Latest / Brodie Pod / Ep. 28 Rory McIlroy 2x Masters Champion, Artemis II Returns, NBA Playoffs Preview & Awards

Transcript

Ep. 28 Rory McIlroy 2x Masters Champion, Artemis II Returns, NBA Playoffs Preview & Awards · Brodie Pod

• Brodie Pod: Welcome back everyone. Episode 28 of the Brody pod. Be sure to like and subscribe on the YouTube channels notifications. Follow us on Spotify, rate the show five stars. If you want to stay up to date on the podcast, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter slash X and Facebook at Brody pod. And we've made it. We are through the master's weekend. Georgia is not coming back around for another year. Kind of sad. Georgia. But we got a champion, ⁓ a repeat champion, which we're to get into here in a little bit. But Matt, how are we doing? We're doing good, man. Doing great. Good weekend of sports. Yeah, good weekend of sports. Well, actually, I think it was like a very media, outside of the Masters, I think it was pretty like mediocre. The Masters carried. The Masters definitely carried. How close it was on Sunday, it carried. Yeah, that's what kind of took away from most of the weekend. I think there was a big tank. Tankathon going on in the NBA or something. A historic tanking game had implications. that's, I don't know if we're going to get too much in the Tankathon of the NBA. We are going to talk about some of the NBA playoffs a little bit. Game are you talking about though? Wasn't it the Grizzlies and the Jazz? Okay. I was going to say it must have been the Jazz because they, all season, not all season, but the back half of the season, they've been resting. Yeah. not rushing the players, but their plays have been out for like pinky spraying or something. Yeah, they sat like, they've been obviously taking. It was a historic, mean like, Matt, I'm pretty sure if we had a jersey on, if we had a jersey on Matt, they would have put us out there. Like they intentionally foul at the, let's the Jazz intentionally foul at the end of the game to make sure the other team scores, beat them. So I know that game had implications other than that. We're going to talk masters, but first let's get into our Brody's of the week. And Matt, I'll start us off this week. ⁓ this one might not be super sports related, but I'm going to talk about, ⁓ yeah, we're going to talk about something historic that happened. Artemis two is back on earth. If anyone doesn't know, we launched a spaceship into, into space and it went and orbited the moon. Spaceship into space. Spaceship into space. Yes. ⁓ it was a 10 day trip. fly by the moon. didn't land on the moon, which it's crazy that we landed on the moon back in the 70s. We just really haven't been back since. I don't think there's ever been a reason to go back, but it was an incredible, you know, a little fly by. I think they ended up getting like 4,000 miles from the moon. It was the furthest that humans have ever traveled from Earth with a maximum distance of 252,757 miles from Earth. The previous record was held by Apollo 13. from 1970, which they went 248,000 miles. So beat them by roughly 4,000 miles. The total distance of the mission was 695,000 miles. And ⁓ just honestly, pretty incredible stuff. The astronauts have been going around doing a little bit of media on like what their journey was. Shout out to the astronauts, by the way, Christina Cook, Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, who is a Texas native, and Jeremy Hansen. So shout out to RMAS 2. I don't know, Matt, I don't know if we ever did research on what Artemis one did, but we're focused on Artemis too. I never heard of Artemis one. Yeah, I never heard of Artemis one. Apparently they didn't do much. I think, I think that, I think Artemis one was like 2022 or something like that, but I don't know if it, I think it was just low earth orbit. Once again, not a NASA podcast, but I did see like a, the route. They went around the earth and then it was a shot. Yeah. Shout out to under Scheller. Yeah, shadow interstellar. They did slingshots. They did a slingshot. Yeah. it was like, I just kind of, I learned a little bit of the science of it, like the free trip back because they orbited the moon. But it turns out like, even if the moon wasn't there, however far they went, the Earth's gravitational pull would have still pulled them back to earth. Eventually just would have been a lot longer than 10 days. out to Apollo 13 as well. Shout out to Apollo 13, man. could went that far in 1970? Yeah. That's 56 years ago, We need to have a space race, like to land people on Mars or something. We need to team up. Matt, my question to you, would you consider astronauts like athletes? a hundred percent. Yeah. I figured like the training and stuff they have to do to get ready for these missions, the zero gravity that they're experiencing, like I saw they do have like a gym on board of the spaceship. It's actually insane. It's like, it's like, it's not like weight. It's not like free weights or anything. Obviously they'd be able to lift way more than that in zero gravity, but it's like, I don't it's like a compression system and they're like, it's all machine oriented. So pretty cool stuff there. I would love to experience zero gravity NASA. If you ever want to do a podcast on the moon, Brody pod is open to, ⁓ our DMs are open. Elon Musk hit us up. Elon Musk hit us up. We will go do a podcast on the moon or something. I thought you were gonna ask if I would want to be an astronaut, hell no. No, you wouldn't want to? Absolutely not. What happens whenever they start doing like these, I think there was some company that like they want to commercialize space travel. I don't think I'm to be the first one signed up. I think I eventually would sign up. Right, you'd have to be a billionaire, first of all. Yeah, I think it's going be a couple of to go to the moon or something like that. But I'd want to see it like successfully done a couple of times. think like, you know, When airplanes came around, I, this is kind of before my time, definitely before my time. But I don't think people were like signing up like they are now, or whether it's like, you know, just another day is getting on an airplane. That's probably what we're, we're going towards with space travel. But I did want to bring up with Artemis 2 going, I did just watch Project Helmary with Ryan Gosling in it. And just shout out to that movie. I thought it was a great movie. I love movies that I can't predict what's going to happen next. And if anyone's looking for movie recommendations, highly recommend it. was a great movie. You probably haven't seen it, have you? I've not, but I do like to place the space exploration genre. And it's good. mean, the Hail Mary references in there because like everyone knows in sports, it's a last ditch effort. That's kind of what's going on the movie. It's a last ditch effort to try and figure out some of answers. Matt, what is your Brody of the Week? ⁓ One of them is the Detroit Pistons They finished 60 and 22 this season which was first in the Eastern Conference So the first time they finished first in the Eastern Conference since 2007 So it's been a while Almost 20 years so He's gonna bring up their previous seasons why this is such a feat is because in The 2022 to 23 season, they finished 17 and 65. Next season, which is 20, 23, 24, 14 and 68. Then last year they finished 44 and 38. And then this year increased it exponentially again to 60 wins. Shout out Kate Cunningham, shout out their head coach, JB Bickerstaff. He's done a lot for them. ⁓ I know Kate is injured right now going to the playoffs. I hope he can get healthy pretty soon. Seems like every superstars injured going in the playoffs. Yeah dude, like last year as well. There's a lot of injured, injured stars in the playoffs. ⁓ But we'll get into that later as well. But I just wanted to shout out the Pistons. Best team in the East. ⁓ They haven't been good for a while. This is probably very, very refreshing for the Pistons fans. Especially to be like not good for a while. And then I think they made it to the playoffs last year. think it was, were they making the play in or they were a low seed last year, but now to go in and get the one seed in the East set up for success. are going to, Matt, did allude to it. We're going to get into a little bit of the playoffs are starting this week for the NBA. can kind of do a little run down where we think the Pistons are going to fall. But we can, uh, we'll discuss the bracket situation and who they're going to play the play in tournament implications. I don't know if that really counts as the playoffs or the play-in, but we'll do that in a little bit. technically it does. Technically, yeah. Technically, yes, but there's going to be a team that loses one game and then it's out. So I don't know if that really, if they really count for It's like the teams that make it to the first four in the March Madness. Like they made it to the tournament, but they didn't make it to the tournament. Yeah, they don't get a... No, that counts as an appearance for them. Well, that's going to say I don't, I guess they do get a A lottery pack if they lose, it's still the top. out, shout out Mavs last year. 15 or whatever. Yeah. Maybe we'll do a Tankathon draft sim or something like that. That'd be fun. But we can get into that in a second. Now we're going to, we saved a couple of our Brodys of the week because this is Masters related. This is going to, we're pretty much going to start our Masters talk here, uh, with our Brodys of the week. So my, I'll start with my Brody of week. Matt, this could have been either of our Brodys of the week. I just put it on the dock first. My Brody of Week is Rory McRoy. Probably the talk of the week, talk of the weekend, gets his second consecutive Masters win. So it took him 17 years to win one green jacket. And then the last two, he's won two green jackets. Well, I guess technically it's only one green jacket. gets the same one, but he now has two Masters wins under his belt. He is a, like I said, two time Masters champion joining Jack Nicklaus. Sir Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods. So last year he was able to complete the career grand slam and now people are talking, you know, can he get a second career grand slam? Now he's got two at the Masters. He is now a six time major champion. And overall, it was a pretty tough weekend for him. You know, we saw the first two days he went 12 under, kind of was running away with it. Saturday, he went one over and everyone started catching them in the field. And then Sunday he's able to hold on just long enough. I know a lot of people, if you were watching that Sunday at the masters, we couldn't have, it was absolute cinema. think everybody that was like in the top five is leading at some point in the masters. Whether it was Justin Rose, whether it was Cam Yong, even Russell Henley was sneaking up or Scotty Schaeffler. So when I was kind of, I was kind of praying. On 18 when, when Rory shanked his drive to the far right. I was kind of hoping we were going to get to see a Scotty Rory playoff. Yeah. He was at 17. His putt barely missed. Yeah. Scotty's. Yeah. he would have made that, then we would have possibly gotten the playoff and that just, that playoff would have fed generations of Scotty versus Rory. Number one versus number two in the world. It's tough because they would have played 18 again and Rory just shanked his drive. I'd probably go Scotty. I'd probably lean Scotty. you know that, ⁓ Rory was, has been playing ⁓ Augusta for like three to four weeks prior? Okay. I'm glad you bring this up. did hear about this with, ⁓ with the, ⁓ he said that Poppy, his, his kid, he'd go drop her off at school and he'd get in the private jet and fly to Augusta. and go play, play around. And then he would fly back to, I believe Ireland and pick up Scott or pick up, not pick up Scottie, pick up Poppy and have dinner. Yeah. Pick up Scottie from school. No, but it's just kind of a, it was kind of an insane flex, but then when you think about Roy McRoy getting ready for the masters kind of makes sense. Yeah. I also found out like he can't just go play the masters. has to have a member accompany them to the course still. Like he still has to have like an official Augusta member there, but he gets to play because he is the, master's champion. Is he not a member? No. I guess they can't allow every. Yeah. So technically everyone that wins becomes an honorary member. He still has to get like an actual member to go play with them. Just weird rules of Augusta. wonder if that changes if you're a two-time champion. I'm sure that member is not going to complain. Yeah. If Rory's like, I need someone to go play around a golf with me at Augusta. First of all, if you remember at Augusta, you probably have time. You can just go take off and go play golf in the middle of the day. Especially if it's with Rory McIlroy. And I'm wondering if like, cause like other master champs like Scotty could do this. Freaking Jordan Spieth could go do this. John Rom could do this. Like it's open to anyone. think Rory was just the one that kind of was more vocal about it, but he did mention that he didn't like the tournaments leading up to it in Texas. He didn't like the San Antonio or the Houston. ⁓ he didn't want to go do any of that. which is was in just sacrificed ⁓ potentially winning other tournaments to practice for the Masters. Obviously it paid off. Yeah. There are complaints that like, you know, Scotty Winn was practicing for the Masters for like weeks leading up to it. And I, you know, I guess they did realize that any, not anybody, but other, you know, PGA players could do the same thing. Yeah. Sergio Garcia could go do this. Scotty could have it. What? Scotty could have done it. Scotty could have. Well, Scotty just had his second kid. I was wondering, did that second kid, you know, got it cut into a little bit of his practice time. I've never heard. Um, I'm not tapped into the PGA like that, but I've never heard of somebody, you know, playing the, the course several times leading up to, up to the tournament for it. Yeah. If you got the, obviously couldn't do this last year before he won his first green jacket. But now since he's a champion, he has that opportunity and he'll probably do it again next year. I think Matt, said on the podcast last week, we said the one thing that's scary about this now is Rory has been over that hump and like, how do you not one last year? I think the blowup on 18 that we started to see, like maybe we see another Rory choke job, but He already had that previous one. He's kind of playing free now around Augusta. saw that when he went 12 under in the first two days. He's got the monkey off his shoulder. Got the monkey off his back and he's, he's absolutely. What monkey on the shoulder? he's got the monkey off wherever it was. It's off now. So shout out Roy. But just some other guys that were in the, the top. obviously Scotty Schaafflur, Russell Henley kind of came out of nowhere. ⁓ he went four under on the final round, ⁓ Cam Young, was in that final pairing with Rory went one over on the day. was kind of rooting for Cam Young a little bit just cause he was the American. He's sponsored by the MLB, which that's also just a crazy story that I found out of him being sponsored by the MLB. Turns out he is, ⁓ family friends with, ⁓ Rob Manfred, who's the commissioner for the MLB who's also a member at Augusta. Sure is. And so whenever I guess Cam Young turned pro, uh, Manfred came up to him was like, Hey, would you ever want to be sponsored by the MLB wear patch and everything? He's like, yeah, of course. will say, uh, shout out to Nike. Cause I think they're, they're closed their outfits for the PGA are probably the best right now. There's just the cleanest. There's no like, like you just said, there's no patches. There's no sponsor. It's just Nike. I mean, that's why I like, think Rory usually has some great outfits, which doesn't mean much, but it's appealing to the eye. would say like, you know, Justin Rose, even he's got a lot of patches and sponsors and whatnot. Yeah, but he's sponsored by Kierr Millar, who's got some good shirts too. I know, but still there's just patches on the, on the polos. I think that Nike symbol is just, clean. crazy one I saw. didn't get this. Isn't that crazy? But Sam Burns is sponsored by Raising Canes. That was on his collar. I was like, that's just a crazy. Like, of course, Canes would want a sponsorship of an ⁓ or a PGA player, but to see that at Augusta was just wild to me. Yeah. Also Justin Rose is sponsored by a Flyhouse, which I guess is a owns private jets. company that owns private jets and you can, I guess, them, charter them from this, company. Maybe that's who Rory was using when he's flying back from Augusta to Ireland. He's got his own probably. I actually don't know where Rory resides. I don't know how far of a jet he was taking to Augusta. Would he have been in Ireland or are they in the Also just like being jet lagged if he was. Yeah, surely he's like lives in the States. We just got to find out where Posse's school is. Cause he's not flying from Ireland to the States for each tournament, you know? Probably lives in the States and goes back occasionally. Okay. Shut up fly house if you want to, ⁓ just looking up. ⁓ Rory lives primarily in a mansion in Jupiter, Florida. feel like a lot of them live in. Which isn't he on the Jupiter TGL team or no, that's Tiger's team. Rory's on a different team. I believe it says he's transitioning from England though. It's family home in England. So maybe he heard was flying from there. I'll get into a guy that kind of didn't finish the best. Um, shout out to going to butcher it. How tongue Lee. Yup. I'll talk to Lee something fantastic. I just learned about him. Uh, this weekend he was paired with Roy on a not pair with worry pair with Scotty on Sunday. Um, he. Was seven under entering Sunday ended up finishing a one over. obviously it over in the final round. Right. It's eight over in the final round, but seven under coming in. if. Right. ⁓ especially on hole 13. This, this is why I wanted to make it my Brody. This is like, just, it's kind of fun. Also not, it's fun to see like a PGA guy just have a horrible hole and it's like, okay. I can relate to that. I've done this before. You see them do poorly, I guess is kind of reassuring for your own golf game. But, uh, he had a OB shot on 13, uh, went into the water. Uh, maybe his first OB didn't go to the water, but it went somewhere OB. Um, They also putted it into the water. I'm 13 ended up with a 10. I think his first shot did go in the water and his second shot went into the azaleas. Cause I did see the picture of him like deep in the flower bed at Augusta trying to chip it out. And then he chips it out right past the green. And that's what you're talking about. He then over putts it over the water into race Creek. Yeah. It's a tough look. So 13 you made a 10. Now on 12, he made a sixth, which is a part of the reason he was triple to quintuple bogey. And then this is where our games differ. Like that, I thought I was washing myself out there in Augusta, but then the next hole 14, he made a birdie. I'm like, okay, we can no longer relate. ⁓ but that's crazy. Like even his bad round, he shot an 80, which we would take that any day of the week. I would take that every day. Having 10 and still shooting 80 is insane. front nine was tough, man. He first hole bogey, next two holes birdies, fourth hole par, next three holes bogeys, next two birdies. he just was... He finished even on the front. He was just all over the place. Still managed to scrape out with a 36 on the front. Yeah. But... Another one that I saw that stood out was ⁓ Shane Lowry. He also, believe was eight over on the final round, but he had like that whole one hole in one on the third round. Yeah. That was just, it's always nice to see a hole one. He's got some, all of his holding ones on the tour or like on some, some of the most earlier courses, like holes that you would want a hole in one on. Yeah. I remember the one at Pebble beach. I think he's got one at, ⁓ Scottsdale. And I want to say he has won also at Sawgrass. Yeah, I could look it up, Yeah. He's got like the, he's got like the infinity gauntlet of hole in ones. Yeah. He's thin enough when it comes to hole in ones. Yeah. His hole in one was on, it was on hole six. So wasn't like the hole 12, but I know there was talk in the, in the, the par three contest that they did, you he was talking with Scott, Scott van Pelt as he was playing and talking about. trying to get a hole in one at Augusta. think that's his first one out of Gustas. So shout out there. ⁓ who else stood out somebody who stood out for the wrong reason for us in DeChambeau. ⁓ yeah. I he might've been like the, the public's favorite to win just cause we like, we want to see him win. Right. know he used to be like a, a disliked fella, but as of late is You seen like who he really is. He's a good guy. Great guy. You know, uh, big into YouTube golf as well. Uh, he, didn't make the cut and he just barely didn't make the cut. think he had a bogey 18 and he would have made it in the second round handed out triple bogeying it. Had some more trouble in the sand. He's six over. Uh, believe yes. If he was six over him and Oxxay. Yep. Six over. They were both six over. I'll say another guy that we previously or I previously talked about on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. had a high hopes for both of them. Maybe I next year, I'm not going to pick a beer from maybe they'll do better. Did you see a Sergio Garcia break his driver? I did. I did. And he just went three wood. Yeah. then he was also seen on that same hole carrying John Rom's bag. That's that's probably the most random like series of events I've ever seen. break your driver on hole two is pretty insane. Like you gotta be having a, it's not like that had to be some stuff that led over from like the previous days or something. I don't know what of a drive. It like barely went into the woods. Yeah. Like, don't know what his score was at the time, but it wasn't bad. I mean, he made the cut and maybe he was over. I guess at the time, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, he finished three over on the day. And by the way, he ended up pouring the second hole that he broke his driver on. That's sounds like some Jordan speed stuff, dude. Yeah. He finished eight over for the tournament, tied 52 or no 50, 52nd. He's still got a $54,000 payday for finishing in 52nd place. So you can easily replace that driver then I guess. Yeah. But it was just, I was like, man, that's a As someone that has broken a club before, it's just never worth it. You know, when you do it, it, probably felt good in the moment, but then you got to play the rest of round without a driver. That's, that's pretty tough. I never broke my driver, it was an, it was a, broke in a club on purpose. Okay. I did it accidentally at top golf. Whenever I was trying to do the happy Gilmore swing, my club head went off and into one of the nets and I had to go ask the top golf people if I could get it back. I, ⁓ I was at the bridges, ⁓ on the range, hit my three wood, obviously not the correct way. Head goes flying into their, their range, like their practice range. And I just, had to make the long walk up to the club house and say that somebody please go get the head of my three wood out of the range. It's just, it's demoralizing dude. Yeah. So shout out Sergio Garcia, ⁓ back to Rory. he, I mentioned that he's a six time major champion now. And I think like we, as people, we, we treat the majors like they're the real playoffs. Like, yeah, it's cool when other guys win tournaments and stuff, but like the majors are what everyone's going after. So 2011, he won the US Open 2012. won the PGA championship 2014. He won the open and, ⁓ and Britain, and then he won the 2014 PGA championship. And then for 10 years, he didn't win anything. He was kind of, you know, he was closed, but never was able to get over that final hump. Won the Masters last year and then he won it again this year. Matt, I did do some research. No golfer has ever won it three times in a row. Is Rory now going to be, you know, he's getting on these select lists by himself. Could we possibly see, is he the early favorite for next year? mean, previous winners, like I see probably wasn't the favorite this year. Nope. Probably Scotty. Scotty or Bryson. But, mean, maybe after two in a row, probably going to be the favorite. Is he going to do it? I can't say no. I didn't think he was going to do it this year. Yeah. It's like how many more major championships is he going to win? ⁓ he is tied with, ⁓ Trevino, Faldo and Mickelson for six now. You know, once you get to, once you get past, there's another four people at seven. ⁓ and then eight, there's only Tom Watson, nine, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and the list starts getting a lot shorter. ⁓ obviously Tiger Woods is up there at 15 and Jack Nicklaus at 18. But now you know, you gotta start thinking, okay, Rory's won a couple of these majors now. He's won back to back masters. I think he's start putting some something together and get to eight, nine, 10 major championships. That'd be big. You know, I did see him and Scotty have won like the last four out of five. Masters championships. Scotty's got two, Rory's got two. The one outlier is John Rahm won it. So it's, I'd say it's early favorites for next year, Scotty or Rory. Number one, number two in the world. Also Rory did get a $4.5 million payday. He's now second in career PGA earnings only behind Tiger Woods. That's why he's out at Augusta. Three weeks leading up to it. But I think it's good as for my final question on this, Matt is, are we happy for Rory? Are we? You know, are we happy that Rory won? Like last year was like, oh, sweet. got over the hump. But then this year it's kind of like, I don't know. I was kind of rooting for his downfall of the ball in 18. I wanted to see a playoff. think that was a thing on the top. I was rooting for everybody but Roy. It's only because he just won it. Yeah. He already got it. I wanted Justin Rose to win it so badly. Oh dude. would, I would love to see Justin Rose. I don't know what hole it was, but I watched him. He hit 18. Chip that he chunked like three yards in front of them and ⁓ yeah There's just the start the beginning the end really for him And he was leading the tournament. It's he just can't get over the hump I think I think he now has six it's either six or five top three finishes at Augusta and his career. That's And he's also 45 like no like how many more of these opportunities is he gonna have you would think that? and being that old and that wise and experienced and stuff like that. He just wouldn't have blow up holes when it mattered the most. Yeah. But that just shows you how tough golf is. matter how good you are, how experienced you can still mess up. I think he'll be around in it next year. just, you know, as each year passes, it's like, there goes another opportunity to slip by or something on it. So he's very humble about it as well. He's, doesn't get mad. Yeah, true professional. doesn't, you know, break it, the T markers or break his clubs. Yeah. He accepts it. And then he's like next year, you know, he was like, uh, there's he had a tweet earlier, a post of on social media platform. I was knocking on the door this year. I'm going to be knocking on that next year. You know, just shout out to Rory. He said, you know, good for him. But I'm sure he wants it badly. Yeah. I mean, he still hit the ball a long ways. You know, he averaged for the tournament three of six. So it's not bad. Rory was leading with, uh, with the longest drives average of three 30. Um, did see Rory was so out of the 92 players that were there out of the 91 players that were there. Um, Rory was ranked in 90. He was ranked 90th and driving accuracy at 55%. Um, the guy that was. 91st in driving accuracy, finished 91st in the tournament. So the fact that Rory won with that driving accuracy was, and it's all like, I saw him in the woods a lot. There was a lot of scrambling that he was having to do. It wasn't like he was hitting it straight on the fairway every time, but he was able just to do enough work in the first two days to pull out the tournament. And I believe 12 under is what he won the tournament with last year. It seems like that's kind of the target score. These guys have got to be aiming for to win this tournament. Yeah. I saw a post about the last six. Uh, masters winning scores and they're all within like one or two strokes. So this is like the 12 is a lot. 11 has won it. 10 has won it past few years. So it's, it's all within this range. they continue to try and nerf the course a little bit, making it longer, trying to expand T boxes. Like also I found out like the media members also thought about making this my birthday of the week. The media members that get selected to play Augusta actually today as we're recording this podcast on Monday. ⁓ they, ⁓ they get to go play, but they have to play from the members tease. So they only have the members tease and then like the, the masters tease they're back even farther. It adds like way more, like thousand yards of the course or something like that. That's crazy, dude. No, it's incredible stuff there, but yeah. Shout out Rory, able to get it done. I think that's all we had for master's talk. Right, Matt? Yeah. Cool. Cool. All right. Well, we'll come back and we'll do some of the NBA. ⁓ I don't think there's anything NFL. Just the draft is 10 days away. So we'll come back to some NBA and some other stuff that we got going on. All right. We're back to talk about some of the NBA playoffs that are starting this Saturday, the 18th and just kind of some of the what's kind of going around. So Matt, where do we want to start first? You want to start with some of the news going into the playoffs or we just want to get right into the bracket or what do you think? I'll let you kind of run point on this. starts tomorrow. Oh yeah. So yeah, playing starts tomorrow. But okay. Yeah, we can do some news. I got some news going into it. ⁓ LeBron will potentially be without Luke and Reeves through entirety of the first round. I did see that Luca got, there's coming back on Friday. Come back from Spain. Or got back on Friday, last Friday, or he's going to be back before the first round, but he got treatment in Spain. Who knows if he's going to play in the first round. ⁓ Austin Reeves, looks like he's going to be out for the entirety of the first round. So it'll be LeBron and Barani. Like, ⁓ for the Lakers against the Eastern Rockets in the first round. ⁓ it'd be, I mean, LeBron versus KD. But LeBron will have to, will have to turn back the clock to like 2018. If he wants to, if he wants to carry the Lakers. over the Rockets in the first round. didn't see that. Look in awesome. Even accounting for on average 56 points. So I got my. I got my, I got my stat here for this game. The Rockets and Lakers. So LeBron James and Kevin Durant will meet in the playoffs for the first time since 2018. ⁓ since the 2018 finals, I should say when, you know, Kevin Durant was on Golden State. They have played 14 total playoff games against each other. LeBron has averaged 31.9 points per game in those games and Kevin Durant has averaged 31.7 points per game. They are the only duo in NBA history to meet in 10 or more playoff games and each averaged over 30 points per game. So it's going to be the LeBron versus KD show going on. I don't know who Bron is going to take on, but. It's pretty crazy. just match up there of what the bronze possibly having to go through, especially as a four seed. I love the unks, but the unks are still like top tier players in the league. Shout out to them. did have Jokic just became the first player in NBA history to lead the league in assist and rebounds. I mean, that is part of his game. ⁓ the rebounds are a little surprising just cause I mean, he's been doing it for a couple of years now. I don't know how many times he's actually led in rebounds, but the assist, I know he's like one of the biggest playmakers in the NBA. Like he is always finding the open guide and getting around to him. He's also a center. Yeah. He's also a center. He's been up there in rebounds every year as well. Yeah. And the other guys outside of him are Cade Cunningham, Jalen Johnson, James Harden and Jamal Murray. Find the outlier. It's Nikolai Jokic. For what? For total assists. Okay. And then rebounds it is, you said Jokic is leading in rebounds? Yeah. I have Donovan Klingon is leading in rebounds and then Carl Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert and then Nikolai Jokic with 836. Per game. Oh, okay. Per game, per year. I think target total rebounds. makes sense. Yeah. I guess I should have. He is leading in total assist. Okay. That's also insane. Yeah. But per game assist and rebound. Yeah. And then like total points, I saw Lucas leading in total points in the NBA. He's also leading in the highest points per game. I saw, I don't know if I can pull it up quickly, but he's like the only guard to lead in points, ⁓ like three times. ⁓ in total points? Yeah. This is like his third time doing it. Not even Michael Jordan did it? Probably not. ⁓ So even I mean that I got to the exact stat. You find the exact stat actually. Just some other ones. So most points in a game this season was obviously Bam Adebayo with 83, Luka with 60 and then Nikolaj Jokic with 56. We went over six per game. Blocks per game was Viktor Wimminyama followed by Chet Holmgren, Jay Hoff, Evan Mowgli and Donovan Klingon. Rebounds per game. Nikolaj Jokic with 12.9, Carl Anthony Towns with 11.9, David Klingon as well with 11.6. Steals per game, Asur Thompson with two, tied with Dyson Daniels, also two. And then three pointers this year. It's not Steph Curry. I think he was hurt for most of season, but it's Konkan Epple with 273 three-pointers made, followed by his teammate Lamello Ball with 272 three-pointers made. Then followed in third place by Luka Doncic. Per game it's Luka. Yeah, per game, but this is just total. Most assists in a game. Ryan Nimhard with 23. Isaiah Coller with 22. Nikolaj Jokic with 19. Andrew Nimhard with 19 and Josh Giddy with 19 as well. then total blocks. Shout out to Nimhard brothers. Total blocks. On the season, Victor women, Yama 197, Jay Huff, 153, Chet Holmgrid, 131. Her game. And then total points on the season, Luca Dacic leading with 2,143. Oh, you're locked up. There you are. Okay. You were just locked up too. Oh no, we're locked up. Total points, Luca Dacic with 2,143, Shay Gildes, Alexander with 2,117. Jaylen Brown, 2000, Kevin Durant, Tyrus Maxey. That's all the stats I had. Shout out Tyrus Maxey's increased his points per game every single year he's been in league. Yeah. Also shout out Chet Holmgren, who's always been a one seed, whether it was in college, the NBA, if he's healthy, he's one seed. That's fun for him. Yeah. Makes way from SGA, but. Yeah. Maybe SGA shouldn't be MVP. His mother's dad was Ryan Emhart had 23 assists last night against the Bulls. So that's where he just got the most assists in the game. That's most for a Mavs rookie ever. And that's second most for Mavs all time. Second two. It's not Dirk. Let say Jason Kidd. Yeah. Is it Jason Kidd? It is Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd is second for the, uh, most of us as a rookie. Nice. What's this other one? You got an Ironman here? I have an Ironman, not Tony Stark. Mikhail Briches is played in six, 138 straight games for the NBA. Although he played a few seconds. And they're the next last game to keep the streak alive because they, I, they kind of locked up the third seed, but he just clocked in and clocked out. Pretty much. mean, he could have played, but he didn't. It's not like he was injured. Right. Which is his thing. He doesn't get injured. He hasn't missed a game since high school. 753 straight games. high school or total? No, in total. He hasn't missed a game since high school. Oh, so this is college NBA. Yeah. 153 straight games he's played in. Wow. Which is like, don't, I don't know how that's possible. Has avoided a major injury or something like that. No ankle sprain. Yeah. No groin pulls. No flu. No flu. No sick. No upset tummy. No sprained pinky. No nothing. Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis, this is complete opposite. Incredibly impressive. Yeah. Mckelbridge is not someone that we normally would think about as someone that's like an Ironman, but Just always been around. Wonder if there's like a bet going on and when he will miss his first game. We don't actually want to put that juju out there. We're shouting out, Mikael Bridges, hopefully you stay healthy, man. We have a bad track record to talk about people on this podcast. He's about to break his leg, dude. No, no, we're not putting that on him. swear to God, if it happens. It would only happen if we started saying he should be the MVP. That's what we did he's gonna fucking tear his hamstring, dude. Yeah. We don't want that. So, knock on wood. We're good. creative MVP. we want to get into, we'll go through. Yeah, we'll go through some of the Brody pod awards, AKA Matt's awards. He's been keeping up with the NBA season a lot more than me. So I'll run through them for him. Now we're going to start from the bottom and work our way up, know, keep the people, you know, wanting a little bit more. Shout out numbers, shout out numbers on the board as well. YouTube channel, really big in the NBA space. ⁓ huge. They're doing like they're on TNT either. having NBA players on their podcast. They're really big up there. They're where I get a lot of my information aside from just watching the games. All right. Cool. Get a show on a podcast. Yeah. I'm on the podcast. Open it. I just want to shout out, dude. Can't hurt to shout out. Nope. Can't hurt. All right. Starting off, Matt, or you with our clutch player of the year. Who are you going with? I'm gonna go with SGA, man. Ooh. Free throw merchant. Free throw merchant. ⁓ he's just had a lot of clutch moments where he's like turned his game up in the fourth quarter. There's one specific game that I watched against the nuggets. ⁓ like Yoke is had a four point play. He was fouled on a three point shot that he made to tie the game against the thunder. This was a couple of weeks ago. And then SCA goes down, gets the ball goes down there. It's a step back three to ice it and win. He just does this regularly. Um, so I mean, it's not like a, it's just, I think it's an arbitrary award. Like, just like, can't measure. Yeah. Like clutch. Although they have tried to measure it's like, it's like the, there is a stat. It's like points in the last five minutes of a game. That's within 10 points or something like that. Like there is a stat out there for it. Um, I do remember the. The interview that he had earlier this year where he's like, I have the answers to all the tests. I just need to see what the test is. Yeah. would also say craziest like outfits that he's pulled up to the games with goes to SGA. Did yeah. He, he never wears the same thing twice. Right. It's never simple. Whether you hate him or like him, he, he's got it on. He's got that. He's got that shit on. You got to at least see what he's got going on. He's got, he's got something going on. Do you want to check in? it going on only something crazy? All right, Matt, next award here. Most improved player this year in the NBA. Most improved is Nikhil Alexander Walker. Ooh. I think last year he averaged nine points. There nine or 11, but this year he averaged 20. That's pretty good for the Hawks. ⁓ He's heard a lot of games as well, but I mean that it's almost a 10 point jump. And you were telling me it's around a 10 point jump. He's related to someone in the NBA. He's related cousins with the clutch player of the year. Shane Gildas Alexander. Shane Gildas Alexander. They got something in the blood there. Shout out to the Alexanders. Alexander's a great. Crazy jeans going on there. All right. Next award here. Sixth band of the year. Guy coming off the bench. Codin Johnson. Of the Spurs, he's been like one of the best three point shooters in the league this year. ⁓ he's just a flame thrower off the bench. I'm averaging more than. Is there a certain, is there certain parameters that you have to meet to be the six player, six player of the year? Like you can't start a certain number. over half of them or something like that. Yeah, it's, it's something like that. I don't know the exact. Like I saw Steph Curry come off the bench the other night. Cause he's come back from his injury, obviously not eligible. And Wimby after his injury, he was coming off the bench, is crazy to say, but yeah, Keldon was averaging 13, five and a half rebounds and assist. ⁓ also shooting live shot from three. So a big reason why the Spurs are where they are. Yeah. The Spurs have, I think. We're going to get into a little bit of the playoff bracket here in a little bit, but the Spurs, seems like they're way ahead of schedule and they could actually go through and do it this year. Their team is so young. Speaking of the Spurs, Matt defensive player of the year. ⁓ this really was, it's just, this was hard to decide. It was kind of up in the air. Really? ⁓ absolutely not. No. I about to say, it seemed like it was a runaway. Is Wimby forward away? Um, he showed up one of the past years didn't qualify, but, uh, I think as long as he does qualify for those, those 55 games, it's going to be one B every single year. Yeah. He is an absolute alien. Averaging three and something blocks, which is like at least one more block. And then second place, which is Chet. think Chet was like at 1.9 and when we said like 3. One, ⁓ yeah, you're right on it. ⁓ women Yama is 3.1 blocks per game. Chet Hongres 1.9. So he's on the court. You're not going to paint. ⁓ and there was some, there's been some like, ⁓ discourse on saying that he, like his effect on certain plays is making like players, like plays would drive in. to the paint and then like rethink it and then pass it out. And like people are saying that that doesn't should count because it's not like a objective stat that you can measure. But that it's affecting the pace of the play. That matters incredibly. You know, the players are wanting to test Wimby. Yeah, I he is. ⁓ I think you're right on it. I think as long as he is eligible, he will be defensive player of the year and. And also as long as he can just stay healthy. think that's the biggest thing with him. Like he's so tall, but ⁓ he's not like Shaq. Like he's not like just a big guy. He's a skinny guy. He's is like, he's bringing the ball up to court sometimes as a point guard. Like that's insane. Or it'll just be pulling threes. Like he has got a lot of tools in the bag that a lot of other guys that were his size did not. So we could be talking defensive player of the year and possibly MVP when it's all said and done in a couple of years with him. I don't know about this year, but we got some more awards to go through. Yeah, I think he's accounting for offensive defense. He's probably the best. Just cause Stephen's so good. Next award here. Rookie of the year. I think we're in agreement here. We've talked about a little bit last podcast. Yeah. ⁓ It's, it's keep her flag. know conch and nipple had like the most efficient season for a rookie in NBA history. I understand that. know. The Hornets are the nine seed now. Like they have a chance at making the playoffs. don't, I don't contribute. don't correlate rookie of the year to team success. I'm just looking at players. Yeah. How good they are in their rookie season. Yeah. So it's Cooper flag. I do have some stats here. I was before you say that I'm in agreement. I'm in agreement with you on this on me being Cooper Flack. Every time I open up Twitter, it is another stat that he is compared to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe, Luca, Wilt Chamberlain. Like it is just, I could probably go on there right now and just, it'd be another stat. That's just an insane, like what he's doing averaging for the year, whether it's a points in a game or it's a, what, how he's helping out the Mavs. Like it hasn't contributed to much success, but. There's a real talk of like when he gets it figured out, like as he has a couple of years in the league, he's going to be the best. obviously we're talking about this season and what he's done. It seems like every time he's running away, he's got some new staff that he's, setting the pace on. Just for like two years younger than Don Knipple. Yeah. And he. 19 year old. And he's, as soon as he got on the league, he was thrusted into like the first option on a bad team. Right. This a match for a bad team. Whether we want to admit it or not. I'm sure you don't care, but no, obviously the record is horrendous, but keep her flag joins Michael Jordan, Larry bird and Luca Donchich is the only rookies in NBA history to average at least 21 points per game, six rebounds per game or assess per game and one seal per game. Once again, there's another crazy stat that he's being compared to Michael Jordan. It's actually crazy to see Larry Bird on this one. haven't seen one Larry Bird yet, but then Michael Jordan or Luca. Also 51 points. Most ever by a teenager. He's got a 49 point game. He's got the most 45 point games by a rookie. He's the youngest to score 40 plus points. He's the first player with multiple 30 plus point games. before age 19 is among the fastest to score a thousand points, 300 rebounds, 200 assists. He's got the second most 25 plus points per game, five plus rebounds, five plus assists only behind Michael Jordan. And he scored 96 in a two game stretch. So I, I, I could keep going on and on. Like you were saying, there's just a new stat every single game that he plays. that is breaking some kind of record or tying some kind of record. Or sometimes it's the first one ever. Yeah. Well, there's a teenage record or he's breaking some kind of rookie record or team record. ⁓ I just, I, I understand that Khan is also breaking records, not as many. He's the fastest to reach like a hundred three pointers. NBA history is the most efficient rookie ever. I don't care. I don't like Cooper is just. Well, she's got to look at it being where he's at right now. Like, like Khan is playing with Lamela ball, Brendan Miller. Yeah. He's got incredible players. He's in a better situation. Cooper's best player that he's playing with is what? Nazi Marshall? Yeah. And I wouldn't even say like the Hornets are that much better. They're a nine seed going into playoffs. it's all like, talking about the team success. They're fucking nine seed. They're playing team. don't even make it to the actual playoffs. Like who cares? It's all right. We talked about that last podcast. If you want to hear more about the Cooper flag MVP training, it was the last one. I don't want to get on the horse. We'll move on to the final award here. Matt, will take- Sorry. Oh, you're just- No, no, please. You're excited. You're excited. I am. We are going to get into who should be the MVP. Matt, I will take Luke off this list. for right now until we hear about the extraordinary circumstances. Cause he's not eligible because he missed two games because of his child's birth. outside of Luca Matt, who should be the MVP? we preface this. I probably would have picked Luca. That might be some bias going on. If he played the last few games the Lakers had, who knows what he would have done. Maybe they lose still. They probably don't. But he also did play more minutes than Victor women. Yama. But he also did average 40 for a month. Yeah. ⁓ anyways, have Nicole Yocage. Okay. I don't have SGA. This might be a little of voter fatigue. Yes. Voter fatigue, but she's incredible. They're fantastic team with him. They're not as good without them. With him. They're like one of the best offenses, like an NBA history. But I mean, Jokic, he led the league and rebounds and assists. This never happened before. He still averaged over 27 points a game. you think the NBA has like a talent issue where there's like, now just like, it seems like in years past the MVP has kind of been a runaway of like, ⁓ you know, Russell, Russell Westbrook's averaging a triple double or Steph Curry's going crazy or Kevin Duran or, you know, LeBron, whoever they've kind of run away with it. But now it's like, we see like. Every year it seems like there's three or four guys that you could easily give the MVP to. But then like there's going to be, you know, there's going to be discord. Like there's all the, like whether it's Jokic or SG, I think that's one and two. Victor Mnayama, I think he will be someone that you could in a couple of years, actually probably next year. ⁓ just with how much better he's getting every year. There's Luka, like all these guys, you can make a case and I wouldn't be upset on any of them winning. Like it just depends on what you think's important. I'll say this year is. Or is it kind of just like the stars aligning where there's just like, okay, there's just all these good guys in the league right now. All these great players in the league right now. It's aligning this year. think this is maybe one of the first year you could argue for the top four guys and that it wouldn't be ridiculous for any of them to get it. No. You were saying that when Modena has improved in a single year, his stats don't say that. They've been like eerily similar. And since rookie season and even Yokochi's Yokochi's last MVP, every single is, you know, the big three, the points, the rebounds, the assist, they're all down compared to this year. And he's not even top th or he's, he's not top two, he's top, he's the third, right. Projected guy. ⁓ I just think it, I know SGA has a crazy, he doesn't lead any stat. ⁓ His team is just fantastic. His supporting cast is better than any of the other, the top three candidates. Yeah. can argue that the Spurs maybe are up there, but they're not the OKC other starters or their bench. Right. I just, I know Jokic has Jamal Murray and he's probably going to make, you know, all NBA team, whether that's second or third, who knows. But think he's going to make one of them. And I don't think that takes away from, because he's got a secondhand guy, but after that doesn't have much. Yeah. Tim Hardaway off the bench. Got Aaron Gorder, missed a ton of time. You got Christian Brown, who just got paid all that money and he had like it down a year compared to last year. Um, yeah. It's just crazy. All these guys are from the West. And we can get into a little bit of the playoff bracket here, but like, okay, sees a one seed, the Spurs are a two seed and the Nuggets are a three seed, all in the West. Like it hasn't been really in the East guys. I know Kate Cunningham was kind of thrown around and I used to Jaylen Brown a little bit, but it seems like those guys have all fallen to the wayside. All the big three of the West have been going. I could say big four. just, I'm just taking Luke off because he's not technically eligible for this. So, but then if you look at the Lakers, the Lakers are a four seed. So. Yeah. When Newkitsch won his last MAP, they were the fifth seed. Yeah. So obviously it doesn't matter that much. I think the goalposts change every year. I this year with just with the voting in general, like people talk about, they were talking about before Luka got injured, the defense matters more. That's why Shay is the number one. That's why Wimpenyama moved up. Even he went on like a in front of press and was saying that, he should, he wants him to be, he feels like he deserves it. And then all of a sudden he's skyrockets to two from like four. It's all about the clicks now. And the projected odds. And now that Lucas injured, they're talking about Jokic and his offense and how much he matters to his team. So it's just, there's no way it's just objective at this point. It's just who the popular guy is. Yeah. You're asking me? No, I'm just saying like that's the, they just want to go with whoever they, whatever stats are important to them. That's who they'll vote for. Yeah. believe like, thought voting was already sent in. I don't guess it's not like the Heisman where they've sent it in months in advance. No, I don't think it's done. I think it's all, it's going to go down. Um, the playoffs, actually, I don't know when the actual awards are that are happening, but I think those get announced in the playoffs at some point. It's soon. mean, Wemby has. came in first for like other sports articles and there was like a poll taken by ESPN. ⁓ and she was running away with it. Yeah. So I guess, either way on the Brody pod, we're going yolkage. That's our guy. I've heard guy. That's our guy. ⁓ Matt, moving onto the playoffs here. We'll start in the instance. We're talking about the MVP. We'll stay in the West. We're kind of looking at the bracket here. I'll put it up here. We got the play-in tournament, if anyone doesn't know how the play-in works, the 9 and 10 seed's play-in, and the 7 and 8 seed's play-in. Whoever wins that 7 and 8 seed game is gonna go play the second seed, and then whoever loses is gonna play the winner of the 9 and 10, and then the winner of that game plays the one seed. So, OKC is the one seed, Spurs are the two seed, Nuggets three seed, Lakers four seed, Rockets five seed, Timberwolves six seed, and then the play-in is the Suns and... Trailblazers versus the Clippers and the Warriors. Matt, who stands out to you? Who do you think is going to get be able to get it done in this West side of the bracket? ⁓ think Clippers are being the Warriors. I assume Sefa is going to play because he just came back recently. Actually, we'll know the answer to that by the time this podcast comes out. Yeah, the Clippers are a very good team. They started horribly and then ⁓ Ty Lue was saying he wants to finish 35 and 15 or something like that. They came very close to that. think they even finished better. Disprojected record. So they're, they're coming in kind of hot. Blazers versus the Suns. The second best player, the Suns at least Dylan Brooks is coming off that broken hand. I know they still have Devin Booker. He's a Puckett. Blazers have Dini Abdia who was the first time All-Star was here. I think the Blazers get it done. The Suns are just dealing with too much. ⁓ So would that be Spurs versus Blazers and then Clippers versus Suns? Yeah, would say Clippers still win that one. That's what I was thinking. were going with Yeah, they're a very underrated team. mean, I'm surprised they didn't just outright make the playoffs, but... I'm excited. I'll you which matchup I'm excited for is the timber wolves and nuggets. Yeah. Once again, was it, was it last year we got the game seven? Yeah. Once again, it's, it's nuggets and, and wolves. It seems like they kind of got a bit of a rivalry going. I think that's fun when it's a playoff rivalry. It's, it's, it's fun. Yeah. I think the nuggets were last time they were the host is that as well. So game seven, if it goes to it again, would be in Denver. They're to, you know, they're have that 5,200 and whatever their elevation is out there. Yeah. All over the court trying to get the player's head. So I think it's going be interesting. I know Anthony Edwards, his game just seems to elevate when he gets to the playoffs. Jokic as well. think that's going to be like, that's a matchup that I'm on in the West. I w we don't have to get too much into the playoffs because the first round is normally takes a month to go through. All the, all the rounds, they're all best to seven. So they just takes a while. It's not like hockey where they're. They do a best of three, best of five, then best of seven for the conference and the championship. So yeah, that's a matchup on mine. Let's think about that earlier. The playoff risers. When I think of playoff risers, I think of, of Luca, obviously, first and foremost, think of Kawhi. I think of Katie, I think of LeBron. I think of Jokic, I think of Ant-Man. This is when guys really like set their name apart from everyone else. It's like what Like, yeah, what you do in regular season is great. Like, then you repeat, it's regular season award, whatever. But now we get to the playoffs. This is what people like, you know, people talk about Jordan. They talk about the six titles that he got. Six finals trips, six championships. Like that's where people start judging these players on like, you know, the top list. Like what do they do in the playoffs? You have to have some type of success. might matter in the sun's blazers. mean, D-Book is also, I would consider him a playoff riser. He does incredibly well in the playoffs. Unless he's playing Lugia. Nobody just walk into the yeah. But yeah, nobody on the blazers really has playoff experience. The ninth and 10th game, the Clippers with wrist the Warriors, that's whoever's stuff to premiere playoff. Performers as well. I mean, that'll be coming off his injury though. Yeah. I know it's an athentent seed playoff play in game. I think that's it's it'll feel like a legitimate playoff game. Yeah. And ⁓ okay, so we'll move over to the East now, the matchups that we're looking at. So obviously Matt alluded to with his Brody of the Week. The number one seed is the Detroit Pistons, followed by the two seed being the Celtics. Three seeds the Knicks, four seeds the Cavs, five seeds the Raptors. Six seed is the Atlanta Hawks. And then the play-in is the 76ers versus the Magic for the 7-8. And then the 9-10 is the Hornets taking on Miami Heat. Matt, what kind of stands out to you here? I look at this, at least in the play-in, I kind of like the heat, man. They got Bam out of body who just dropped 83 in a game. We're going to get to see. Can he do it in a playoff scenario now? Yeah, I don't think so. Not against the Hornets? I like the team they're playing. I like the Hornets. Okay. Shout out, Conkynipple. Shout out the runner-up in the rookie league. Shout out, Conkynipple. Dude, they're hot. They're a hot team. They're probably the hottest team in the league right now. And not someone that we've thought of having like playoff success in the past. No, absolutely not. mean, the Hornets fans got to be elated even being the plan right now. Um, I, yeah, I think, I think the Hornets. I mean, like the hornets colors. What the guy going on. like the, I like the kind of teal the guy going on the Indigo. I know the Hornets have like no playoff or play in really experience among them. They're like among the youngest team. don't think we've seen like Lamello ball in the play playoffs before. No, think he just, think his career, ⁓ plus minus just became positive this year. Wow. So that tells you how good the Hornets have been as of late. I, I like it. You're saying the hottest team. haven't really. I'm not going to lie. I haven't really seen too many hornets games on like the national broadcast. So I haven't been able to keep up with them as much. ⁓ and then as far as like the 76ers in magic, I do like the magic because of Paulo Banquero. I think he's a dominant force in the league. ⁓ as far as the 76ers, I know they got Joel Embiid. I don't know. I just don't know if we trust the process anymore with them. What are you liking that matchup, Matt? like the sixers. ⁓ The Magic as of last night, they lost to the Celtics who arrested all their starters. They were playing Ron Harper Jr. and Baylor Shardeman who dropped 27 and 30 respectively. The Magic were like going into the season, they were like a big favorite. ⁓ Turned in for Desmond Bain. They got Palo, they got Franz who missed a lot of time, but he's still like a super good player. ⁓ I could easily see the magic winning this, but the six years fully healthy with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, who's averaging 28 this season. got VJ Edcombe who started off super hot as a rookie, kind of cooled off and hit that rookie wall. But, ⁓ I could honestly, it's, it's kind of a toss up for me. magic could win the six years could win. wouldn't be surprised. Either way, I whoever wins that game is going to be running into I think the one and the two seeds in this. I mean, honestly, like any of these playing tournaments, whoever they go into in the one and two seeds, that's an uphill battle that they're fighting. Like I think the Pistons, whoever they end up getting, unless maybe, maybe the Hornets, maybe they catch them, especially if Cade Cunningham is, you know, hurt. ⁓ it can't go for a couple of games. I don't know if he, wouldn't be up for the whole first round, but. I don't know. That's good point though. He is injured right now. Yeah. They still have Jalen Dernan, but without Kade. Yeah. He's kind of the, you know, the playmaker on the team. The Celtics as a two seed. think that's, that's sneaky. think the team that really, I'm really excited to watch this year is the Knicks. See what they can do as a three seed going against the Hawks. Obviously without Trey Young, don't have to worry about him traumatizing, ⁓ traumatizing ⁓ New York as much anymore. Also, we're not seeing the Pacers this year. I saw Tyrese Halliburton at the end of their final game, know, shout out the fans for being there and then was apologizing and said, you know, we just were played by a lot of injuries this year. Obviously he was hurt from the finals and wasn't able to play a lot of the season, actually at all this season. ⁓ So he said that will not be the standard. They're going to get back to the playoffs next year. But it just seems like this is the year that the, it could be the Knicks and Boston battling it out again. for who goes to the championship. then I feel like I see whoever comes out of the East is going to run to an absolute buzzsaw from the West. think we're, we just talked about all the MVP candidates that are actually like in consideration are from the West. Like I think the NBA champion is going to come out of the West. think the West is a lot better once again, the East. ⁓ Pending injuries, if there's any major injuries that take could change, but I just, if everything stays as it is, I like the West. If fully healthy for the East, think the Cavs can make a really good, really good run. They're really in consideration, fully healthy. Traded for James Harden, obviously that elevates their team tremendously. Treated away Darius Berland. I think at this point that really says that they're like going for championship. Yeah. Trying to go a young player for an older player. He's still extremely good. They got Darius. ⁓ Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, if all four of them are healthy, that's a dangerous team. I think the Knicks and the Hawks matchup could be very interesting. I don't know if the Hawks are just, I don't know if the Knicks just have it. I mean, this is like their last year, I think together, if they don't at least make the finals this year, I think they might have to consider. blowing it up a little bit. For the Knicks? Yeah, trading Cat, McHale Bridges, probably keeping Phelan Brunson and Evian Onoby, but they might have to. Yeah, it just seems like they'd just be doing the same thing over and over and seeing the same result. Yeah, just falling short right before Now would say if they make it to the finals, they would keep it. Yeah, but if it's just Eastern Conference or if it's anywhere before that and out, then yeah, they're going have to. really look at the mirror and consider what to do with rest of the team. So I think that's a good point you bring up. This is kind of like a real final test for them and kind of like we said, like the East is kind of weak this year with what the West is putting up there. So I will say Celtics had a two seed. Jordan Brown carried that team on his back. I'm surprised he's not in consideration for MVP. Again, Jason Tane on back. He's looking, looked rusty at the start, obviously coming off of Keely's tear. Um, but he's, he's kind of forming, you know, to shape. Uh, so I know the Pistons are the one seed, the best year in since what, 07, 08, I said earlier, but, uh, Celtics are a very good team. think they might, they might come out of the East. I like it. All right. So that was our playoff preview. And I guess Matt, we didn't really have anything else for a one final question, but I did come up with something. Just kind of NBA related. So I don't know if you saw this, but it is the first season in NBA history in which eight teams had a win percentage of 0.333 or worse. Starting with the New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, and the Washington Wizards. Do you think that the NBA has a tanking problem going on? Seems like this year the bad teams were very bad and the good teams were very good. I tanking has been a thing for a long time, but I mean, the Pacers made it like blatantly obvious. All these teams have made it obvious. And the Pacers especially, mean, benching their players in the second half, benching their starters in the second half, ⁓ intentionally following. Just to make sure the other team beats you. Obviously, um, I think there, there, there needs to be something done. I mean, I don't care. not a fan of those teams. don't care for blatantly tanking, but obviously the fans do. I, I'm sure they got, we're still selling tickets in the last few months or whatever, even though they knew their team was not. gonna put their best players out there. And that's doing such a disservice to the fans. I think something needs to be done. I think there is a tanking problem, I will say. Yeah, I agree there is a tanking problem. The problem is I don't know what you do to resolve it. I know they put in this play-in tournament to get more teams that were on that edge to want to try and push for it. You can still get a lottery pick though if you're in that play-in tournament. You know, kind of helps you out a little bit. Like the Mavs were one of those teams last year that was in the playing tournament. Lost as I think a nine or a 10 seed and ended up getting the number one overall pick. I think the way they've done the draft where the percentage or you get a percentage of the lottery to help you out to get the number one overall pick. I think that's helped a little bit because then teams aren't trying to be the worst out there. They're just trying to be in this, this bottom group of the NBA. So they at least have a better chance. But it's almost something that these teams have to do. Like we've seen a lot of success. from the teams that do tank, look at the Spurs, they get Victor Wimminyama, look at the OKC Thunder. Now those teams are the one in two seeds in the West. Just with whatever they've been able to get with their draft capital. So you almost have to do it for at least a year, maybe two, get some really good players, and then you're really good. So I think, I don't know, and there's not a way to stop teams from doing that. They've tried to do the end season tournament. They've just tried to been doing a lot of things. There's one thing that I... commend Adam Silver for it. He's not worried. He's not, he's not worried about trying something. He's willing to try it and see if it works. Um, but there's just something that, I don't know about the gamesmanship. I would like to see like, you know, if you're a family of four, you're going to see your team play and they're just, like you said, sitting all the starters on the bench, like, okay, maybe they should then discount beer prices or something, or make it, I don't know, make it something that's more interesting for the fans. Cause I think that's who's getting hurt. with who's going to these games. did see something funny on Twitter. They were saying, like you're saying, discounting beer prices. They're saying for every win you increase beer prices by like 10, 10, 20 cents. And if they lose, you decrease it. How many ever cents? So that could total through the season? Yeah. So like in the Wizards, I saw that the Wizards would have to pay their fans to buy beer. because they only have 17 wins and 65 losses. So they lost so many games that the owner would be like, okay, let's just put the starters out there. Okay. Well, I think that, I think there should be a ceiling to this though. Cause like the teams that are really good, like the OKC thunder, like they would be charging like $30 a or something like that. So maybe they need a, okay, mean, was just a fun little $15. Actually, they're probably already $15. Yeah. Cap of like $20 or something. I mean, that would be a read just, but yeah, that's a fun little. It's still fun little fan. Yeah. that. I think that's like, cause then you could go to like a wizard's game and if they, if they're paying you for the beer, obviously, obviously you gotta be over 21, but all of the fans that are over 21 are going to have a great time. Yeah. I don't know. I haven't really looked into the, uh, Adam Silver's potential fixes for the taking stuff, but I don't know, maybe make the odds more even. Yeah. I mean, you could just make it. Or just make it even. Well, that's still, I think that someone's, the team still want to get in that bottom cluster. I mean, could we see something where the NBA just goes even all across the board and it's just a complete random of who's the number one pick, like completely get rid of the draft lottery. Like, you know, then there might be a year where OKC gets the number one pick and they were also the number one seed. I don't know if that would work out. We're trying to pick staff. but I'm just saying like one of these top teams, there's better chance that they get the number one overall pick, but then at least these teams that are trying to tank like, all right, well, you're not going to get anything for tanking. You might as well try and win a lot more games. Cause like, like I said, dude, that, that jazz and grizzly game was a generational. saw, I saw, ⁓ Brian wind horses. ⁓ he did it. He cut like a promo for it. And that was, ⁓ he's like, What you're going to see is box office tanking. He's like, we might see coaches go out there and play or something like that. it was, might see Brian Winnhorst go out there. Yeah, we might see Brian Winnhorst go out there and play or whatever it is. So I think that's, don't know. Like I said, they'll try anything in the NBA. at least, know, they're willing to, they're willing to make, make the changes where needed and try and put out the best product they can. Um, and also if they start adding more teams, like they want to do the two expansion teams, that could be something we've covered on the podcast. I at least want to Seattle. Look at the records this year. Like you said. Yeah. This is generational bad teams. Yeah. If they had two more teams, what are the things going to happen? It's going to be even worse. going to be even, teams are going be even worse. Cause those bad teams, like the Wizards, like the Pacers, I know Tyrus is out, but they're not going to the Mavs had the number one overall pick and they still didn't make the playoffs yet. I mean, don't get me wrong. They're a little ahead of schedule. They just had to blow up the team. That's a different situation. Yeah. That's a little, that's a little different, but I'm just saying like, it's not going to make an immediate impact if you get number one overall pick, you're still going to be in this possibility. mean, like, I don't think the Mavs were blatantly trying to tank. think they were just like, we're not that good anyways. Was that Kyrie? Yeah. I Kyrie couldn't play like the whole first half of the season or whatever it was. I know. It's, he might have, could have come back, but They were like, Hey, listen, we're not going to be, we're not going to make a run anyways. That's a little more understandable. Like the Pacers I kind of see they got Halliburton out. Like led them on their playoff charge. Like they were just in the finals. So don't get that, but it's like the teams that are constantly in the bottom, like the, like the wizards seem like they're always in the, in the battle. think last year they had the number one overall odds too, to do it. So, um, I would just like to see if it's different teams, maybe that's something like if you're in the draft lottery. X amount of years, like your odds go down or something like that. But then they might be bad forever if they never can get a good year. So I don't know. That's a, that's a question for Adam Silver. We're just trying to give our input on it. just no good. I don't think he's going to get solution and tanking happens in every sport. No. All right. With that, we can get out and closing out the show. Thank you everyone for listening. Hopefully you enjoy the NBA playoffs starting this week. And also the hockey playoffs are starting, but I think we're going to do that next show. Just because. It's not all set in stone like the NBA is yet. So with that, thank you everyone for listening. Be sure to like, subscribe, go on the YouTube, turn on notifications, follow the show on Spotify, rate it five stars, helps out a lot. If you want to stay up to date on the show, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, YouTube Reels. We got it all at Brody pod. With that everyone have a great week. God bless and Matt. Love y'all. Later.