1st hour breaking down AD trade, Zion, and the bright future of the Pels

I never really got the Simmons thing and why he was shoved down our throats so hard for that brief period of time. And his Boston homerism was annoying, so I was out on him. But he started a podcast network on The Ringer—mostly nerdy basketball stuff—but I happened upon one called “The Rewatchables,” which is him and a couple of guests talking about older movies that are really rewatchable—like if you happened upon one flipping channels, no matter where it was in the movie, you were gonna stick with it until the end. Shawshank is like that for a lot of people. A Few Good Men and Jaws for me. You get the picture.

Anyway, I really liked it, and all the episodes I started watching were early on, about 3 years ago. And The Town was the 1st one I watched, and Rusillo was on it (I’d recommend it if you like the movie) who I’ve always liked. Anyway, it fricked up my YouTube algorithm to where I was getting all these 3-year-old Simmons and Rusillo basketball podcasts recommended to me, almost all of which I couldn’t have given 2 shits about.

Until I got one yesterday from June 17th, 2019, titled “The AD Trade, Next Laker’s Moves, and Zion’s Rosy Future.” So I decided to give it a listen. And holy shite were we in a GREAT spot. Nobody could have predicted the Zion injuries, but shite if we didn’t zig when we should have (in retrospect) zagged.

A few takeaways:

—Pels had just traded AD to the Lakers

—Both guys, especially Simmons, thought we absolutely fleeced the Lakers

—Simmons was incredulous that we not only got B.I., Lonzo, Josh Hart, and the #4 overall pick that year, but they threw in 2 more 1st rounders and the pick swaps for no good reason since they were basically negotiating against themselves.

—we won the lottery and got Zion and still had the 4th pick (the draft was 3 days later)

—granted, they both were super high on Zion and thought he was “that dude.” Nobody had ever been that strong and explosive with his basketball IQ at that age. They couldn’t believe his handles, his passing, court awareness at that age and that size.
Referred to him as a point-center. Obviously they couldn’t predict his future injuries.

—Rusillo was really high on Garland and thought we should take him at 4, even if he wasn’t the best “fit.” Most people thought it was a 3-player draft, he was convinced it was a 4 with Garland (turned out to be right)

—Simmons said the Pels had the best roster situation of any team for the next decade with all their assets and that Lonzo and BI may have been held back in L.A. and could turn into really good players. Plus the picks.

It was just a really interesting conversation for the time. Of course we traded #4 to the Hawks—who didn’t even take Garland (who, of course is the only one of the group to ever make an All-Star game, last year averaging 21.7 points and 8.6 assists per game—averaging 21.8 and 7.9 this year, and he’s only 23) for #8 who became Jaxson Hayes, #17 who became NAW, and the Hawks 2020 1st rounder who became Kira Lewis at #13. And there were some 2nd rounders in there somewhere.

And I don’t remember it being thought of as a bad trade at the time—in fact, Rusillo was the main one pimping for the Pels to take Garland—so I don’t know that it’s a fair criticism of Griffin now. Just the butterfly effect. But just what would this team look like now if we had stuck with 4 and taken Garland?