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