On this episode, Mike and Jason discuss the highs and lows of NBA All-Star weekend including the unexpected early start times, the lack of stars in the dunk contest, participants who haven't played this season (Dame this year/Mac McClung last year), Wemby bringing the intensity, Kawhi's 31, KAT's help defense, the USA vs World, the 4 "games" format, and the one tanking question that the NBA has to answer moving forward.

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Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here with my co host Jason Sunkel tonight and we are coming off NBA All Star Weekend which I guess we are deeming it a success.

Are we deeming it a success?

Well, I mean there's, there's a, there's a multitude of headlines coming out of the weekend between KD's burner and, and, and like the All Star Game actually being better than Saturday night and probably we can, we can litigate that maybe a little bit.

And you know, obviously I, I don't know, there's.

There was lots to talk about I guess.

So I, I don't know if you just want to dive right in.

You want to dive right in.

Let's do it.

I'm, I'm.

Here's what I'm going to start With I'm going to start with, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, Mike, did you watch this?

And I'm going to go through all of the items and I'm going to see if you watched any of what, what level of this did you watch or did you just see on social media?

Okay.

Does that sound like a fairdom?

Okay, sounds fair.

Friday night, the celebrity basketball game.

Did not watch.

Friday night the Rising Stars challenge.

Did not watch.

Okay, I watched, I watched the Rising Stars until Jaylon Tyson's team got eliminated and then I didn't watch it anymore.

Okay.

Saturday night, did you watch the three point contest?

So here's my take on the three point contest.

Cal's game ended, I think his game was at 2, so it ended around 4 or so.

And then it was senior night at Ohio Wesleyan.

So there was a little gathering at a restaurant after the game and I walked into said restaurant and glanced up at the TV screen to see Damien, to see Damian Lillard shooting threes in the three point shootout.

And I literally was like, what is happening?

Like I thought I was going to be out of the restaurant at like 6, 6:30 and be home by like 8:30 or 9 and would easily be able to be at home in time to see.

Well, you know why it was at 5, right.

Most of the.

Because of the Olympics.

Yeah.

By the way, I don't know what that says about the NBA's standing in the world or about the TV contract that they signed with NBC that NBC has the unilateral right to move the All Star Saturday night.

Yeah, it was a terrible move.

I'm the same, I'm in the same boat.

Here's what I'm gonna tell you.

I'm talking to my kids, my boys, like, like not even realizing that I've missed the three point contest.

I've missed the, the, I mean the team thing.

I don't.

The shooting stars crap.

I wouldn't, didn't even care about that.

I think that's the only thing we got right by the way.

So A on us, we, we picked the Knicks to win that one.

And then, and then the slam dunk contest.

I literally am put putting the girls to bed and the slam dun contest is going on.

So I'm like, all right, I guess I'm gonna like.

I loaded up Peacock and I went.

Because on Peacock I can go back in time.

And I paused it right before the slam dunk contest happened.

I got the kids to bed and then I caught up watching the slam Dunk contest.

But that's legitimately the only thing on Saturday night because I didn't know that it was at 5 o'.

Clock.

That's idiotic.

And it was not marketed well at all.

Because listen, if the two of us who are relatively plugged into things don't know that this game is happening at 5 o'.

Clock.

I mean, what's even crazier is.

Think about this, Mike.

It's 5 o', clock, our time, the West coast, it's 2 o'.

Clock.

Like, are you kidding me?

What.

What person that's not at the game in LA is watching the, the Saturday night stuff?

This, it's not even Saturday night.

It's Saturday mid afternoon.

All Stars Saturday, mid afternoon doesn't quite have the ring to it.

Yeah, it was terrible.

I, I didn't understand again why the, why the league allowed that to happen.

And I guess again that NBC had the right to be able to put that programming wherever they wanted it.

But they certainly did not do a good job of getting the word out.

I'm sure that you and I were not the only two people in the world that did not know that this thing was not going to happen at its normal scheduled time on Saturday night.

So I did adjust for Sunday night, realizing, oh, it's probably at 5:00 clock again.

I checked.

Yes, I checked ESPN when I woke up on Sunday to figure out what time it was going to go.

What's funny about that is that they had each of the games listed separately on ESPN.

So they had whatever, stars versus world at five and then stripes versus world at 555.

And yeah, yeah, whatever it was.

So, so, yeah, so at least that was out there.

But again, I can honestly say that had they changed the time of the All Star Game without having preemptively changed the time of All Star Saturday night.

If they had just changed the All Star Game, if it had been flip flopped, I would have had no idea and would have missed the entire All Star Game because I would have tuned in at 7:00 or 7:30 at the time when it normally is coming on.

Yeah, I'll be honest with you, Mike.

I'm okay with the game being at five o'.

Clock.

Great.

I was not upset about the game being at 5 o' clock because think about it this way.

If I am, if I'm an, if I'm an like a person that's at the game and I'm a player at the game, that gives me the opportunity to have the game and then go out make bad choices for that night and then go home.

Okay.

Whereas if the game's at like 8pm they go out at 11.

That's just even more bad choices happening.

And then, you know, like, I'm assuming, like, they all came back, like, you know, the league.

The league gave them three days, Three additional days off.

So that's good.

Like, they.

No games are back until Thursday, so I don't know.

So.

So I'm guessing you watched by proxy because you were in this establishment.

Did you watch the rest of the stuff or did you leave when the dunk contest was starting?

Great question.

So I did watch the majority of the three point contest and then the dunk contest.

I watched some of it while I was in the car and then turned some of it off once I started driving and then caught the highlights of the dunk contest after I arrived home.

So I did not.

So I did not.

Yeah.

Highlight slash.

Well, my favorite tweet was the one that I sent you about the Jace Richardson dunk, where bouncing your head off the floor.

This is insane.

The dunk contest is back.

I love that tweet.

That was a great.

That was.

I got quite a kick out of that.

That was one of the.

That's one of the tweets that's made me laugh out loud in the last month as I was reading that.

I don't think you sent me that one.

I didn't send that to you.

No, you sent me the Mac.

You sent me the Mac McClung Dunks, which would have.

He would have won again, by the way.

Those.

Yeah.

Like, why didn't they have him?

There's no way he didn't get asked that.

There's no way he would have said no.

Why didn't they ask him?

I mean, it.

I thought he said he didn't want to do it anymore.

I thought he said he was not going to participate.

I thought it was him.

Why wouldn't he put.

Why would he have posted that and said that these are the dunks I would have done?

I don't know.

Because he's still looking for attention, but he didn't want to be in the dunk contest?

I don't know.

Are we addressing the dunk contest now?

Are we going back to anything?

I mean, I think.

Let's just talk.

Like, we can address the Saturday night situation as a whole, but dunk contest is probably where we want to start, I think.

I honestly think, Mike, in my opinion.

And then you can say your piece.

I think the three point contest should be last and the dunk contest should be first.

Let's flip flop these bad boys.

I mean, the three point contest at least is intriguing.

And it's.

From what it sounds like next year's three point contest is going to stack up to be a good one again.

Like, because Steph has said that he's going to do it next year.

Dame said he'll do it again.

Steph said that he can get Clay to do it.

Just get all the great three point shooters in it.

Like, I mean, I would much rather that you know, you know, and with that all being said, like having like all the actual three point shooters in it and maybe if Conor Knippo doesn't get a drive from Bill Simmons, he would be more successful at the three point contest.

That's.

Did you hear that theory?

Zach Lowe said the theory on Bill's show on Sunday and then he said it.

He readdressed it again in today's episode saying.

I don't know what it was about it, but I think Knipple lost because he rode in a car with Bill Simmons.

And Bill was just.

Anyways, that's, that is a wild.

That's a funny thing.

That's a funny story.

Bill Simmons drove con Knipple back to the hotel.

I don't know.

But anyways, I think that's.

The dumb contest is over, Mike.

I mean it's stick a 4K.

Unless you can get someone.

Listen, unless you can get someone who is a star.

Okay, the picture the thing you sent me was.

This is, this is, this is what the.

You.

The thing is the Super 70 sports suite.

If you're under the age of 40, this is what the effing dunk contest is supposed to look like.

And it had like all the players, like the legit players.

It's got Mike, MJ, it's got Drexler, it's got, it's got Dominique, etc.

Etc.

It's got like legitimate people in the dunk contest.

Like Jackson Hayes was the only player that I knew of and his dunks were terrible.

His dunks I could, I could have pulled.

I may have like, I wouldn't have dunked it and made it because I'm an old man at this point and I can't get up.

But my, my, my attempts would have been more entertaining than what the heck he did.

Did he know?

Do you know what he was supposed to do?

Something flashy?

Or did he just think he needed to put the ball through the hoop?

I'm confused about his dunk.

So the one the of the dunks that I saw live, the Jackson Hayes right handed dunk from the dotted line was one of the dunks that I saw live.

And as he was setting that up, it appeared that the setup was similar to someone who was going to try to dunk from the foul line is what I was anticipating he was going to try to do.

And then he literally jumped from seven feet inside the foul line and just dunked it with his right hand.

It was, it was completely incredulous.

I mean, first of all, it's hard to come up with really any new dunks now.

Again, the Mac McClung Dunks all were unique.

Although the one had a guy standing on a ladder and he was jumping and hit the ball into the basket backwards as he jumped.

So I'm not sure that really qualifies necessarily.

Yeah, yeah.

But the thing is, and you said it, and the Super 70s tweet captured it in a photo is that the dunk contest is not compelling when it is between players who either you have never heard of and who are barely in the NBA, or a guy like Jackson Hayes who clearly doesn't belong in the dunk contest.

And that's no fault of Jackson Hayes.

He just didn't belong in the dunk.

Contestant Hayes might not belong in the NBA, Mike.

Okay, well, I don't know.

He's.

You might be right.

But let's, let's at least give him credit for being in the NBA.

But I don't think he belongs in the dunk contest.

But the thing is, is that when you look at the most memorable dunk contests and what we remember about them, it's all about the stars.

And it's about the guys who people have heard of and who people enjoy watching, guys who have a little bit of flair, guys who have a little bit of showmanship.

Like today, February 17th, Michael Jordan's birthday.

Right.

And I don't know if you scrolled at all through Twitter just to see people posting different things of Jordan.

And obviously is, I've looked at things, pictures of Michael Jordan on mostly Twitter, but my algorithm, algorithm serves me up a lot of, a lot of Michael Jordan highlights, let's put it this way.

And one of the things that I see over and over again is just the amount of still pictures of Jordan from the dunk contest and cradling the ball at different angles, his feet spread, his silhouette, the way that he's.

Just the way that he's hanging in the air, how he's holding the ball, his head in relation to the Rim, we're talking about still photos of a guy who just is incredibly charismatic, right?

And that's really what it's all about.

Like the guys that dunked in the dunk contest, their dunks are incredible.

Obviously, there's very few human beings on the planet that can do the dunks that we saw in the dunk contest the other night.

But no one cares when they're guys that we haven't heard of.

And Keyshot Johnson, what's his name?

Keyshaw Johnson.

Is that his name?

Dude, he brought the fire, though.

I liked his dancing after.

He was dancing.

He was trying.

He was trying.

He was trying, Right?

That's what I'm saying.

But like him dancing, it's fine.

But there's no real placement first arc.

No, it's not like Michael Jordan walking back to the other end of the floor and gearing up and knowing what's about to come and getting in the anticipation going of what you're about to see.

And then, I don't know, there's just a flare right to stars.

And clearly Michael Starr is brighter than most guys you're going to get in the dunk contest.

But that Picture from Super 70 Sports, like you said, Dominique Drexler, Larry Nance, Dr. J, Michael Jordan, it's.

These are some of the greatest in game dunkers and players in the history of the game.

And then you look at who has been in the dunk contest.

We haven't really had a great dunk contest with guys who mattered in the league.

The last one, right, is probably the Aaron Gordon Levine dunk contest.

And even that, when you look at the order of magnitude that those two guys are as stars certainly pales in comparison to the Dr. J, Larry Nance, M.J. dominique, Clyde Drexer.

There are leaps and bounds above what we're getting, right?

Correct.

Correct.

And I just don't think there's any way to salvage it with guys who are not NBA stars.

Even if you bring a guy like Mac McClung, even if you bring.

Think back to what that show that Shaq hosted with, I forget who was his co host, where they just had random guys that could dunk and they were doing all kinds of crazy dunks, I forget what the name of that.

I forget the name of that show.

But if you bring guys, nobody wants to see crazy unusual dunks from guys who are not NBA stars, you could have much worse dunks.

If you had guys like Zion or John Morant or LeBron or Anthony Edwards or whoever you want to throw in there, that's an NBA star into the dunk contest, it would be eminently more watchable.

People would care about it so much more.

I would argue vehemently that the answer to that is no.

Do I think less of Aaron Gordon as a player or as a dunker because he lost that dunk contest to Zach lavine?

No.

I feel like those two guys are linked by the quality of that dunk contest.

And you can go back and forth.

Like, I don't remember any guy, star or otherwise, that participated in the dunk contest that I now think back and I'm like, oh, I think less of that guy as a player, or, ooh, that was an embarrassing effort by that guy in the dunk contest.

Jackson Hayes might be up there now, right?

But do I.

Does it really matter?

Is Jackson is Jackson Hayes and who he is as an NBA player?

Is he been downgraded as a result of his participation?

No, no, no, no.

In the dunk.

I was being.

I was being funny, Mike.

I was being funny.

I know, but I'm just saying, it's just.

It doesn't make any.

The.

That's the excuse that you always hear is these guys don't want to embarrass themselves.

They don't want to get.

They don't want to get beat.

They don't want to look foolish.

I mean, I just.

I don't see it.

And then the other thing that I think Simmons was talking about this, and it's a great point, that if you're a first or second, third year guy and you go in and you participate in the dunk contest and let's say you do win it, it's only going to increase and help your brand.

It's going to enable you to, I'm sure, pick up some extra endorsement money.

Whereas what does not participating get you?

I just don't understand why guys wouldn't want to participate in it.

It feels like the kind of mano a mano macho thing that if you've been a dunker all your life, all you want to do is dunk on People and show off the kind of dunks that you can do.

And you're telling me these guys aren't doing crazy dunks in practice or whatever, that they can't do it on the big stage with people watching?

I just don't see the downside.

And to me, there's so much upside, not only for the player, but if the league could somehow convince these guys to play.

And I know the money's not relevant to most of them at this point, if you're a star, but I just feel like it's an event that.

Especially if you're a young guy in your first five years in the league, why wouldn't you want to participate in it?

Even if you win, lose, whatever, it's gotta still be good for your brand.

And I just don't.

I just don't get it.

So I have a question.

It's like we were.

Let's.

Let's just theoretically replace it with something else.

Okay.

I don't know where I saw this.

I don't think Simmons talked about this, but I have an idea.

I'm pretty sure I saw this somewhere, so I don't want to take credit for this idea, but I loved it when I heard it.

Okay.

I know you're somewhat adjacently familiar with.

With the Royal Rumble, right?

You know what the Royal Rumble is in wwe, Mike?

It's pro.

It's pro.

It's pro wrestling.

Yeah.

So.

But you know what it is, though?

Like, so you have.

There's a list of 30 guys, and then every two minutes, someone comes out.

You don't know who's coming.

It could be someone that's currently on the roster.

It could be someone that's like a retired guy who's coming back in.

And then their job is to outlast the rest of the people.

Let's have a Royal Rumble 1v1 matchup.

You don't know who's coming out Next.

You get 30 guys to show up.

Okay?

And maybe it's not 30, maybe it's 20.

Okay?

The first two people you draw, they draw hats, or.

I don't care how you figure it out.

Maybe you have rookies that start at off the beginning, and it goes to the old heads.

And then it's just one on one.

And it's the first to five or the first to seven.

And then after the first match is up, if you won, you get to stay on.

If you lost, you're out of here, and the next person comes out.

And then you roll this for 20 rounds.

That is way More intriguing as way more exciting.

You never know who's coming.

You could have Jackson Hayes in this thing, but then the next person could be Kevin Durant on his burner phone.

Like you never know who's coming.

People would tune in not knowing who's going to come.

Now you'd have to make sure you get some names because if you're just going to get.

This is no slight at Jaylon Tyson, but if you just got a bunch of guys that are like making, just starting to make a name for themselves, that's not going to do it.

But I think this, that's an intriguing thing.

Some kind of vamping off of that.

Because that's, that would be way more not knowing who's in it, not knowing what's coming next, not knowing how they're going to react.

Because who wouldn't?

Donovan Mitchell and Jamal Murray, they are like bitter playoff rivals.

Somehow that happens.

Like that would be so it's such must see tv.

I just think.

And once again, I think there's a lot of logistical things that would say that this is probably not going to happen and would never be considered to happen.

But I think it would be way more intriguing than what the heck I watched on Saturday night.

I was not intrigued by the three point contest when I went back and watched it.

Okay, so you're telling me that a guy who is not going to play a minute in the NBA this year just won the three point contest?

I mean, so he hasn't had any.

He's had no wear and tear on his legs all season.

I didn't know.

Once again, he's going through rehab so he's got wear and tear, but he's not been playing minutes.

He's not been running up and down the floor.

He's not doing all this and doing that he's going to win this three point contest.

When we got all these other people that could have participated in one that have been legitimately playing this year.

Okay, then in the contest with the teams, the Shooting Stars competition, it was intriguing.

It was okay, like it's not, it's not the best thing, but it's not the worst thing.

I mean what I took away from it was Alan Houston can still ball.

Holy Jesus.

That guy can still shoot the basketball sign into a 10 day.

Someone like, I don't know, like Knicks, you needed something like that.

Put him on your team again.

Like he can still play basketball.

He's the only one.

Harper cannot play basketball.

He missed a bunch of layups.

Okay.

That guy probably hasn't touched a basketball in a while.

He just wants to take shots at LeBron.

You saw what he said.

LeBron, right?

About LeBron.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not like LeBron.

I'm not going to make him do it.

But here his two kids are playing in the NBA, so there had to be some kind of level of that.

I don't know.

So that was a.

That was a stray to LeBron.

I don't understand it, but whatever.

I don't know.

I just think.

I think the way that the current format is, it's not very intriguing and they need to do something.

I don't what.

But I feel like, Mike, that we've had this conversation.

I feel like we said this last year and that's what that.

And that was with Mac McClung actually being like an interesting dunking going on.

Because like one thing about him dunking is you knew that you were going to get something different, right?

You knew that there wasn't going to be just retreads.

And I thought, you know, the.

The 50 dunk, the only 50 dunk was a good one for sure, was good dunk.

I felt like Johnson's dunks were good.

Ish.

And he won because he was the most consistent.

Right.

Like he was able to pull off the dunks in the final two rounds.

So I don't know, you know, I said a lot there.

But I want to bring the Royal Rumble to the NBA All Star Saturday night because I think that would be intriguing.

Just my opinion.

All right, let me address that in one second.

But let's go back to the judging of the dunk contests because the fact that you can't get lower than a 40 speaks to the embarrassment piece of Jackson Hayes's dunk should have been Nowhere near a 40 based on the historical precedent of how these dunks are judged.

And so that's part of the problem, too.

And I think to address the whole All Star Saturday night, here's what I would say.

I'm happy for Dame Lillard that he won it.

I have nothing against Dame Lillard, but if you have not played a minute of the NBA season, you should not be eligible to participate in any events on All Star Saturday night.

That includes an injured Damian lillard in the three point contest, and that includes Mac McClung not on an NBA roster, participating in the dunk contest.

I don't want to see guys who aren't in the league actively participating in All Star Saturday night.

I just don't.

So the Shooting Stars competition, are you out or.

Because they're legends.

You're going to allow it?

I'm okay with the legends different.

That's a different type of activity than the three point and the dunk contest.

So yeah, I'm okay.

That's within the spirit of that particular competition.

So yeah, I'm okay with that.

That's fine.

Are you okay with Corey McGetty being called a legend?

I want to rehab conversation from last year.

He's a legend.

He's a legend somewhere.

He's somewhere.

Somewhere.

Corey Magetty is a legend.

I'm fine with it.

We would.

We established he played 16 years in the league.

You can call yourself a legend if you're Corey McGetty or the league can call him a legend if that's what they want to do.

I like your Royal Rumble idea in a generalized picture and I love the idea of guys playing one on one.

However, going back to what we've talked about previously, the embarrassment factor or the not wanting to put yourself out there, whatever they felt, whatever stars feel like for the dunk contest, I think you could multiply that tenfold or a hundredfold when you start putting them out there and having them play one on one against other guys in the league.

Now look, you, me, every guy in the NBA grew up and still I'm sure all of them are playing one on one all the time.

At the end of practice, before practice.

I know it's not televised.

It's not televised.

Correct.

I'm just saying that it's not that this is some foreign concept that guys are like, oh, I don't know, I don't know what this would look like or I don't know what it would be.

But the fact of the matter is, is that nobody wants to go up against another guy and get beat.

And again, depends on how you write, how you structure it.

Is it first guy to scores it first got a five.

Is it first got a seven?

Are you playing twos and threes?

Are you playing ones and twos?

Is everything a one?

How do we make it?

How many, how many dribbles does a guy get?

Where if you're a big guy and you're playing against a guard, you just back the guy down underneath the basket and dunk on him every time.

What if we did a cutthroat competition, Mike?

That would be fun.

That could be fun.

Look, I love the idea of one on one.

I think it would be great if you could get guys to compete and play hard and really test themselves to be able to see that and see what it would look like to see the difference in when Donovan Mitchell goes against Wembanyama or when a guy that.

When Jalen Durant, a bigger guy that has some bulk has to go against a smaller, skinnier guy.

Which one of those types of guys has the advantage in a one on one game?

And you might think, oh, this guy can shoot it, but this guy could back him down and use his power.

And again, do threes count as threes?

Do twos count as twos?

I'd imagine they would have to have that as a part of the competition.

I just don't think it would ever happen.

What I do like in that concept is the idea of a guy competing against another guy and not knowing who the list of 30 people are that are participating in the competition.

So what I think we need to consider is I don't think one on one would work because I just don't think guys would agree to it.

But is there something.

Is there some.

Could we do a three on three tournament?

Could we do a three on three tournament?

But is there a four?

Is there some form of one on one and not one on one in the traditional sense of offense versus defense?

Is there some competition?

Like, obviously this is what I'm talking about, but if one guy comes out, another guy comes out and then it's just a shooting contest, the first guy to make three threes or the first guy to make a, a layup, a free throw and a, and a three pointer, is there, is there some way, shape or form that we could do something that incorporates the idea of nobody knows who's on the list of guys that are coming out?

Because again, if you want to talk ratings, you want to talk keeping people's interest.

If you have no idea who the next guy coming out is going to be, it could be to your point, Jalen Tyson, Nobody's really excited about that.

But then all of a sudden the next guy who comes out is Steph, or the next guy who comes out is LeBron or you want to get something where maybe you could get a retired player.

So maybe the next guy out is Jordan.

I don't know who it could be, but if you put together a roster and you put together an activity that could.

Jordan's too busy.

Win the Daytona 500, Mike.

He's true.

That's true.

That is very true.

So I'm trying to think of some type of easy competition that guys could compete.

One guy at one end of the floor, one guy at the other end of the floor.

Again, then we're getting Back into the whole skills thing.

And I don't know.

I don't know what the activity is, but I do like the idea of an unknown roster of guys participating.

To me, that.

And then they get like.

They each get like.

So like in the wwe, they each have their entrance music and then you just have entrance music for them.

They get entrance music just like a baseball player going to the plate.

I think, I think that that would be really a cool concept and idea.

So I did not come up with that.

I'm just being clear.

I. I heard that somewhere.

I don't remember where I heard it from, but I heard it somewhere.

So I don't want people to come after me and say this guy's stealing my idea, ripping my.

Ripping my idea off.

But I think it would be interesting and intriguing.

What about this?

What about.

You have rosters of five guys.

Maybe not rosters, but groups of five.

And we know there's going to be five groups of five.

So 25 guys are participating.

We have no idea who those 25 guys are.

The NBA has grouped them by whatever method they decide they want to group them.

Each one of those groups of five comes out unknown who it's going to be.

And they play a game of knockout.

Whichever guy wins advances to the final round.

And now you have five winners.

Those five winners play a game of knockout to determine who the knockout champion of the area.

Because it's the NBA.

I don't think.

No, I think you'd still.

I think you'd still probably go.

May.

Maybe you go like the.

Whatever the, the.

The.

The Sprite ball or the Jazzy ball or whatever it is from further away.

The State Farm.

Right.

It was the State Farm ball this year.

So maybe you move it back from, from the.

You you play from the logo and that's the way it works.

But just trying to think of ways where you could have.

Again, sort of an unknown of.

We don't know who's going to be participating.

Yeah, the f. You can make the five groups, like big guys, old heads like, like you could make.

Yeah, it would be interesting.

I think that would be interesting.

I like that.

I think I like my thing better.

But.

And once again, it wasn't my thing.

You just came up with that off the top of your head.

So I think the one on one.

I think the one on one would be great.

Like I said, if you could get guys to compete.

To me, I think WNBA players are doing that.

You saw.

They saw that, right?

Did you see the WNBA players did that this week?

No, I did whatever.

And Paige Brockers got upset about something.

I don't remember.

Some because.

Some because everyone was like, oh, look, Caitlin Clark's freaking out again.

And it was Paige because everyone, everyone says that Caitlin Clark's ridiculous in comparison to everybody else in the wnb.

And I see.

And people are.

Other people are trying to prove that she's not the only one.

That's ridiculous.

And like Paige, Paige lost like 7 to 2.

It was like first to 7.

And she stormed off the court and didn't even like congratulate anyone and just left.

She was, well, see, there you go.

That's why the.

That's why it'll never happen in the NBA.

The knockout seems a little bit more reasonable, but I like the idea.

The piece of your idea that I really like is the unknown.

We don't know who's showing up and participating in this event.

Whereas again, in the three point contest and the dunk contest, in whatever event you have in the middle, skills challenge, the shooting stars, when you know who is participating, there's you, you.

It lacks that little element of excitement that you would get if you didn't know who the roster was.

So I think knockout could be something that would be fun, interesting.

Everybody could relate to it, right?

Anybody watching basketball, it's hard to relate to the feeling of what it's like to participate in a dunk contest or even a three point contest.

But certainly just about any kid growing up in the last 30 years has played some knockout somewhere and could relate to and understand the game.

So I think that could be fun.

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All right, let's leave all star Saturday night behind.

Let's talk about the game.

The interesting part was the real MVP of the night, I think without question, was we.

Was we Yaba.

I mean, I know he didn't get it, but the fact that he came out before the game and said, I'm going to play hard and I want to win.

And then it was obvious from the very tip of that first game that that was going to be the case.

That I know you couldn't give him the MVP because his team went 02 and he didn't necessarily have the gaudiest statistics, although you would have no idea because NBC never showed any statistics of how many points people had or nothing.

There was basically no statistical profile available whatsoever on the broadcast.

So if you wanted it, you had to go to ESPN or some other source to be able to get the statistics.

But nonetheless, just by Wembanyama throwing down the gauntlet and competing forced other guys to raise their level and compete.

And for the first time in.

It was the year after it was, wasn't it?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it's been that long.

So we're looking at like 10 years of all Star Games where we haven't really had much in the way of any type of competition.

And it was fun to see and it was fun to watch.

And it reminded me of All Star games from when I was younger.

Where again, is it competitive the way an NBA playoff game is competitive or even an NBA regular season game is competitive?

No, but was it competitive enough that it wasn't just guys shooting from 75ft away and throwing endless self alley oops off the backboard?

It certainly was.

Yeah, I, I enjoyed it.

The last game obviously was, you know, it was like, oh man, all these great things.

And then the fourth game, I. I don't know what other way to describe it, but it was just like a wet fart.

Like it was terrible.

It was God awful.

Like it's just like, oh my gosh, it was so good.

And then the fourth game.

Now what worked out really to my benefit was that my wife had taken the kids to visit her mom.

And I watched the first three games and they got home right when the fourth game was starting and I paused it and I was like, oh, I'll go back and watch it.

And then I saw on Twitter or something before I went to watch the fourth game, it was like 35, 11 or something.

It was like 12 to 1 before you could even blink.

And I was just like, well, I guess I don't need to watch the fourth game.

If I would have known that fourth game existed, that would have been a great All Star Game.

Right.

So obviously they could pro.

I think they have to try.

Like, I like the.

The format, I like the theory, I think I like the USA versus the world.

But once again, if Wemby doesn't do that, what does it look like?

Because Jokic sure as heck did not care about that game one bit.

I thought Luca, the shots of him and Luka on the bench were hilarious.

Of those two guys just sitting there like, we don't really care.

I will say I was proud of the old guys.

Like, I thought they.

I thought they played hard.

You know, they won.

They.

You know, they won their first game, they won their second game.

They got smoked in the third game.

But, like, LeBron was running up and down the floor, which.

When was the last time you saw that in an all star game?

LeBron James running up and down the floor.

I mean, he had that dunk on the put back.

You know, Kawhi was playing great, like, until.

Until that final game.

Kawhi was the mvp, right?

Like, he was definitely.

Yeah, Kawhi was.

Kawhi was.

I mean, putting up 31 points in 12 minutes.

I mean, he just completely dominated that third game.

It was an incredible display by Kawhi.

I still watch Kawhi, and his jumper is so flat.

And I know he's a great athlete, but I feel like on his jumper, he really doesn't get that much elevation.

Yeah.

And when you watch him move, he really doesn't look that quick.

It feels in a lot of ways like his legs are almost too thick.

You know, he almost looks.

His lower body almost looks too strong for his upper body.

And yet whenever you watch him, when he's going, and obviously he was going in that third game, he just is so strong that he gets to whatever spot he wants to get to, and then he can rise up and release over anybody.

And you don't think he's as good a ball handler as he is.

There's no way that you think he's as good of a shooter as he is.

And I know right now at this point in the season, he's just a shade under 50, 40, 90, which for a guy who's averaging, I think, 28 points a game in this first, whatever, two thirds of the season, wherever we're at, it's just incredible.

So, yeah, Kawhi was.

Kawhi was unbelievable in that particular quarter and then couldn't win the MVP, obviously, when his team gets beat by 30 in the final quarter, but nonetheless, an incredible performance by Kawhi.

And as you said, a Good representative showing for the older guys in those games that they were able to go two and oh, the disappointment was I think everybody wanted the world to win that third game so that you would have had USA versus the World in the final game, which probably would have meant made for a little bit more theater.

What I did like about the format, and I don't know how you felt about it, but again, I don't know how much of a difference.

I don't know how much of a difference the USA versus the world, did that matter in any way?

Like, would Wemby have felt any differently if it had been east versus west in a traditional game?

I don't know.

Would he have done the same thing and it would have had the same effect?

I don't really know.

What I did like, at least through the first three quarters with this format was there was three opportunities for there to be a winning play or a winning shot, or again, just three winners or four winners as the case may be.

But you think about the Scotty Barnes shot, which again, hilarious that it was Towns who helped out to take away the two when they needed a three to three was the only thing that could beat him.

And.

And Towns decides, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help off Scotty Barnes and take away the layup and instead give him a wide open three.

And then Wembanyama's reaction to that was classic.

That was, there's never been a stronger case made for the one that I've been saying for all you New York Knicks fans out there, that if Carl Anthony Towns is on your team, I don't think you're winning an NBA title.

And that play in the All Star Game, as silly as it sounds, was sort of encapsulated my feelings about Carl Anthony Towns.

But I like the idea that there was four potential buzzer beaters, game winners, but four winners.

You had the Dear and Fox shot, the Scotty Barnes shot.

You had the Anthony Edwards shot.

I liked all of it.

But again, it's prefaced by the fact that those first three all came down to the last second and they were close.

If they had all been blowouts like the final quarter, I don't think I would have enjoyed the four game format quite as much.

Although I will say, in the defense of the four game setup, if the fourth quarter of this All Star Game or the fourth game would have been the beginning of an All Star Game, it would have quickly gotten out of hand.

Right?

If a team gets up 25 in the first quarter, it would have Completely shot whatever possibility we would have had of the teams competing.

So I don't know.

I like the idea of there being four games and creating four winners.

I didn't think that that would be a part of it that I would like but I did think that was a part of it that worked.

I just don't know if it worked by accident or if it worked on purpose.

Well, I think.

I think if that happens in the first game, you're 100% correct.

But also I think.

I think Wemby setting the tone in the first game was really what did it right.

Like I really think that was it.

And the young you.

But also like you watch the young USA players and the three games they played.

I thought they played hard all.

All parts of the game like and I could argue that the old heads played well the first two games and they just ran out of gas.

Maybe, maybe that's what will happen.

I mean, I mean Mitchell was kind of non existent in these games but you kind of.

Right.

Like he, he had a few threes he had in garbage time in the last game.

But it was interesting that Brunson got the minutes ahead of Mitchell and you.

Wonder if didn't Brunson get.

Didn't Brunson win All Star starter?

That's probably why.

Right?

Probably.

But it's just again when you start thinking about just doling out it seemed like Mitchell was an afterthought on.

On that team for sure.

And yeah most of his bickerstaff the.

Coach of that team or was that the other was who was coaching their team?

Vickerstaff I feel like.

Well, he was coaching the young guys right.

Cause he was coaching Duran and Cade.

So I don't know.

Was it Luke Walton coaching Luke Walton coaching the team?

I think I don't remember anyways to be honest.

I don't even know.

I don't even know.

But.

Oh well.

All right.

Any.

Any other closing thoughts before we move to the.

The.

The encapsulation of the brouhaha before the All Star break.

All right, so just let's wrap it with this question that I want to ask you.

If you're rating this All Star Game or you're trying to rank in terms of importance what made this game competitive.

And I give you three options.

Here are your three options.

1.

USA versus the world 2.

The round robin four game format or 3.

Victor Wemanyama which one is the most.

Responsible for Victor we won.

I think the round robin's two and the US versus the World is three.

That's I would agree with you there.

So then the question becomes, is there a way that you can keep.

Do you want to keep all three aspects of this game?

They're going to obviously keep it for next year because it was success.

It was a success this season.

So I don't think they probably tinker with it.

But is there anything that you could change about what happened that could potentially make it even better or different?

Keeping the four quarters?

Could you mix up the teams?

I heard somebody say instead of going the USA old and young, you could do USA east and USA West.

So you'd have an east team, a West team, and then a world team.

I kind of like that idea.

Thinking about just how they could make a minor tweak and still keep the good parts of.

Yeah, yeah, I like that idea.

I like that idea.

Yeah, I think that would be an interesting way to go.

So, yeah, I agree.

I would rank it the same way.

And kudos to Wemin Yabba and then kudos to the rest of the guys for kind of following suit.

And again, I'm not asking for an NBA Finals game, but what we saw on Sunday was the type of All Star game that is enjoyable and you at least get to see guys do things that are somewhat similar to what they would do in a real basketball game instead of shooting 70 footers and like I said, throwing lobs to themselves and not even attempting at all to get in the way of anybody.

So it was good to see.

It was a overall good weekend for the NBA considering where everybody was heading into All Star weekend where there was numerous basketball people, fans that were talking about, hey, I may not even watch any of it.

And I think that the quality.

Well, they didn't watch it, Mike, because It was at 5pm Correct.

Or they just completely, just completely missed it because they had no idea what time it was on.

So.

Yeah, agreed, Agreed.

All right, so then I think the only other thing we really want to talk about and I, you know, I, we had talked to like, maybe we talked about tanking, but I feel like, like we've said our.

Everybody's beaten that to dead.

Like, what are we going to do?

Like, you and I are not going to solve the world's problem with tanking.

I think that's, I think that's a, that's a discussion in the off season.

I think that's like, what are we going to do at this point?

There's been lots of ideas floated around.

I don't think any of the ideas that I've heard are good ideas.

I think they're attempted solutions that are.

They're just going to, like, you know, you've got a leaky faucet or a leaky, like, fishbowl, and you put a band aid over it and it's just not fixing the problem.

I don't.

I think.

I think tanking is going to be a problem, unfortunately, because, you know, it.

I mean, look, it.

It works for the Thunder, okay?

It 100% worked for the Thunder.

It did not work for the Sixers in the I'm going to win a championship.

But they did land a bunch of really good players that if you had a team that was built around them, probably would have been very successful and had a chance to win an NBA championship.

Okay?

It's.

I don't know what Utah is doing.

I don't know.

The Wizards are similarly trying and attempting to come out of it, but I don't know.

Trae Young and Anthony Davis are the answers because.

But I just feel like, you know, unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast that teams are, you know, gonna have be out of it.

And then if they're out of it, they may as well lose.

And unfortunately, I mean, hell, we're Browns fans, Mike.

I mean, Jesus Christ.

The third week happens and we're already out of it, basically.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So it's like.

It's like.

And they're not even tanking.

They just suck.

Okay?

So.

So, I mean, here I am, I'm even wearing a brown sweatshirt right now.

I. I just.

I don't even.

I don't even know that there's a good solution.

You know, there's, you know, in, you know, you could have the bad and bottom teams play in a turn, but that doesn't.

That does not decentify decent de.

Incentivize losing.

Because then you're going to have a team that's middling.

Okay, Think, think the Miami Heat, okay, that are going to start to tank because then they know that if they play in this in season tournament thing or end of season tournament thing for the number one pick, they're going to tank intentionally.

Would you rather be the 8 seed or would you rather be the 11 seed and have a chance at the number one pick?

I would rather be the 11 seed than be the 8, 9 or 10 seed.

Okay?

And I thought.

I don't remember.

I think it was on Simmons pod.

They're talking about the, like, having the 1 versus the 2 play the 3 versus the 4.

Like, I think that's an intriguing idea, but I don't know how that works with like the draft pick situation.

I don't, I don't remember what they said for that, but I thought having them play like the last few weeks is like having all top 10 teams play each other in that.

In the last 10 games.

But that would be a, that would be a logistical nightmare, I think, for the NBA, and I don't think they would want to do that.

I, I still think, you know, I brought to the table the whole Christmas Day game situation, like the middle of November, trying to figure out Christmas day games.

That would be intriguing.

I think that's doable because it's.

We're talking about five games, but if you're talking about 10 teams, nine games each, 90 games, I'm not even thinking about the other, you know, you know, 10 teams in each conference.

I just think that's a logistical nightmare for the NBA.

Whereas I think that the Christmas Day thing is totally doable.

I mean, we saw it was.

It's doable.

It's doable.

When we're talking about the in season tournament.

Like, why is it not doable for the Christmas Day game?

I know I'm just going back on something that I talked about previously, but I just think that's, that's logistically possible.

I don't think the 10, each of those teams playing each other is logistically possible.

I just don't think it is.

So I have, yeah, I agree with you.

I don't think you can have the whole last 20% of the season not in stone until the very, very end, and then try to get arena dates and all the things that go along with the logistical piece of putting together a schedule, I just don't think that that as possible.

So when it comes to tanking, there's two things that have stood out to me.

One, one of the things that Adam Silver said in his press conference that I really haven't heard it talked about very much, but one of the things he said was that the draft as it is currently constructed is designed to, whether you want to say reward, but it's designed to give the worst teams the best opportunity to have the highest draft picks.

And what he said was, if we have tanking, right, and we look at the Utah Jazz, if the Utah Jazz suits up Jaren Jackson prior to his, quote, knee surgery, if they suit up Laurie Markkanen, if they play all their players, how bad is the Jazz compared to the Wizards or the Nets?

And so when teams are tanking and actively not playing healthy players or sitting guys in fourth quarters of winnable games or whatever it might be, how do we really get an accurate picture of which teams are the worst teams?

Like is, does Utah really have the worst roster in the NBA now?

No.

I would probably argue no.

But yet they may not win very many games for the rest of the season because they're just actively shutting down pieces of their roster.

So I thought that was an interesting point, right.

That if we're trying to reward the teams that are the worst teams, the only way we know who the worst teams are is if every team is competing at its best every single night.

And then obviously at the end, some team is going to finish number one, some team is going to finish number 30.

It's going to happen naturally as the teams compete with one another.

So to your point, I don't know how you legislate that out.

So then I think the question becomes, and this is the first question that Adam Silver in the league has to answer before you can even do anything to try to think about major reform.

You can continue to tinker with the system, and that's probably what they're going to do.

But ultimately the question comes down to do you still want the NBA draft positioning to be dependent upon the performance of a team during the previous season, or do you want to go with a system where you completely detach where you pick in the draft from your performance during that season?

And then we're talking about I don't want to get into the whole wheel thing, but we're talking about something like the wheel where your draft position is known for the next 30 years, or if we expand the next 32 years, every team is going to know where they're going to draft and it's not related at all to their current position in the standings in the league.

And so I think that's the question you have to answer.

Do you want to completely remake the draft where it has nothing to do with your performance in season, or do you want it still to be related to your position in the league and then that corresponds to where you end up drafting?

And I think ultimately that's going to what's going to come down because.

Down to.

Because here's the thing.

If you don't completely disconnect the draft from performance, then no matter what system you put in place, there's always going to be incentives for teams to lose.

Maybe they'll be incentivized to lose at the beginning of the season.

Maybe they'll be incentivized to lose at the end.

Maybe they'll be incentivized to lose, to be the 10 seed instead of the nine seed.

Maybe they'll be incentivized to lose because they don't want to be the seventh seed versus somewhere in some situation, there's always going to be teams that are going to benefit from losing if somehow the draft position is tied to the standings of the previous season.

There's no way around that.

And so the only way to completely disconnect it is to sever the tie between draft position and position in the standings in the previous season.

And I don't know, what if we.

What if we just do.

We put.

What if we just put the balls in the thing and then we just pull them every year, just pull them.

Everyone gets the same number again.

That's.

That's what I'm saying.

There.

There's a.

If.

If you decide on one system or the other, especially if you decide, hey, we want to totally disconnect it, then there's lots of different ways you could do it.

You could do the wheel.

You could just do ping.

Put one ping pong ball for every team.

You could go back to the David Stern envelopes in the hopper.

I mean, there's a million different ways you can do it.

If you want the odds to be completely flat and it doesn't tie back into how you performed in the previous season, There's a million ways to do it.

I don't know what all those ways are.

There's people that are a lot smarter than me that are thinking about this all the time.

But like I said, the big question for the NBA is, do you care?

Is it important for competitive balance, for whatever reason, for perceived fairness for small markets?

There's a million different things that go into this.

But ultimately, the NBA is going to have to decide, do they want the performance of a season to affect the standings in where you draft the way we have now, or do you want to completely sever those ties and say how you perform in a season has nothing to do with where you're going to draft in the upcoming draft?

Which, again, one of the problems there is, would you be okay with the number one pick going to the NBA champion?

To me, a lot of the shenanigans of tanking, I go back and forth on it.

Part of me is like, man, I don't know.

I don't like it when teams tank.

The Cavs are not in a tanking position right now.

So when you look at it, you kind of look at it through your current fan base.

But there's a part of me that thinks if you could get every team competing as hard as they could for 82 games, that's a better situation for the league, Even if it occasionally means that the draft goes haywire and a really good team gets a really good player.

Look, it's happened before, back when the Cavs traded away all their draft picks in the 80s.

Right.

And the Lakers end up drafting James Worthy with a pick that the Cavs should have had.

You add James Worthy to Kareem and Magic, and you end up with a Lakers dynasty.

It happens.

Was the Lakers dynasty bad for the NBA?

I would argue probably not.

I, I, I'd probably be.

I'd probably be fine with disconnecting performance.

Give me the wheel.

Give me the wheel, and let's try it and see what happens.

Okay.

All right.

Last thing, Mike.

Yep.

Beef Stew.

Seven games split the difference on our picks.

I mean, I think you were probably right in your thought process saying 5.

I still feel like a dude who's not in the game with his history coming off the bench like a maniac, getting fairly close to having that thing spill into the first row of expensive seats and fans.

I just think that if I was Adam Silver, I probably would have erred on the side of going maybe a little bit harder on beef Stew.

But I guess I wasn't totally surprised that it didn't get to my prediction of 10 games.

All right.

I mean, any, Anything else on the other guys got 4.

4.

2.

So the question is, I think from a competitive standpoint, does it affect either one of these two teams, who have been two of the hottest teams in the league, how much does the loss of beef stew for seven games, Duran for two.

On the Pistons side of it, losing Diabate for what, four.

And Miles Bridges got.

He got four.

Correct, I believe.

How much does that impact what the Hornets have been able to do over the last six weeks?

That's.

I think the bigger question from a competitive standpoint right now is how much are those two teams affected?

I would think that Detroit probably just keeps rolling based on what they've been able to do and the fact that Cade is still the driving force behind their team.

Yeah, Miles Bridges obviously has been good and Diabate has been good four games.

I don't know.

Does that completely kill the momentum that Charlotte has built?

There's three main guys still theoretically healthy and playing together in Brandon Miller, Knipple, and Lamelo.

So I would think that the effects on these two teams would be relatively minimal, especially considering how big of a lead Detroit has in The Eastern Conference, even if they hit a little three and four tailspin, it's not likely that they're going to lose that number one seed unless somebody goes 25 and two down the stretch of the.

Of the season, which seems highly unlikely with any of these Eastern Conference teams.

So I think the effect is going to be minimal.

I don't know how you feel about it.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to matter.

I mean, I.

Here's what I will say.

I feel like the Cavs play the Pistons in the beef stew seven game stretch.

Um, I guess I could look that up really quickly and honestly, like, he's the one player that I does not favor the Cavs.

Right.

Because we don't like the tough guys.

Anybody physical, I think is where if I'm the Cavs, that's why I'm not excited about playing New York.

I'm not excited about playing the Pistons.

If I'm the Cavs.

I just think those teams and their physical nature are going to be difficult for us to deal with.

Okay, so let's see here.

1, 3, 4.

Oh, my God, they did set.

That's why they did seven.

Mike.

We play them five.

Game five and game seven of that seat.

That.

That's that span.

So he's out.

Game five.

He's out the two Cavs games.

So from a psychological standpoint, whichever result you get, who does that favor?

Right.

If the Cavs win two games, Pistons can look at it and say, ah, we did it.

We beat them.

Without beef stew, the Pistons win.

They say, man, they couldn't even.

Cavs couldn't even beat us.

We didn't even have Isaiah Stewart.

So kind of an interesting psychological situation.

Whether or not that has any impact on the playoffs, who knows?

We're one on one with them right now.

When we won on early in the year, they beat us by four early in the new calendar year.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens.

But I mean, once again, it's the regular season.

I'm not going to take too much stock in James Harden regular season.

We had to get it in there, Mike.

Had to do it, had to bring you in there, so that's good.

Made an hour and three minutes without us mentioning it.

So we'll have to see.

I'm excited for the.

The Cavs to start back up here.

I'm kind of itching for some basketball again on one more day of this.

And then, you know, we're back.

We're back on.

You know, we're back on it.

We'll see what happens.

But yeah, the Cavs.

The Cavs have.

Oh, the Cavs play the Hornets without.

They're two players too, Mike.

So once again does that we should beat them.

Okay.

But you know, we go Nets.

They, they don't have.

The Cavs don't have a favorable start.

They go, they go Nets Thursday, Hornets Friday.

Then they're Thunder on Sunday, Knicks on Tuesday.

Like that's, that's four games in five days against two great teams, two great slash good teams, one team that's on the rise and then a bad team.

And then they go Bucks, Pistons, Nets, Pistons.

I mean, they, they have, you know, four tough games.

So should be.

This will be a good test over the next eight games.

This is going to be a good test.

And then they play the Celtics after that.

Mike.

I mean, it's like we, this is, this is probably our.

You know, I feel like I read that we had the easiest schedule the rest of the year, but maybe we're getting all the games out of the way now, percentage wise.

Like we, we played the most games against teams that are tanking the rest of the way.

I saw that.

But I don't know.

We'll see.

I think they're going to finish second in the east and not sure it'll matter on playoff time for reasons that we have discussed many, many times here on the podcast.

And then we added another reason at the trade deadline.

So I'm going to enjoy whatever we get out of the regular season, which I think is going to be a positive.

How close can they get to the Pistons, Mike?

How close can they get to the Pistons?

Or seven games out.

I think you get to.

I think, I think, I think it stays, I think it stays pretty much where it is.

I think you're five or six, seven games out.

I don't think it gets much closer than that, in all honesty.

And, and then I'm going to hope against hope that the last 17 years of James Harden's playoff history doesn't mean anything and that this Cavs team's recent last three year playoff history doesn't mean anything and that we can overcome and that what my eyes have seen is not what we're going to see this year.

So fingers crossed.

One more, one more question, Mike.

If I'm the Cavs, do I want to finish the two seed with the potential of having to play the magic of the Knicks in the first round, or I'd want to finish the three seed and play Philadelphia in the first round?

Well, Phil, what's Philly's Philly's sixth right now, right?

Yeah.

So I'm saying if we if we finish third, we fit we play Philly.

Or would you rather finish second and have to either play the Heat or the Magic?

I I'd be fine with playing the Heat or the Magic.

I'm not afraid of either of those teams.

I I'd honestly be more afraid of philly only because 1 I think Maxi is legit and 2 look, I trust Embiid's health about as much as I trust James Harden's clutch gene.

But if Embiid was going to be healthy, the series he'd be healthy for would be Round one.

And so I would probably rather not see Joel, Embiid and Maxi in the first round.

If you told me the alternative is I could get Bam out of Bio and Tyler Hero or I could get Franz and Paulo.

I I would be fine with playing either one of those teams as opposed to playing Philly for sure.

Fair points.

Fair points.

Fair points.

All right, I think that's it, Mike.

I think we did it.

We did it.

We wrapped up All Star Weekend.

We are ready for the final whatever.

This is third of the NBA season.

Excited to see what happens with the Cavs and the rest of the league.

So we appreciate you listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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