Speaker 1: All right, so we gotta start the episode with where
Speaker 1: things stand in the West. It is chaos. It is
Speaker 1: time for the cleaning lady to come over and take
Speaker 1: out our trash. There's two weeks left. There's twenty six
Speaker 1: teams that can make the play in of the playoffs,
Speaker 1: which is just surreal. And all these arbitrary rules could
Speaker 1: possibly stop these teams from tanking, and they have the
Speaker 1: biggest event. Of course, that has changed recently. The biggest
Speaker 1: update is the Sacramento Kings. Sacramento Kings, for the first
Speaker 1: time in a gajillion years, put a herding on the
Speaker 1: Blazers G League line up to the tune of a
Speaker 1: forty point win for the first time in sixteen years.
Speaker 1: The Kings clinch on that beam as the three seed
Speaker 1: were me up on that beam. Baby. As everyone knows,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about the Kings, been excited about the
Speaker 1: Kings all year. A lot of people thought that they
Speaker 1: would falter, but they did not collapse. They actually got
Speaker 1: better as the season went on, and now they're not
Speaker 1: just only going to the playoffs or the play in,
Speaker 1: they'll host at least the first round. It speaks to
Speaker 1: one how good Mike Brown has been He's obviously Coach
Speaker 1: of the Year hands down, but really just how the
Speaker 1: ownership has changed and how that ownership has changed the
Speaker 1: entire dynamic of this franchise. Veck Rando v. Randy Vay.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Learned a lot obviously as an owner.
Speaker 1: He had Luke Walton, got Luke Walton the fuck out,
Speaker 1: made sure to get a competent head coach to come
Speaker 1: in for him, put the organization in the hands of
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who knew what they were doing,
Speaker 1: like Monti McNair, and all of a sudden, couple of
Speaker 1: good trades, couple of good draft picks, and boom, you
Speaker 1: are a good team, just like that playoff time. So
Speaker 1: Tom Ziller, the thing that I think is really interesting
Speaker 1: is because people talk about, oh, is a sixteen year
Speaker 1: playoff drought, but it's sort of and Tom Ziller check
Speaker 1: him out if you don't know him. Tom Ziller wrote
Speaker 1: an article about just how that undersells understates how bad
Speaker 1: the Kings have had it in the last sixteen years.
Speaker 1: Because it's not that they just missed the playoffs for
Speaker 1: sixteen straight years. Seven of those sixteen years they were
Speaker 1: under siege the maloof organization, the maloofs as a family,
Speaker 1: as an ownership group of the Kings, try to actively
Speaker 1: move the Kings out of Sacramento for like almost a decade,
Speaker 1: seven straight years. You had mayors getting involved, You had
Speaker 1: the city's rioting fan base putting up flyers. Seven years.
Speaker 1: This dude tried to move the team, tried to move
Speaker 1: it to Anaheim. Wouldn't sell to an owner that would say,
Speaker 1: on purpose, we're gonna keep it in Sacramento. Move wouldn't
Speaker 1: sell to that person. So to call it just a
Speaker 1: playoff drought is sort of spinning in the face of
Speaker 1: how bad it was. Then you enter the Vek. He
Speaker 1: has this plan to rebuild the team, even though we
Speaker 1: all know it didn't work. At first, hired Luke Walton.
Speaker 1: Everybody gets a mullion. He looked like he was gonna
Speaker 1: be a good coach. Obviously was under Steve kerrz Tutelich.
Speaker 1: Vivek obviously likes some Steve Kerr Mike Brown coming from
Speaker 1: the Steve Kerr tree as well. But when we look back,
Speaker 1: things started to turn around when Vivek built Gold one
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Here's what he said about what gold
Speaker 1: One means listen, We're not just gonna build an arena.
Speaker 1: I want to build the best that's ever been built.
Speaker 1: He told this to Carmichael Dave recently in an interview.
Speaker 1: He explained he got the idea of the purple beam
Speaker 1: from airport lanes. What if we add purple lights on
Speaker 1: the roof when I'm flying, then I can tell that
Speaker 1: the kings are in the house. What a baller. He
Speaker 1: just wanted a like a bat signal to know whether
Speaker 1: the kings were in the building or not. He said,
Speaker 1: I had this idea that people used to gather around
Speaker 1: a fire in the Middle Ages. They used to gather
Speaker 1: around cathedrals. The arena is the twenty first century cathedral.
Speaker 1: So the purple beam is an outgrowth of making the
Speaker 1: Golden One the center of Sacramento. That's incredible, What an
Speaker 1: amazing analogy. Dearon Fox. Also, the Golden One Center. We've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. I just want to stamp it again.
Speaker 1: Top three arena in the NBA. If I could create
Speaker 1: an arena that wasn't Madison Square Garden, because Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden is just different. Let's be honest. Madison Square Gardens
Speaker 1: also pretty old. But if I could create an arena
Speaker 1: from scratch, Golden one would be the blueprint, purple beam
Speaker 1: at all, the glass atrium, the bar up top, it's
Speaker 1: standing room only down to the court, the fact that
Speaker 1: you can see the court when you enter the building,
Speaker 1: like stadium vibe, like Roman Colisseum vibe lit. Anyway, deeron
Speaker 1: Fox explains what it was like to snap this playoff drought.
Speaker 2: It feels great, man, Like I said, I think just
Speaker 2: coming into it knowing that that was kind of a
Speaker 2: burden that you wanted to just get off your chest.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely grateful to be a part of that. Well,
Speaker 2: like I said, ever since Mike's gotten here and just
Speaker 2: the talent that we brought in, the guys that we
Speaker 2: brought in, everybody has, you know, bigger aspirations than that.
Speaker 2: But it definitely feels great. It definitely feels great to
Speaker 2: be a part of that.
Speaker 1: So Sacramento's in top three. Seeds are in Nuggets one,
Speaker 1: GRIZ two, Kings three right. Rest of the West completely unclear,
Speaker 1: complete chaos. Let's look at what's going on currently and
Speaker 1: what's going on with the remaining schedule. First and foremost
Speaker 1: of the Phoenix Suns. They have a half a game
Speaker 1: lead right now for the final home playoff spot. Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant is back. Kevin Durant for as an aside, had
Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty nine minutes last night, big win over
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timberwolves. But it is a brutal schedule for
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Suns down the stretch. They have six games
Speaker 1: left against the Nuggets, two games against the Nuggets, game
Speaker 1: against the Thunder, game against the Clippers, a game against
Speaker 1: the Lakers and the Spurs. So just one gimme game
Speaker 1: against the San Antonio Spurs. Brutal number five Clippers currently
Speaker 1: in the five spot, half a game behind the Suns,
Speaker 1: nipping on their heels, playing really really good basketball right now.
Speaker 1: Tylu just moved Nick Batoum to the five spot. He
Speaker 1: just brought one of the Morris brothers from the starting lineup,
Speaker 1: bringing his ass onto the bench. They're seven and three
Speaker 1: in their last ten. They just had an amazing win
Speaker 1: against the Memphis Grizzlies without Paul George and without Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard Russ for whatever reason, has taken on a new role,
Speaker 1: not the the bench one. It's a new new rule,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a rebounding role. Five left with the grizz, Pels, Lakers, Blazers,
Speaker 1: and Suns Rough except for the Blazers number six spot Warriors.
Speaker 1: There are one game behind the Clippers for the fifth seed,
Speaker 1: one and a half games behind the Suns. Unlikely to
Speaker 1: catch the Suns, they could steal the five seed. There's
Speaker 1: five games left to go for the Warriors, the Nuggets, Kings, Okse, Thunder,
Speaker 1: and then you've got two Cupgate games Spurs and Blazers
Speaker 1: hm Wolves currently at nowhere in the seventh spot. Remember
Speaker 1: we thought they might even miss the play in. One
Speaker 1: game behind Golden State for the sixth seed and to
Speaker 1: avoid the play in five left easiest schedule of the
Speaker 1: bunch Lakers, Blazers, Nets, Spurs, and Pelicans. Lakers one and
Speaker 1: a half games behind Golden State with six left to play.
Speaker 1: So their tee are on missing the playoffs and being
Speaker 1: a play in team two times against the Jazz, Wolves, once, Rockets,
Speaker 1: once Clippers, once Suns once. Rough. Feels like the Lakers
Speaker 1: are a playing team, doesn't it. It really does. At
Speaker 1: least if they're the eight seed or the seventh seed.
Speaker 1: They only have to win one game in order to
Speaker 1: get in the nine seed Pelicans a half a game
Speaker 1: behind the Lakers, one behind the Wolves, which is why
Speaker 1: that Pelicans lost last night to the Warriors. Are so stunning.
Speaker 1: They need every win they can get, every team in
Speaker 1: the West. He's every win they can get. They've got
Speaker 1: six games left. They face the Clippers, the Warriors, but
Speaker 1: also four bad teams Spurs, Hornets, Rockets, and Blazers. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think they've got the easiest schedule of the bunch.
Speaker 1: They can win four of those six games pretty easily,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna want probably some revenge against the Warriors.
Speaker 1: And then the ten spot the Thunder half a game
Speaker 1: behind the Pels. They've got five games remaining, Pacers, Sons, Warriors, Jazz,
Speaker 1: Grizz probably two easy games out of those. I could
Speaker 1: see them beating the Warriors. I could see them beating
Speaker 1: actually all of these teams, but not every single one.
Speaker 1: And then if you want to talk about the outside
Speaker 1: looking in, the Mavericks, whoa game out of eleventh or
Speaker 1: a game out of tenth, excuse me. And in eleventh
Speaker 1: spot they face the Heat, Hawks, Kings, Bulls, and Spurs,
Speaker 1: so it's close for them too. And finally in the
Speaker 1: twelfth spot is Jazz. They're at one and a half
Speaker 1: games out of the tenth spot. They face the Lakers twice,
Speaker 1: the Celtics Ones, the Nets ones Okay see ones, and
Speaker 1: Denver Ones. It feels like the Jazz are done. I
Speaker 1: think we can kind of put them in a suitcase,
Speaker 1: pack them up and send them home. It is absolute chaos.
Speaker 1: I'm really really looking forward to see how this all
Speaker 1: shakes out. The first round is gonna be a doozy.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be fireworks every day. You have to google
Speaker 1: NBA standings. I've never done that in my life. Every
Speaker 1: day something changes. The Thunder sitting there in the ten spot,
Speaker 1: I think they were six two days ago. One win
Speaker 1: with a couple of losses for your cohorts boosts you
Speaker 1: up the standings, and vice versa as well. Will the
Speaker 1: Warriors move up to five? Will the Lakers get a
Speaker 1: home game in the play in? Will the MAVs miss
Speaker 1: the playoffs? All these are such crazy questions and we
Speaker 1: probably won't know the answers until the very last day
Speaker 1: of the season. And NBA fans, that is exactly what
Speaker 1: Adam Silver wants, and it's pretty damn awesome.