I think there's some coercion going on

...

Yeah.

The, the foundation of the Boston Celtics has been established for years now, and I think that's why when you can say, "Hey, we're swapping in Mitchell Robinson, we're swapping in Paul George," but it doesn't look any different, that's your organizational stability.

That's Mazzulla's system having years to be ingrained in these guys.

Like, I think that is going to be one of their advantages.

You look in NBA history, and it was really the same thing for, like, the Popovich Spurs or, you know, the, the...

Yeah

And I'm just curious how you've observed the start of this and the relationship that has been forming between these two and among other Celtics as it relates to George as well.

Yeah, I mean, I've always been of the thought.

It's always a little weird for complete strangers to be like, I know how this person feels about another person.

Even when, like, there was the whole Tatum and Brown dynamic.

What I care about is what it looks like on the floor and how it changes and what's different on the floor.

And I'd say right away, there are these small instances in both of the last two games where... you can tell that George is making a conscious effort to give Jason Tatum the basketball.

And two of them that I can remember came in the half court on shots where George could have driven to the rim or taken a catch and shoot three, and he instead immediately, like, hot-potatoed past it back to Tatum so he could shoot it.

Did you expect it to get done before the regular season? What do you think it would look like when it did?

Listen,

that's why you're approaching 700 episodes.

You know what I mean? Yeah, you.

But I can tell you what really helped me was after Brad's press conference.

I think what I had to mentally adjust is when you look at last season, I think a lot of people looked at their success and Jalen's individual success and was like, look, he proved he could be the number one that carried the team.

Like that was the takeaway of the season.

i think we've learned the way that the brad stevens and company actually looked at last year was confirmation of the structure but not the jalen is the number one and is worth 35 of the cap hit and all you have to do is just look into their summer right look at what they did they pay they determined that their success was how they built around a singular star, right? Because that's what Jalen Brown was for 80% of the season.

Green, am I crazy for that?

you.

But I can tell you what really helped me was after Brad's press conference.

I think what I had to mentally adjust is when you look at last season, I think a lot of people looked at their success and Jalen's individual success and was like, look, he proved he could be the number one that carried the team.

Like that was the takeaway of the season.

I think we learned the way that the Brad Stevens and company actually looked at last year was confirmation of the structure, but not the Jalen is the number one and is worth 35% of the cap hit.

And all you have to do is just look into their summer, right? Look at what they did.

They pay, they determine that their success is, was how they built around a singular star, right? Because that's what Jalen Brown was for 80% of the season.

Am I crazy for that?

So see, it's the weird stuff like that, and I love weird stuff, so I had to be a part of this.

I mean, the venue is a big part of it, right? You're walking into the Cradle of Aviation Museum.

It's not just the games.

You're surrounded by this history of flight.

The first year I came here, they had the room with the Lunar Lander, Grumman's original, you know, all set up and staged.

And it's very pretty and kind of gives you that sense of it.

And it's almost this quiet sanctuary because in the room they've also got an old, I don't know if it was a Tandy, even older than that maybe, like an old green and black system playing Lunar Lander.

What's something, whether it's this year or previous years, that you learned or like blew your mind when you kind of explored around the museum?

Do you think Bradley Beal wants Tatum and the Celtics?

I mean, I think it's in their best interest to at least put out feelers, have conversations.

You know, I, I get...

I...

You know, you could see there was some initial pushback from people of like, "What do you need him for? You shouldn't acquiesce to, you know, your best player," blah, blah, blah.

I look at it as basketball business.

Like, it's in their best interest to find cheap Playable, good talent.

Mm-hmm.

... um, where are you?

So I don't know all the stages of grief off the top of my head, but I'm somewhere down the list, right? Bargaining.

I think bar- I think maybe bargaining.

I just think- Bargaining.

[laughs] It's one of those situations where, you know, it's such a polarizing player in terms of, like, it rips your heart out, the fact that he's not a Celtic, right? But you can also...

I think when you look at everything in totality in terms of the money situation, the clear...

And I went back to, you know, when you look at how all these champions are being built, they all play, in this new CBA world, they all have different play style, right? The Celtics play different from the Thunder, who play different from the Knicks.

Yeah.

Dan, how unusual is this kind of mass pardon?

pardon?Well, of course, uh, uh, uh, President Washington granted amnesty to participants in the Whiskey Rebellion against, uh, federal whiskey taxes, and, uh, President Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned and granted amnesty for Confederate soldiers and officials.

But I think it's very important to note that, uh, in most cases of mass pardons by previous presidents, the, uh, the pardonees were required to take affirmative measures, uh, in order to, uh, to get that kind of forgiveness.

So for instance, the, uh, the, the Confederate soldiers who were pardoned were required to swear an oath to the Union.

Uh, when, when Gerald Ford granted, granted amnesty to, uh, people who unlawfully failed to register for the, for the Vietnam draft, uh, Ford required people to, uh, come back and do public service.

Uh, Carter, I believe, did not do that.

But we have seen a broader trend of, uh, of, uh, presidents granting mass pardons without really requiring anything in exchange.

I don't even know who he is," is this type of response from the president, um, become standard? Tell us a little bit about the CZ case and what it says to you more broadly about the use of the pardon power here.

So if the Celtics want to acquire Giannis, what do they have to do to get that? And would the secondary move be trading Jalen Brown? Is this the rumors that we're hearing?

Well, your first objective is you just have to beat Miami's offer, right? If they're the leader in the clubhouse, they have the offer that's on paper.

You really only have to beat that offer.

And I think that's what's important.

It's not about... giving sort of the right on-court value of what Giannis is.

You only have to beat what offers are on the table.

So that's step one.

In a perfect world, do you think that they can still keep Jalen Brown and trade for Giannis or no? In a perfect world.

Greeny, do you have any, you know... preferences there or you know thoughts on that because you know I'm as a Celtics fan I think you know there's a part of the fan base that wants to keep the Jays together as you mentioned but is that good enough to compete and how deep of a roster could they have if they did decide we're going to blow it up around Tatum and Brown

well I think you know really sort of the under talked about reported sort of storyline to what I think is really going to drive Every decision they make and the players that may be involved in trades or what is not just a Jalen extension.

There's like four different Celtics that are going to become extension eligible both this summer and next summer.

So you look at someone like Derek White, who's 32 years old.

He becomes extension eligible next summer.

If they're not interested in paying him another $100-plus million into his mid-30s, then it behooves them to get ahead of that depreciating asset and to flip it.

Peyton Pritchard is extension eligible this summer.

All right, how did you feel about the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship?

Do you think this team is better, closer to a championship, continuing to do something around the margins, on the edges, the fringes, with the Jays, or Tatum, Giannis, and whatever's around them?

I think it's just, it's hard to answer without knowing what's left and also what they're taking back in this trade, right? You're seeing reports floated around that it could be some sort of Giannis trade with also getting Miles Turner in the trade exemption, which I want no part of.

So it's like, it's hard to know.

What we do know is NBA history says if you have two top five guys, you're pretty much always contending for a championship, right? When Tatum and Brown were at their best and both performing at that level, they were contending for a championship.

You know, the Knicks, you know, I don't know if they have two top five guys, but, like, you look at how they've been executing, they've been executing at that level.

So it's – I'd have to know what else left, but – from a basketball fit wise, if you're telling me Giannis, we're finally going to be okay with setting screens and rolling and being an off ball player with Jason Tatum.

And you're telling me that Tatum would be okay going off ball for possessions and letting Giannis attack and do his thing.

But when you look at, you know, how far are they really away? You look at the Knicks, they have Brunson, O.G., Bridges, all kind of like – Cat's the only guy making like a super ridiculous – Well, remember, they're about

How do you explain that? What are the biggest reasons for them to turn – what was a good team into potentially the NBA champions? Well, I think

the first part is they've experienced playoff pain, right? Like usually before a team breaks through, you have to go through the heartbreak and the pain of excruciating playoff losses.

And honestly, the last two years, that has happened to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals.

So I think they entered this playoff run maybe with a little bit of a different mindset.

When they got down by two to one against the Hawks, it just feels like they locked in.

They started changing their offense up of how they were using Cat and initiating things through him as opposed to just heavy Jalen Brunson isolation ball.

They had incredible shot-making from pretty much their entire roster this whole run.

A lot of talk, of course, on Victor Weminyama's from the minute he got drafted even before he got drafted into the nba and i think this has been a great playoff run for him even though he has struggled missing those free throws he's had a couple of off shooting nights what have been your overall impressions about a guy we know a lot about but maybe taking his game to another level in the last couple of weeks and months

It's interesting because

those are obviously completely different takeaways, right? I almost wonder how much of it is over the course of a series while you may be struggling and you're having all this underperformance from your key players really outside of Jason Tatum.

How much of it are you trying to make sure that they have the right mindset and level-headedness and don't panic to be like, listen, you guys, you know, you don't want to publicly sort of kill their confidence.

That's certainly possible.

It's also possible that they were both telling the truth, right? They, Suffolk's really struggled in isolation.

They really did not do a good job in terms of getting into the paint, forcing rotation and, you know, making Philly sort of, you know, overcommit to drive.

Even though Jalen Brown was aggressive, they didn't really have that sort of scrambling of the Sixers defense.

If he doesn't want to stay here, do you think he signs and they trade him? What do you think happens in June or July when this thing comes up?

Yeah

...

in the postseason.

That's just the default thing that every team does.

But when you look at what made this team so good, it was the fact that they had that sort of mix and match.

And right away, if someone didn't have it, what did we praise all year long for? Is that they were pressing the right buttons.

If this guy wasn't gonna defensive rebound, he got yanked, and they put in someone who would, and that energy and chaos is what kept everybody engaged, and it's what helped them overcome their shooting droughts because they were the high-energy and high-effort guys.

Okay

We haven't, they haven't seen Boner again since, uh, um, which we kind of criticized Nurse for, but uh-

I mean, but if I'm looking at, yeah, like, if I'm looking at their, at the Sixers' rotation, like, it wasn't really all that...

They only played eight guys, and really Drummond and Justin Edwards only played 12 and 10 minutes.

So it's like, this wasn't even really a case of they were trying shit and you weren't.

It was more just their player...

It, it's, I'm gonna keep harping on it because I feel like-... we all wanna come up with these adjustments and excuses.

They were out-executed.

And, and, uh, he's, yeah, outplaying your first or second team whatever they got.

All you gotta do is just execute the three possessions, go up by 19, they're gonna, they're gonna roll over.

Right.

And instead, what usually happened on the other end is you were giving up threes, right? So if you, if you go and you look at the last four-ish minutes of the third quarter, Sixers finished that quarter five of seven from the floor, all five were threes.

So it's like you were making some of your threes to push you back to 6, to 9, to, you know, 13, but every time back down the floor you gave up the Andre Drummond three, you had Paul George making threes, the Quentin Grimes three.

Like, you just...

It was a combination of eventually you were gonna miss shots, and then you just kept missing, and then never ended up getting the stops on the other end.

So it's like this was a...

Man, he's, he's fucking testing the boundaries right now.