LeBron James is a Philadelphia 76er!!

Kevin and Michael Lake react to LeBron James joining the Sixers on a minimum contract. They discuss how LeBron, Jaylen Brown and the new bench guys fit with the returning Sixers. Then, the Lakes do a LeBron teammates draft.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I like you watching the video.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to the Lakeview Podcast. This is Michael Lake, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Kevin Lake. Kevin, what's going on, bud? Oh, it's going great.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

We're a little slow on the roll here, but we're still riding the high.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

That's right. So LeBron James is a Sixer, and we are about a week into this now. I think it was last Friday. We're recording this July 31st. And like you said, we're a little late to the party, but it still doesn't feel real, even a week in. Every day I wake up, I like just have a different mindset going forward. Like, is LeBron really a Sixer? Is this real? I still can't get over it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, yeah. I'm curious. Uh, we did our Jalen Brown story. What was your how you found out about it story? Like, where were you? What was going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I think I was in the kitchen because I was off last Friday and I saw a text in our Sixer Sixers group chat. I think it was from you, and it was a Shams tweet saying LeBron James is a Philadelphia 76er. And I immediately had to go onto Twitter. I didn't see anything immediately, so I had to like refresh and all that. Because no way this is real. I didn't believe it. In there's a show called Community that I think you may or may not have watched. But there's something called the darkest timeline. And I feel like we're in like the lightest timeline right now. Like these are the good times. Whether or not things actually work out, I'm sure they won't. And everything's gonna go down in flames. But for like these couple weeks here, the summer, it's it's really weird feeling like hope. It's delightful. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah. So you were was like anybody that home with you? Like, was I guess Maria and Declan were home with you? And do you get excited again? And they were like, I don't know who LeBron is, but that wouldn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Actually, that no, it's funny you say that because I told my mom on Saturday that LeBron signed with the Sixers, and she's like, Oh, I thought he was already on the Sixers. I was like, Oh my god. It's like what do you mean? She's like, Well, I don't know why I would have heard of him if he's not on the Sixers. I was like, he's been in the league for 20 years. How do you not know this? But so I did kind of have a moment like that. But it was just Declan and I home at first, and we basically went to the basement and started partying. We played Here Come the Sixers on repeat, and he was actually dancing into it, so it was really cute. We were having a nice little dance party in the basement, and eventually Maria came home and she saw how excited I was, and people just started reaching out to me. I started reaching out to other people that I knew would care, and it just kind of started blowing up. And then Maria received texts like on my behalf, like, oh, my Mike must be so excited, LeBron. Because we were both very excited about the Jalen Brown news, obviously. So this is just icing on the cake, pushing Dean Wade into the backup role, and now having the best passer that we've had since James Harden and in a role. I don't know. It's just it's great. And also, I I've always been a LeBron fan, even though I'm essentially you're kind of tired of him like everyone else, but he kind of kept me interested in basketball during the process when the Sixers sucked. I was very into those Cavs titles. So I loved him originally on the Cavs, and then when he became a heat guy, I I just I didn't know what I was doing for a little bit there. But returning to the Cavs was exciting, and now he's with us, and it's pretty cool. Doesn't feel real.

unknown 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

What was your experience? So you texted me, so I guess you just saw it on your phone. What were you up to?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, I well, I still like usually I would say in in normal circumstances, I would have had Shams notifications turned off by the time that it happened, July, whatever it was, July 24th. But I I the LeBron news hadn't happened yet, so I was like, all right, I'm gonna leave them on just for this. Um, so I got the notification as I was sitting there. I was actually um, I'm pretty sure everybody that would listen to this knows this, but um my wife is pregnant, so we were at an appointment for that. And I was sitting there and was it the anatomy scan, just out of curiosity?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Nice. I just had mine the other day. Okay, nice. Um, so it's like, you know, for those who know, uh, it's like a little bit stressful inherently, because even though it's mostly probably gonna go well, like there's a chance that they I guess I shouldn't even make a joke about it, but like there's a chance that something could be off by a lot. Uh so that is when you find out. But I was sitting there in the middle of it, and I just go like, I just started like freaking out, and Mel was like, What's going on? What's going on? And I was like, Oh no, LeBron's on the sixers, and I was just like freaking out in like this hot hospital, like uh doctor's office thing. What a weird spot to find out. That was, I guess, in Philly, though, right? Yeah, yeah. I was uh Penn hospital. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Nice. You're in the heart of the beast when you found out.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

That's great. Uh so yeah, and then and then like this was mid-appointment, so then I just need to like sit there like a normal person for the next like 45 minutes. Pay attention and not just wander. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I'm like halfway like looking at this, like, you know, that's a leg, oh that's a hand, and then halfway thinking, like, all right, so LeBron's gonna be like running in transition, and I'm just like, yeah, like so excited. Uh and yeah, so that's how a couple of decent where I'll I'll always remember where I found out stories with uh you know some of this going on. So that's exciting. And and yeah, so yeah, got the notification right away, and like the amount of mental processing that occurred in like those instances was like, okay, like notification, look at phone, read message, Twitter, LeBron James, Sixers, what my brain exploded for like a microsecond, and then I was like, no, not real. And then I look, I see Shams, and I'm like, okay, real. And then I'm like, wait, no, it might be shams. And then I'm like, wait, no, I don't have Charms notifications turned on. So like this it's like this micro flashing like sequence of thoughts that are occurring in my brain that I was like, then once I made that final realization, I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually real. And I lost my mind and I could not believe it. Because that morning, like, I I don't know what everybody else was doing to monitor, but er I would check Calci, the LeBron market, like four times a day, and I would see Sixers 14, Sixers, 17, Sixers, 9%, Sixers, 11%. They were never the favorite, I don't think. Yeah, no. Uh, and on that day, they were 9% odds. Like that morning, I'm talking like this happened at whatever, 11 a.m. or something like that. At 9 a.m. or like 8:30 a.m., they were nine percent odds. So I was at that day, I was just like, there's no way it's not it's not happening at that point. Um, but it happened, and it was it's incredible. I mean, to sign for the minimum, that's the part that is just like so underrated. Um, it's like the best contract in the league, besides maybe like Wemby or like it's honestly shocking. I can't believe he did it. Yeah, so that is that. But yeah, okay. I don't know. I get emotional every time I I think about it because it's just like I mean, we we can get into all the layers that it's amazing, but it's like and and honestly, they talked about it on the right circuit sanchez, and I was like, Yes, I completely agree with all of this. It's like he he signed for the minimum, he could have played anywhere, and he picked the Sixers, and just like, what is happening? Like that encapsulation of the situation alone is just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, it's really revitalizing everything. It it's giving me more motivation in my day-to-day life, which is pretty sad. I'm like this excited about a sports event and just someone signing and just the entire offseason. I actually have a little bit more I don't I don't drive something. There's something there. It's rubbing off on me.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, I think it's just like there's obviously the basketball piece and like how good the Sixers could be, but I feel like more than most other sports news, this is there's so many other layers to this that are so like exciting and interesting. And it's like what I just talked about with LeBron picking Philadelphia, and now that I'm back living in the city and I'm walking around and everyone's excited, I there's like a sense of Philly pride that like he chose us kind of thing, and I just think that part of it is almost I mean, it's probably not equally exciting because like the Sixers being very good next year, uh, hopefully, is gonna be the best part of it. But in the moment, because they're not playing basketball yet, it's that's the part that I think I've almost enjoyed the most, is just the like we won the prize, we're the we're the bell of the ball now, as far as like the league goes next year, like most primetime games, max primetime games. Uh so yeah, I mean it's just that that part of it's super exciting.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

We're in a place we never thought we'd be. You could you could go back to us talking about it a couple years ago or just Philadelphia's hope in general. I think we're typically always assuming the worst is gonna happen because it always does, and things that we never expect that to happen always happen. So again, we're living in a great moment right now. We'll see where this actually goes, but it's it's really fun. Like I downloaded a 2K roster, it's been fun to play with. All the pieces fit together in 2K perfectly, so we'll see how it goes in real life. But it's it's pretty neat. I think this is the first time the Sixers have ever been an actual contender in our lives. We've been kind of close and like flirted with it, but I think this is the most complete roster that we've had since we've been fans. And we saw all the AI teams back in the day. We were pretty young, so we weren't super locked into those, but those were some flawed rosters, and they were able to steal a game and all that, but yeah, this is just a different animal.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

The East was just like a different thing back then as a conference. I feel like it was just you know, not to not to diminish what that team accomplished, but just a different beast, uh, obviously. But the um what was gonna say? Uh well, talking about like how good how good the the Sixers are and how exciting that is, I agree with that. But then I was also thinking about the off-season itself, and I guess you're not an Eagles fan, but I'll ask you this anyway. I guess it's maybe a little bit hard to compare because it's retrospective, but I was thinking about the Eagles offseason before their Super Bowl year and trying to think like, is this one better? Um this offseason? Is this Sixers offseason better than that? Like, I'm pretty sure it was like they got Saquon, Vaughn, Carter, like all in the same offseason. Like, and I'm missing guys, but it's hard to remember because that was a couple years ago now. But Carter and Saquon were the same offseason? I don't think so, right? Oh, were they not? Is it was that not the draft? Was that oh no no, maybe I'll just go. Carter just signed an extension.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Oh no, I know that I think they had two consecutive great offseasons. Either way, I'm gonna say the Sixers just because I think the level of hope that we had, especially like two years ago, to where we're at now, is unfathomable. I never thought we would be here. It's it's incredible. Like to have this starting five, five guys that can all do everything, essentially. We kind of saw this with the Knicks last year. We saw this with other great teams. When everyone can do everything, it's impossible to guard, and then on top of that, you can uh attack matchups and stuff in the playoffs, you can get into like dirty work, do a lot more, but just we're gonna get into what we're excited about specifically. But yeah, what were you looking up over there?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

So they added Saquon that offseason in terms of ads, they added Saquon Barkley, CJ Gardner Johnson, Zach Bond, Cooper DeGene, Quyanon Mitchell, and Jalex Hunt. So they got the two D backs that same year. Okay, yeah. I mean, that's pretty incredible. That's pretty good offseason, yeah. Um, but this is this is definitely should theoretically definitely rival that one.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

But it's the best player of our time, and we're not expecting a lot of LeBron. We're not like insane people that think he's 27 again or anything, but he doesn't have to do much on this team, and he just fits so nicely into the last thing that was needed is just kind of passing and some rebounding, transition, all that stuff, size. It's gonna pair so nicely to get Tyrese off the ball more, to get Jalen Brown. I and I know comparing it. Do you want me to compare it more to like the football offseason?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Or just oh no, I was just thinking like I don't know what my answer would be. It's it's hard to compare. I think it is hard to compare. They're actually like both unbelievable in hindsight.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Um what it reminds me, which kind of gives a little sour taste, but what was it, the four aces that we had on the Phillies back in like 2012 or 2011? We got like Roy Holiday, Roy Oswald, uh Cliff Lee, Paul Hammels, and Cliff Lee. And I remember everyone was pretty buzzed about that. It didn't work out super great. So hopefully this works out better, but yeah, yeah. It's it's the blending of like the older guys who have done it before with the young core that's already here and are hungry, and people are trying to put things aside. That just gets me really excited. I think people are at the point in their careers that it's coming together nicely.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

What do you think is now like the I guess I don't know how to word this question? Well, I was gonna maybe I'll just start out with the negative. And then we can move into the positive, just to get the negative out of the way. Because we've already been very positive, so we'll use the sandwich method. Um what do you think could be if you had to think of like what is the potential downfall of the team and you can only pick one thing, what do you think it would be?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Definitely backup center.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

I think that's the biggest flaw of the team right now is just kind of another guy with a lot of size. The Sixers have a couple somewhat interesting guys with some size, like Barlow, Adem Bona, uh, Ariel Hocporti. We'll see what we have in that. Dean Wade has decent size, but like if you want Embiid to play like 25 minutes during the regular season, and he's probably gonna miss 40 games, it's gonna be very important to have someone who can actually is almost starting caliber come up off the bench. It doesn't have to be starting caliber, but someone that can really eat minutes for you and just do some good center role play stuff and help out on defense too. Like you you just kind of want like a rim-running defensive center, something like that. And you have some architects types like that a little bit, but Bona has his flaws, he has terrible hands, he fouls a lot, he's undersized, Dominic Barlow can't shoot, he's kind of skinny, he's not really a center, he's kind of a power forward. Ariel Huckporty, I don't know too much about, but like we have a bunch of third centers essentially, but we don't really have a second center, if that makes sense. So now we have I feel better about like wings and stuff, and our guard rotation is pretty great, especially with KCP joining, but uh that's my biggest concern by a pretty fair amount.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, I mean I think that's probably a pretty good argument. Um I c it's hard to argue with you there, and it kind of translates, I guess, both ways. And mine is so general, but I do worry about the defense of the team. Yeah. Um I feel like the I'm trying to I think the biggest thing I'm trying to rationalize is that Jalen Brown is going to need to focus less on offense, and that will make him a better defensive player. But that might be oversimplifying it. I don't really know.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Um I think same thing with Embiid.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

That is my hope. I am scarred by the Knicks series a little bit and how flawed he looked. Like when he got when people they were switching on to him out near the perimeter and like dragging him out with Carl and Henry Towns.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

He looked better against Boston, but then in game seven, he I think banged his knee or something, and he just didn't look right after that. So it's just classic and bead. So obviously, I'm worried about his movement abilities in general, but more so uh and we took a quick pause there and we're back, but we're gonna address some of the defensive concerns that we have. And again, I to me this has a lot to do with the center position. Uh we don't know how many games we're gonna get out of Embiid, we don't know how much he's gonna be able to move. Like we said, between the Knicks series and the Celtic series, I know he's coming off an apt apt indectomy, but he uh also his knee he just couldn't really move. So that combined with LeBron trying to get through another age 42 season here, it's gonna require a lot of help from the size, basically, because that's usually the biggest strength of a defense, like what we see with Wemby and Gobert and all that stuff. Your defense that's the spine of your defense, usually the center. So if you can't move and you can't defend the paint, they're gonna take advantage of you. And if you have several guys out there and then Maxi being small, you're gonna run into problems. I think this team is athletic and they're gonna try hard. So depending on if the other team has a best player that's kind of a bigger wing, I think Jalen Brown would be your point of attack defender versus if it's a guard, you could have Edgecombe be the point of attack defender. Try and switch up like that, and they're just gonna probably play a lot of drop. But I only want Embiid playing like 25 to 30 minutes, anyways. So again, I just want a very almost if it's possible, like starting level. I think Mike Levin talked about it on the Ricky, but if you can get someone on like a rookie scale deal that someone's just maybe not gonna give a big next offer to, and maybe if we have to trade like phylon in a second or something to do that, it might be worth it. So just more something. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

That we're saying the same thing. That's fair. I do feel like the the regular season, they're gonna be fine, and it's just gonna be like a they have the size and physicality, which is good. It's just like just points up and down the floor, and I feel like they'll win most of those on the regular season. When the game slows down in the postseason, I do think with the effort ticking up, they will make up for it somewhat, but I do worry that at times against talented teams. Um, you know, I guess I mean thinking like Knicks, Celtics, whatever other teams, um they're gonna I don't know how well they're gonna do with some of that. But but I I do think the effort taking up like Jalen Brown, I think, could be a better defender in the postseason if he doesn't have to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

The Knicks and Celtics are also in our division, so we're gonna face them both four times uh prior to the pre the postseason, which would be fun. Good little test. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they stack up against talent and if they can hold up and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

I feel like maybe just a like a very healthy dose of VJ and Dean Wade minutes might be necessary, just in general, as like fifth and sixth men. Um whether Dean Wade is truly the sixth man or not, I'm not sure, but he might be just because of the front court being less deep than the backcourt, probably at this point. Um and I don't know, I have no sense of like what kind of KC, what kind of player KCP is at this point. Um, in terms of defensively, I know whatever it was, like four or five years ago, he was a pretty good defender, but I don't know how much age has diminished that ability of his. I can't say I was watching Grizzlies games or whatever, wherever he was. Playing last year very often. Um, but I mean we we don't all we needed him to do is shoot and and play defense. So if he sells the the wheels to do that, then that would be a nice backcourt defensive addition as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Um I heard a stat today on the game theory podcast, and they said so one of the big knocks on KCP is he was really good when he played with Denver, and he was really good when he played with LeBron. But since then he hasn't really done much after getting like some big contracts. When he was with the Orlando Magic, that was the year where he he only shot in like the low 30s from three, but more of his threes were contested than not contested that year, so he just wasn't really getting the same looks he was getting in Denver, and or same thing with the Lakers. So getting back to just open looks on offense, I I think there's a world where he can shoot better. And of course, last year with Memphis, like that was kind of a disaster. So I don't think he was ever gonna have a great situation there. So he probably has more in the tank, and we don't need him to start either. Like he used to be a classic starter in like the edgecomb role, but edgecomb's better than him, and like he can come off the bench and play, I don't know, 20 minutes or whatever, and he probably has enough left that he's gonna be helpful off the bench. I think they have him, and then we were talking about six men earlier. Uh Anthony Simons just scoring-wise, is more of like your what you think of of as a six-man, even though Dean Wade might be more important to the team, but they actually have somewhat of a bench, which is fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah, I mean, they definitely have depth. Um, it's kind of like it's a little bit of a weird assortment.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Um I wouldn't say Justin Edwards is still on the team, so him as like a third shooting guard is is better than a second.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah. I think there's be there's obvious desire to have more of your depth be like size and rebounding because of what the starting rotation slightly lacks. Obviously, like I would I wouldn't say Jalen Brown and LeBron are like bad rebounders or aren't big, but I think that like some of the defensively, they're not stars anymore in that way. And I don't the Jalen Brown defense, like I was looking into his stats. I guess he's always appeared to be a better defender than maybe he really is, but it's so hard to I don't know how to make sense out of all that. Everyone says he's a better Celtics game.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

People say from like Celtics fans that he's a better on-ball defender than off balls. He gets beat, like cuts behind and stuff like that, or just kind of will fall asleep. So I guess if you have him, like I was saying, as a point of attack, you can get more out of him. But he's not necessarily, like you said, everyone thinks of him as a great defender, but Celtics fans think he's a good defender, but not as good as we think of him as Sixers fans. Yeah, but he's definitely super versatile, at least. Like we saw him guard embiad and have at least a little bit of pushback against him. So I he's he's also a good rebounder, too. LeBron's kind of late stage at this point, so he might still get six or seven rebounds, but I I think as a small forward, Jalen Brown's a decent rebounder. Like he might get six himself.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, yeah. No, I I agree with that. Yeah, I think they have a lot of like and VJ's a pretty good rebounder. They have a lot of above average rebounders, but they don't really have any elite rebounders or even like very good rebounders. I'll push back on that.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Jabari Walker's still on the team.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, right. He's gonna get a ton of minutes.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

He's a good rebounder, but that's all he can do, I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah, that's that's the weirdest, like this is all I can do skill set, I think, that exists. Um but yeah, all right. Well, that's the like less exciting side. Let's turn it back to the optimistic side. So, I mean, I guess we could obviously talk about what this is gonna look like offensively, but I feel like there's a hundred different things to talk about, and it's all incredibly exciting. Um, but yeah, I feel like offensively, I personally think that like the Knicks offense was insane last year. I think that there's no reason that the Sixers offense couldn't be better. Um and obviously like the Thunder always have good everything, and the Spurs are gonna be good too offensively, but not as good as the Knicks, I would say. So I feel like the Knicks are our main competition for like best offense in the league. And I I feel like the Sixers offense will be better. Um, but that's gonna be very exciting because obviously offense is really fun to watch, especially if you're gonna pick one thing to watch in the regular season, it would be like electric offense, and I feel like they're gonna have that. But yeah, I don't know anywhere you want to start with this.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

There's just a world where this year people are gonna show up to try and play really hard against the Sixers and take the idea of all their talent very personally. But I think with our transition offense alone, and you can have Embiid kind of be like the trailer when he plays, they're gonna just outscore people by the third quarter sometimes, and they might be able to sit in the fourth quarter, like what Golden State used to be able to do sometimes. That's not gonna happen a lot, but there's gonna be games where you can get a little bit of rest, so that's gonna be nice. But yeah, I think three of the Sixers players now were in the top 15 in transition points last uh last year, which is pretty cool. And I think like LeBron was one of the top three, and then Maxi was in the top three as well, then like Jalen Brown's up there. Just the fact that they have four people that can well, actually, really five people, all five of them can somewhat shoot and somewhat attack the rim. And Bede can't attack the rim as well as he used to be able to, but if he takes kind of a more set screens trailing, hit like top of the key type threes or corner threes, that type of stuff, and becomes like the Brooke Lopez type player a little bit, at least during the regular season, he can gear up in like certain matchups. I still think that his facing him out and attacking is like unrivaled to what this team can do.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I still think his footwork is does him better service on offense rather than defense because it's not like he's quick, but he's like coordinated and agile and like crafty enough, I guess maybe would be the word, to get to the rim. So the fact that all of those guys can do all those things at very to varying degrees, but some of them incredibly well. And I mean, there's just so much to say here. Like uh the ability to get to the free throw line for this team is honestly unmatched. Like, they're too sickening for other teams to watch. You literally could not name me a team in the league that will come close to the Sixers' ability to get to the free throw line. You you would just you they might be almost twice, like they might be, I think, second place in free throw ability or getting to the line ability will be closer to like 15th than the second place is to the Sixers in terms of ability to get to the line. Like, it's just that's that's the real that's a real differentiator from a skill set perspective.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

I think Paul George was a better three-point shooter than either Jalen Brown or LeBron, but both of them can attack the rim a lot more than PG could, and both of them draw fouls at a very high rate. So we brought in two more people to add to Embiid, who's like a specialist at that, and he doesn't have to do it nearly as much this year, so that'll be nice to for us not to watch at least him do it, but like the way LeBron can work refs, and then you have Jalen Brown, who's just a maniac, and then you have VJ attacking with another year of that, and then Maxi. Maxi doesn't get a lot of whistles, but I think this team in general is just gonna be insane to not like how do you stop them without fouling? No one can match up against that.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah, so I'm looking right now at free throw uh free throw attempts per 100 possessions, which is like a pretty good way to identify like the actual raw, like real rate of somebody getting to the line. And Jalen Brown last year was eighth. And LeBron was this is yeah, LeBron was 27th, and then Maxie, where was Maxie? Why does Sorry I should have had this up ready? I'm definitely just not seeing him. He's up oh, he's 30th. But then uh Embiid doesn't show up because he didn't play enough minutes, but if you count the players that played like enough minutes to be worthwhile in the league, then LeBron or Embiid would be third behind Doncic and Giannis. So it's like th four of the top 30 guys in the league are all on the Sixers for getting to the line. And I'm sure VJ's only gonna get better, but um like in terms of that, that's like he's obviously gonna be a guy that gets to the line eventually. Um, and so I I'd have bet there that could be another thing that jumps for him in year two. But and then you yeah, it's just I mean, yeah, I'm so excited to watch them on offense and and in transition, like I can't wait for October. I'm so excited to watch them play, it's it's wild. The other thing that I was looking at, because I feel like I mentioned this before, but I think offensive box plus minus is like a pretty good gauge of like how much a com a player contributes offensively to like how good they are offensively. Like Jokic is one, SGA is two, Luca is three, Kawhi is four, Wemby's five. So it's like it you you get a feel for like that's probably pretty reasonable. Um well Tyrese was eighth last year, and Jalen Brown was nineteenth, and LeBron was twenty-first. And if uh Embiid doesn't show up because of the minutes, but he played a decent number of minutes, he played over a thousand minutes. So if you look at guys over a thousand minutes, then Embiid would have been uh tenth, and so j to to reiterate, if we're counting Embiid, which is a little bit cheating, that's in terms of offensive players, eighth, tenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first. That's four players in a 30-team league, and that's the top 21. So it's like that's insane. I mean, that's really insane. The the the interesting thing is the Knicks were are actually pretty good on that too, which makes sense because Brunson, Kat, Annanobi, and Bridges are like pretty good offensively as well. I mean, the six the Sixers are better, but um it does kind of like reinforce for you that it makes sense in hindsight, like when the Knicks played at their potential, that they were as good as they were, because those guys in a vacuum are very talented. Um but yeah, so I just I when look I'm always diving into these kind of stats, and I just think that that reiterates and reminds everyone that like this team's gonna be like almost an all-star team offensively, I would say pretty fairly. I think that's fair to say.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

LeBron they announced it's gonna be running point two, which I think is gonna be helpful for Maxi just to get a lot more easy and open looks, so he can do just more off-ball catch and shoot. Last year, uh he shot 41.7 percent, so 42% versus 33% on pull-ups. So he's just in his career and going back to Kentucky, he's a better catch-and-shoot three-point shooter, even though we think of him as taking like the stepbacks and those like long-range ones, he's he can hit them, but he's more like Trey Young-ish from out there. But he actually has the catch and shoot, which is huge, and he's gonna get a lot of those between like him and Embiid. He has the chemistry with, it's gonna be exciting.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

And I feel like the the interesting thing, I don't know if you've been hearing this, but my I mean, I'm sure we have a lot of the same Twitter, but uh people saying, like, oh, VJ's gonna be upset by this and all that, like these outside NBA people saying, like, that you know who this hurts the most is VJ because now he's like the fifth guy, and like he's you know trying to prove himself and get better and get opportunities. I feel like V there's if if VJ is ever like I'm not happy here, it will literally blow my mind. Like, that's I will be so surprised that it will blow my mind. Um, I mean I'm saying like okay, maybe like it would still surprise me, but in like seven years, if they're like not paying him or some crazy thing, they're not paying him like a super max, that's different. I don't really care about that. I'm talking about like right now in the short term, his second year, third year, fourth year, as he's getting better, you know, they're gonna give him an extension when when the time comes. If he's like, Oh, I'm not happy, I want out of here. That would blow my mind. So the fact that people are saying that is insane to me. They clearly don't like know anything about him as a person.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Um, I've heard a lot of really stupid opinions about this. And Vijay's clearly been ecstatic and loves LeBron, and he's just a happy, he's like another maxi. It's incredible. He has the best personality.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Yeah, so those two are just my favorite player to be in this situation, like a young guy who is ascending. Yeah, maybe he's not gonna be able to like shine his true potential in the next like year or two, but like whatever he needs to do, he's going to do, and he's gonna be as good as he possibly can be at that in terms of like getting better at it, and he has such natural raw ability that like he will improve at whatever small parts of the game he needs to improve at in order to add like winning contribution to the team, and so that part of it's gonna be amazing too. And he he works really well in that. Like, I don't know, maybe this is not the right comparison, but almost that like Andre Iguidala, like he's like he's younger, obviously, and not as mature of a player, but I feel like that's what he could be like is just like I'm gonna do whatever, and yeah, I might not light up the box score, but I'm gonna flash at times and I'm gonna like glue this team together, even though I'm a young guy, as not the first option, not the second option, not the third option. So I feel like that is um very exciting to think about, and I love him as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

And yeah, I thought about him as a good avocamp. That's kind of interesting, like the way he in like the Josh Hart kind of role type thing, like he can glue everything together, but more athletic and also with Philly. It's yeah, like I mean, definitely supercharged in terms of talent, but like I I don't know, I think the way he plays though, he he is relentless, he plays like Stefan Castle. It's so exciting, and you see when it at the end of games when it's gonna be close or they're gonna lose, he just turns on a different gear and starts going nuts and tries to block everything and get every rebound. He already has those types of habits, so that's gonna pair so nicely with someone like LeBron. That's that, like just the willing defense and the hustle and rebounds and then the catch and shoot. And also, I think he uh I heard he like led the league in loose ball foul, not loose ball fouls. What am I saying?

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Like loose balls, yeah, recovered or something recovered, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that definitely makes sense. Yeah, oh my god, I could talk about this forever.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

I love him, and I feel like I think he's my favorite player.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

And the thing is, as I'm thinking about this Iguadala thing, which I just pulled out of my butt and probably isn't actually that good, but like the fact that I'm saying, oh, but he's younger and not as mature of a player, I'm now wondering if is that he just turned 21, by the way. How true is that based on how ice cold he was at times in the playoffs last year? Like, I don't know, maybe maybe he's mature enough beyond his years that he could be like that impactful next year, but um yeah, and oh man, the like him being the first one LeBron do the thing. Like, I've of course, which I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Like, I was watching LeBron or well, not LeBron highlights, I was watching like the NBA shortened condensed highlight-y version games of some LeBron games from last year, just to really like focus on what is he doing as a player right now. And he's like, it's kind of Jokic-ish where he'll because he's tall enough, he can like stand around, and and honestly, obviously better, but like it's what we watched a lot last year to later in the season with Carl Anthony Towns, where he would like stand around and just like dish it off to somebody pretty well, honestly. Like, you know, I don't want to talk nice about Carl Anthony Towns, but he did he has become a pretty good passer, and I feel like uh LeBron is like an insane version of that, and it's just like the amount of Jalen Brown, Maxie, VJ, like crazy cutting, shooting, screening, and LeBron like leading that from a mindset and like a basketball IQ passing ability perspective is going to be joyous.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Yeah, watching him as the orchestrator of all the movement and the cuts in theory. Hopefully, people move and cut.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah, you're gonna need fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it just seems like, yeah. I do wonder, it's a fair definitely a fair point that at times, like are these like star players gonna be lazy off ball? But I feel like I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

I don't think VJ or Maxi will be, so that's exciting. Yeah, it really the one person that didn't ask for any of this is Jalen Brown, so it's just gonna be a lot of buy-in from him to embrace somewhat of a different role than what he's used to. But at the same time, they shared the ball a lot with like their drive and kick offense and stuff in Boston, and he didn't always have the highest usage, so I think he can, and apparently he reached out to LeBron too, so he seems willing and happy to.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah, that I mean it's hard to know what's true with all that stuff, but I mean it seems like Jalen wanted LeBron to come to the Sixers, so that's true. Like, in the in the world reality, obviously we can't know for sure, but in the reality where that is a true fact, like why would he do that if he didn't mean it? I don't know, you like I guess we won't know that, but it feels like maybe that actually happened, in which case, why would he do that if you didn't actually want that to be the case? I feel like I don't know, it's so this is this is the part of following basketball that is pretty interesting is how big the personalities are and how much the personality dynamics like influence the game because there's only like you know, there's only seven people on a team, and these guys are like all get paid a shit ton of money and they have big personalities, and that part of following basketball, like at times it can be frustrating, but it's also kind of interesting. And the way to think like the way the Jalen Brown souring situation that's gotten covered just makes it all so confusing and like hard to know what to believe. Well, like, does he want his own team? Like, is he just mad because everybody loves Tata more than him? Like, what's the real deal? Like, what kind of person is he in terms of like team chemistry and all that? Um, I feel like his annoyance is completely justified with the Celtic situation and makes me think he's just a normal person to a to a most for the most part, in which case I feel like if he can be on a team that's really good and he can get revenge on the Celtics and win, then I think he's gonna be happy.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

I think that's what he wants. I think that's what he wants, that's what we want. I think our goals align. So he's definitely gonna be bought in probably for this year, probably next year, and then we'll see where just everything goes from there. But I agree, like the type of person he seems like a just normal guy, and he's just probably gonna he tries really hard, and he's a dog like VJ and stuff. So I think he's just gonna take it personally, he's gonna go probably insane against the Celtics and other people like that. This is the type of player the Sixers need. We we've wanted players like this that actually like not the laissez faire sit back and see if the ball comes to me or what happens, but the guys that literally attack and try and win and be physical and try and step up and be the alpha, and with that size, too. This is the type of player that wins championships, and we haven't had this.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

No, a hundred percent. Yeah, it's it's excellent. And I yeah, so I guess we were I was kind of beating around the bush a little bit, but it feels like the Jalen Brown story with the Celtics. If the way that I think about it from this year, is like he they were supposed to be terrible. He was the best player on the team by a mile, they won 56 games, he carried them into the playoffs, far exceeding expectations. Tatum comes back, everyone's like, Oh, Tatum's back, he's gonna save us, bro. And then they lose, and it's like, and Jalen or Tatum doesn't even play. And then they lose, and it's like, well, this team sucks. Like, man, like, if only Jay Tatum didn't get hurt again.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah, let's trade for Paul George. That guy's great.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Jalen Brown's just like, what the hell? I was just like carried this team the whole season. Like, what am I chopped liver? I definitely get it from Hitler.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

I really think the biggest thing I think is just the media just eats away at people's souls for years. And they're just like, oh well, is this gonna work out? Is this gonna work out? And they even after they win a championship, you still hear that. And so it yeah, and then they were gonna trade.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

As substantiated of a trade rumor as you could possibly have that they floated him for Giannis, and everyone was like, Yep, that happened. And then on top of that, and then there's this whole thing, it's like, oh, he wants his own team, he wants his own team. Like when people say a guy wants his own team, like this is just not the same thing. Like, this is such a unique Tatum Brown weird dynamic of like two like two wings on the same team who are both really, really good, like all NBA level players that play like of almost the same role, who have been together for forever. This weird marriage of player, and it's like, oh, they like Brown, who is classically referred to as second fiddle, doesn't want to play with Tatum anymore. And and so that means if he wants his own team, and that's like the same same he wants his own team terminology that we assign to everyone that wants out of a situation where they're not the best player, and it's just like this is that's not the same thing. Like, this is there, you need to use a new set of language to describe the situation, and so I feel like to say it to refer to him as a guy that's like gonna won out when he's not happy and wants his own team kind of thing. I just like in like a Kevin Duran or whatever kind of way, I just don't think that's fair at all. So I don't know. I I think it's gonna be totally fine if his usage goes from 34 to 25.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Like, that's not gonna be the big number everyone's throwing out is if you combine these five starters, their usage was in the 140s, but that's also not how it works. You they're now gonna play together, so it's naturally not gonna I understand there's one ball and all this stuff, people's concerns, but if LeBron's signing for the minimum, I think they're gonna be able to figure this out.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah, it's just like also LeBron at this point is not he's like gonna defer. Um part of the reason why his usage is what it is is because of how many games did Reeves and Luca miss last year, and it's like who else is gonna do anything on that team?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

And same thing so LeBron is just not a usage guy, yeah, and exactly like and same thing with Maxi's usage because Paul George missed most of the year, and so did Embiid. So, like they're all they were all inflated for different reasons.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

It's yeah, and I I don't know about you, but when people have talked about that, I haven't heard that mentioned one time, and it's like, why are we not mentioning this? Like, this is like so obvious. These guys don't need to be like the like corrupt or Kyrie hardened KD kind of way, and even that like almost worked out anyway. Like these smart players who are all-star level and just cerebral in a way that like LeBron is, and I you know, I don't know that we're quite there with like Maxi, but on his way, I feel like maybe a little bit. Uh they just figure it out, especially with like how inherently obvious it is that all Maxi wants to do is win. Like, that is I mean, seeing all of his frustrations and like when he gets moody, it's all about it's not about like how he's playing or anything. It's like when the team sucks and there's no hope, he gets moody and he gets annoyed. And it's just like because of winning, it's not because of like he's mad at somebody or people are saying he's not playing well or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Yeah, it's he's our leader. We said that last year. It's not Embiid's team, it's Maxie's team, and he's Embiid's maybe the best player, but he's kind of the guiding spirit of what's gonna get us to the promised land. And apparently LeBron's bought in on that. And maybe LeBron just wants to get 5,000 assists or whatever the number is in his career, so he's gonna focus more on maybe scoring like 20 points a game and getting 10 assists, and he could be a league leader. I don't think I don't know if he's trying to care about that, but everyone's gonna have to sacrifice here. You want everyone's like scoring to go down individually, but then maybe get some efficiency to go up and spend a little more time focusing on defense assignments, stuff like that, some little things. But the the best thing you can possibly do in basketball is have great five players out there, and that's what the Sixers have. They have a great starting five, and then they have a couple guys off the bench that can fill in. Hopefully, it's enough. But as far as the NBA goes, this is about as good of a roster as you can build, and they have a little bit of flexibility because they're technically under the first apron, so they could still make a trade like we talked about before, and maybe add or add the buy out, figure something out to get that last center we're talking about. So I I feel pretty good. It's very exciting, and hopefully it all works out.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

I didn't listen to the rookie. I don't know if you did from like the last day or two, but did have any the this like theoretical phylon trade, has there been like a floated package or a floated return, or was it just like this could be an idea? I'm just curious if I have because I haven't looked into it, I haven't really thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

I haven't done my own research of who, but Mike on the Ricky talked about like Thomas Sorber, someone like that, or I forget the guy's name on the Pelicans, he's like one of their centers. Um Messi? Yeah, Messi. Or maybe the Mavs, one of the like a guy that's like I said, on their rookie contract that maybe hasn't had a lot, or Malawatch was another one. If for some reason the Suns want to give up on him and bring in a small guard, so you'd obviously need the other team to be interested, but phylon does look like an NBA player, it's just with what KCP and Anthony Simons, they don't, he's kind of a luxury at this point. And not that I want to get rid of him, I'm I'm happy to keep him if the offer is not there. But those are the types of guys, and I think any of those I'd be somewhat interested in. Uh Thomas Sorber's from Philly, I think, or at least went to I looked this up, but yeah, and what are your thoughts on those?

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah, I mean, that would definitely be interesting. I would be, I do think that phylon is going to be good. Um, but Archbishop Ryan, I thought so. I'm pretty sure I saw him play in high school. Nice. Yeah, I mean, I definitely like would be sad because I've gotten excited about phylon, but if we get a player that is like legitimately a Yeah, I mean, what's this all for for not willing to give up like a rookie guard to win the championship? Yeah, I I definitely think it would be worth it to get a center who could like hold their own uh defensively, and they don't need to be a floor spacer. I just need them to rebound. Yeah, just a finisher on offense that doesn't need the ball and protect the rim, and that's just like it. Uh, you know, if they could, you know, do the Aloop thing, that would be great too, and that's it. Um but yeah, so I I'd be willing to do something like that if it came up. I do feel like the I just I don't know. I mean, I guess I shouldn't doubt Ganzi, you know. Is this gonna become like a Roseman thing? Like they'll figure it out instead of like what it's been for the last four or five years. Maybe I should just trust that they'll figure it out. But it's the process, I guess. Kind of feel like the sort of thing where we're I mean, yeah, this would be classic six years, is to get a guy, and then they're just like not the guy, and it just does not work out at all. And that's like a fleet of flaw, like you were saying earlier. Um, or they try like a vet minimum or like a buyout guy, and it's like, oh cool, we got this like old guy, but now he's like not in his prime anymore, and he kind of sucks.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

Every old guy that's come through here has looked horrible, so I'm not super interested in that. I'd rather address it with an actual like slight upside player.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Yeah, I think some of the people I mentioned have injury concerns, but like a first or a phylon, kind of to get a player that's interesting enough to actually want, because I don't see a world where we get somebody that's better than like a bona huckporty, like whoever is playing better, a bona or huckporty. I doubt we're getting a player that's an upgrade over that player just by like a buyout or a vet minimum. I just feel like it's gonna require giving away a real asset to get the return that we need, which probably be worth it. But yeah. Um yeah. Yeah, I the Simon, I mean, yeah, this team offensively is gonna be Simons, phylon, KCP taking open threes, Dean Wade taking open threes. Even like Edwards, maybe now in he's still young, like getting older, taking open threes. I feel I do feel like Edwards is the kind of guy I feel like we talked or I don't know if we talked about this or others have talked about this, but he kind of needs like a little bit more rot, consistent run to get in like he likes when he starts to feel himself is when he gets going. And I don't know if he can we can afford to give him that many minutes, but maybe he'll improve at that. But yeah, I am very excited to watch this team play.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Uh it's gonna be great. Do you want to run through any of the exercises that we were talking about before this? Yeah, sure. So one of the things we talked about was drafting um LeBron teammates, and we'll kind of go back and forth to build teams, and we can see which one seems better.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Was I supposed to like compile a list here?

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Not really, because you don't it's not like you have to draft every person, you can draft maybe like a starting five or a six up to six, but you'll know like the general people that he's played with in his career. It is interesting because he has not played.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

So we're dealing with the player when he was playing with them, yeah, and how good they were at that moment.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Okay, exactly. Right. So if you pick like Kyrie, for example, it wouldn't be like him coming off an ACL in the Mavs, it would be him back then.

SPEAKER_02 55:03

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

So you can take the first pick. I came up with the game, so you can oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

I mean, it's a good it's a good list, um, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

It makes you re-look at some of the teams and teammates that he's played with, which is cool. And some of them are not deep, so this is one of the deeper teams he's played on, I think.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Yeah, I mean, if I'm being completely honest, this is very challenging because it's like I guess I'm taking this player in isolation to like build my own team rather than taking this player for the way that they were contributing to the team that they were on, kind of. It's hard to describe what I'm saying, but the reason that I'm saying this all weird is because I'm gonna say Luca. Okay, yeah. I think that's like a good answer. Luca healthy last year. I'm taking Luca, but um it isn't it was not easy to say that, and uh it's a feels like a weird pick given the circumstances of the team, but all right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

I mean you can pick like in a vacuum, like I said, just Luca was basically an MVP candidate last year.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

I'm building my own team off of these like 20, 25, 26 Luca Donsons. That's my first pick.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

So I'm gonna go Dwayne Wade. And I know he wasn't quite he was still pretty young when he played with LeBron. He wasn't quite as good because I feel like he started to have like a little bit of knee issues, but I still think he was quite amazing and he's a fun pair, and he's also good defense and all that stuff, and maybe VJ can aspire to be a D-Wade type of player at some point.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

I think that's a great pick. That was my alternative choice, so I like it. Um, so in that case, I'm gonna go with Kyrie Irving. Ooh, nice. Yeah, so Luca Kyrie. I guess I think that I mean, not that I'm building a team, but I guess rebuilding the maps. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, oh yeah. Okay, duh. Yeah. No, that's a pretty good start then, I guess, if we're going back to that team. I don't know why that didn't occur to me right away, but yeah. Who do I want? That was a weird flash in a bottle team or flash in a pan team.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Unless I'm forgetting about someone, I might go Jalen Brown. Okay. All right. This might be optimistic because he's he's new, so I'm happy about him. But I feel like D. Wade and Jalen Brown, that's pretty good two and three.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

I am gonna go with Anthony Davis.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

I guess I maybe I don't know if I'm explaining this, but I mean, this is like you can if you want.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

I mean, it's kind of self-explanatory. Yeah, he's he's dominant and it's a good pick.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

Um I feel like I am gonna have to do a little bit of research if we go more than like five or six more players, but no.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

I mean you're not like missing anyone special. He never played with anyone good on like the original Cavs teams, like Mo Williams and Ogowskis and Verizau were like his best players. He had like old Shaq at some point, but like none of them were worth picking in this exercise. I will go Mo Williams was not bad. I think he was an all-star award. Yeah, he was okay, but he wasn't amazing. He's small. But I did like watching him, he was fun. Delante West. Um, I guess I'll go Chris Bosch.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

Okay, that's fair. Um yeah, I mean, at this point, I I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to Maxi, then if we're counting as you said Brown, so I'm going maxie for sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

I guess I'll go embied.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

I'm going him as far.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

I mean, Kevin Love, you can make an argument, but I'm going embiede over Kevin Love, fuck that. And Chris Bosch can help protect the defense, that'll be nice.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

I feel like already at this point, it's like, hmm, um, I don't know. Like, do I go like I I don't have now that I have the historical context to at this point be picking between like who would I be picking between? I guess I would be picking between like Mo Williams, VJ, Ray Allen. Like, I don't even know. Isn't it fun exercise? I mean, it was interesting. I just think that at this point now I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. So I have an idea in my head. Uh okay. I'd have to also think about like I definitely remember that Lakers team being very like very supporting cash heavy around the LeBron 80 combo, which obviously was a ridiculous combo to have. But I don't know that I remember like one person sticking out as the obvious third best player, but I guess it was I didn't think they like Caruso and all that stuff back then. Yeah, no, it was like two guys and then it was a drop-off hard. So yeah, I probably oh man. Like I guess if I'm if I'm taking one guy, I probably would take Mo Williams at this point, but it's kind of it's kind of difficult to say that with confidence.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

I might go Austin Reeves as my point guard. So I have Austin Reeves, Dwayne Wade, okay, that's fair. Jalen Brown, Chris Bosch, and and Embiid. I feel like I've I don't have a ton of shooting, but I've some passing. I can attack the rim, a good amount of defense to support my. I feel like I we both came away with pretty solid teams.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Yeah, actually in hindsight, like I think the Reeves probably a better pick, but uh it's it's getting towards toss-up territory, probably. Um cool. Alright, that was fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

Alright, and then if you were to buy tickets to a game this year, what game is it gonna be?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Well, they I guess we're assuming that all five players that any possible game could be home because we don't know the schedule for exactly yet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Don't they play everyone at home?

unknown 1:01:52

I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Oh, wait, they do, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Never mind. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

They do a home and away with every team in the league.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

But the team in their conference and their division, they play more.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah, no, I I yeah, thank you for that. Um, I would probably say that the home game against the Celtics is gonna be insane, and that is probably what I would pick.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Yeah, that's probably a great pick. Mine might be against the Spurs because I really like Stefan Castle, and and seeing Wemby in person would be sick. The other thing, I mean, there's not really a rivalry there, but Embiid did score 70 on Wemby, so that would be fun in theory that everyone plays. Uh, the Celtics obviously is a great pick. The Knicks would be fun, and as a fan, like I would feel obligated to not let a Knicks fan go to that game in my place. So just by default, it seems like I it just needs to be Sixers fans in the building and not embarrass the fan be half, which I think will show up more because there's actual belief now as opposed to before. But it's so easy to get outpriced and stuff. But yeah, I'm gonna go Spurs just because I think they're more interesting to me than the Thunder or anyone else in the West for that matter. Because Wemby's a freak and Stefan Castle's cool and Dylan Harper's good. So I think they'd be fun to watch, and they're just a great team, too. So it'd be a good way to really see how good we are as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Yeah, I think the that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

And to buy us as a team would be funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Oh, yeah, that's right. As I'm thinking about the game, like ideally, I would be this would cost me probably like a million dollars, but not a million dollars, because I wouldn't pay that much, but it would cost a lot, but I would be sitting close enough in the Celtics game to the players to like really feel like jail Jalen and Tatum like guarding each other. Because they I mean between George and Brown and Tatum, like they're gonna be on each other, and I would just really think that that could be a good feeder. Um, plus I hate the Celtics more than I hate any other team, even after the Knicks loss. Like, I still hate the Celtics more. So in terms of just like the feeling, the good feeling of beating a team, nothing gives me more satisfaction than beating the Celtics. I was I was thinking more about the cells. Yeah, yours is probably the right answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

But mine's just uh pie in the sky. Like, am I ever gonna see Wemby play? This is potentially a chance if I just pick one, it's a cool matchup. But yours is probably the right answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

Yeah, I mean, seeing like going to one game with like LeBron and Wemby and the Sixers all in the same thing and Embiid, like that's uh that's a game that you'll always remember for sure. So that is definitely a good choice. I've never seen Lebron play in person before, so I will be seeing him play in person this year no matter what. I will I will take out alone if I have to. Um, but I'm pretty sure it won't be that that crazy to see him because he plays for our team. Um but yeah, that'll be fun because I I was genuinely thinking after like the last year or two that I wasn't because I wasn't gonna I don't remember like when the Sixers had played the Lakers, but it just like hasn't been a convenient game to go to for one reason or another, and they only have one, obviously. So I was kind of resigned to not having ever seen him, and now he's on on our team. So that's that that's how that gets resolved. Um but yeah, definitely excited for that. Gosh, it's gonna be so sick to see him in the jersey, like playing on the team.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

It's weird to think about him in the jersey. Everyone keeps doing the Photoshop of him in the black jersey, but it's gonna be weird to see him in the normal Sixers jerseys. It's hard to picture. I've also never seen VJ play in person, so I'm quite excited for that. Oh, that's glorious. And he's gonna get some dunks. Like, LeBron's gonna be able to find him. There's an actual passer. We have like an outlet passer. We have oh, it's delicious. A loud passer. Yeah, LeBron dunks more than anyone on the Sixers, so just like there's just gonna be a lot more dunks in general this year. And Jalen Brown dunks a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:26

Yeah, though, like that's the best part about being. I feel like I just love watching basketball in person, but I feel like the best part about watching basketball in person is the feeling when like all of a sudden somebody like explodes to the rim. And like see being there and like seeing it happen, you just you're just like you just like stand up out of your seat almost because it's so visceral when you're like there seeing it actually happen, and it's not just like on your TV. Um it's just NBJ's like the best. I mean, second to Anthony Edwards, but he's like one of the best at that in the league, and it's amazing. Um okay, yeah. Was there another that was a good, that was good thought experiment. I enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:17

No, I don't know. Is there anything else you want to cover cover about the way they're gonna play together or anything else? I feel like we cover most of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

What's your what's your projection for their outcome as of now?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Obviously, we we can make our official bets on a preseason pod, but um, I have them around, I haven't done the math on this, so I don't know if it actually works perfectly, but in like the low 50s wins, maybe like the four or five seed, something like that. So I have them in the playoffs, not in the play-in. But I like I said, I think come playoff time, they're an actual contender. So I think they'll be I don't think they'll be the one seed. I think the East is pretty good this year, so it's just gonna be harder to get like random wins here and there. You're actually gonna have to fight. A lot of teams are gonna want to beat you. So, which I'm happy enough with. It'd be nice to have home court advantage, but either way, in a seven-game series, you're at least gonna have three. And we saw stealing one of the first two on the road, and then you can flip the series, what that does. So, as long as they get out to a pretty hot start, which I think will be hard because they're all new playing together. And you saw, like, I remember the Heat had issues kind of in that first year, it took a little while for them to like learn how to play with each other. So it's not gonna be easy because they don't have the continuity or chemistry yet. But I do think they're hungry and they have guys that just naturally play hard and run the floor with like Brown, Maxi, and VJ. So I think they can get out to a solid record and yeah, somewhere around like 52-ish wins, and maybe like somewhere in the three to five seed range.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:05

Okay, nice. And and season long, season long. What do you mean, season long? Like, that's not the end of the season, that's the regular season.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

Oh, like how far they'll go. Oh man. I don't know, losing the finals.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

It's hey, that's pretty good. Yeah, if you think that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

My goal is just to come out of this LeBron era, however long there's something that Rich Paul said, like, oh, maybe I'll go four years. I'm hoping it's just like a two-year and we win the championship at least one of the two years. Ideally, we win one and then the Sixers go back later post-Lebron era, once VJ is the best player on the team, and he can bring us back. But I you just have to have so much go right for them to win. So I can't just outright pick the Sixers since so much is new. So I'd still take the field in that, but I think they are very talented, and them and the Knicks, I think, are in a slightly different tier than the rest of the East, even though the East is is pretty good. So I'm just gonna pick them to come out of the East because it's either gonna be this year or next year. I think they actually can make the finals.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

Yeah, no, I like it. Um I am going to say the Sixers go 52 and 30. They're the three seed in the East. They uh play the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and they uh win that series in six games, and then they lose they lose to the Spurs in seven.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

Alright, fun. I feel like we have very similar projections, which we didn't talk about this ahead of time. Obviously, we've talked about our excitement, but there was no like, oh, how many wins, what seed, how far. I I think I think the thunder are more likely to come out in the West. That's the only difference I have. I think the Spurs are just everything's gonna have to align for them with like Wemby's health and all that stuff. So I think the um Thunder are just a little bit more likely. But that's the only difference I have. I think the Thunder are gonna beat the Sixers.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

The I would if you told me I think that the Knicks are in a vacuum a better team than the Sixers. But I think it's really hard to do what they did two years in a row, and there's a reason it doesn't happen very often.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:48

It's hard to say the Sixers starting five is better than the Knicks because the Knicks just won the championship. But I unless I'm forgetting about someone, I feel like the Knicks' depth got somewhat worse. Didn't they lose like Deuce McBride and um also Mitchell Robinson?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

They definitely lost Mitchell Robinson.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:08

Um I think like Landry Shamit's still there, but I don't know really who else is on their bench. I think we have a better bench than they do now.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

I'm pretty sure Deuce McBride is still on the Knicks. But they did lose they did lose Mitchell Robinson.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:21

That's I think that's bad because if they lose Kat, they have like no size. Because I think Drummond is well they lost 40. Not that he played a lot, but he played a little bit. And they filled in with Drummond, who is a terrible defender. So the Sixers team would slaughter Drummond if he's their um center.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

Yeah, I mean, I think that I think that the Sixers depth is very comparable to the Knicks. Um just in reality, like Deuce McBride, Shamet, Clarkson, Drummond, and Alvarado.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

Like it's probably if we're if we're the only guy off the bench that's above 6'5.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:04

Uh like Clarkson might be 6'5, but yeah. But if if you depending upon how you do the lineup, like Hart, Bridges, and Aninobi can all play kind of big. So like you could throw like you know, Brunson Shamit, Brunson Clarkson, McBride, Shamit, and then like move those guys around creatively. But yeah, the backup size is definitely they don't have they don't have a backup power for it, I guess. Well, that's where they would do shift around, yeah. Yeah, they don't need to play. I feel like if they do an Ananobi Bridges uh heart like back three, that's like not excellent, but it's not terrible. But yeah, they might need they might be in competition with the Sixers to grab that like extra big man. Um but yeah, I would probably take the Knicks over the Sixers like in complete in a complete vacuum, but I think that like the playoffs happen, and so I think it's just really hard to wit to go all the way back to back seasons, and so I'm just kind of giving the benefit of the doubt to the Sixers. And that's like honestly, I'm not just doing that to be like feel-good vibes. I think they're very close, and I think that there's like a spiritual element of LeBron like being on the precipice of winning and him like finding a way to like step it up in the exact moments that he needs to, that I'm kind of giving that like luck odd or that luck edge to the not luck, but just like clutch, which is like kind of fake, but I do think in that moment it might be kind of real element to the Sixers a little bit. But it's gonna be very fun to watch that matchup next year because um if both teams are healthy, that's a really, really good game.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

It's uh it's gonna be sick. I do think again, like they are a not to say it, but like a cat injury away, or even and nobi. Like, if either of those guys miss time, their defense could fall apart a little bit. So you're definitely right that we have we're gonna have some competition. Do did they get did they have a draft pick?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:15

Um it might be is it Tyler Nickel? I don't I don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

I don't know, but I think he was yeah, I'm reading that online. I don't know who that is. How exciting for them. So again, not really a bigger player. Sounds like a perimeter guy. Um, I did have one more exercise actually that I forgot. If one non-front office award were to go to a sixters-related person, who would it be and what award? So I don't know if you've thought about this ahead of time. I texted you a couple hours. I've thought about it a little bit, but I don't I'm not entirely sure. I'm still thinking it through. I'll let you go first if you have it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:00

Well, I don't think any sixer is gonna win defensive player of the year. I'm doing process of elimination here. I don't think Phylon's gonna win rookie of the year because he's just not gonna play enough. Um comeback player of the year. I don't think there's a real qualifier unless Embiid like regains near MVP form, but then it's still kind of weird because nobody likes Embiid, and why would he get that award? Um because he kind of was that good. Like if he played like 70, which he's just not good at 70 games. I'm basically a rolling uh comeback player of the year out as well, which kind of boils down.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:38

If he played 70 games and the Sixers won like 65 games, maybe, but that seems quite unlikely and not what their goal is right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

Yeah, so that kind of boils down to MVP. I'm not looking at the word list, so if I'm missing one, let me know. But MVP clutch award and six man. And like I do think there is a definite chance that the Sixers could have a good enough record to qualify for an MVP level player, but I just don't see how anyone on their team dominates enough statistically to get that. Like, obviously, if somebody got injured, then maybe that frees up space for somebody, but I just don't really see it between guys with guys like Wemby, SGA, even like Luca, even though I'm not sure how good the Lakers are gonna be, um, or uh Tatum if he's healthier. Um I just see other guys that could put up the right stats to make it happen, and I don't see that for the Sixers. So between Clutch Player of the Year and Six Man of the Year, there is a part of me that thinks like maybe in a weird way, like Maxie could win clutch clutch player of the year because it's such a freak award anyway. And if the Sixers are really good and he's the one taking like it could be multiple guys, but I think there's a world where he's the guy taking the last second shot, maybe because he's still you know ex ascending, like he's not he's like about to enter his real prime, and so I could see him being that guy, but if I'm being honest, I think the odds of that are like kind of shot in the dark. But because of how good the six are gonna be, I'm gonna go Simon's sixth man of the year. I don't know if you saw this coming or not, but I'm gonna go Simon's sixth man of the year, which is kind of crazy. But if there's a world where he's playing enough with like LeBron with LeBron minutes and he's firing off threes, and he can put up like 17, 18 minutes a game on a top two, three seed. And I feel like last year, six man was kind of like a wash. It was just like who's gonna win this? Like Jaime Hawkes or who or like Kelvin Johnson throw away. Yeah, so if that happens again, then maybe Simons is thrown into that mix.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:55

I think Kelvin Johnson won, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:58

He did, yeah, yeah. But like the last fight couple guys, it was just like who's gonna win this? Yeah, it's the pairs, yeah. Whatever. Uh um, so in a weird, boring kind of answer, I'm gonna do through like process of elimination Simons, but that would be kind of crazy. That would be amazing if he like was that good that he won that award. Um, but I do think that's gonna be my most likely answer. What do you got? Obviously, you could say Nick Nurse, but I just think that's like old news, and it's just like eh.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:30

I don't know if Nick Nurse has won one or not. I think the argument for him would be is you balanced all these egos and personalities, superstars, whatever, and found a way to get it all in the right direction. This sounded like a better question in my head, but now that we're talking it through, it does seem kind of unlikely that we would win any of these awards. But it's also funny to think if we had a great season that they wouldn't be rewarded in some way. So I don't know. I'll go clutch, just like I said before, a lot of teams might take this very personally. So if we win enough games and the offense in the fourth quarter runs through Maxie or Jalen Brown or something, as opposed to the rest of the game running through Embiid and or LeBron or whatever. So just kind of coincidence that like someone's getting 10 points per game in the final eight minutes or something, and we're gonna give it to you. So it just seems random. So it's kind of a cop out, but now that we kind of talked through, it does seem pretty unlikely. Or VJ just takes such a jump that this team realizes they have to play through him and they have to be the role players, yeah. Which I might buy some of that as most improved player. I like that option, but yeah, it's like you said, one of those like random awards is most likely.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

Yeah, I think the most likely way they'll be rewarded is probably I think there's a world where the Sixers have like three all-stars, which is not super common. Yeah. Um, but I don't know if LeBron will play enough games if they don't change the rule. Are they changing the rule? I don't know. I don't think they'll play enough to get all NBA, but I could definitely see Maxi and Brown getting all NBA, and like it's not super common for two guys. I mean, it it happens maybe it happens every year to like one team, but for like two all NBA players on the same team, it's not like a given. Yeah, it's definitely hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

I mean, there's it goes to 15 people, so two people on one team, you have to be incredible. So, like you said, it obviously happens, but or I think the all-stars probably more likely than multiple all NBAs, but I I agree it's probably where it'll get made up for because the media is just gonna be covering this team so heavily, people are gonna be kind of burnt out by it, but at the same time, it's gonna be such like an earworm for everyone. I think they'll probably show up on ballots for all-star and stuff. Maybe VJ will win the dunk contest, he'll beat the Thompson twins, they'll do synchronized dunking and then he'll come in and beat them, and then Anthony Edwards will show up as the final boss. Pretty cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

Yeah, yeah. That'd be awesome. Yeah, if Anthony Edwards is ever on the Sixers, I'm gonna cry. Yeah. Well, no, if if him and VJ end up both on the Sixers at the same time, that's the only thing that could trump what the current team is right now for me. My god, I would love that. It won't happen, but I said that I know I also have said in the past that LeBron will never be on the Sixers.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

Yeah, so you know, never say never. That is very true. All right, that was fun. Yeah, I think this feels like a natural pivot point to uh maybe our recommendation section, unless you have any trailing thoughts here.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:53

Nope. That works for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

So yeah, you're the guest. You should go first.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

Alright. Um so kind of a weird recommendation because I'm not gonna be able to describe it very well. But yeah, I know, right? Because it's like a it was like a multi-step process. But uh I for those of for those who have, why does that just happen? Oh my god. Okay, I'm glad that my Chrome just quit, so I'm glad that my internet didn't just quit. Um for those that have listened to a podcast before with Phil, a repeated guest on the pod. Um, oh wait, I think I know why now. Oh, okay, yeah. Um he in the past, when we've done like well, when we interviewed him, first of all, definitely he talked about this, but when we have talked to him in other like category general episodes, he's talked about his journaling habit. I think he's like our only friend who like has just like journaled so much over their whole life almost. Um, and so I've always been jealous of that, and I think I've talked about that before. So I decided I was thinking, okay, if I'm gonna do this, if I'm gonna try to maybe do this, given the advent of all the technology that we have at our disposal now, and the things I've talked about before, mainly around like fitness and health. My philosophy is always like minimize friction, minimize friction, minimize friction. So if I'm in a journal, how can I do it as easy as humanly possible? And um basically what I did was I created like an online like a journal on my iPhone. So there's a journal app on your iPhone that you can use to like journal and it'll like keep it and it'll separate out the days and stuff like that, and you can search it. And so it's I mean, it's basically just like a little notes app, but tailored for journaling, and you can like export it out and do all that stuff. So they tried it's a journal-focused app, but I also set up like a shortcut. So what I do now is I click one button on my home screen that says daily journal, and then it pulls up a prompt instantly that then asks me like a question, a series of questions like what was your day like? And it's just like it only asks these questions to make me think of what I should say when I'm like tired late at night, but it'll ask me, you know, what was your day like, any interaction or moment or that stood out, what's been on your mind. And then there's this app that I talked about called Whisperflow, where you can dictate like really well and it like captures every word you say and uses punctuation and everything. So I have whisper flow on my iPhone. So I just switch the keyboard. So instead of like a Spanish keyboard, you can switch to Whisperflow keyboard, and then I hit the whisper flow button and I talk to the prompt that came up, and then I just do my journal, and then I hit and I hit like a check mark, and then it in like formal English with a punctuation and all of that, it's better than any dictation you've used on like your iPhone or anywhere else, like it's better than that. Um, and it can hear, understand like weird words and spell them correctly and stuff like that. So it works really well for this. Um, so I just hit the check mark and then I hit done on that prompt that came up, and then that journaling like goes right into the journal app. So I literally hit like three buttons and I talk for like one minute, and then I'm done my journaling for the day. Um so rather than like going and getting a book out and then like grabbing a pen and like writing out whatever I want to do for my day, which might take like maybe five to seven minutes. If I didn't have this, it this takes me one minute, and just like that difference. I mean, everybody knows when at the end of the day you're tired and you're like, yeah, I don't feel like doing that. Um, so that difference is really like removed as much friction as humanly possible, and now I really have no excuse not to journal. And so I've been doing this for like a week and a half now, and it works pretty well, and it's right on my home screen, so like you can see it, but obviously none of our guests can see it. That little like blue app. Oh yeah. So I just hit that so you can see what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:30

Blue app with a white notebook if you're trying to download it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:34

Yeah, and so well, no, you can't. This no, so that's the thing. This is all the technology I set up. So it comes up like this. And then I just taught I hit this button, and then I I talk into it, and then I can hit the check mark. Okay, and then it it says exactly what I just said where I talked to that, and then I hit done and it goes right into my journal.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:57

So it's a text speech straight to your journal. Journal once you hit done.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:02

Yeah, and so I had to set it up. There's like Apple, I had to use Chat GBD to figure out how to do it, but Apple has like these shortcuts that you can set up, and you can then turn those shortcuts into an app that you add your home screen. And so it was the problem. This is a bad the reason this is a bad recommendation is because it's like it takes a minute to set it up, but once you set it up, that's the unlock because then their friction, there's like it's super easy, and you can do it every day for like the rest of time. Um so if anybody is that knows me and has my phone number is actually curious, I can like obviously send you like a little write-up of what steps to go through to make this happen. But it it would I would like post it, but no one's gonna look at it. So um if you're curious, just let me know and I'm happy to give you the details because if I mean I've always wished that I journal because I think about like what would I have said about my day like when I was in my like early 20s and I was just like chilling and I don't know, like what would I have been thinking about? Like I just wish that I had that captured, and so now I hopefully will, and maybe I'll keep doing this and it'll be as easy as a one minute. There's no reason, like I have one minute every day to do this, so that's kind of how I've been justifying it. But sorry, that was really long, but I was excited about it because I was like, I can use technology to solve my problems, and then I did, so yeah, and like you said, with the shortcut, it makes it takes all the effort out of it, so now it's daily it's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:45

That's good. I like that. Mine is a little more uh traditional, it's just a uh recent movie that a lot of people have talked about, but Obsession. It's on Peacock now. So if you didn't see it in theaters and you were curious, I would say it's like a psychological thriller horror type thing. You saw it too, right? Yeah, yeah. I guess uh it was good though. It was very entertaining, the girl in it. Indy, I don't remember what her last name is, but she was awesome. Like every time she was on screen, she was captivating. All like her facial expressions, and the story itself was just cool and I I liked it. It was pretty gripping. It wasn't like it wasn't so scary. I'm not a big horror guy. It was just kind of like I don't know, creepy and eerie, and I don't know. How to I'm not good at describing horror movie type stuff, but yeah, I liked it. I I think it's definitely worth checking out if you're into like thriller type movies. Yeah, especially if you don't mind like a little darkness.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:54

Yeah, I would completely agree. Yeah, if you like horror movies or thrillers and you haven't seen this yet, it's like must-watch. I think it's be now that it's on Peacock, I feel like that'll be the unlock for a lot of people because I don't know that people are going to see it in the theaters. And it wasn't even I of course, like a dingus, I paid for it a full like 20 bucks, like maybe three or four weeks ago and watched it, and of course, like two or three weeks later it was free. Um, but yeah, it was it was very good. I would say the word that I've been using to describe it is like unsettling horror. It's not like it's not jump scare, really, and it's not like terrifying in the way that a lot of scary movies can be. Um, it's just and that's I feel like it's the best kind of horror for me as well, because even though I watch a lot of them, they like sometimes I'm like, okay, this is terrifying. I can't watch.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:51

I don't want to be scared. I like to be unsettled, I guess. That's yeah, there you go. You nailed it. Well, this was the I'm glad that we got this down. Uh it's pretty cool we're doing this after Jalen Brown trade. I didn't expect to be back here with even more exciting news.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:07

Yeah, I did not either.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:08

I didn't re-listen to it, but I know we did talk about like the possibility of LeBron signing, and I like joked as if it was a real possibility. And I never actually thought it was a real possibility, but here we are. So that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:20

I remember the I forget we didn't mention this, but at one point Jason sent a message that was like, Sixers are like favorites to land LeBron, and I was like, hey now, this is not true. Like, yeah, I never once believed that call she has it like us like fourth, and then it turned out I shouldn't have been such a uh Debbie Downer about it because it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:42

It really feels like it was kind of true to his word, and that he was look I think it's a good basketball fit, and he didn't take the money, he it's like just very humble, like I'm gonna try and win another championship, and it seems pretty pure, which is cool if that's the case. It's again shocking. It's a week, and I can't get over it. Every day I wake up, I'm again shocked by the fact that it's true. Yeah, but yeah, on that note, follow us at the Lakeview Pod on Twitter. Write to us at thelakeviewpodcast at gmail.com. Uh, let us know whose starting five you like better out of the LeBron teammates. It's just so crazy how bad those original Cavs teams were. I loved him on that, those teams, he was so cool, but like he was truly just it was hero ball. Those guys all suck. I loved Olgauskis, he was the man. But yeah, again, write to us, follow us, give us five stars on Apple or Spotify or whatever you're listening to. We would definitely appreciate that. We're looking to uh get some reach out there, so help us out and we'll keep this going. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Kevin, for hopping on, and I'm glad we're on for good news. This is very exciting.