a steal, lower usage, but who knows? A couple more block touches.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:20

Maybe this is a question for Jason. So uh your uh opinion of Missoula didn't that change after the first round? Or do you think that it's just like he just had a bad series? Like as a coach, like because I I do feel like it's like, oh, Nick Nurse outcoached Missoula, and it's like well, are we gonna if we took a poll of the world, would they say that uh Nick Nurse is a better coach than Missoula? And it's like I don't know, like I guess I'm curious, like what's where do you how quickly should an opinion of a coach change based off of like what they just did like last week versus their like uh overall assessment of like regular season to what they've done recently in the playoffs and maybe last year or two?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:05

Yeah, I think I don't I don't think my opinion of him has changed, but I think it's definitely I think this coming year will be a real big tell for what it is because the biggest thing with I think with them is just how steadfast he remained to the identity that they wanted to do and the lack of willingness to adjust much to that. It won him a ring, but it's also cost them two playoff series where they were the favorites. Before Tatum got hurt, right, they were overwhelming favorites against the Celtics or against the Knicks, or pretty strong favorites in that series. And they were gonna lose the series regardless. So that was an identity thing. This year they lost their way out because of an identity thing. And I think there was also side note, I think Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum have always been like, oh, they won't last together, this and that. I think Jalen Brown finally getting a full season's taste of being the guy was probably the worst thing that could have happened for them. I think the NBA Finals MVP was a little taste, but they were still could do it as Batman and Robin and they could switch that up role. I think Brown getting the full taste of being Batman for 82 games is probably the worst case outcome in keeping them together for their careers. So I don't think Brown finishes his career Celtic. Not that he gets moved this offseason, but I don't think him and Tatum finish their careers together or their primes together. But um with respect to Missoula specifically, I think you have to now evaluate because they shouldn't have had the year that they had, right? That was part that was because of him and culture and identity and buy-in and just organizational success top down, right? Everything the Celtics do right now in the last 15 years, 10 years turns to gold. Um Missoula has a big part of that, but I think he he coached them up into a better year. And I think he also helped lose them out of a series they should have won. So I think next year, if they go in, win, you know, are mostly healthy and win 53 to 57 games and are at top three C in the East and aren't playing in the conference finals because they won't use the middle of the court a little more again, then I will change my mind on him. Right now, I'll give him a little grace and just say he was just willing to die by the thing he was willing to live by. Um, but if that's three years in a row that you die by that method and you don't adapt, then I will say I think he's got some either some character thing, not like character, but like some some stubbornness traits that are better than his basketball ones, or vice versa. If he's willing to concede that and say, hey, you know, we have to be a little bit more embrace a little bit different identity in the playoffs or have a little bit more offensive nuance, willing to adapt to to rough shooting games or a tough series. Um, I think that plays in his favor. If they they fall out because of that again, I think it makes you wonder. So they struck out they struck gold once and he's not willing to adapt. Like really it's all adaptability, right? Like you have to same with you know being a TM. Like you have to always be adapting with the vision to win.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:04

Yeah, it's just one thing, and like maybe there's a personnel aspect that like I don't have a full understanding of, but like the way that they just didn't fully attack the drop coverage with the Sixers. Yeah, I was and like the way that the Knicks then immediately did, and I was like, oh well this seems kind of obvious. Like it just there's just a contrast there as somebody who is a very like casual X's and O's watcher as a casual fan. Like it was just like hmm, like what what was so different about the Celtics personnel that like they wouldn't have just absolutely abused us with this. Uh like I don't know. And I know I think maybe like after some of these Knicks games, I might have been like Bill Simmons or somebody that was on his pod mentioned that. And I mean, I remember it was definitely like clear watching it. It's like now that the Knicks were doing it at the time with the Celtics, like I'm just watching, like, I'm not thinking about that as as uh clearly, but then seeing the Knicks attack it, it's like, wow, I'm glad the Celtics didn't try to exploit this more. That just feels more obvious, but maybe it's not that simple. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:12

No, I mean I think that's a a a big thing is they just kind of remained. I listened to uh Tim Legler and the guy he does his podcast with, it's called the All NBA podcast, his other guys at Denver guy, but um, they talked about that during the series, and then at the end of it, they talked about it a lot. And they, you know, one thing that it's you know, you can reflect on that one see is like the Celtics were just so driven that they're gonna be a dribblenetration kick out team. They did not attack the drop, they just went drive kick. And with the Sixers staying in drop, it gives you a little bit more space to recover to those one pass kicks, or then one and one extra. So everybody was just a little bit more connected to their closeouts because they didn't have to cover for the drop. So you're like, I think a thousand percent on. And I think that's that's the thing with Missoula for me right now. I'm like, I don't say it's it's not an acumen thing, it's a principles thing. Like you've you you won by your principles. You came in and immediately had success. And you still had success with your principles, but are you so driven to them? And the way he speaks, he's like so driven his principles that he will be content with the outcome, even if it's wrong. To me, I'm like, all right, this is twice now that your full commitment to your your principles or identity did not have a backup plan that can still live within your principles or identity, but adapt. And so if he's not willing to adapt, I don't think it's he's too smart, but is his behavior, pride, ego, whatever that that thing is, will that open up? And I think that's where for him is like a you know, can he now consistently be like a best coach in the league regular season and now win a second title and a third over the course of you know the Tatum Brown prime? Or is he gonna be like, okay, they they didn't luck into that win, but like you had a much you had a good personnel, you beat a good Mavericks team, but it was kind of a top heavy driven team offensively, and it had a really good defensive scheme, and you guys got hot. Now, can you do it against teams that are more balanced than those Mavericks team, right? That Mavericks team was so unbalanced offensively. I mean, and a lot of people picked a Mavericks to win because everybody was arriving Lucas High, but like they they were not built to offensively be balanced if Luca or Kyrie were having an off day. They were they were done. Um, and the Celtics were long enough to force that to happen, and especially for Kyrie. So it's like they didn't get lucky, but again, like you had the perfect matchup. Now that this, you know, this the uh the Knicks have good rust, but they have good length and physicality. The Pacers are gonna bump back with a new version of themselves. You have the Hawks.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:53

The Celtics also don't have like half the starters they had back then, so right.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:58

So, and then yeah, you have new teams that are now playing fast, long, and aggressive. You have like the Raptors, Fox, and Hornets, all gonna be high-paced, top 10, 12 offensive rebounding teams in the league. Like, are you gonna adapt or are you just gonna keep chucking threes? So I think that's I think he I would guess like he looks like a guy that could coach any freaking system in the world. Like he seems brilliant, but are you willing to? I think that's this is a big year, I think, in his modern day legacy. Like he came on the scene right after, you know, a good coach, but you took him over the hump. But now you've kind of fallen back into the they didn't have to win every year, but you lost series you weren't supposed to lose. You're not supposed to lose to the Sixers like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:45

All right. Sorry, that was a long answer. No, you're good, you're good. I was just just thinking about it. I still take him. Yeah, yeah. I want to throw out a quick NBA finals prediction from everyone, and then do Rex. Anyone want to start?

SPEAKER_03 2:05:03

I think the Spurs will beat the Knicks.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:06

I like it.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:07

I I I think I think I kind of said it earlier before. I think the Thunder are a very good team. But I think um I don't think they're quite as good as um some people are making them out to be, and the Spurs have had their number in the regular season. And um I don't I don't think the Knicks can hang with any of those top teams in the West. I think the w the the Knicks might have a more like complete team, more like well-rounded and balanced. But I don't know if they have the star power to hang with like either the Spurs or the Thunder.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:50

Anybody else want to go? I agree. That's that's actually the exact that's my my hot take is Spurs over Knicks in six games. Um I don't think the Knicks would have a better shot against the Spurs though, to be honest. Um But I think my more pragmatic, I think the Thunder will beat the Knicks in probably six games. It will be interesting to see the Thunder and Spurs though. What do you have the the upcoming face of the league in Wendy, but then you have the the protected free throw artist in Shay. So who's gonna get the better outcome? Who's gonna get the better whistle is? Um no, I just think the I think the Thunder are just a little bit more experienced right now, and I think they're gonna know how to to win the game in the guts in a series against the Spurs, they're gonna know how to get that whistle. You know, like all things that a little bit of gamesmanship, I think they're gonna be able to gut that series out. That might be seven games, but then I I think um the Knicks will just run into a team either way that's just a little bit better on each side.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:46

Yeah, my preseason prediction was Thunder over Knicks, and I'm gonna stick to that.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:52

I think that we both have that. Or did we have somebody else on too? Did we all have the same thing?

SPEAKER_05 2:06:56

We did have someone else on, and I don't know who it was. I'll say it was Phil, and we'll say he had uh fucked over Pelican, so he was wrong.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:07

Yeah, I had I had Thunder over Knicks as well, and I will stick to that. This is kind of a cop-out, but I will caveat that and say I do think that it requires a approximately healthy Jalen Williams. Like if Jalen Williams either just gets re-injured or is like just not playing like himself at all, I I would do think the Spurs will win. Um, I just don't think that like without Jalen Williams, I don't think that this version of the Thunder would beat the Spurs if Wemby's healthy. But I I think it's gonna be that's gonna be really important. I mean it looks like he's supposed to come back game one, but uh we'll see what he looks like. So and then I do think that I think the Knicks are like good, which is just like hurts me. Um so I think that they would put up a fight. I think like six is like a re a pretty reasonable number of games to say. Um I think it would be I would love to say like it could really genuinely go seven if they're they're all still like Nobs healthy, which you never know with him. Um and get and they're like you know, Brunson's doing Brunson things, and Kat is actually hitting shots and not getting felled out. That would like I would love to see it. Like I want them to lose, don't get me wrong, but I would love to see like a great, like really talent heavy finals.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:28

Um I think the Knicks, I just the Knicks I just want to see better basketball than some of the series we've seen recently. But the Knicks will have a cakewalk, I think, because you know, like the um I think they should be able to clean up their series is a lot easier than the Thunder. So that could play a factor too. They could come in a little more fresh.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:50

Yeah. I hope I'm gonna go. I will oh god end it all. No, please no, and by all that would be terrible. Yeah, that would be terrible. Um, yeah, I I do want to see everyone healthy though. Like, I just hate it when like these really good players get hurt and you just have to like watch that's my concern with the Spurs.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:13

I mean they're a little bit young and they don't have a ton of size, but just Wemby's. I need to see him stay healthy for a whole playoffs for me to believe it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:24

Yeah. If the Spurs played the next, I think Cat would foul out every single first quarter. And he would he would not know what to do with Wemby with his foul troubles. Yeah. Yeah. The Thunder don't really have a great guy to go at him, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:41

Well, I hope we get to I mean, I like definitely I love Anthony Edwards, but I want to see the Thunder play the Spurs, and I think that will happen, and I'm really excited to watch that because I do feel like this playoffs kind of started out pretty hot with like, you know, for what a first round series is. Like I enjoyed watching the Cavs and the Raptors because I liked rooting for the Raptors, and watching like Scotty Barnes ball out and Colin Murray Boyles look awesome was fun. And like I just liked watching those games. Uh, and there's some other good series too, but like I feel like this second round has been a little lackluster, so I'm hoping to get a bounce back uh conference finals. But I don't know who I want to see the Knicks play. Like, I don't really neither of these Cavs distance teams are very interesting to me. I don't know. But anyways, I guess that that that does it.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:33

Anybody want to start with a wreck? Byron? Um, I have one. I also want to say I'm very upset with Tobias Harris, uh Tobias Harris. Um, where was this Tobias Harris when he was on the Sixers? Where every elimination game he ever played on the Sixers, I think he took like I don't need him to put up 30 points, but like he just wouldn't even shoot the ball. Like, remember those games where he'd shoot the ball like twice in like 38 minutes? Like, what what happened in the water in Detroit? Why is it okay to do it there? You bet your ass I took in the water out there. Yeah, lead they got lead in the water.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:11

Yeah, you bet your ass I took his points under in that game, and I immediately lost. Like almost immediately.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:19

He's a he's an odd. Um so yeah, I I I forgot I wanted to point that out because that that frustrated me. Like I had no ill will against Toby. Um, but that annoyed me because when he didn't shoot for us in elimination games, it felt very much like like a like a conscious decision. But anyway, uh my recommendation is we got a um one of those robo vacuum things that also mops and vacuums the floor every night and mops once a week, and we have much cleaner floors and I spend less time cleaning, more time doing fun activities.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:57

So does it ever run in? I've always been like curious. I've never asked anybody.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:03

Do you ever um so we had an old one that just it was like a dummy one that just kind of like bounced around, and that one would get stuck under things. This one, the only time, and I've used it every night for like a month or so now. It got stuck one time because it it ran over like um a plastic bag and it got like caught in the wheel. So it just stopped, and I had to pull the bag out of the wheel, and then it was fine. Did it give you a funny notification? Uh it wasn't funny, it just said like you know, it said it it got confused and thought it was like tipped over, but it's just the wheel wasn't touching the ground because the bag was under it. But um, yeah, it's it's cool. You can also uh it has a camera on it, which I don't really care about. But if you're that kind of person, you can like watch your pet and talk to your pet through your vacuum thing. You're a robot, yeah. Dystopian world we live in. I don't I don't think it would work with Paisley because she's terrified of it, and so are my children, but um it does get them to bed faster because I'll turn on the vacuum and I'll be like better get to bed before the vacuum gets you. Um but yeah, it's nice. Um seems like it does a pretty good job, and it wasn't like it was like because it also mops and it like maps the house and stuff is 400, so it's you know, like just a regular vacuum, like a decent one can be a couple hundred, so I didn't think it was crazy. And paisley sheds a lot, so it's really helped kind of like keep the dog hair out and stuff. There you go. If you want to clean your house, get the the MOVA Pro Ultra 10 or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:50

And like you said, more time to do things you enjoy.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:53

Yeah, it is hard because with kids and all, like it'd be like Saturday, and it's like ah time to relax. I was like, oh wait, no, it's not. The kids aren't in my like literally up my butthole right now. So I have an opportunity to clean whippy whoopee. How exciting? So now it just makes cleaning take like half as long because I don't have to do the floors, I can just do like the toilet and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:19

Jason, anything um I have two, but like they're the same topic. So I'm a comic things fan, particularly in the way of Batman. So um I have an example. I'll show you guys, but our obviously your listeners won't see it. I'll describe it vividly. Thank you. Um DC just came out with these new prints, they're called Compacts. And so sorry, it's like a full like graphic novel, but like it's like more like just standard like book size for reading. So it's like a full run. It's like a six to eight comic book run. Um so it's 9.99. So I just got this one like last weekend. Um, haven't started this one yet, but I just thought it was like a really like very accessible way to read a comic book for someone like people who maybe aren't big like comic readers or like don't like digital reading, but like this is just a full a full story of however many articles or issues was in this one. So I'm skimming it back, don't say, but typically six to eight in a run. And it's just like book size. So I thought that was like pretty neat. Um, and for a very affordable price, like 10 books,$10, 10 bucks. There we go. Ten bucks for something like that is like probably 150, 200 pages, whatever of you know. So I thought that was super neat. Um that's like that's like a new concept. Like they're called DC compact comics. Um a little different, they're not hardbacked, again, just accessible, and they have them in like modern, like new things, but also like um some like classic stories, like some classic things like the killing joke they made in this Batman Hush or The Long Halloween, which are like some of the more well-known Batman runs, they also just put into Compacts. And for them, I'm sure it's just another way to make money on a story they reprint anyway. But um, yeah, just I think they're they're pretty accessible, pretty cool. And then the second thing is uh for anyone who likes gaming, and um on May 22nd, the new Batman Lego Batman game comes out. It's called um Legacy of the Dark Knight. And it's supposed to like it's almost driven by like a game system like the Arkham games were built off of. So like the fighting mechanics and everything, and like the flying and all of that is basically like an Arkham game and like Lego Batman. But it's supposed to encompass like the entire like rich history of Batman. So it like covers like Easter eggs from all the movies, from you know, George Clooney movies to Robert Pattinson to like just extra suits and things and like skins and all that from like literally the entire like from Adam West days through Robert Pattinson. Um and so it's supposed to be also a very long, fun game. But you know, those Lego Batman games are pretty like fun, chill games you can kind of enjoy one player and not have to go crazy over. So uh I'm pretty excited about that. I'm probably gonna pre-order it. And I don't think I've pre-ordered a game since like Madden when I was in elementary school, maybe something like that, and try to buy everything used or you know, digital sales. So two Batman things I'm excited about. Good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:33

I'll I'll go and then I'll let Mike do our sign-off after this. So uh there's a show I've been watching that is like kind of scary, I will admit. I mean, I am not like a huge scary person, but it is a little scary, so if that's not your thing, that's fine. But if you do like slightly scary things, there's a show called From that I think is becoming very popular right now because it's I saw it was number one on Amazon and I hadn't heard of it until like a month ago when I started watching it, just because I saw it on Twitter a couple times, and I thought it was scary, and I like moderately scary things. So um, but yeah, it's through MGM Plus on Amazon. The first season is free, but then after that, you do need to subscribe, like an add-on MGM Plus subscription. But there's four seasons out now, and I would say I'm in the third season right now. The first two seasons are very, very good in my opinion. Uh the second the third season is like going moderately well. Um but yeah, like I thought it was I thought it was outstanding if you like any kind of stuff, anything like that. It's not like crazy scary, it's not like what type of scary is it? Um it's like monster scary, like zombie adjacent scary, I would say.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:50

Adjacent scary.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:52

Yeah. So not like conjuring, like it's kind of scary, not like that scary. Um so if you're if you can tolerate like the movie It or like things like that, um then you're you'll definitely be fine. But it's it's super good. There aren't that many scary TV shows, so I try to seek them out when I can. And one especially like high quality ones, and this one is definitely that it's all like actors and actresses you've never heard of, but the premise of the show is outstanding, and it is like a cliffhanger show. So you finish an episode, you're like you gotta start at least the first few minutes of the next episode, which I just don't think there's that many shows like that anymore. I feel like there used to be more, and this is one of those.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:34

So yeah, in the week to week that was very big. So yeah, that's nice to hear. Yeah. Okay. Mine's kind of similar to Jason's, but a little adjacent to it. Uh they just announced, I think yesterday, the Lego uh Ministera set. So I saw this. I did see that. I I've been very excited about this. So they finally revealed it. Uh it's alarmingly expensive, so it's$650. But if you're into buying adult Legos, it's it's pretty sick. Seems like they did a good job with it.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:13

So is it like I don't know much about this, but is it like the biggest set that they've released?

SPEAKER_05 2:20:20

Not the biggest, but it's among the biggest. It's over 8,000 pieces, which is a lot. Uh for reference, I've I don't have a lot of adult Legos because I just have I don't know. I don't need to spend a lot of money on Legos, but I do have Hogwarts, which I feel like is somewhat similar because it's a castle, and that's like 6,000. So this is over 2,000 more for reference. But yeah, I mean it looks sick and like just one of the coolest Lego sets I can imagine. So pretty excited that they're finally releasing this. I like as a kid, I always wanted Lord of the Rings Legos, and it just didn't exist. There was like Star Wars and Harry Potter and other stuff like that. So I'm glad they're finally coming around to the castle culture here. Maybe one day Game of Thrones will come out, even though it's a little more adult.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:11

But oh, the Denethor has the tomatoes, yeah, yeah. The cherry tomatoes. Uh that's great. Is there like a little can he put them on fire? Does he have like a little fire? I don't know. Oh, as that's bronze. Oh uh Mike.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:29

I'm looking at it. I don't know, probably not, but maybe for Christmas. Yeah, okay. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 2:21:35

Maybe Santa will bring it next year.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:37

You could just save like$25 a month and like cancel a subscription, and then in like three years you'll be able to buy it. Yeah, not that long, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:47

I don't know. You guys will find out one day if I bought it or not, I guess. Yeah, just when we get to your house and it's built. Yeah. Maybe on my paternity leave. Yeah, there you go. Oh. Little Easter egg for the people I stuck around. Anyways, so we're we're gonna sign off now. Uh, thank you for tuning in if you've lasted this long. Uh, I'm sure you must be a Sixers fan or you like us or something. So thank you for that. Give us five stars on whatever it is you're listening to on. We really appreciate that. You can reach out at any point. And you can reach out at thelakeviewpodcast at gmail.com. Follow us on X or Blue Sky at the Lakeview Pod. I got a bye.