The Rich Eisen Show Basketball Podcast S2 E7. NBA All-Star Weekend recap, 2nd half preview/ Playoff predictions

What's up, everybody? We're back.

It's the Rich Eisen show basketball podcast squad. We're back from Super Bowl. We're back from NBA all-star break. We didn't go but we're just back in general.

I watch and what we watch. So let's just talk about that right at the top. There is a lot to get to because there's so much going on in the association games and the quote-unquote second half of the year. I think there's about what will Brown said there's 23 games left for the Lakers. So it seems like teams are in that 2022-24 game left in the regular season. Kids gets back underway Thursday and Friday teams are back in action.

So a full slate over the weekend. Let's just talk about NBA all-star game all-star weekend. It was in Salt Lake City and it really wasn't that great. I'm at Mac McClung came out from the G League. We all remember him from YouTube back in the day bounced around Texas Tech Georgetown from the Hoya.

He's been in the G League and won the one the slam dunk contest. It was awesome. I think we all kind of expected him to win right and he kind of put on a show and that was kind of the story the weekend tatum at 55 in the game itself, but there was very little defense played guys were just kind of going through the motions and team Yanis kind of ran away with it.

What did you guys think of all-star weekend? Just general first Impressions Adam. First of all, that's Adam. That's Chris and I'm TJ because we skip we skip that today. I just went right into it.

You know what? I did what Rich does. Sometimes I just jump in TJ Adam Brockman. We're here. We're back. You know us it's the rich eyes and show basketball podcast all-star weekend.

Go was it as bad as I'm making it out to be TJ? No, because here's the deal, right? It's it's an exhibition. We all know that and people constantly pine for the days of old. But guess what man like nothing everything changes and nothing is going to be as it once used to be, you know, I keep seeing people like all they play defense and Michael Jordan would have done this and that but like we're not at those times anymore. So we can sit and constantly complain about how you don't like things the way they are that you don't like that. We're in the Instagram age or you could just kind of accept the fact that this is where we're at right now.

Like I can remember being a kid and you know, my grandpa yelling at me about the length of my pants or the music that I listen to and I was just like come on man. Like that's where we're at now. And I think now we just have to accept this is where we're at. Like the Stars don't want to play the stars do want to play the also game. They don't want to get in the dunk contest for a variety of reasons.

None of the which I understand right? I don't get it but guys don't want to play they don't want to be shown up. They don't want to be embarrassed. They don't feel it's worth their time.

I don't understand it. That's just where we are now as far as the game went, you know, look man. There was a bunch of guys pulling up from 35 which is kind of exciting to see the fact that so many people can shoot from so deep.

Nobody was playing defense obviously until I guess the fourth quarter when you can kind of win the game. It is what it is. And if you're upset and you don't like it then I guess find something else to tune in and watch an all-star weekend because when you look at it though Stars still show up the party still happen. Everyone there seems to be enjoying themselves and having a good time and you know, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Yeah, Adam the ratings were what like a third or atrocious down 30% from the year before and it seems like people weren't really tuning in but was all-star Saturday kind of the high mark of the weekend.

I guess I guess I mean to be real. This is my suggestion to the NBA. The dunk contest has gotten to the point where back in the day. We watch the dunk contest for the Stars, you know, you had Dominique Wilkins you had Kobe Michael Jordan and that doesn't happen anymore.

These guys are role players are barely in the league Mac McClung just got signed to a two-way contract and all of a sudden he made more money from winning the don't have saw that then he's made in his entire price on that. He made a hundred K for winning the dunk on that's awesome. It's great. I'm happy for him.

I've been following since high school. I've seen all the highlights but to me, this is what you do. If I'm if I'm Adam Silver, this is what I do. You have the dunk contest, but it doesn't necessarily have to have all NBA players. There are dunkers that you can see on Instagram on an everyday basis that are better dunkers than these guys in the NBA now and you could say well, it's an NBA dunk contest. Well, there's a celeb game.

Also. It's not all NBA people that are that are involved in the all-star weekend. So I see some of these guys on Instagram and they're going to be hungry to get that spotlight. They're going to be hungry to get that money. So I think you can mix it up maybe do half NBA players have you know amateur guys that are just pro dunkers and I think that could really elevate the interest in the dunk contest because some of these guys like I've said are absolutely incredible.

Yeah, as far as the NBA all-star game itself. The suggestion I have is right now the players of the winning team get $100,000 each if you really want them to care. These guys are making 30 40 million dollars a year.

You have to raise the stake. We're gonna make it a million per guy. You have to make 500,000 750 make it a million you make it a million. Do you know the ratings will increase on that because people will try way harder and the fans are way more interested saying this guy can win a million dollars if they win the all-star game. They have to raise they have enough money to do it. The problem is if they don't do that players are going to care less and less and the ratings are going to suffer more and more to the point.

It's going to become the Pro Bowl. Yeah. Yeah. I wondered those are my suggestions a million dollars when you're making 50. What's I mean, that's a lot though. That's still a lot of money. That's not going to it's still incentivizes. It's a lot of money in theory.

But like if I'm if my check is 50 million now, like you're going to have to I don't know. I don't think that's enough to really get these guys. It was cool that the dunk contest kind of got some of the shine back, you know, it's been about what what was the year of was it 2015 was Aaron Gordon and Zach Lavine. That was that was kind of the peak after that was the last kind of great one. Yeah, but the three-point shootout has kind of been the marquee event and like that had the bigger stars this year. You're Dame Jason Tatum stars came out buddy Hale stars came out for that and it was kind of a kind of a whomp whomp Kevin Herder was such it was so so bad at it and Tyrese Halliburton kind of stunk him in the finals. But it was cool to see Dame win.

But I mean, man, we clung good for him. It was awesome. The game itself.

I just don't know what the fix is. You know, the Elam ending I thought was going to kind of change that it was cool and kind of make it a little more competitive. It was cool the last couple of years.

Yeah, it was good in the dress. I love the draft idea though. I mean, the concept of like drafting guys before the game I thought was cool. It just kind of felt like guys kind of just had like a kind of a wink wink agreement that nobody was going to really play any defense and it was just a lot of guys going through the motions TJ. What do you think of the idea that I saw thrown out that they should just change it to a one-on-one tournament? See the problem with that is one-on-one ball can be kind of boring a great and then basically like I was John Sally who hosted our show earlier this week.

I wish I would have seen this when he was here. He this was an old story told on best damn sports show how like he used to always beat of all people Kobe Bryant one-on-one. Oh, really and Kobe like begrudgingly admitted it that sat John Sally always beat him in a one-on-one and Sally's the way he did it was he was like look I was the older guy. I got the ball first every time so every play I just back him down I'd score and then he could do whatever and I'm just going to keep backing them down and scoring so and on a one-on-one. It's you know, if a big guy can take three or four dribbles, that's really all he needs to do is just go down low post the dumb buddy up and score on them that be honest.

Yeah, like I'm winning that ever. So I don't know if one-on-one's the thing but you know, the also the thing we always talk about like the slam dunk contest participants right? And yeah, you get your big stars, but guess what back in the day there were guys like Shelton Jones and Tim Perry and Terence Stansberry who was a staple and very very bad what he did to flip dunk. Yeah, always going to be guys who aren't stars in the in these contests like you're going to have a star too, but I'm looking over these rosters over the years and it's like yeah for every you know, Clyde Drexler or Ron Harper, you know, there's a you know, an OG Jerome Kersey in there who like great player but he's not Jerome.

Kersey was a great dunker. Even most casual NBA fans won't even know who they were really got like the because the contestants this year was the worst contestants of terms of players I've ever seen. I'd never heard of the Knicks guy to be on neither did I? Yeah, but did you hear about the guys last year? It was the Simmons kid from Portland and so you know, we don't really but that's why the the three-point shootout and kind of overtaken it over time.

And also I'm sorry to Chris Adam your point about bringing in non players. That's not going to work either because a guy in the NBA is not going to want to lose a dunk contest or any type of basketball contest to a guy who's not even in the league like a youtuber. Yeah, so I think that would you really think that they would care that much Adam? Yes. Why do you think it's ego? It's 1000% you're not going to want to look you're an NBA player and you're going to lose a dunk contest to a cat who ain't even in the L like yeah, but but I think there's NBA players who understand that they're obviously a better player than a dunker but they might not be the better dunker. You know what I mean?

It's like yeah until okay, you're right and then they go on Twitter and they're getting everyone's getting roasted. Yeah. No, here's the only thing I can think of that could be a solution right guys because one guy in particular Chris Brotman who's been the MVP of your fantasy basketball season the last month MVP in my fantasy basketball team my personal your personal team your family in our League. Oh, who's been the MVP?

Let's think about a few weeks ago who was setting your team on fire. Oh Cam Thomas. Okay, my point being there are so many Cam Thomas is in this League guys who are stuck 8 9 10 11 on the bench, right who could probably go out now Cam Thomas. He would just win he went crazy scoring 40 points again straight 40 but there are definitely guys in the NBA who are so hungry who could play basketball but for whatever reason can't get in the rotation but man if you gave them a chance they will leave it all on the floor. So I don't know if that's it if you go to these Cam Thomas type players who aren't necessarily getting a lot of minutes, but you know, they can ball, you know, they're hungry and you find a way to put them into something like this where it does mean something to them where they are going to go all out where bad him that million dollars now that does make a difference in their bank account if they can find a way to incorporate guys like that in this game. That could be a way that we could change this up and have a little bit more meaning like the bench player all-star game so you can't be a starter maybe something to that effect.

I mean, no, I don't know if it's going to hurt eyeballs, but you just got done saying viewership was down anyway and viewership is constantly consistently down on every and anything. So why not man? Maybe you do find a way to kind of reward some of these guys who like just need a chance just need a shot to go out there and show what they can do because a month or two months ago. We never heard a Cam Thomas. We didn't know anything about this now. Absolutely not. And now we know that this is a guy who's capable of probably being obviously is not capable of scoring 40 every night, even though he did first stretch. So guys capable of probably putting up 20 a game, you know, 18 1920 if he were just given a chance if he was given some minutes, I don't know if that's the answer or not.

All right, the last thing to on this. I heard Amino Hassan say this on on Le Batard yesterday. He said do you think the reason maybe some of the guys weren't going all out is they were kind of silently protesting for having to go to Utah. No, like if you look at some of the all-star game venues the last couple of years Cleveland, Utah, they're going to Indiana next year Charlotte and then you look we just come off a Super Bowl run of Miami. Phoenix going to Vegas next year New Orleans to the interest like NFL does it right? They go to these big warm party cities NBA All-Star Weekend the celebration of the NBA that year, Utah, Cleveland, Indiana. I mean, look, these are these are NBA cities and you'd have to I would think that that couldn't or shouldn't have been a silent protest because look there's only so many LA's Miami, New York.

Why should that be the rotation? So just those four cities just saying just have the rotation in you know, the fun cities for the also if it's a celebration of your sport for that season, right because they don't do a big event location like the Super Bowl they you know, go obviously go the final cities back and forth right? Yeah, and it's not like a blowout week like Super Bowl is because it rolls one game. Obviously the NBA Finals could be seven games. The NBA owners will never allow that to happen though because they make so much money. Yeah, you guys think about the money Adams, right? The money that the city gets that brings it. So I don't really think there's anything you can do about that because Utah probably needed that.

I don't know how I'm just saying it didn't hurt that influx of money that came in. I would just say that Utah. There's probably a bunch of weekend is called the Black Super Bowl. It is. Look, I didn't want to say this.

Sometimes I allow you to say faces because people would be like, of course, he said that so you say so say this. There's a probably a bunch of brothers who never been to Sundance, right? So didn't know what was waiting for them in Utah. The cold the fact that you get to the club is a dry state. And if they do have liquor, what they do is now I haven't been to Sundance in probably 10 years when I was that you can't there's they put bottles in cages, bro. Yes, the but literally there were you making sure your ID for every single drink you get. Well, we didn't have to do that get doubles, but you know what Salt Lake City has it has hot white women. But the fact is, you're in the club, you've got a bottle, it's in a lot cage and you've got to get the server to come over, unlock the you can't get bored. So you just spent like three G's on a on a bottle of Remy or something probably Remy's probably more than three G's and you can't access it yourself because it's in a cage as clearly there's a case you have one in the hot bottle service.

Waitresses do it for you. One o'clock, one o'clock, one NBA player, you know, goes to bed at one o'clock. So no, none of them probably zero.

So look, I mean, Utah silent protests of having to be in Utah for four days. Well, I mean, look, I don't know. I don't know. That's interesting. It really is. I'm just starting out.

I love you. Go the way the NFL just fun cities, just fun. Just five city tour. That's Miami, Atlanta, New York, L.A., Chicago, the south run.

It all is southern fun. That's Houston. Houston would be great. Houston. Houston was the place I caught a case. All right. Drake song.

Houston, Miami, Vegas, whatever it's called. Anyway, that's the run. I'm telling you.

All right. That's I mean, that's I don't think that's going to change anything. I don't think John Moran would have went, well, had the other game been in hot land, I would have dunked. But now it's in Utah.

I won't. If it's in Atlanta, you put the wings like on the top of the backboard and the dude jumps up, grabs a wing, eats it while he dunks. Oh, here's here's a dunk.

I just came up with. You put a check for five hundred thousand dollars in an envelope. And if someone can grab it, whoever you raise the revenue 11 feet and you put the check right next year and whoever can go up and dunk and grab the check, it's the five hundred.

Think about that. Now, guess what? Now I might jump now. Everyone's in the dunk.

They're turning people away now because because now it gives you something like and I know I said before, a million wasn't enough incentive, but this is something a little different. Like, all right, let me just go out here and show and prove one time real quick, you know, go here and snatch the Sims, though he did. His face was like all the way above the rim. That was pretty impressive, even though his dunks were really stupid.

As someone who's never touched the rim in his life. But, you know, but then they also had like, you know, the skills contest. And I watched that. And that was that was interesting.

You know, like, but Yanis's brothers also, you know, I noticed in the school school competition in the past, they would have to do the chess pass. Right. And the hoop than the then the circle would be so big. But it was like those kids throwing the bat, the footballs through the Dr. Pepper thing at the national championship. That was my one thing I was going to say.

Make it smaller, bro. Like Ray Charles could have thrown the ball through that hoop. Like, come on.

Like, yeah, they could definitely make it a little more challenging. There is something there. But you're dribbling through like just a stanchion. Like what if you put a player there and now he's trying to do it.

Now you got it. Like, now you got now you got a dude there who's trying to rip the ball from you. Get by like Jordan Clarkson literally went in slow motion. He just wasn't. He wasn't trying to pull.

You could have like a celebrity or somebody like that. That's trying to have Kevin Hart there. Now, Kevin Hart trying to steal the ball, trying to steal the ball from you.

But you got you're right, Chris. The hole is huge. Make it a little bit tougher. Precision pass to get through. But they used to have to do that.

You'd have to do a bounce pass and a chess pass. And it was like, you know, maybe two feet wide. So, yeah.

So there's ways they're on something there. The three point shootout. That was Dame. You know, that was great to see him come out.

I mean, what are you going to do, man? These guys and that and that concludes our weekend coverage here on the Rich Eisen Show basketball podcast. I wish we had more for you, but we're entering the home stretch. Like I said, Denver and Boston are your are your one seeds right now? Just a game apart. Boston, 42 and 17.

They're half came up in Milwaukee, 41 and 17. Denver, 41 and 18. Your three teams with 40 plus wins.

How about this? If I give you one of those three teams or the field to win the title, who do you take? So you said Denver?

I'll give you the four. The three best teams in the league right now are Boston, Milwaukee and Denver. If I give you those three or the field, who do you take to win the title right now? On February 24, I'm taking one of those teams.

I'm not going with the field right now. Milwaukee has won 12 straight games. They're on fire. They're on fire. They're looking great. They're healthy. The harnesses risk that, you know, kind of caused him to only play a minute in the LCR game. Not as bad as first thought. Sham said just to sprain.

Yeah, so that they avoided disaster there. To me right now, Milwaukee looks like the favorite. They're unbelievable. Once the playoffs start the, the matchup between them and Boston, that's going to be an amazing potential Eastern conference finals championship right there. You have two MVP candidates and Tatum and Giannis and you have great supporting players.

Jalen Brown, then holiday. So that that's going to be a seven game type of series in the east. And I look forward to that. But right now I have Milwaukee and TJ. You know, I give you the field that includes your Philadelphia 76ers. You're at like Clippers, new look, the new look Phoenix Suns. We're going to see Kevin Durant soon. We haven't really had it.

We haven't really been able to talk about that yet. I'll take the field on. We got the new look Dallas Mavericks pick.

Oh man, that's tough though. I forgot about the Denver. I'll take the field. Sure. I don't know about the Suns though, right? Because much like we talked about this on the show the other day, much like the Sixers when they got James Harden last year. Now you're going to get the ran in, right? Let's just say this team might have 20 games together to gel a mesh.

No, it's one thing. Yeah, you know, Booker Durant, they're going to be able to score, right? But basketball is so much more than that as we all know. And it's, you know, the other day John Salley was talking about remember he said about hanging out with your teammates and getting to know them which would help you understand them more on the court, right? So it's like if I'm playing with a guy long enough and I know like, all right, this is something that a deficiency in his game or he's not good on the pick and roll then that might cause me to step up and kind of, you know, compensate for the fact that I know where his weaknesses are. These guys going to have enough time defensively to kind of figure out, you know, rotations in like, okay, I know where he wants the ball or this is, you know what I mean?

It's just like there's a lot that goes on. It's not just roll the ball out there and shoot. You got to play on the defensive side. You have to be have some type of cohesion with your teammate is 20 games enough because you know, you can put the rain out there.

He can get 50 whenever he feels like it. But we talked about this last year. This is actually the same conversation T.J. Adam that we had as a group last year when Philadelphia acquired James Harden. You said look, 25 games is that can be enough. Can they do it in the playoffs? It ultimately, you know, it ultimately on James Harden got hurt again in the postseason and it wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to gel. So can Kevin Durant and Booker and Chris Paul, man, that's a really good, that's a really good, really good big three, man. They're now the second betting favorites. Boston still the betting favorite. I think they're plus 350 Phoenix number two plus 425, but they're now the favorites to win the West from the five slot nine and a half games back at Denver. They're a half game behind the Clippers. They're a game and a half behind Sacramento, but you know, the biggest surprise team in the NBA this year. Do you think Phoenix can catch Memphis for the two seed four and a half games behind Memphis?

Yeah, absolutely. To me, Memphis. I hate to say this. I love watching job play.

Jaron Jackson is the best defensive player in the league this year. Seems like a big butts coming, but they're a fraud this year. They're a fraud team.

Why? I just don't believe in them. I don't believe that they have enough experience yet. I think they need to go through another couple years before they're truly, truly ready. I don't see them beating a Phoenix or Denver or Denver or even a Clippers. They have a lot of young talent. I'm not saying that this team is done forever. They could win the West in a couple of years. I just to me, they're just not ready right now. And so that's, that's why I just don't, they can be a second round team. I just don't see them representing the West. You think it's Denver's time?

Have they finally gone through the crucible? They're all healthy. Jamal Murray, Michael Porter, junior's back.

It feels like this is a, they made some moves at the deadline. I mean, joker, like, I mean, he's a massive favorite to win his third straight MVP, triple double this year. That is just joker winning three MVPs in a row. So you're going to tell me like Larry Bird won three MVPs in a row and will win three MVPs in a row. I just feel like, and bead the disrespect, but when you're honest one, his MVPs, there were people like he can't win again, even though his stats were better than when he won.

And yet we're going to keep giving yokage. Like, I mean, look, the guy's great though. So I, I, I don't hate it that much, but I'm just so team and bead. And when you watch when those teams, those two played each other this year and bead had like 45. Oh, he was trying to make a statement for sure.

He definitely tried to him and he did make a statement, but I'm getting back, you know, the Grizzlies, this is going to be the third season in the row in the, in the post season, man. So it's like, they've got that experience. They've been there for two seasons and now it's three seasons. And you know, I don't know that I believe that they can win, but I feel like they put enough time in the playoffs to be like, all right, this is a, a seasoned team, especially considering what they, you know, they've been there the last two seasons. Yeah.

I'm looking up right now. What did they, what round did they lose in last year? So they lost in the conference semi-finals.

So this is year, what you're 400 Taylor Jenkins, probably the best coach. Nobody really knows or could pick out out of a lineup, but they were 34 and 39 in 1920. They missed the playoffs. They were in 2022.

Yeah. In 2020. And then last the two years ago, they lose in the first round. They only went five games. And then the last year they made it to the semi. So they won a playoff series where they played 12 games in the postseason. And now this year to seed winning their division, can they make a run to the Western conference finals? I mean, I think if it's man, how great would have Western conference finals of Memphis and Phoenix be?

Oh, it would be explosive. Just 120 to a hundred and massive scoring games, probably 250 total points in seven games series in Memphis is clearly the younger, more athletic team with that. But the fall off between jaw to Jaron Jackson, you know, Jaron Jackson, like I said, he is arguably the best defender in the league, but in terms of a second star, when you have Katie is your number one star and then your second guy is Devin Booker. That's a huge, huge difference between Devin Booker and Jaron Jackson. So you're saying that you're just, you're skipping Desmond Baynes.

I mean, 22 is very good player. Also, I'm saying Memphis and Dylan, they have a good team, but then you also have another hall of famer who's desperate for a championship who will do whatever it takes in Chris Paul. This is a make or break year. It feels like for Phoenix, maybe they have one more year after this with Durant's in terms of Chris Paul getting older. This, this really, they have to seize their opportunity right now. And like you said, TJ, there's not a lot of time for them to gel, but they need to figure it out quick because this is, this could be it for them. Can the Clippers make a run? TJ big move of the week. They get Russell Westbrook, uh, who was traded in Utah and the three teamer, but obviously bought out.

He stays in LA, but switches locker rooms to the Clippers. Is that enough? You feel good as a four seed right now? You know, right now the Clippers are probably 11 players deep, right?

Real deep, real deep. Now obviously come awesome the last month. Yeah. Now come post season, obviously that rotation is going to get tightened down to probably like eight guys. So, but when you look at it, like they got a good backup big man in Plumlee, um, who's been playing really nice and playing really well.

I liked the bones, Highland edition, but now you got Russ, right? So you look at Russ and this is kind of causing a lot of people to kind of question what's going on. But you pointed this out about two months ago, Chris, Russ is a six man coming off the bench was playing pretty well for the lake. I was kind of shocked the Lakers just gave up on him. So yeah, so when you talk about him, he's averaging what, six, 15, 16, like six assists, seven, like 16, six, seven. He's like playing really well with the second unit. So I think he's having some arguments with him though.

That could have been it. So I don't know. Is Russ going to come in and start? Is he going to be on this second team?

I don't know any of these answers yet, but I'm going to be very interested to see what happens. But you know, one thing the Clippers don't have amidst all of that talent is they don't really have like a fiery figure in that locker room. Like Kawhi, of course, you know, he's a leader, but he's not going to be a vocal leader. I'm not sure where Paul is when it comes to being a vocal leader, but you know, Russ is going to come in there. And since we're on our podcast and not Roku, I can finally swear, you know, Russ is going to get in someone's ass, you know, and so pause.

So I kind of feel like, you know, this could be a good thing. Paul George statistically had his best season playing with Russell Westbrook. So we're going to see, we're going to see if Russ, if this reignites Russ, if he plays to his strength, because Russ is going to sell and try to shoot a bunch of three-pointers and guys, this isn't going to work. Russ is going to like, just break cats down and get to the rim and then go to the foul line.

If he's going to get to the hole and then dish out to some shooters, this could work. I like Clipper fans right now, I think are about 60, 40 in favor. There's a lot who were down on this move. I'm willing to give it a chance. I want to see, I think the benefits are going to outweigh the negatives. Can you do what you thought John Wall was going to do with the second unit? True, true.

And it just didn't, it just didn't work out for one reason or another. And for John Wall to end up back in Houston, how weird was that? A lot of teams had the homecomings, like DeAngelo Russell's back with the Lakers. Yeah, DeAngelo's back, you know.

That's crazy. Eric Gordon for the Clippers. And there's another guy we miss, you know, then you got a seasoned vet, a guy who was an original Clipper, who, you know, unfortunately we had to get rid of when we brought Chris Paul in and now he came back home.

So you got a vet in Eric Gordon, who's a sniper who, losing Luke Kennard, I wasn't happy with, but then we got Gordon and I was like, okay, now, now we got this guy. Ty Lou has a very important job, man. He's going to have to, you know, I always love to say, you know, chemistry wise, and he's going to have an interesting time, like kind of molding this team together and finding that, that right chemistry.

But I think he can do it. And I think the players are there to do it. I like the Clippers versatility. They have a bunch of guys that are between like 6'5 and 6'10 that can play, can shoot and can defend really well. The key to this team is that there's not really a pure point guard with the team.

There's not, you know, Russell Westbrook obviously is a Hall of Famer. He's not really a pure point guard. But when it comes down to Kawhi is going to have the ball in his hand and I'm perfectly through Paul. It's not like Chris Paul, like the prototypical point guard. You're right Adam, and that's the thing. We don't have that PG, but like I'm fully confident if Kawhi Leonard has the ball in his hand.

Sorry to interrupt. I really like the signing of Plumlee those in terms of a backup for Zubac. Zubac can get tired. I really like Zubac's play, but Plumlee can provide really good defense and just a solid backup center for him deep into the playoffs.

Yeah. And that way we keep Mo Morris from having to play center because he can still play the forward. He straight like Morris doesn't get a lot of credit, man, because he's a big man who can shoot and can stretch the floor, you know, in Boston. And we haven't even talked about Dallas guys. Kyrie Irving gets it. He's out. He goes to Dallas.

Isn't that crazy? What is going on with the Mavericks? Do you believe in them? Do you believe this is going to work? Kyrie and Luca?

I believe it can work to a degree. I don't believe that this is a championship squad. They're going to win a playoff series. But can I can I give you guys like a just a thought? Yep. OK.

I mean, we're literally on a podcast. LeBron James. How much time does he have left with the Lakers contractually?

I think next year is his final year. Right. OK. LeBron loves Kyrie. He does. And LeBron loves Luca.

Yeah. But LeBron wants to play with his son. There's no chance of those two coming to L.A. Maybe. What if LeBron decides to go join up with Mark Cuban in a year and go join Dallas so he can play with those two guys? Because he's not locked in L.A. As we know, he can seemingly go where he wants for the next two years until Bronny gets to the league. Well, I was thinking more the opposite, where they'd figure out how to get Kyrie to the Lakers next year because he's a free agent. That's too easy, Adam.

That's that's the easy thing to say. Like, let's get LeBron over to Dallas. Like, I mean, LeBron and Kyrie all in Dallas. I'm just saying there's something I was thinking about during with the picking of the All-Star rosters and knowing how LeBron, you know, LeBron tried to sign Luca to his shoe. But as much as LeBron wants to win another championship, if his son Bronny is about to be drafted, he is going to go wherever Bronny goes. Yeah, but I'm saying he's not going to sign a long term deal. You're going to get LeBron and maybe a one or two year deal. Right. One. He's just going to win here by the time Bronny gets drafted, LeBron will be 40.

So it's just going to be one year spots. I mean, ESPN had Bronny number 10 today to Orlando in the two thousand twenty four. Yeah, he's he didn't think about what Orlando could look like. Then you're like, oh, LeBron, Paolo. Mm hmm.

Wendell Carter, like, oh, Wagner, Wagner, Fringe, Wagner's nice. Yeah. But if those guys turn out, then they're not going to get the tenth spot. A little bit better than that.

So. But yeah, I think we're all kind of reside to the fact that if Bronny if and when Bronny gets drafted, his dad is going to try to join them. And how would you feel about that? Like, you finally get your you probably get your freedom, right? You lived under someone else's rule for 18 years and you feel good and then you get you get to go out and do your own thing.

And now you got your pops watching over you kind of telling you what to do again. This Bronny what? I think it would be super cool. Obviously, it would be dope.

It would be so that would be so cool. That's like Griffey Jr. and Griffey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Back to back home runs once. So we're good on that. Are they going to win? Is Dallas going to win a playoff series? The Mavericks are a team to me that I could see getting swept in the first round or like taking it to seven games in the Western Conference. I just don't know what to think about this. We all expect Sacramento to fall off, right? Yeah, they're not.

I don't know. And so the Clippers and Suns, we expect to move up and then Dallas maybe. So Sacramento goes down to number six, something like that. Well, Sacramento might not fall in the regular season, but they to me, they're a one in there.

They won't win a series in the playoffs. So let's say let's say the West just holds how it is, right? So let's look at it. Pelicans are seven T wolves, eight Warriors, nine Thunder 10. Let's just say all of this holds. OK, so Pelicans take out Thunder.

So it's just one through eight. So Denver beats Minnesota Grizzlies beat Pelicans. And if you get Sacramento versus Dallas, we like Dallas and seven Dallas and seven there. You have to go Dallas. They have the two best players. And then Clippers Phoenix.

What an awesome first round. Oh, man. Yeah, I don't want that to last.

There's something's got to give there, man. Yeah. I'm saying the West is going to be awesome, whereas the East is kind of a three team race.

Yeah, it's way less. The East is way less drama. It's just like let's get to the finals and it's either going to be one of three teams. Yeah, it's going to be one of three teams who advances. And by the way, you can make a really strong case for all three teams to win the title. I mean, whoever comes out of the East, you can make a case is going to win the championship. Yeah, they're the three strongest teams, in my opinion, outside of Phoenix, which we don't know what it's exactly going to look like. The Phoenix right now is all hype and speculation just because they got Kevin Durant.

We know what he is. Let's just throw him in there. But let's just be honest with ourselves, though, based upon what they've done the previous three or four seasons. They've blown it. They've blown it, but they never had Kevin Durant.

But guess what? You're up to in the finals. They're not going to Kevin Durant.

You're not losing. So, you know, he's a bad boy. He was a bad boy with the Suns, though. It will be interesting to see how Devin Booker plays because he's been out for a long time.

Yeah. And when he's back, he's always been the guy, the scorer on the team. He's the number one option. So now he's going to have to defer to Kevin Durant and be the number two guy. So it might take him a little bit to adjust to not being the guy. Well, I would if I could give Devin Booker just one piece of advice to defer this ego in this case is not your amigo. Check your ego. You're still going to get yours.

You're still going to get yours. But you got Kevin Durant. I mean, you know who he is.

It's Kevin Durant. So come on, you know, it's going to be fun. I would hate for the Clippers have to face them in round one. I don't want that.

I don't want any. That happens. We got to go to one of those games. Oh, that's for sure.

That's mandatory. All right. So you like Milwaukee? You're like the field taking the field. Yeah. Are you going to pick a specific team in the field?

Well, that wasn't part of the equation. One team out of the field. I'm still going to take Boston, obviously. I'm going to give me the Sixers.

You can do it. Sixers. Yeah. And be I am with you on MB for MVP, though. And I also think, look, if Philly somehow overtakes Milwaukee and Boston is number one in the east, I think I mean, we'll win MVP. I think they're going to reward him.

I would deserves it. He's been awesome. He's been awesome. The last few years. He has been, you know, you know, he's done the thing that we've been talking about, too, is he's taken to his he take it.

It's kind of like Tatum. He has improved when you didn't think he could improve. He's not shooting as many bad three pointers as I talked about. And in games where you want him to take over, he has taken over the game. You just mentioned a couple of weeks ago against Denver. This is my statement game.

And he throws a 40 piece on Joker. And it's like that's the thing as a fan, even though I'm not a Sixers fan, but as a basketball fan, you want to see these guys make that improvement and take those leaps and reach their full potential. And indeed is getting there. And it's really awesome to see. And Harden's having a great year.

Also, we can't quiet. We're not even talking about him. And I mean, if you want to make the point that Harden is maybe the third best player on the team after Maxie, then I tell you what, if you're going to tell me James Harden is my third best player, then I really like my team's chances. And I'm just saying specifically, this is my team. But anyone's team going to tell me James Harden is your third best player.

Man, you got to like leading the league and assist this year. He is 11 the game. Ten point eight. Wow. Sneaky. Good season. Sneaky. Good season.

Just not really here. Yeah. Because you mentioned something about him the other day and I was like, well, man, you're not really paying attention. I haven't been watching 21 in 11 on the season right now.

So that's really nice. He's kind of sacrificed ego and his dad, you know, for the good of the team. And it's kind of what when the trade was happening last year that we had talked about, like, is it enough time to gel? We had the he had the rest of last season playoffs, off season. And remember, we saw him in the off season, how he was before it was like he wasn't working out this off season. He was putting in work, man.

You look great. The birthday party video that went viral when he threw the cake. That was unnecessary because there are other people there that could have enjoyed that case. You should have spent hours and hours. That was not cool.

I'd have been there like I wanted some cake. You know, I love sweets. He's making a statement. Fixers over who in the finals? Well, you know, just to take it back to the days of old with the birthday of my goat, my personal goat. I want to see the six or six. That's just that's basketball that what about in the finals on the final? Well, you know, for the last 25 years, 26 years, I've been just pounding the table on a six or clipper one day, man. I feel for I root for good basketball.

Seven game series, seven game series. Like I pretty much hit every clipper six or game here in town. And my my boy Riley that I've been going to games with for 20 years, he just kind of laughs at me because I do a whole lot of applauding. And then I just yell when someone's playing bad defense, even though the other. So it's like it is weird.

It's just a weird thing. I just I'm able to watch basketball and just simply enjoy these two teams. I don't know what would happen. I just probably sit back and know that much like LeVar Ball, even when I lose, I'd win Adam Bucks over who we had a rematch. Bucks sons or you see somebody else coming out. I'm I'm rude.

I think Celtic sons. It's going to be a fun finals. I think that's I have to I really want the Clippers to get there. And I really believe that they do have a chance. You should now because you bet he's with Eric Gordon. Yeah.

And I really believe that you get us free tickets. But I do believe the Clippers have a legit chance. But if I'm putting my money on it, I'm going I'm going the sons. I'm going with Kevin Durant. Yeah. And I'm going with Devin Booker and I'm going with a desperate Chris Paul.

He. But you put Milwaukee to beat him. I still I still think I still think Milwaukee wins, though. I just think they're that much of a better team. Healthy Milwaukee is pretty scary. Middleton Middleton did play last year, obviously. Yeah, in the playoffs. But yeah, that's the other thing. I know you're so good.

K.D. and Giannis against each other in a finals. Oh, that would be fun. I mean, Katie took him to the limit a couple of years ago when he had that shot where his where his little toes on line.

Yeah. So seeing a rematch of those guys playing against each other would just be so fun. I think no matter what happens, we can kind of all agree the basketball fans are going to be the biggest winners. I mean, this playoffs is shaping up to be maybe the most incredible NBA playoffs.

You know, two two months stretch that we've maybe ever seen. It's amazing because the last, you know, the super teams there there was, you know, a couple of really good teams and the rest of the teams kind of kind of were terrible. There's so much parity this year, though.

It's going to be amazing. You could make a strong case for five teams in the West could win it. And three. And I mean, so that's eight teams. Obviously, I'm discounting Sacramento, but that's eight teams. You could make a strong case and a really good argument that can win the title, which was the last time that's happened.

Who's your account in Dallas in it? I'm counting Dallas. Okay, I just say this for everyone who was down on All Star Weekend and maybe the game. I feel like your thoughts are going to be changed completely once these playoffs get started and these guys really start the ball because guess what? They're not going to be letting guys shoot from 40. All right, they're not just going to lay in guys going down the whole dunk like that's when these guys are going to start playing. And I think playoffs like you guys said, playoff season this year is going to be and all eight of these teams have two superstars and you can make a case for a big three.

Yeah, which is why they're, you know, top contenders. But guys, let's not forget the most important thing that must be done this playoff season is that Rich Eisen simply cannot go back to back in our fantasy basketball by any means necessary. The man must be stopped even if we have to collude. Well, here's the thing. The trade deadline is literally tomorrow.

Oh, it is. So if we're going to collude, we got to do it right now. We got to represent last place.

No, I was going to say it was ever in second. Right now, my team is has the best chance. You're saying, so who do you want? Let's make a move. Let's trade you all of our good players so you can beat this guy. I don't want Adam to win either, though.

What? I want me to win. That's true. I don't want to come on.

I've never won before. That's true. That's true. Everybody is. You know what it is? ABR.

This is like a 2020 elections thing. It's anybody but rich ABR. Anybody but rich. We can't have it. Can't have it. We can't have it. Can't. You guys don't understand. It's it's appalling.

Somebody like Cooper win. I'd rather I don't want to lose to an 11. That's the other thing, too.

I can't do that either. All right. Basketball is back. People enjoy it. It's going to be an awesome last month or so of the season and in the playoffs, they're just going to be, as rich would say, that the kids say what? And it's going to be sick.

So enjoy it. We're going to be back here every week, pretty much and basically, basically, more or less, basically more or less every week. Hey, Obama's in L.A. at the end of the season. Obama Obama on the show. That's that should be Obama is right now at practice half a mile down the street.

I could throw a rock and hit it. Obama's in town. That's all. Just bum rush.

The Lakers practice ability. And on to excuse me. I know LeBron. No, no smoke. Obama here. You guys want Obama? Obama. A.D. No.

We want more Bob Mobile. All right, everybody. Thanks for watching. Listening all the good stuff. T.J. Adam. Chris. Later. I got home.