Welcome to the best of the Week for What's Right with Nick Right the best takes in moments from this week on the show. Enjoy. All right, let's do one quick NFL thing and then get to some listener questions.
Saquon Barkley told Reid blank and Ship and Cooper Degene on their podcast that the.
Man did you hold on? Did you know this demand before we even get to it? I bad news for us. We're now competing with a red Blanken hip Cooper dejen project. That's that's That's a nice tand I clear my schedule. I'm gonna have to catch up on the archives there. All right, man, oh man, I bet that's an insightful show. I'm excited to listen.
Okay, go ahead told him that that twenty twenty four Eagles team the top five team in NFL history. You're obviously a NFL historian.
How true is that? Not only is it not true, it's not even you can't even you can't even make a credible argument for and by the way, Sakuan said they were a top five team of all time and then listed five other teams in his top five, which then would make them. I guess the top six team of all time, but one of the teams he listed was the two thousand Ravens, which is not a top
twenty team of all time. Like, none of this makes sense, But the seventy two Dolphins that went undefeated had the number one offense and the number one defense and beat teams by an average fifteen points a game. That's a top five team of all time. The eighty four nine Ers that went fifteen to one annihilated their po season opponents start to finish, had a top two offense, top
two defense. The eighty five Bears that everyone talks about the greatest defense of all time, which it had, but it also had the number two offense in the sport that year and beat their playoff opponents. De Monse ninety one to ten is a top five team of all time.
The Bears quarterback ever thrown from more than four thousand yards.
I know because they had.
Defense I guess was amazing.
But okay, the defense was amazing, and they had an amazing running game. They scored the second most points of any team in the league that year. The the who are the other teams? I'm leaving out an obvious one ninety two Cowboys pretty good. Seventy eight Steelers which had I think eleven Hall of Famers, they're pretty good. The
seven Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl. The the greatest team I've ever seen the twenty sixteen Patriots that went fourteen and two and ran had a top too offense and defense. They were pretty good. Uh, the ninety eight Broncos in route to a back to back championship. Like listen, the Eagles had the number eight offense, number two defense, and were in one score playoff games in rounds one in rounds two? Now, did the Eagles have a top five Super Bowl performance because of what they did and who
they did it to? Sure? All listen to that. You want to say, did they have a top five all time final two games by just dismantling the Commanders and then dismantling the Chiefs. Sure, I'll listen to that. But top five? Yeah, but they still scored fifty five, you know what I mean? Or whatever they scored like the Sure, but I just again, everyone just leave the list to me.
Your guys lists suck. And again I just and he wouldn't even it was so his top Here were his top five teams of all time for the record, seventy two Dolphins because they're undefeated. Good job, eighty five Bears, good job the two thousand Ravens, who it's not even
a tenable opinion. And then he was like one of the Brady teams and one of the Mahomes teams, like that's not even like a thing, and so I just like whatever, all right, let's remember to everyone like rate, subscribe, review if you have time to, you know, when you're not listening to the Read blank and Ship Cooper Degen podcast, if you want to check out what's right with Nick right, we'd appreciate it. You know you think I'm being rude there, Demansey.
The podcast, It's gonna be very insightful, and you know.
I'm gonna go do a three cone drill after this after our pod.
So you unveiled your latest rendition of Club Superstar, and you took Donovan, you put hot Donovan Mitchell in and Hallyan for the first time, you took embiid and a d out. Could you explain to us your process and how the club management goes about getting these guys in and out?
Yeah, so all right, so tell me. So, here are the twelve guys in and we can put the graphic up Halliburton, Brunson, Joker, Shay, Luca, Jannis, braun Steph, Donovan, Durant and Tatum. It's a twelve person max, So if you want to put someone in, you got to kick someone out. We took out Embiid because of all the injury stuff and ad for similar reasons. You might be like, then how does Tatum stay in? Tatum has been so consistent and so durable that you know, one season long
injury does not get him kicked out? Like his spot is secure? Uh, you seem to have I mean the hardest call was Donovan.
Donovan Mitchell surprised me.
Yeah, so who would you would you have any of those guys in over him?
That's what I was I was trying to think of. I mean, uh, yeah, Anthony Davis is the because.
In line was Wimby, Cad Shingoon and Devin Booker. Wimby is the obvious next guy in, but he's got to actually do it, you know what I mean, He's got to actually earn his way in. And so I I you know, I did a bit job with that had all that.
Yeah, I understand how Donovan Mitchell slips in.
There the sorry can you hear me? Sol Demons?
Yes, I've got you.
Okay, good, Sorry about that, my I knocked my AirPod out of my ear. I mean, a D is a tough, tough one. And the argument against Donovan is, you know, eight years in the league and the playoffs every year, never in round three. It's hard, though, to use that as an argument to put a D n over him, because do I think Donovan could have you know, made a conference finals or an NBA finals alongside Lebron like a D. Did I do? Like we when a D was the guy he never got past round one. It's
a tricky spot. Donovan is for a guy who hasn't been deep in the playoffs, he's not a playoff dropper, like you know what I mean. It's up huge numbers, and Brew raised the question do we not have twelve superstars? Right?
That's the other thing I was kind of thinking, but go ahead, It's just like no, go ahead. Was just looking around at the teams. I'm like, who can get in over this guy? But it's like it's a little scarce, right.
It's a weird because the league is so deep on really good players. But maybe a little thin on great, great players because the other argument was should Kevin Durant be out? And my answer to that question is, he's such an iconic player who still plays at a high enough level. I don't feel comfort He's still twenty seven a game, you know what, I don't feel comfortable, yeah, taking him out? So to me, those are the twelve What are your follow ups here? Yeah?
I care to explain how Joki took Lebron's throne.
That was an editorial choice made by the artist Jack Perkins, who does a great job. You can follow him on Twitter at Pure Hoop and listen. I give him the lists. He makes the picture. I gotta tell you, I wasn't thrilled with seeing Lebron out of the throne, but I guess Jokers earned it for now. But yeah, that was not I didn't trust me. I didn't I didn't demand that now I did hear.
That.
I'm okay with Lebron being moved out of the throne because he's no longer in the argument the best player in the league. MI Pal Simmons yesterday did a top fifteen player pyramid and didn't have Lebron on that. Now that's an outrage, Like, that's just objectively that. Here's the thing about the Lebron rankings that is so irritating to me at times, people keep primative surely downgrading him because of his age, when we just saw he just finished
sixth in MVP voting, sixth. He just finished firmly second team All NBA. So why all of a sudden is he not one of the fifteen best players in the league. Like you, the Lebron is anywhere you You could fairly argue for Lebron to be as high as fifth and as low as tenth best player in the league. But that's it. And the what is frustrating to me about Bill's ranking specifically is the he still has Steph Curry
as like the seventh best guy. There's no there's there's no way to look at this NBA season and say Steph was better than Lebron, not by stats, not by team record, not by individual accolades, not by any of it. Now you can say his team made it one round further in the playoffs, so be it that that part is true, But that's it was that, but that team also was and be like, well, how much of Lebron's team success this year was because they traded for Luca.
STEP's team was sub five hundred when they traded for Jimmy. Like, that's a weird one for me. But set that aside. Lebron obviously still superstar. Steph's obviously still a superstar, and that's you know, that's where we're at all, right.
Next, do you think that Halliburton still would you still given him a spot if he would have lost in round one?
No? Now, I submitted this list before round one was over. I submitted this list. I took a screenshot of it yesterday to send to Gianna of when I submitted this list. I submitted this list May seventh. So let's see where we were in the playoffs on May seventh. I've got to I can pull that up quickly. So when I submitted this list, we were the games that had just been played. Is the Pacers had just taken a two to zero lead on the Caves. Oh, so that's interesting.
I didn't even realize that I submitted this list the morning after Halliburton executed that insane comeback on the Calves. And so maybe I, you know, maybe I was kind of in the afterglow of that. But he's proven me right by his performances throughout. And the other thing is so no losing in round one? No, But had they ended up losing in round two to still been comfortable with it?
All?
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Oklahoma City dominated Minnesota. Last night, the defense was humming all of OKC stars were looking good. People want to talk about the probability of this being a dynasty. You think they should hold the brakes on it. What is OKC gunning for here historically?
Well, listen, they are four wins away demons from one of the single greatest seasons in NBA history. Like that part is that has to be There's two real metrics for two hard metrics for how good your seaton, like how good your season was, and then some softer metrics. But the first one is how many games did you win? What was your record? And they have now become the fourth team ever to enter the finals with eighty victories.
And now, when we go long to long term history, you got to recognize that the playoffs have expanded a bit and changed but a shorthand. You know, the ninety six Bulls who won seventy two regular season games did it. The ninety seven Bulls who won sixty nine regular season games did it. And the seventy three win Warriors who won seventy three regular season games but did not win the championship. They all did it. They all got to eighty wins before the start of the NBA Finals. So
check off that box. As far as you know, that's really a regular season stat. It means how many regular season wins did you get? But we already knew sixty eight wins. The list of teams to win more than sixty eight games in a single season are those two seventy, the seventy two win Balls, the sixty nine win Balls that I mentioned, the seventy three win Warriors, and then one other team, the sixty nine Lakers that they went
on to win the championship. That's every team that won more regular season games than these Thunder The teams to win sixty eight games are also at least well, one of them is an all time team. The other one came up short to the Knicks in the conference finals.
You have the eighty three Sixers, who I'm sorry, not the eighty three sixers, the sixty seven sixers, the eighty three sixers that were I put them there because I think they're one of the greatest teams ever, the faux Fox Fox Sixers, but that was not they were not the dominant regular season team. These teams were. And then the seventy three Celtics, which came up short, and then this Thunder team. If we lower the threshold to sixty
seven wins. Then it gets a little fuzzier because you have some great teams and some not so great teams. Sixty seven wins, the eighty six Celtics in the short on the short list of greatest team of all time, Like, that's pretty undeniable that you've got to at least include them when you are discussing who are the greatest teams of all time? The eighty six Celtics have to be on that list. The ninety two Bowls, who I actually think might be maybe the best of the Bulls teams
that finished off the first three peat. There's at least an argument there. The two thousand Lakers, the first championship with Shaq and Kobe, the twenty fifteen Warriors, which is the first championship with Steph, the twenty seventeen Warriors, the first championship with Stephan Durant, and then a couple teams. One that gets kind of is a punchline, and the other is an all time great team that ran up
against another all time great team. The punchline is the seven MAVs, who lost in Round one after winning sixty seven games to the We Believe Warriors. And the other one is the twenty sixteen Spurs who just happened to be it. I mean, that team was unbelievable. They got clipped in round two by the twenty sixteen Thunder, who then ran into the twenty sixteen Warriors, who then ran
into Pete Lebron James. But so to do this quickly, teams to win sixty seven plus you have first year Steph won a title, first year Stephan Kde won a title together. You have the first year Shaq and Kobe won a title. You have Jordan's Bulls the third time they won a title, and the best Celtics team of all time, the eighty six Celtics. Those are the sixty seven win teams plus the two with that I just mentioned that didn't win the title. The sixty eight win
teams are this year's Thunder. And then you add to it the seventy three Celtics not you know, at a disappointing playoffs, and then sixty seven six Ers with Wilt won the title, and then sixty nine win teams Jordan's Bowls, the fifth championship, the Laker team that had the thirty three game winning streak in seventy two, the ninety six Bulls won seventy two, and then the Warriors the seventy three win Warriors. So that's the company they keep. So there's one kind of hard piece of data, how many
games did you win? The other one is were you blowing people out? And teams that finished the year with a ten plus point differential? Eighties last year's Celtics and then the eight Celtics, Kareem's Bucks in seventy one, the Durant first year Durant Warriors, that other Warriors team the first year they won the title, the Bowls a couple times, and the Lakers in seventy two. The Thunder beaten teams this year by almost thirteen points per game. So they
check both of the hard metric boxes. You then add the kind of softer factors. How good was the league in that time? I think the league's as talented as it's ever been. What was their path to the finals and to a championship? That one probably cuts against them a bit. They are not going through legendary opponents en route, and they won't face a legendary opponent in the finals. They did, however, go through a legendary player in Joker and that was a classic set game series. Another kind
of soft factor. Did they have an all time player on their team all time? I don't know yet, but the guy who had the best season this year and Shae, Yeah they did. I mean, Shay was unbelievable in the regular season, has been almost as good in the playoffs.
Would not have would not have an all time player make it a better feat.
It might make it more impressive, but it's hard to argue when you're talking about the best single seasons in NBA history, it's and I left out some of the sixty six win teams and some of the best teams ever were sixty six win teams. Lebron's Heat that had the twenty seven game winning streak I mentioned earlier, the eight Celtics, which were awesome. Those were the margin of victories. I mentioned Kareem's Bucks that you know there are some a couple Lakers teams, one with Magic, one with Kobe.
Oh those were sixty five, not sixty six. But it would make it more impressive. Maybe demands, But when we're talking about who the greatest teams of all time are, and if we're trying to do the hypothetical, if they were to match up against each other, right, you want to be able to say, our guy can at least kind of look eye to eye with your guy. And if your guy is peak Wilt Chamberlain or peak Michael Jordan or peak Larry Bird, and my guy is yeah,
Chauncey Billips and again. And I'm just picking a team that won the title, even though they're not in the all time team discussion. That's gonna be a harder argument to make. Shay is making an argument that he's building an all time resume. It's a weird one because of how he started, and it was a slow progression, but he's just got better and better and better every single year. I so I am okay with saying this is an
all time single season. I am not okay with saying this is an all time team because what the other all time teams had was stacked accomplishments, you know, multiple finals, appearances, multiple championships, and the teams kind of bleed together. But single season it's that. But that then gets us to the point you were making. And I understand Pacer fans maybe, or Nick fans even or like, my god, you're acting like they won the championship yesterday, and to that I
would say, no, I'm not. I actually acted like they won the championship on Monday night, because to me, they did. That was the That was the end of the competitive portion of this year's NBA season. And that's not to say the Pacers or the Knicks can't beat them in
a game. But when a team has home court and that team beats people in the playoffs at home by fifty one, nineteen, forty three, seven, thirty two, twenty six, fifteen and thirty with one loss coming on a buzzer beater, they're gonna win the championship when they also are a team that can, if it were to happen, Demons deal with injury better than any other team in the now. They can't deal with an injury to Shay, but nobody
can lose their best player. They could, but they they could lose JDub or Chet and still win the championship much less lose what I mean, go ahead?
Oh no, yeah, I don't know. I feel like Cheed is such a presence. Chet losing Check probably put them.
Oh, I think it would change them, but I wouldn't like, I wouldn't write them off any of these other teams, if they lost one of their three best guys, you would basically just write them off. You couldn't do it with this team because of how deep they are. So I have and I'm not trying to give myself credit here, I am trying to remind the audience. I guess I was not one of the loud Thunder skeptics. Now. I didn't pick them to win the championship because I thought
the Lakers could beat them. After I saw the Lakers beat them in a game the Thunder wanted and then the Lakers play them to a tie until Luca got kicked out, and I was like, Okay, I think the Lakers are the one team that can give them real prime problems. Maybe Boston. But I thought the Thunder were a legitimate championship caliber team all year, and the moment the Lakers went out, I said, I think they're gonna
win the title. With all that said, I think the dynasty talk is so silly, and I understand folks argument is they are set up so well. And I will just make the point that I made on Tuesday again. We think every team almost is set up so well when they're in the midst of winning, and to which some people will reply, yeah, but those teams weren't as young. That's true that the Bucks in twenty twenty one, or the Nuggets in twenty twenty three, or even the Celtics
last year weren't as young. However, with the Bucks and the Nuggets, we did feel like their best player was in already in once they won the title, the historically great conversation, and Shay isn't quite in that yet. Like we thought, yes, this Thunder team's younger, but we thought that Giannis and Joker in that moment were a tick
above where Shay is in this moment. And the other argument people are going to make is yes, but the nugget it's the for the Thunder, it's all that draft capital that they have, And that is true, but it's also a little misleading. So the the Thunder's draft capital is more quantity than quality. So I'm I'm going to
go through it just too. And this is courtesy of real GM to remind people what they have, because what you're gonna see is it's a ton of stuff, and it's a ton of stuff that theoretically they could use in trades, but it's not like oh Man, that could be the third pick of the draft. Okay, so this year they have the fifteenth pick from Miami and the twenty fourth pick from the Clippers, at least I think fact checked me in the because I don't have this year's pulled up. Fact check me in the doc if
I'm wrong about this year. But they the then next year, what they have. They have Houston's pick next season protected one through four, So Houston, we think Houston's going to be quite good next year, so a late pick next year. And then they have I want to make sure I
get this right, the Clippers pick next year. So I think the Clippers showed us this year that they are going to be at least a credible team, and so are those are fine picks, but none of those appear or feel like those are going to be, you know, I lottery top ten picks, right. And then they have Phillies pick next year potentially, and again they only get two of these, So these are the best ones they
could get. Phillies pick if it falls outside of the top four, and Utah's pick if it falls outside of the top eight. The moral of the story is next year they are going to have a bunch of extra picks, and they all look like they are not going to be lottery picks because Utah is the only team on that list that is likely going to be in the lottery, and Utah likely is going to be able to keep their pick because it'll be in the top eight. In twenty twenty seven, they again they get the Clippers pick,
and that's unprotected. Maybe that could be good. Maybe, and Denver's pick, which, assuming Joker doesn't retire, is not going to be that good. And in twenty twenty eight they can swap with Dallas. Again, do we think Dallas, now that they have Cooper Flag and Anthony Davis is there, that that's going to be a top five pick? No, And then that's really I think they have one more Denver pick later, but again, unless we think Joker is
going to retire. So the point I'm making in a somewhat convoluted fashion is it's a lot of stuff, but it's not great stuff. Now the argument there would be demons. Yeah, but they can package that stuff for a star. And that then gets to to me the next interesting domino for the Thunder, which is, yeah, are they going to want to be expensive? Are they going to want to for the first time in franchise history be a big luxury tax butt up against the apron type of team.
And my answer to that question is I don't see why they would now. And you can say, well, they want to check right, correct, right, They didn't want to pay it then, And you can be like, well, but now they won a championship. That could cut either way. Maybe you would be like, they want a championship now they just want to win, win, win. They also want to be like, we want a championship without having a super expensive team, so why do we need one? And so it is a different NBA guys, and it's a
different NBA. Also in this regard the onl like the guys who have reeled off a bunch are guys who are top ten all time players. The one guy who is pretty consensus outside of the top ten who reeled off even two is Isaiah Thomas, and he's firmly in the top twenty, but outside the top ten. So Joker
would have checked those boxes. Little Unlucky some Jamal Murray's injuries, you know, Jannis could have potentially little Unlucky, uh didn't have you know, this type of pick Bounty though, to be fair in Milwaukee, to make up for some of those mistakes. And I'm not saying Shay is not Shaye. I said all year was the MVP. But it is surprising to me how many people who a month ago were quite convinced the Celtics were about to reel off a bunch of championships are now convinced the Thunder are
about to reel off a bunch of championships. And so I you know too long, didn't listen all time single season team. Yes, set up pretty well for the future. Yes, going to win this championship without a doubt. Yes, ready to pencil them in for multiple titles. No, So that's where I land on Oklahoma City. They will be in the mix for years to come, but as a lot of teams can attest, in the mix doesn't really buy you anything in the modern NBA