Clippers Rock Bottom 9.0, Plus Charles Barkley on the Clips, 76ers, Lakers, ESPN, and Why He Loves Josh Allen

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons starts the pod by giving his thoughts on the NBA punishing the Clippers. Then, Charles Barkley joins to discuss the Clippers news, Jaylen in Philly, LeBron leaving the Lakers, and much more! (0:00) Intro (2:50) The Clippers get punished (22:57) Charles Barkley on the Clippers, ESPN, and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Charles Barkley Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for teen gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in Four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payingfor. PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457.

• 0:39Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables. On Monday, we did Aliens, one of the most requested movies of the last couple of years. We have Talladega Nights coming next Monday. That's gonna be the Ringer Fantasy Football Guy taking over the pod on that. Bunch of football stuff next week. Sunday, me and Sal are gonna do Guess the Lines Week One and we're gonna do all of our NFL futures. I'm gonna have a podcast on Tuesday, go on Wednesday night after the Patriots game, and then Thursday night after Rams and 49ers in Australia. So, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday will all be live on Netflix, so stay tuned for that. I'm in Boston, Massachusetts, where I went to Fenway Park yesterday with my dad and my

• 1:23Bill Simmons?

  son and my daughter's boyfriend, who has had an interesting week. We got to see a Mariners loss, but we had a great time and it was great to be at Fenway, one of my favorite places on the earth. Not really enjoying the allergies these days. Went to my daughter's game on Tuesday. They won their first game of the season. She scored a goal, so that was fun. It's been an interesting week, up and down week in a lot of different ways, but that's the thing. When you've been in the limelight for a while, shit happens. Anyway, Barkley's coming up in a little bit. That's right, Charles Barkley. Every September, right before football season, comes on the pod. We had him randomly booked and yet, in the last 48 hours, all hell broke loose with the Clippers. Last 24 hours, last 36 hours, whatever it was.

• 2:09Bill Simmons?

  So, we got to hear him talk about the Clippers. I am going to talk at the top of the podcast, all my thoughts on the Clippers. It's gonna be right after the break, right after Pearl Jam, and then me talking about the Clippers. And then after that, Charles Barkley, that's next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all-time FanDuel Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to FanDuel.com/BS to start earning with FanDuel Rewards Club. 21-plus select states or 18-plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming.

• 2:49Bill Simmons?

  Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:23Bill Simmons?

  All right, I'm recording the top part of the podcast here, early Thursday afternoon. I went to the Red Sox yesterday. My phone started blowing up and it was because the verdict finally came in on the Clippers from the law firm of Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz. And the Clippers were in trouble. This was the biggest punishment ever handed out in the National Basketball Association. You know all of it at this point. Five first-round picks, Ballmer's out for a year, Lawrence Frank, six months, $30 million fine for Ballmer. Can't go to his own arena. The arena that he just spent five years slaving over trying to figure out how to make the best basketball arena possible. Can't go to the games next year. This was a phenomenal level of incompetence from Ballmer and the Clippers.

• 4:07Bill Simmons?

  When you think back to 2019, where LeBron had shown up in LA the year before, the Clippers were so desperate to be relevant again in year five of Ballmer that they literally hoard themselves out in every way they could. Not only did they do everything it took to get Kawhi, they trade S.J. and all those picks for Paul George because that's the only way you can get them together. Instead, they're just playing poker with Kawhi, which I still don't know where else he would've gone. Regardless, they get fleeced in the Paul George trade, which was defensible when it happened, but six years later, it looks like one of the worst trades in the history of the league. They got fleeced by somebody named Uncle Dennis, who is no longer allowed near any kind of league business for the next five years.

• 4:50Bill Simmons?

  They got screwed over by Kawhi Leonard, I think. You know, you think about like, who didn't get punished in this? How about Kawhi? He only had to pay a $700,000 fine. He got to go back to Toronto, the team he should've ended up with anyway. Didn't really lose any money. Didn't get suspended for 20 games without pay. And, you know, why'd they do this? Because obviously, the Players Union, and maybe even Kawhi too. It's like, hey, if you're easy on Kawhi, we won't challenge this. And as soon as the Players Union can't challenge it, the Clippers have no recourse because they had agreed to abide by whatever the NBA found in the investigation. So, if the Players Union's not suing, and nobody's suing, this is kinda what they're stuck with.

• 5:31Bill Simmons?

  They have screwed up almost a decade and a half of their franchise, dating back to the summer of 2019. Like, they're not gonna have their pick in 2032. That would be 13 years after the Kawhi signing. They could basically throw a bar mitzvah in 2032 for how fucking stupid they are. They've turned themselves into the Southern California Brooklyn Nets. They, I think, will have less fans over the next couple of years than they've ever had at any point in the history of the franchise, including in the 80s and 90s, when the owner was actively trying not to spend any money. And somehow, they are the single most depressing situation in the NBA yet again.

• 6:11Bill Simmons?

  If you think about the mid-2000s Timberwolves after the Joe Smith verdict and the damage that that did to Kevin Garnett's prime. Kevin Garnett is one of the 25 best players ever and makes the 2004 Conference Finals despite the fact that they lost Joe Smith and were starting to lose all their first-round picks. Within '05, '06, '07, never makes the playoffs, right? You're one of the best players in the league, you can't even make the playoffs in a 16-team playoff. And they ended up having to trade him to Boston where he finally wins the title. This demolished them. And what happens, and this is what's gonna happen in the Clippers, when you don't have picks, you can't get somebody like Jokic or Giannis to show up in 2027 or 2028. No free agent wants to go there because you don't have a future.

• 6:55Bill Simmons?

  You have to start taking these huge risks. You take risks on people like Mark Blunt. That's what Minnesota did. Or Ricky Davis. Or, you know, you're taking these big expensive contracts that people are actually trying to dump, but the player is good and you're hoping maybe it'll work out with the player. And by the way, if your front office isn't that good, like, look at Minnesota. They wasted the whole mid-2000s. Garnett trade was defensible because they got Al Jefferson and some picks back, but then in 2009, you know, they passed Curry, they passed on Curry twice. So, that demolished, I would say, a decade and a half for the Timberwolves? Based on all the picks they lost, having to trade Garnett, and then incompetence, could that be what happens to the Clippers?

• 7:40Bill Simmons?

  If Wogler, the first-round pick the Clippers got in the Zubac trade, if he becomes a bust, they took him fifth. I'm just saying, I hope he doesn't. I hope he turns out great. If he becomes a bust, this is the single most depressing NBA situation since the early 80s Cavaliers, when owner Ted Stepien traded away so many first-round picks, they had to create the Stepien rule to basically prevent anyone from being as stupid as this Cleveland Cavs owner was. This will be the most depressing situation since then. All right, so, the Clippers are still professing like they're innocent, but, you know, if you do the sniff test here, and this is something that Pablo Torre did so well, as he was doing

• 8:22Bill Simmons?

  on the podcast about it, where he was, he had real evidence, but was also like, hey, does this pass the sniff test to you guys, basically? Well, you look at the sniff test now from when we look at that report, we know that multiple NBA teams already said in the late 2010s that Uncle Dennis was making crazy demands. Like, that's documented. They'd like, asking for hockey, pieces of hockey teams and crazy shit. So, we already knew that was happening in the summer of 2019. From the report, these are just things that were in the report. Post-signing, they said Uncle Dennis consistently pushed the Clippers for 10 million a year in extra Kawhi endorsements. And if you read between the lines of 47 different things that you can just add together, it's

• 9:05Bill Simmons?

  clear they were like, yeah, all right, you do this and we'll try to figure out how to get you to 10 million a year somehow. Four companies that he had endorsements with, this is from the report, each company had never before signed an endorsement agreement of remotely the same financial magnitude and hasn't since. That's notable. Also from the report, each agreement imposed minimal performance obligations on Mr. Leonard relative to the amount he was paid. I talked about this a few weeks ago. It never added up why he was getting endorsement money not to endorse anything. Well, the report spells it out. Go read it, 36 pages. Also from the report, no agreement was publicly announced. So, you're paying up money for all this dude to endorse your product, but we don't know

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  he's endorsing it and he's not doing any work for it? Sniff test. There were also emails from the aspiration higher-ups. The Clippers are promising to increase the amount they pay us per quarter in line with what we pay this guy, is a direct quote from one of the emails. Another responded, thanks for verifying. We should be fine if it's cash flow neutral. So, this is basically, this is spelling out Clippers giving aspiration money and it's coming back to them and it's just kinda going back and forth because they're trying to figure out how to get Kawhi stuff. And then also in the report, Clippers Chief Commercial Officer Scott Sonnenberg, talking about the Forum deal that they had. I never wanted this Forum deal, always knew it was super shady. I cannot begin to tell you all the red flags of these deals, just doing what I'm told.

• 10:34Bill Simmons?

  So, that's documented. Not great.

• 10:40Bill Simmons?

  There's some what-if stuff. I got some good questions about this over the last 24 hours, including, you know, the Clippers, the five first-round picks are gone. Should that have just been the prize for the in-season tournament? They're not going to do that. But the first round now, 29 teams, so everybody has a better chance of they move up in the draft. So it has all these ramifications. So everyone else in the league has to be delighted that the Clippers got their legs cut out, and it also makes the draft a little easier for them. The most interesting email I got was from Tim from Philly, who asked, let's say the Clippers won in 2021, and then it turned out all this stuff had happened after the fact. What if they had won a title? What if they won the title in '23? Would Adam have

• 11:25Bill Simmons?

  had to revoke it, college sports style? One of the weird things about this was a lot of the Kawhi stuff was really centered around the extension, like the 2022-23 range. One of the years where he was hurt, I didn't understand that part at all, and it almost makes it seem like it was some IU stuff. There's a million things I don't get about this. The biggest one being, why are you doing all this for Kawhi Leonard? I get it. He won the 2018 title, and you could argue he was the best player in the world at the time. And he gave you credibility to battle LeBron and all this stuff. But you're dealing with somebody named Uncle Dennis. And in this world, you could say,

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  you could talk about, oh, every NBA team does this. This is a whole other level of what every other NBA team would do. Like, even if they had gotten him an endorsement to do like an El Segundo sub shop, and he held the sub up, like that famous Scottie Pippen sandwich ad, where he's holding the one with the giant foot-long sandwich with the two girls between him. That's one of the funniest ads of all time. Even if he had done that, and they overpaid him for that, at least he was getting paid for work. I just can't believe that these people who also built like an awesome building, who seem really competent in everything they do, were this bad when you read this 36-page report. But then you think, what more could we have expected from the most incompetent

• 12:53Bill Simmons?

  sports franchise of all time? I wrote a piece, Curse of the Clippers, in 2009, after Blake Griffin got drafted, where I spelt all of this stuff. I'm just going to rip through the highlights, not even from that piece, but everything after. This is a team that traded for young Moses Malone in 1976, and then flipped them six days later for two first-round picks. They traded their MVP, two-time MVP Bob McAdoo, for John Gino in cash. They traded two starters and an unprotected first for Bill Walton, who had broken feet and ended up having 35 surgeries. Players they stupidly gave away or lost since the NBA merger in 1976. Mentioned Moses and McAdoo, Adrian Danley, Terry Cummings, Tom Chambers, Danny Manning, Lamar Odom, Andre Miller, and Elton Brand. That's just in the 33-year

• 13:37Bill Simmons?

  span from '76 to 2009. They traded future firsts for World Be Free and Joe Bryant, and those firsts became Charles Barkley and the number-one pick in the 1986 draft, Brad Doherty. They took Danny Ferry, one spot ahead of Glenn Rice. Even though Danny Ferry was like, I'm not reporting the Clippers, and ended up not reporting and playing in Italy, they had traded him to Clippers. They passed on KG and Kobe in consecutive drafts in spots where they easily could have taken them. A lot of people passed on them, but it's notable. They drafted Michael O'Leary first in a draft with Pierce, Vince, and Dirk. They drafted or traded the following stars, traded for the following stars, who

• 14:20Bill Simmons?

  either blew out their knee or their Achilles. Tiny Archibald, Norm Nixon, Marcus Johnson, Danny Manning, Derrick Smith, Ron Harper, and Lloyd Vought. They drafted 18 forwards in the top nine over a 33-year span. They drafted Blake Griffin in 2009. Super exciting, immediately gets hurt, misses his rookie season. They traded Baron Davis in 2010 to get off his contract, the 2010-11 season. The pick they trade to get rid of the contract ends up being the number-one pick in the draft, Kyrie Irving. 2014, their best chance ever to make the finals. They get completely submersed by the Donald Sterling scandal, which was the craziest owner scandal in the history of the league. Submarines them during

• 15:04Bill Simmons?

  the playoffs, where it seemed like they might have the best chance to win of anyone in the playoffs. So that happened. They do the Kawhi trade, which ends up with them giving away SGA and Jalen Williams, and basically building the OKC dynasty. Then the Kawhi piece of it, where he just keeps getting hurt, that basically blows up the first half of their decade, where they never know if they can rely on him. COVID, 2020? It's forgotten that. As we're heading into COVID, three teams have a chance to win the title, Milwaukee and the two LA basketball teams. We go into the bubble. What was the team that completely fell apart in the bubble more than, like famously, more than anybody? The team that just kind of wanted to get out of there and didn't care if they won

• 15:46Bill Simmons?

  a playoff round or not? The Clippers. And then 2021, right when that season's wide open, ends up being Phoenix and Milwaukee. What happens? Kawhi gets hurt in round two, they end up not making the finals. That's the only time they ever made a conference finals. They do not have a retired number, at least that I know of. The best Clipper is probably Chris Paul, the best Clipper ever, who they just completely torpedoed their relationship last year. The second-best Clipper they've ever had is Blake Griffin, who they signed to a big contract and then traded to Detroit, cut his legs out. And the third-best Clipper is probably Kawhi Leonard, who just caused them a bar mitzvah

• 16:29Bill Simmons?

  worth of damage over the 2020s and early 2030s. So they have no picks in '29, '30, '31, '32, and '33. And I don't know how you fix it. So the big question for me, was this the right punishment? And this is, I'm not saying they shouldn't have been punished. I'm saying, was this the punishment that they deserved? Because I think you could make a case. Maybe you give Ballmer the choice. Maybe it's either you sell the team,

• 17:09Bill Simmons?

  or here's the punishment. And if you don't sell the team, your fans are going to know that you chose to keep the team and screw them over, basically, for a half a decade. So you pick. You tell us. Because either you sell it in the next six, nine months, or here's the punishment. Because the part that gets lost in this is you have all these Clipper fans. There's not a lot of them, but they're there. They're around Southern California, and there's people that bought season tickets, including myself. I bought, I have season tickets with my friend Mike Tolan. When they built this new building, they went around and they went to a lot of, they basically asked if you want to sign a contract, if you buy in for five years, you know, you get 20% off, you get this, you

• 17:51Bill Simmons?

  get that. So we're in year three of a five-year contract for Clipper tickets. And we signed up with a team that just cheated and got docked, according to the NBA. Do they care about the fans at all? Like, would they offer any Clipper fan, like, hey, this was really bad, we get it. If you want to opt out of your tickets, if you want to, if you bought tickets for a game this year and you want us to return the money, if you bought half of a season ticket, whatever, we're offering you a refund right now. What happens if there's a class-action fund? Like, if Clippers season ticket people got together and were like, we're actually going to sue the Clippers because we don't want to pay for tickets

• 18:36Bill Simmons?

  this year after everything that happened? What would happen? This has never been tested in the history of the NBA. And the bigger thing to me, and this is what I don't like about the punishment. I get why they had to do it that way, and you have to have, basically, this is the third rail, and people know what it is now. The people that get punished are the fans. Steve Ballmer's worth $15 billion, right? Oh, no, I have to pay a $30 million fine. Like, he probably burped that out. Oh, I can't go to Clipper games for a year. Well, who watch him on TV? Jalen Jacobs and Lawrence Frank, like, they're suspended. He gave Lawrence Frank a huge extension right before all this stuff happened. The fans are stuck with the team. And this is what happened in Minnesota in the mid-2000s.

• 19:19Bill Simmons?

  This is what led, when I was at ESPN, I wrote a magazine column about how I wanted to be the new GM of the Timberwolves, because they had hit rock bottom, and maybe they needed hope and some outside thinking. How do you fix this from a Clipper standpoint with the fans? Like, not only was this Kawhi thing a nightmare from start to finish, they never won anything with him, right? And then on top of it, they had to trade for James Harden to try to make Kawhi happier, and then they gave up more picks. This 2028 pick they have, it's probably going to the Celtics unprotected. It's like a Celtics, Sixers, they get the best of the pick, of however the pick played out. So even before they lose '29, '30, '31, '32, '33, that pick's going to Boston in '28. So as a Celtic

• 20:02Bill Simmons?

  fan, I'll be rooting against Clippers next couple of years. But how do you reconcile all this with the fans? How do you get them to come back? What do you do? How do you think outside the box to make them feel good about being a Clipper fan again, especially tying in the last 50 years of this franchise? And the fact that from the moment they moved to Southern California or started thinking about it, it's like somebody tossed a black hat on this team, and it's never going to change. And if the outcome had been sell the Intuit Dome to the Lakers, move this team to Seattle, I just don't think there's a lot of tear shit. I really don't. And I think what Ballmer did with this team, where he was basically following the worst owner in the history of the league, one of the

• 20:47Bill Simmons?

  worst owners in the history of sports, and somehow came up with an even worse outcome than anything from a basketball standpoint that happened with Sterling. So this is a disaster. I really think that there should be some outs for the fans, because I think this is just bullshit. You root for a team, you pick a team, you're stuck with them, you're not allowed to divorce your team. So, by the way, we're allowed to divorce real people, but not our teams. And if you pick the Clippers, you're just taking the chin for your entire life. So how is that worth it? At some point, you got to come up with another choice for an NBA team. And honestly, I think it's right now for a lot of people. So, yeah.

• 21:32Bill Simmons?

  I never thought the Clippers would find a new rock bottom, but I think they have. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna go to Charles Barkley and Charles' audio and video was cutting out a little bit. So there's some video spots that we had to run a picture when his video stopped, but it's that you're gonna enjoy it. He's great and he's coming up next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. And guess what? FanDuel is now everywhere. I'm not kidding. It's everywhere. California, Texas, Georgia, Florida, you can finally get in on the action at home, the game, whatever the group is watching. It's all up to you. FanDuel makes sports more exciting because every fan can now celebrate

• 22:13Bill Simmons?

  your team winning, or when the group chat calls the comeback. Doesn't matter what state you're in. Wherever you are, get in on the sports action with FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app today. FanDuel. Play your game. Age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See FanDuel.com for eligibility. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. This episode is brought to you by one of my best friends in life, NFL Sunday Ticket. Man, I missed it. Kickoff's coming. Yeah, we're getting close. We're within a month. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place, and it's magnificent. And there's no other way to follow the NFL season. I'm

• 22:56Bill Simmons?

  so mad I didn't get YouTube TV until a couple of years ago because it's the best. New users, that might include you, can get NFL Sunday Ticket for eight payments of just $30 a month. You heard me correctly. New users pay $240 or eight, eight non-cancellable payments of $30 a month. First charge at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. Charles Barkley is here on a Thursday morning, which we had planned, I think for a couple of weeks, not realizing that the biggest punishment in the history of the NBA was

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  about to come down against the sad sack Clippers, a team that when you ended up in Philadelphia, you ended up with the Clippers pick because they had traded their first five years earlier for Jelly Bean Joe Bryant. And you end up with that, you could have been a Clipper. I mean, you probably wouldn't even be talking to me right now. You might be living in like a one bedroom apartment in Alabama somewhere.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Hey, you listen, the luck of the draw. You know, listen, it was really interesting. Like, remember when that thing came out like two weeks ago? And the Clippers like, well, we found no wrongdoing, blah, blah, blah. Then like, a day later, NBA said, no, that's their investigation. We got a different one.

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  So I said, somebody asked me what I thought. I says, well, the NBA is trying to figure out what to do. The Clippers are not very good at cheating. They got busted. And they're trying to figure out a way to save the integrity of the people of the NBA. They're not very good at cheating. I mean, this was one of them. Shout out to Pop Ray for uncovering, like, wow, no break, like, really easy cheating to find. So listen, I think they did the best they could under the circumstances. And the Clippers got what they deserved. But this

• 25:07Speaker 01

  was probably let Kawhi come to Canada. And that's the best case scenario.

• 25:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, when Kawhi, when that trade got greenlit for him to go to Toronto, that made me suspicious because Toronto was probably the team in 2019 that had the most agenda against the Clippers for how it played out.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, listen, number one, Kawhi should have never left Toronto in the beginning. He owned an entire country. He had a great general manager, Masajiri. I mean, it was, that was one of the great runs. That was one of the great runs in NBA history by one guy who took an entire organization to the top. And he should have never left Toronto in the first place. But this is just a stain on the NBA, plain and simple. This looks bad. There's no way that, there's nothing you can really... Clippers got busted for cheating. And then, I guess they got busted twice for cheating.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Because I guess Kawhi was getting paid by two different companies.

• 26:16Bill Simmons?

  Four.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Like, first...

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  And sponsors I'd never heard of. People that didn't normally have sponsorship agreements with anybody. And that's when, once you get to four, pretty tough to cover up this stuff.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, even if you did a commercial, you could at least cover it up a little bit.

• 26:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, you get paid for not doing anything. That's really bad cheating. They could at least put him in some kind of a fake commercial or something like that to try to cover their ass. Which, which honestly, if we're gonna be honest, that's what they probably should have did. Like, they have to know, especially when I saw when people start getting arrested, you know, everybody's gonna flip to get less jail time. So that's when, when the aspiration thing went down, my man got jail time. You have to know, that's when the cookie started crumbling. So if they were gonna cheat like they did, all they really had to do, Bill, honestly, just do a fake commercial.

• 27:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they should have did something like that so they would have been able to cover their ass.

• 27:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was the, in the, in the, in the report that came out, where the, it really seemed like they took umbrage at a couple of things the Clippers did, including like, you have this endorsement deal with a team that's never, with a company that's never done endorsements. And then there's no commercials or any sort of thing for the endorsement. And they have no other arrangements like this with any other athletes or celebrities. So what do you want us to do at this point?

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, they put Adam in a very bad situation. They put, and I got a lot of love on, they put him in a bad situation. And they got hammered, rightfully so, plain and simple.

• 27:59Bill Simmons?

  Chuck, would you take money from a company that wanted you as an endorsement, but you didn't have to actually endorse anything and nobody ever knew you were even involved with the company? I feel like you would do this.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Bill, let me tell you something. There is never free money. Don't forget, there's never free money. Like, some of these stories you've been hearing through our lifetime, when something crooked happens, if you do something criminally for money, it always comes out in the long run. And always, one of my favorite things is jail is full of people who didn't commit crimes. Like, no, no. But to answer your question, obviously, anybody would be tempted to take a lot of money. But there's always consequences when you do something illegal. There's always consequences, plain and simple.

• 28:56Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like this stuff was happening when you played? Or is this a relatively recent thing?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Oh, it happened when I played. The Rockets needed me to take a pay cut to sign Scott Pippen. And I said, you know what? Y'all can get Scott Pippen, I'll take a pay cut.

• 29:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  So they said, we'll make it up to you next year. I'm like, all right, fine. And it wasn't a lot of money. I think the most money I ever made, I'm not saying it like stupidly, most money I made was like $5 million, which is money. I know that, you know, the internet food's gonna go crazy. That's a lot of money. So I took a pay cut so we could sign Scott Pippen. And they said, we're gonna make it up to me the next year. And I was on the end. I had nothing left in the tank, but I had one more year left on my contract. So I showed up for training camp and signed my contract. And they're like, well, we decided you wasn't worth a shit. So we're not gonna give you that money back. We're just gonna give you your original money back.

• 30:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're like, well, you can go somewhere else. And at that stage, I couldn't get more than that money with them. I'm like, you know what? Y'all pissing me off. But I had to take that money. But remember, you go back, you remember when Joe Smear got busted, busted ten more? But teams have always did under the table deals. Where they're like, hey, you take a pay cut here, we'll pick it up to you. I think that actually, I think the NBA is investigating a couple of those right now. If my memory serves me correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Gary Trent's one is weird.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, but people been like doing this a long time.

• 30:46Bill Simmons?

  So, you know, for the Clipper fans out there, where you have your team just get destroyed by first a Kawhi trade and then you lose a half a decade of first round picks, including you had a couple picks in 2029, now you have one. And it-

• 31:01Speaker 01

  The good point about it, they're used to losing, so it won't be a, it won't be a shock to the-

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  That's true. Yeah, they have 50, 50 years of experience with feeling bad. But when this happened with Joe Smith, who you just mentioned in the Timberwolves, I thought it had a profound impact on Kevin Grant, Kevin Garnett's career. Just Minnesota basketball in general, it took them, I would, I mean, then they were hiring the wrong people, too. This is the team that famously took two point guards that weren't Steph Curry in the 2009 draft. Like, they made a bunch of mistakes, but ultimately, I look back at that, and I remember writing about it at the time, like, holy shit, this Joe Smith thing, it might be ruining Kevin Garnett's prime. And they got to the conference finals once in 04, and that was really it. He was in the lottery for three straight years after that. And I wonder with the Clippers, is that gonna happen?

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Well, the Clippers are not gonna be relevant for the next five years, anyway.

• 31:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Listen, if you're in the Western Conference, you better get, you can get frequent mileage, mileage to Oklahoma City and to San Antonio. And if you bought, if you bought 10 tickets to San Antonio and 10 tickets to Oklahoma City for the next five years, you gonna, you gonna get to use them. Everything in the West is going through OKC and San Antonio the next five years. Those are their two great organizations. They got great players. They're well coached. Like, the NBA championship going through San Antonio and OKC the next five years, not just the West. But, yeah, so it, that's the only saving grace for the Clippers. They, they're not gonna be irrelevant for the next

• 32:41Speaker 01

  five years, but most teams in the West are not gonna be relevant for the next five years.

• 32:46Bill Simmons?

  I talked about this at the top of the podcast, but do you feel like there should be protections for fans with this stuff? Like, do you think the season ticket holders of the Clippers should be like, this whole thing happened, I didn't sign up for this. I'd like to be let out of my season tickets. Like, should fans have better protection?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  100%. And be a one, one, and one thing I've always said, I think there should be a rule that you cannot raise your ticket prices if you below 500. I've always said that. I don't think, like, some of these teams, they raise their ticket prices every year, no matter what. I've all, I've steadfastly said this, there should be a rule in pro sports that you cannot raise ticket prices if your team below 500. And, and I don't even think that's that much of a like, an issue. Like, if your team is below 500, you should not be able to raise your ticket prices, plain and simple.

• 33:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I wonder, like, even in the second half of a season, when a team's clearly trying not to win, if, if those tickets should be discounted. We don't think about this stuff at all with the paying customers, for whatever reason.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  That's a little bit different, because if you ask a fan, are they trying to get to that damn lottery? That's a different animal.

• 34:01Bill Simmons?

  But now, nobody at the lottery is in the same anymore, though. Like, if you're in the bottom three now, you have less ping pong balls.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think the NBA screwed that up. What they have, and I've said from the beginning, every team in the lottery get one ping pong ball. That's it. There's no show where we reward you with ping pong balls for losing. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like, okay, you gonna get one ping pong ball. That will force you to try to win down the stretch. It's like, well, we're gonna be in the lottery, we're not gonna get more balls. I've always thought the NBA screwed this thing up from the beginning. Every team in the lottery get one ping pong ball. I mean, I think you can count on one hand, the amount of times a team with the worst record actually got the number one draft pick. I mean, yeah, they never get it.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  So why are you rewarding them to take games the last 30 games of the season? No. You know, you're gonna be in the lottery, you gonna get one ping pong ball, and that's it. That'll be the easiest, simple way to fix their lottery.

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  Can you explain to the people listening who are a little bit younger, who don't remember the 80s and 90s, how incompetent the Clippers were when you were an NBA player? What it was like to play against them? What, just what it was like to have them in the league during that stretch?

• 35:19Speaker 01

  They're kind of like, a lot of baseball teams now. The Clippers always had good players, but they wouldn't pay them. I, I tell people this all the time. The notion that every team is trying to win in sports, it's not true. It's not true. Some of these guys are just great businessmen. They're making money because they split the revenue. Their team is getting evaluated on five, 200 or 300 million more every year. So, they're, they're running a business. But Donald Sterling was a great businessman. He was an awful person, but he was a great businessman. The Clippers, go back. Bill, I've said this for years. It's impossible to be bad at sports.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  It's impossible. Think about this. If you're gonna get a lottery pick every year, your team should get better automatically. I, I, when I'm talking to my friends, I say, these teams, some of these teams are not trying to win. Because think about this. If you're a great lawyer, you gonna go to the best law firm. If you're a great, you're gonna go to the best hospital. Sports, we're the only job in the world. Think about this. We're the only job in the world, but we tell you, you suck. But, but you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna let you pick a new crop of people coming out, the best of the best. And you said it earlier about Minnesota.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  They picked two point guards in back-to-back years that weren't named Steph Curry. They just don't know what they're doing. I tell people all the time, it's impossible, it's impossible to be bad at sports. If you just, if you gotta, unless you got bad, people don't know what they're doing. Go back and look at every draft. Think about this. The San Antonio Spurs,

• 37:10Speaker 01

  they moved up to get Kawhi. They drafted Tony Parker, Janobli, Hall of Famers, in the second round or late first round. That's, they know what they're doing. You know, people didn't pick Jalen Bronson. They picked him late. Like, people just don't know what they're doing. Like, and, and, you know, now, now they're using analytics. But the best way to evaluate basketball players is to get people who know exactly what they're looking for. But I do, like, if you're not good at your job, yeah, but a lot of these guys, general managers, they keep their job to like,

• 37:49Speaker 01

  three head coaches. And if, if they get lucky every now and then, they keep their job. But, man, it's impossible to be bad at sports if you know what you're doing.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, to that point, like, think about Oklahoma City, right, in the late 2010s, where Durant leaves, they have Westbrook, they make a big play for Paul George. They're kind of, they have a low ceiling. They're not gonna make the finals, they know it. And then Presti, within a year, completely rebuilds the team, makes the Paul George trade, nails a couple picks, and they go from like, we suck to now we're a title contender in two years, because they played the system correctly. But a lot of teams don't.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Number one, nobody thought shade was gonna be this great. But-

• 38:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  He picked Jalen Williams, he picked Cheick Holmgren. And what the thing Sam does better than anybody in the league, he got guys on the bench that are incredible. Like, Isaiah Joe, I know they just traded him, they got the Jalen Williams kid. Like, he can, because you, when you're dropped as low as they are, you have to know what you're doing. It's actually, he's from the San, San Antonio model. And he, he, see, he's doing like, the same stuff with, with Janobli and Parker. The guy, he's getting late, first round, second round, are really, really good players. That goes back to what we're talking about. If you know what you're doing,

• 39:15Speaker 01

  because there's guys who pick guys in a lottery who can't play dead, you know? But if you know what you're doing, you gotta have a great scouting staff, you gotta have a great system in place.

• 39:26Bill Simmons?

  So you look at like some of the other teams and what they did this year, right? Philadelphia, sometimes, sometimes you get lucky, right? Philadelphia, Maxey fell to 21. They end up, they get him, that's a good, they, great pick. They, they tank for one year, they get VJ Edgecombe, great pick. Jalen Brown, the Celtics want to move off him, they're in the right place, right time with that, they get him. And then all of a sudden LeBron's like, hey, that's looking pretty good over there. I'll jump in too. And now all of a sudden they have the number two odds in the East.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what's interesting about that, Bill? I've been asked, you know, I live in Philadelphia during the summer because they got the best golf courses in the world. So I play golf every day. So I've been in Philly for the last two months.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  I have been asked 9,755 times, why did Celtics trade Jalen Brown to Philly? And 9,752 times I said, I have zero idea why. And that was to me, one of the craziest trades I've seen in my 40 years in the NBA. I can't explain it. It doesn't make, like, okay, the Celtics don't want Jalen Brown. I understand it. Clearly they did not want Jalen Brown. There is no way in the hell you trade him that close to number one, a team you got to play five times in the regular season. And probably going to have to be, get through in the playoffs.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Because the Sixers were dead. The Sixers were dead. They were irrelevant. They had a, they had a agent Paul George and an agent Joel Embiid for the next two, two years with Paul. Three or four years with Embiid. They were dead in the water, irrelevant. And now all of a sudden, they get Jalen, they are back in contention. And then you throw the chair on top with LeBron. But there's nothing anybody can say to me that I can go on TV or on your podcast or anywhere in the world and say, that trade made sense for the Celtics. That's just crazy.

• 41:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I've obviously been sitting with it all summer. And I think about two weeks ago, talked myself into at least maybe why it could work. But fundamentally, I just thought Jalen was so good last year. And I get that they didn't want to pay two guys that amount of money. Like both of them had top 10 contracts in the league for value. And to me, like the more I stare.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Paul George makes similar money to Jalen for the next two years. They didn't have, they don't have, they didn't have to pay Jalen right now.

• 42:09Bill Simmons?

  I think what they were thinking was Paul George and Jalen, they're making around the same money this year. Next year, Paul George isn't expiring, would allow them to circle back. But it was interesting, some of the rhetoric they had about, like Stevens, who, you know, is always very careful what he says. And he just seemed to think like the team ran its course with those two guys and that it wasn't sustainable anymore to contend. And that a year from now, they're going to be in the same decision they were in this year. And they had to make a move, they had to change the team, they had to move Jalen out, use all these people in his spot. And that was either going to be them going sideways or maybe even going up. I just, I watched the whole season last year and I thought Jalen was, was incredible.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  You know, and that's the part I can't wrap my head around, trading a guy off an awesome season. I just haven't seen that before.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jalen was great last year. And let's be honest, when Jason gets a chance to have an entire offseason summer, he's going to come back being an MVP caliber player. They would have been the favorites, in my opinion, in the East. I think that Knicks thing was like one of the greatest runs. But I, I think they're gonna regress a little bit.

• 43:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  But they, in my opinion, if Jalen had to stay with the Celtics, they would have been the favorite in the East going forward next year. And if even if you wanted to get a Knicks that respect, they would have been the second team in the East.

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  So listen, I'm trying to wrap my head around it, to be honest with you, Bill. But like I say, I'm not even, I'm opposed to them a trading Jalen. But you don't trade him to Philadelphia. You don't trade him, you don't say, I, I, even the owner of the Sixers told me, he says, you're a great player. I've got to trade you. I'm not trading you anywhere in the Eastern Conference.

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you trade him out West. But to trade him to Philly, to a division rival, that was just crazy. Now, like I say, you, because LeBron, there's no chance LeBron comes to Philly. A zero chance LeBron comes to Philly if Jalen's not there.

• 44:16Bill Simmons?

  Here's the, here's the thing with that. It didn't seem like there was a market for Jalen, which is even more surprising, but goes back to what we talked about in the beginning about,

• 44:26Bill Simmons?

  a lot of these teams are just stupid. Like they, if Jalen's, if they're basically like, hey, we're shopping Jalen Brown.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:33Bill Simmons?

  We've seen all the teams in the NBA. I find it hard to believe there wasn't a team or two that would have been like, yeah, well, we'll, we'll make a run on him, we'll go for him. But you were in this situation. When I, when I think about like chemistry and stuff, which was obviously a reason they wanted to split up Tatum and Brown, even though they got along, there was like no bad blood or anything. But I think that there was a little bit of a, whose team is this thing? That they just wanted to get ahead of and they didn't think it was solvable, especially how good Jalen was last year as the guy. You went through this in Houston when you guys got Pippen. Now, you guys were older.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:06Bill Simmons?

  But you had Pippen and Hakeem and you, and you guys were all, you're all three of the top 35 players of all time. And it didn't work. So why didn't it work? Was it beyond you being old? Why didn't it work?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Just because we were old. We made it to the conference finals, like I think my first year in Houston.

• 45:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, not with Pippen.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's the only good year that we had. We were broken down and Scott didn't want to be there. He took, he took the money, but he didn't want to be there. Remember, he voted to Portland right away after that. But we were just old has-beens, to be honest with you, Bill. We had one good year. I mean, we, remember Stockton hit the shot.

• 45:46Bill Simmons?

  Matt Maloney, that year.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, my first year in Houston, we had a good year. And, and, and, and I was cooked. I had a good second year, but after that I was cooked. But it was, Hakeem was cooked and Clyde was cooked. And that's why Clyde, and that's why honestly why Scott had wanted out of there. But remember, but remember, we traded Hakeem the next year. But we were just all cooked, to be honest with you. People don't even get it. Hakeem finished in Toronto. People forget that. But, but we were all cooked, to be honest with you.

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's some tough jerseys from the 90s because we have, Ewing was in Seattle and Orlando. Hakeem was in Toronto. Some stuff, Tony Parker ended up playing for Charlotte in the 2010s.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  You know, it, it, it, it always ends badly. It always badly. You know, Father Time is always going to win. I think it's a league easier, it's a lot easier today. Let me get that out the way because there's no physicality. So you can play another couple of years, but like, because all the physicality is gone out the game. But, but most great players, it always ends badly. I mean, you could say Michael for the Wizards ended badly. If you want to be honest, he wasn't Michael Jordan playing for the Wizards.

• 47:04Bill Simmons?

  Didn't make the playoffs either.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's always going to end badly if you keep screwing around with Father Time.

• 47:11Bill Simmons?

  All right. So we kept, we've been saying this about LeBron for the last couple of years. And, you know, I, I just, does he defy it? Because Brady defied it. Brady played to his 45, he won a Super Bowl, he was an MVP. And this was in his like early 40s and it kept going and going. Can LeBron be the only guy who defies that?

• 47:31Speaker 01

  We have to be honest about LeBron. If he gets swept in the playoff the last couple of years. So just because you're putting up good numbers don't mean you're being effective. And I don't, and I'm not taking a shot at LeBron, it's just facts. You know, people say he's defying the odds. I'm like, well, if my memory serves me correctly, he's gotten swept in the playoffs the last couple of years. I thought, yeah, so I says, is he putting up good numbers? Yes, he's putting up good numbers. That does not mean you're defined, because it's, to me, it's a lot easier to get numbers now. It's a lot easier to get numbers, but I'm saying, and LeBron's playing well, don't get me wrong. But to say he beating Father Time, I'm like, they got swept the last, if we're going to be honest.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  You know, we got a lot of step, step, step for wives out there when it comes to LeBron. Are you to agree with LeBron or are you just hating on LeBron?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  I, I, I love the way Jalen, Jalen Rose was giving some heat. He said, the media's turning into LeBron fanboys. And I, I said, no, they're stepford wives. They just go along with whatever they say. I says LeBron's playing pretty good. I'll agree with that. But they've gotten swept the last two years in the playoffs. So don't tell me how great he's playing. Because if you get swept, you're not playing that good.

• 48:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess great, he's playing great for a guy in his 40s. But, but the issue is, and I think this has been the issue for them the last couple of years, and they clearly knew it because they didn't really want him to come back. You have, you basically have two spots.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  What you said out again?

• 49:06Bill Simmons?

  They didn't want him to come back. I've been saying that all summer.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Bill, I'm so glad you said that because I'm dealing with these fools in the media like LeBron left the Lakers. I said Lakers didn't want LeBron. They were like, it's time for us to move on. Like, I love the way he released that statement, saying, I've decided to move on. Like, dude, the Lakers, they handle this. They're like, no, it's time for you to move on. But that's, you, if you, I'm glad you said it like that because I tell people, you think if the Lakers really won LeBron, he would have left there. Come on, man, stop it. These, these media guys are so like, LeBron made the decision to leave the Lakers. Like, no, the Lakers made the decision for LeBron.

• 49:47Bill Simmons?

  And they made the decision in January, February, and then Luca got hurt.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:52Bill Simmons?

  LeBron had that resurgence, but the issue with LeBron.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  They needed to do it. It was time for him. And I was disappointed he went to Philly. I'll be honest with you. I wanted him, I thought it would have been a great ending for him to go back to Cleveland. But he has no affiliation with the 76ers.

• 50:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I thought it would have been a perfect ending. And let's be honest with you. I think honestly, if LeBron went to the Cavaliers, they, they would have been my preseason pick. But they got a really, really good team. They just need some leadership. LeBron had went to the Cleveland Cavaliers, they would have been my pick. And, and, and let me tell you something, if he were able to go out winning a championship in Cleveland,

• 50:37Speaker 01

  it, it, I can say, I'm always gonna think Michael's greatest player, but LeBron's career would have been the greatest career. If he had went back to Cleveland, because if he wins the championship in Philly, it would be cool. Because Philly hadn't won in a long time. But if he had went back to Cleveland, at 42 years old, or 43, if he gonna play two years, and walked out winning a championship, it would have been the greatest career. Like, it, it, it'd have been Brady-esque. Because Brady is at the top of the food chain on careers.

• 51:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  But if LeBron at his age would have made it back to hometown and win, it would have been the greatest career in sports history.

• 51:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, I don't think he felt like he could win with that team in the same way, is, is my interpretation. Because it seemed like at the beginning of free agency, he was headed to Cleveland. I would have bet anything on it. Um, and he was, he was the only team he was actually meeting with in person, in real ways, but something scared him off on the Cleveland thing. And ma- maybe he thought they could get rid of James Harden. I don't know.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Well, listen, you know what I, this is what I think. I don't have no proof. I'm just scared out of my ass. I think once he found out, they had probably did an under the table deal with James for three more years. I think that's probably what scared him. Because I do believe if he went back, if he went back to Cleveland, they would have been the favorite. No question. I mean, they, because they got to the conference finals last year. And you had LeBron with his leadership to go with those guys. They would have been the favorite. But there's no doubt in my mind. Because, you know, first of all, I'm surprised they gave James three years. But it makes sense like, like, okay, they had promised him that deal.

• 52:19Bill Simmons?

  One thing about LeBron, just from the last couple of years, I think what's changed, even though you, you, the numbers were relatively the same, right? I think the issue is, you basically have two spots for expensive guys on an NBA team, right? The way the salary cap is now that it's the second apron. So if you're gonna really pay two guys, you better make sure you can win a few playoff rounds in a row with them. And LeBron at his age, clearly, I, you know, I don't think he could be one of the two guys anymore because of the grind of the season, how you have to play on both ends. And if they wanted to pay Reeves, that you can't pay Luca Reeves and LeBron and expect to win more than one playoff round. So I think they were out in February on it.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I agree with that. But I still think if he had went to Cleveland with them twin towers and Donovan Mitchell, and LeBron's gonna have ball more than James Harden if he had him there. I thought that would have been the favorites in the East in my opinion. Because they, they were, I mean, like I say, with the team they had, they got to the conference finals. And

• 53:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  They're, and, and one of the worst, one of the worst coaching jobs, and one of the worst NBA games, a team blow a 20-point lead like that. Like, they were close. Um, so, so if LeBron had went there, in my opinion, they would have went, they would have been the favorites in the East.

• 53:39Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing, if you're paying LeBron four million a year, that's a great deal. I don't care, I don't care what team he's on. Like, that's amazing value for somebody. Like, I, why do you think San Antonio didn't want him? Because they ended up going Tobias Harris instead and doing some other things. But San Antonio was so close, I felt like he would have had a huge impact for them.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  That team, first of all, those two guards, I don't want to see them for the next 10 years if I'm a guard in the NBA.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Harper and, and, and, uh, Castle. I do not want, if I'm a guard in the NBA, I do not want to see those boys the next 10 years. They're gonna be the best, they're gonna be the new Steph and Klay. I, I really think they're like, no, you know what? Let's just do it organically. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta, so. Yeah, and I think, because they won't, probably wouldn't be the drug, grow into the leadership role on his own. Because they, like I say, they're gonna be the team to beat with OKC for the next 10 years in the NBA. I mean, you're gonna go through OKC and San Antonio the next 10 years. I, I'll, I'll take a bet right now. If you say, but give me OKC and the Spurs,

• 54:51Speaker 01

  they're gonna win five championships in the next 10 years. I'll, like, I'll take that bet.

• 54:56Bill Simmons?

  Five in the next 10.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I'll take that bet. Yes.

• 55:01Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing. Like, normally I would say, you're right, Chuck. I think that's the right instinct. We've had eight champions in eight years. And we've had a bunch of teams already that people are like, oh, what, like Denver after 2023. Watch out for these guys. It's gonna be the next dynasty, Celtics in 2024. Uh-oh, here we go.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Hey, let me tell you something. If, if you go back and look at those teams, if the Nuggets had treated everybody, they probably would have repeated.

• 55:32Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  But, but it's, the Spurs won seven games without OK have, OKC having their second best player. OKC probably would have won that series if they had have had Jalen. And they probably would have beat the Knicks. But so, and listen, I, I'll go back this, if the Celtics have never, you know what the Celtics' superpower was? Porzingis.

• 55:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  If, if they could have Tatum healthy and Brown and kept Porzingis healthy, Celtics would have won another championship. It's always been something flaky that happened, or we would have had some teams that would have repeated. When the Celtics had Porzingis, I'm like, nobody can beat that team right there. Porzingis, it gave them a superpower that, because you had Tatum around and Porzingis, I'm like, nobody can beat that team. I said that like in January. And I didn't know Jalen Williams gonna get hurt. I said, OKC gonna win the championship. And he got hurt, never got healthy whatsoever. Listen, OKC and the Spurs gonna be battling the West. But I'll take five out of 10. I'll take that bet and put it out there somewhere.

• 56:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but you just made the case why that's not gonna happen. There's so many dumb things that can happen with these teams. You can have injuries. You can make one dumb trade. You can't pay everyone at the same time. And we, I just feel like we've seen, like, the Warriors, who they won

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Four.

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  Fifteen, yeah, four, but three in five years, basically, right? When Durant came, but, but they won one before Durant, then they won two after, and they lost in 19. And we would have said when he showed up there, oh my God, they're gonna win eight of the next 10. And they won two more, and then they won the extra one in 22.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  But, but they probably would have won another one if, if LeBron, they, they got, remember, they got the, the package from the NBA when they suspended Draymond. They probably would have won another one. Remember?

• 57:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I think, yeah, I think this OKC team is bigger and deeper. And I think this Spurs team is bigger and deeper. So they gonna have some, listen, this Webby kid, he's got a chance. He can do things that most people can't do.

• 57:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  OKC is the deepest team in, they're the deepest team in the league. They, they, I mean, they almost made to the finals without their second best player being out. I think he only played them probably 30 games all year.

• 57:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. So if I'm the rest of the league, and I agree that on paper, five of the next 10 could go through San Antonio, OKC, I'm thinking, well, who knows with injuries and money, especially Wemby, seven foot six, we're always scared of him and his health, all this stuff. What happens with Chet Holmgren the next couple of years? Was that an aberration in the playoffs last year? Or maybe he's not as good as we thought he did? Like, there, I'm talking myself in a certain realities. Because honestly, the Knicks thing, the Knicks and the run they had, and the fact that they basically just came together for nine weeks and won a title, makes me wonder, is that, do we have so much talent in the league now? Could that keep happening?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  The Knicks, probably the greatest run in NBA history for, for a good solid team. I don't think they're a great team, but they had one of the, Bronson's turned into one of the great all-time performers, which is interesting because I don't think even when the Knicks signed him, they thought he was gonna be this great.

• 58:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think, and I, and I saw, I remember, there, there's a bunch of clips, and he kept receipts where he showed where people bashed him and he went to the deck. Come on, this is not a needle mover, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I love when he played that video, but man, it's been one of the great surprises. He has turned into one of the great players in our league. Uh, but they went on one of the great runs, one of the great runs in NBA history. But like I say, I, I'll take my chance with OKC and the Spurs. Well, they do that, well, the futures, I'm gonna bet on OKC, I'm gonna put some money on OKC and the Spurs for the next five years for sure.

• 59:38Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So you're over under next five years, three and a half titles for OKC and the Spurs, sounds like?

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, for sure.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  Okay. How much fun are you gonna make fun of the Lakers this year? The snow time Lakers, all the way guys, just the weird team they built in general. This feels like it's gonna be comedic fodder for you on the show.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  No, I really wanna see the Lakers do well. I, I, I, first of all, I, I'm a big Luka fan, a big Austin Reeves fan. I think they're gonna be better than people realize.

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, Luca, Luca and Kyrie took the Laker, took the Mavs to the finals. Come on, man. This team is probably better. This probably team is just as good as that team. Uh, uh, they're gonna be fine, I think. Uh, are they gonna win a championship? I don't think they're gonna win the championship. But the league is better when the Celtics, the Knicks, and the Lakers are good teams.

• 1:00:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  See, I, I, listen, with all the crap that was going on in the NBA with this low management bullshit, the quiet thing and all the stuff going on, I think the NBA got the luckiest league in sports history with the Knicks winning the championship. I thought it, I, I've been in NBA for 40 years. This was the best feel-good story that I've, um, I'm trying to think when we've had a champion that was such a feel-good story.

• 1:01:06Bill Simmons?

  Dallas. That, the only one is Dallas and Dirk, but that was really one player versus a whole city and, and all the history.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  It's like, uh, an all-time great, getting that monkey off his back, he can't win a championship. I agree with you. Dirk is the only other in, in, in the conversation where it was something that everybody felt good about basketball.

• 1:01:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, I remember with Dirk, the first time, I think one of the first times we ever did a podcast when I was at ESPN, you called it the shit list. When a guy, when he, no matter how great he is, if he doesn't have the title, you're just on the shit list. And like Dirk pulled himself off the shit list, right?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. Dirk pulled himself off the Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing shit list. Elgin Baylor won the all-time breaks.

• 1:01:52Bill Simmons?

  Elgin Baylor.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was happy for Dirk, cause there's nothing, you know, you don't go crazy over it, but when you hear guys talking about it, these are all the time great players who have won the championship. It comes up all the time. So it, it, it drives you crazy. Like, all of a sudden, we're like golf and tennis, we're an individual sport instead of a team sport. I'm not sure how that actually happened, but it happens. So, but other than, a hundred percent agree with you, other than Dirk winning the championship, the Knicks winning the championship was probably the second best feel-good story we've had in a long time.

• 1:02:28Bill Simmons?

  Do you think it was repeatable? Or are they a one and done?

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  I think they're one and done. Uh, I, I think, uh, that, that was just a perfect storm, honest with you. Uh, I do, I just think it was a perfect storm. Because, you know, one thing is quietly kept, the Eastern Conference has become better than the Western Conference.

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  I mean, you take away the Brooklyn, you take away the Brooklyn Nets, there's not a bad team in the Eastern Conference. That's the one of the things that concerns me about Philadelphia. You know, Joel Embiid has never played a full season. LeBron hasn't played a full season in probably six years. How are they gonna be able to hold up? Because, like I say, other than Brooklyn, every team in the Eastern, even though Washington, Wizards gonna have a good team. I mean, come on, man. When's the last time we've been able to say that?

• 1:03:17Bill Simmons?

  10 years.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  So every time the Sixers play the Celtics, it's gonna be a dogfight. And so if they don't have those guys, and they're the number eight seed, and they have to win three series on the road, that's hard to do.

• 1:03:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you also have the Myles from the previous years, right? They made the conference finals two years ago. They went all the way last year. We saw that with the Warriors, where they had that five-year run, but by the time they got into year five, they're running on fumes, Durant gets hurt, Klay Thompson gets hurt. You know, the 100 playoff games, 95 playoff games a year, kinda adds up. Um, Giannis and Bam on Miami?

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, they gonna have a good team. But do I think they gonna win a championship? No, but they, but they got a lot of spots to build, but they're gonna be a good team. You give me Bam and Giannis, that, that goes back to my original point. You know, see, that's why Embiid and LeBron both gotta stay healthy. Because every game, like I say, the only team, and I, and I shouldn't say it, cause I'm going by last year. The only team I see that stinks in the East, Eastern Conference is Brooklyn Nets. Atlanta's got a good team now. Orlando's gonna have a good team.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  Charlotte.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Char, Charlotte's got a good team.

• 1:04:30Bill Simmons?

  Indiana's back.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Indiana, Indiana's gonna be a really, one, Indiana's gonna be one of my sleepers, but also out West.

• 1:04:38Bill Simmons?

  Me too.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, let me tell you something. You know a team that's gonna surprise people this year? The Utah Jazz.

• 1:04:44Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Ja, Danny is quietly building a really, really good team. They're gonna surprise people. People say, who's your sleeper this year? I said, man, Indiana's gonna be really good. I said, cause the Zubac trade, they, they got, kinda got screwed in the lottery cause they could've got another good player, but having Zubac back, Zubac is a hell of a player in Halliburton. But I said, man, watch out for the Utah Jazz. They, they probably get, now they gotta figure out what to do. Are they, are they gonna keep, um, what's the, uh, Mark, Mark, Markkinen? Because they could jumpstart their future quickly with him. They could be a playoff team with him, but if they traded him, they could get the Kings ransom, cause he's a hell of a player.

• 1:05:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I'm with you on Utah, because the X-factor for them is if Peterson is good right away, they're gonna be really dangerous, cause that's like exactly what they needed, like a guard who could create offense at the end of games, along with the other guard they already had. Um, but yeah, I'm watching them too. It's time for a special part of today's episode, brought to you by my buddy, NFL Sunday Ticket. We've all been there. You're watching one game, you're constantly refreshing your phone to see how your fantasy matchup is doing. We just did our fantasy draft here at The Ringer, so I get it. Luckily, with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place. So, for instance, Trevor Lawrence is my quarterback in the Jaguars. I have four

• 1:06:13Bill Simmons?

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• 1:06:54Bill Simmons?

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• 1:07:38Bill Simmons?

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• 1:07:54Speaker 02

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• 1:08:32Speaker 02

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• 1:08:44Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty-page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus.

• 1:09:10Bill Simmons?

  Um, tell me how your ESPN experience was, because it seemed rocky during the regular season, then the playoffs, you seemed like you guys again.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was great. The only thing I didn't like, we didn't, we never worked. I thought it was disrespectful to the fans, because

• 1:09:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  This is mad. We, we were very sad among. Uh, this is, it's crazy how, uh, they never, they were great, to be honest with you. They didn't do anything. When, when you're in a relationship, you wanted to work for both people. And I called him all the time. I said, yo, man, if we doing something you don't like, tell us. He said, dude, we love what y'all doing. And I said, the only thing that I had a problem with, and people complained, I said, dude, the fans don't know when we're on. We only work, we, we opened the season, Bill, in October.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  We worked one day in November, and we were Christmas Day.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  I said, we worked three times, three months. I says, the fans can't find the games as it is, because we're on three different networks. They don't know what night, different things are on. And I thought that was disrespectful to the fans. I know these TV networks, I know they pay a lot of money, but we should do everything we can to make, to make the games accessible to the fans. And I didn't think we did that last year. Still want us once a month to start the season. I, I didn't like that at all, because the fans like, but damn, when are they gonna be on again? We're like, we're on once a month. They, the rest of the time, they were on NBC and Amazon. They, no, let's help the fans find the games. That's what we should do.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  So, I feel like there's some end arounds, like they could put you on ESPN Plus or ESPN Two and just try to keep you in the habit of being on once a week, seemed to be the easy fix.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  First of all, that shit's not gonna happen. Okay, that's not gonna happen, so stop it.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  You just told me you wanted to work more.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, uh, no, I'm not gonna do the, uh, do that, uh, every show shit. Uh, that was the one thing I laid down. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a good team player, but I'm not going on every show. Uh, number one, I think it's really important for me to limit the amount of times I'm on television. Like, when I'm on, I wanna be on.

• 1:11:35Bill Simmons?

  No, no, you misunderstood me. I'm saying, I'm saying do more inside the NBA, not other shows.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  I'm not on TV at all right now.

• 1:11:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  I don't wanna be. I don't, I don't do shows right now. I, cause when the season start, I wanna do our show. I'll do a couple ESPN things, but the last thing you wanna be is on every show. I don't want people to get sick of seeing my face. I'm very strategic. I, I've done the same thing. Like, I have a, I'm doing your podcast. I haven't been on TV since the season ended. I went on TV one day when LeBron announced this thing, they had me all over down creation. I, I cursed LeBron ass out, because I was on my way to the golf course, and they called me to turn around. I'm, I was on my way to the golf course, they called me, said LeBron's gonna make a decision. What made it even funny and weird, Bill?

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  I, I, I was on my way to the golf course in Philly, because I live in Philly during the summer, and I went back, and they didn't know where he was going.

• 1:12:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  So I had to go show and talk about it. Then he announced it was on Philly, and I spent the next five hours on TV in Philly, talking about LeBron coming to Philly. I was so damn pissed. I told LeBron, when I see him, I'm gonna kick him in his ass, because he ruined everything. Uh, but, but I really do a conscious effort. I told ESPN, uh, I'll do Greenie every now and then, because I got much respect for Greenie. I'll do Stephen A every now and then. But the one thing I'm very conscious of, I don't wanna be on TV all the time, because I don't want people, it's like, uh, and listen, and I don't wanna call out guys, you know guys who love seeing themselves on television. I don't wanna call anybody out.

• 1:13:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I have an idea who you're talking about.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  I don't, yo, man, I'm sick of you on TV. You don't have to go on every show. You don't have to have an opinion on everything. So, um, like, to get back to your original point, I'll do Greenie every now and then, because I like him. I'll do Stephen A every now and then, but no, I'm not going on every show. That's not, shit's not gonna happen, I can promise you that.

• 1:13:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, at least you're not doing the thing this year where you're claiming you're gonna retire. To get, you retired more than Muhammad Ali. I think Muhammad Ali had seven retirements, and you had nine.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  You know, you know, uh, uh, let, you know, Bill, let me, let me, I'm gonna say this for the last time, and I need you to listen to me like my girl Judy said, Judy, Judy said. I need you to hear me, not listen to me. You, I need you to hear me. You listen, but you're not hearing me. So, I told E, TNT I was gonna retire at sixty. And they're like, oh, he's full of shit, he's not gonna retire. So we come up, I'm saying, I said, hey, guys, this is my last year. They're like, what do you mean? I said, I told y'all, six years ago, I was gonna retire at sixty. They're like, you were serious? I said, yeah, I was serious. Then they said to me, do us a favor, stay two more years till we get the new deal.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  I talked it over with my friend, they're like, I said, okay, I'll tell you what, I'll stay to sixty-two, which was last year.

• 1:14:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  And they said, they said, I said, I'll stay the next year. Little did I know, these fucking idiots was gonna lose the NBA.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  And I say, like, so I, so I had made up my mind, I was gonna retire after last year. So I said, okay, I'm good. Like I say, I'm gonna pass it to Jamal Crawford or Jalen Rose, I'm good.

• 1:15:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  So they're like, okay. So then they're like, well, we need you to sign, I said, I said, I told y'all I was retiring next year. They said, we can't let people think you're retiring, because we're negotiating a new TV deal. I said, that has nothing to do with me, I'm retired. They're like, can we tell people you're gonna stay? I says,

• 1:15:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Okay, tell people I'm gonna stay, but I'm not staying. But I didn't know they were gonna lose the deal. So, I'm retired, this is a true story. I meet with NBC, I meet with Amazon, NBC offers me a deal. I'm like, I appreciate it, but no, thank you. Amazon never offered me a deal, but I said, I met with them, I said, no, thank you. So, I think I'm retired.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  I get a call from Ernie, who's the person I trust and respect the most. He says, Chuck, they got this deal on the table, but ESPN's gonna take our show.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Would you consider keep working? I said, well, Ernie, not really. He said, but everybody can keep their job, not me, Ernie, check, everybody behind the scenes. And you know, Bill, I really love the people, I've been with them for twenty-six, twenty-seven years. I was like, Ernie, how long do you wanna stay?

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  He says, let's keep their job for two more years.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  And so I said, Ernie, I'll stay for two more years. But he says, Chuck, I'm planning on retiring in two years. Me and Ernie are a package deal. So to answer your question, Ernie, Ernie said to me, Chuck, would you please stay for two more years? I said, you know what, I love you, man, you're the best. I said, I'll stay for two more years. So right now, unless Ernie changes his mind, next year is my last year for a hundred percent, Bill. But I always have to explain to people these retirement conversations because I like, I'll explain why I was gonna retire.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  But so right now, Ernie, Ernie told me this year and next year was his last two years. But the only reason I stayed is so everybody could keep their job behind the scene. We're talking to two hundred people. But I'm hoping this show will keep going on ESPN. But if Ernie retires after next year, I'm done. Uh, because we are package deal. I, I got so much love and respect for that guy. If he says he's done, I'm gone. Because let's be realistic, I could have went to NBC and made more money if I was concerned about money.

• 1:18:08Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  NBC offered me more money than I was making. But I was like, it ain't about the money. I say I'm done, but man, I really wanted to keep these people. Because I, I've been, like I said, I've been with these people either twenty six or twenty seven years. I, I get to know them and all their families. And but like I said, I can't just keep working for forever. Dude, I'd be six or three freaking, oh, I'm not, I, I, I, listen, I want to die on the golf course, Bill. I don't want to die on TNT, on ESPN.

• 1:18:38Bill Simmons?

  Definitely not.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I don't, hey, hey, I don't want to hear da na na and drop dead on the. I want to drop dead on the thirteenth. Yeah, I want to drop dead on the thirteenth hole.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  I, it's funny, when I, I went to see you for the, the first time we met was two thousand two, I think. I went to do a piece about inside the NBA when I was writing for ESPN.com. And one of my takeaways is like, oh, this is why the show works. These guys love each other. And it's so funny, like you, you still have that same relationship with Ernie twenty five years later, basically, where now you feel like it's you and him to the end.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, because number one, remember I told you, are you trying to remember? I said, man, I'm a big fan of yours. I read your stuff, blah, blah, blah. You're like, what? I said, I'm a big fan of yours.

• 1:19:24Bill Simmons?

  I remember, are you kidding?

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, you know, Ernie, man, he is the glue to hold all this stuff together.

• 1:19:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  He works his behind and he's been through so much stuff in his life, you know, the son died a couple of years ago. That was traumatic for us. You know, he battled cancer. You know, when you work with somebody, I mean, I can't even believe, you know what's really funny? Ernie gives me shit all the time. Because when I took the job, he says, he pulled me aside. He says, be honest with me, how long are you gonna be here? I said, Ernie, I'm gonna be here for five years and I'm probably gonna take an NBA job. And like once a month, he says, hey, how's that year five thing worked out for you? Because I'm not gonna lie, I, I originally, I originally thought, I said, I'm gonna do TV for three or four, five years max. And then I'm gonna take an NBA job.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  Uh, and now twenty six, twenty seven years later, it, it's amazing.

• 1:20:28Bill Simmons?

  I would have loved to have had you as a GM in the mid two thousands when I was writing my column. When, when we had, that was like the atrocious GM apex. All the, all those teams, the Knicks and the Timberwolves and they, I, you, I don't know if you would have fleeced them or you would have gotten infected by them, but something interesting would have happened.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  You know, I've had three chances to be a GM, but they wouldn't give me total control. I said, no, I'm not leaving my job to take a job and I'm gonna get fired. I says, I saw this happen with my George with the Wizards, like they blamed him for everything, but he's hoping for, I said, I said, I have no problem with y'all blaming me for anything. But I'm gonna have complete authority on all the draft picks and trades. They're like, well, you have no experience. I said, who you think I'm gonna hire, my brother? I'm, I, I says, I, you, I can always tell who's gonna be a good NBA coach or a coach in general, Bill, by the assistants they hire.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Because a lot of these coaches, one thing I admire about Nick Saban, he hired every ex head coach. Because he knew they were gonna be a good assistant and they were gonna do things the right way if they want to be a head coach again. A lot of these coaches hired their friends and their buddies. So, and they like somebody who they ain't worried about taking their job. I said, I don't want somebody who want to be an assistant their whole life. I'm gonna surround myself with successful people. Like Nick Saban, you go back, every coach he hired, Kirby, Lane Kiffin, Sarkisian, uh, the coach at Maryland. Like he hired guys who had got fired, Bush Jones, because number one, they know how to run.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  If you're a head coach, because it's total, because being an assistant coach is like night and day when being a head coach.

• 1:22:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  But he hired guys who had ran things, who knew how to organize things. But what he like, I'm a strong assistance around me. But a lot of these coaches, going back to the area you're talking about, they hired their buddies who didn't know what they were doing. Who were like, they were worried about somebody taking their job. I don't want somebody around me who was ambitious, who wants something other than an assistant. Uh, you gotta, you gotta, to be successful, you gotta surround yourself with successful people.

• 1:22:49Bill Simmons?

  Right, I agree with you. I've tried.

• 1:22:52Speaker 02

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis or E O E can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

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• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  Dupixent dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least thirty three pounds can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing.

• 1:23:20Speaker 02

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• 1:23:25Speaker 03

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• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Feeling stuck with E O E? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call one eight four four Dupixent.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus.

• 1:24:17Bill Simmons?

  How to do it? Um, you always come on every, or at least September before the NFL season. I think this is the fourth or fifth straight time.

• 1:24:26Bill Simmons?

  You have opinions, you have picks. Two years ago, we looked this up. Two, two years ago, you picked the Eagles to win the Super Bowl and they actually did. So I think you're one and, you're one and four lifetime with us. So obviously everyone's on pins and needles to see if you can increase the percentages. What do you have for the season?

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Let me tell you something, man, I was so excited when last Saturday happened. It was like Christmas, they call it week zero. I finally got to go into a sports book and bet on football. I was, because this like, because now it's like Christmas for me every Saturday and Sunday for the next six, seven months. Uh, you know, football is my favorite sport. I don't normally leave my house on Saturday and Sunday, but I bet on football every weekend. I, I just freaking love it. I do, I love it. And so last week, I went in the casino for the first time and a guy looks at me like, it's like Christmas for you. And it, I said, it is like Christmas in the middle of the damn summer.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  And I'm good to go, I'm good to go for the, I am, I, I, I love going into casino every Saturday and Sunday betting on football, Bill, I do. Uh, but this gonna be, this gonna be a great year. You know, obviously everybody's on the Rams bandwagon. Uh, man, I'm, it's great to see Aaron Donald back. I got so much love and respect for that guy. Um, but, uh, in the, in the AFC, man, I want this team to win the Super Bowl so damn bad, uh, Bill. I want to see the Buffalo Bills. Uh, Josh Allen to me is the best player in football. I saw Herm Edwards say that the other day on ESPN. He said, this guy's the best player in football.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  And they went out and got him a weapon, DJ Moore. I hope it's enough. I hope they improve their defense. I would love to see they got a new head coach, obviously. But I want to see the Buffalo Bills because, you know, you talked about the shit list earlier. I think one of the greatest accomplishments in sports history, they're never gonna get recognition or the love they deserve is the Buffalo Bills going to four straight Super Bowls. That's never happened before, but they're never gonna get the respect they deserve because they never won one. It's one of the great, because you know, you talked about earlier, all the wear and tear you put on your body when you play all those extra games, all those year after year after year.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  But the Buffalo Bills had to, they, they had, you know, and it's, it sucks. They've never gotten the credit and respect that they deserve for that accomplishment. But I'm, I'm all in on Buffalo. I would love to see them win the AFC and get to the Super Bowl. In the NFC, man, the Seattle Seahawks have to be the most disrespected champion in the history of football. I got a chance to meet their coach, Coach McDonald, uh, uh, in Lake Tahoe. And man, the job he did, man, they, that defense was incredible. Sam Donald, he didn't see ghosts anymore. He just saw the Vince Lombardi.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  But that defense was incredible. They don't even get mentioned anymore. It's all about the Rams. Like I said, I know they got Miles and, and, and I'm glad to see Aaron Donald back. But man, the Seattle has to be the most disrespected team, Super Bowl champion in a long time. Can your Patriots be good again since they got my man AJ? Uh, you know, that's gonna be interesting. Uh, you know, how are my Eagles gonna do now? That, that, that's the big question in Philly. Um, it's gonna be a lot of pressure on Jalen to, to, to play at a high school. Um, so if you look at it, listen.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  I think the sleeper team, it is not, you know why I know they're a sleeper team? The quietest mouse in the room has been Jerry Jones. This is the, this is the first time that I can ever remember. They went the entire preseason without Jerry being on television every single day. That tells me he thinks the Cowboys got a legit chance.

• 1:28:34Bill Simmons?

  I agree. Super quiet for two months.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  And listen, you think about for the la- for the last few years, it's been Michael's contract. They, uh, Dak's contract for the last three or four years.

• 1:28:49Bill Simmons?

  C.D. Lamb.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  C.D. Lamb's contract the year before. I haven't heard Jerry all preseason, which tells me he think they got a good team.

• 1:28:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree. So.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they're gonna be really good, man. But that's what, you know, there's always, can Kyler Murray?

• 1:29:06Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  It's cut, it cut, listen, Tim McConnell is a genius on offense. Can Kyler re- resurrect his career? Man, oh, here's another wow.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  It's now or never for, for Lamar in Baltimore. It's now or never. That's what me, I tell people, when you play sports.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  When you got a good team, the beginning of the season, there's nothing like it, Bill. Like, guys know when their team sucks.

• 1:29:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  But when you, because I tell people, very few years when you play basketball or football. You're like, we got a chance to win in the championship or win in the Super Bowl. Like, I played for 16 years, probably five years, I'm like, we got a chance to win in championship. And probably football is harder, but you know, you, but there's probably, there's probably 10 teams that got a legit chance to win the Super Bowl. The other 20, they're like, we trying to get better. If we make the playoffs, we gonna have a good year.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  But when you like the Patriots, they, they got to get to the Super Bowl to feel like they had another good year. Buffalo, Baltimore.

• 1:30:30Bill Simmons?

  Two thoughts on what you said, because I said this last week about the Seahawks. I'm so glad you said that about them being disrespected. I was making the case last week, they might be the first NFL Super Bowl champ who is a nobody believes in us team. Everybody's moved on. They have, basically 95% of their team is back from last year when they dominated everybody. And I don't know, everybody's just blowing the Rams, blowing the Rams, blowing the Rams. But if, if I'm, you, you mentioned McDonald, how good of a coach he is, you know, he's gonna use it as motivation the whole year. Everybody's already handing the Super Bowl to the Rams. It's like, we didn't even win. You know how this goes. This happens in football all the time.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I heard some idiots on TV talking about, uh, can the Rams go undefeated? I'm like, undefeated? Like, damn, like, they ain't never made, they ain't even made the playoffs yet. So, uh, but you know, that's what makes fodder. But like, you know who, you know who I got a man crush on? Dan Campbell. I wanna see Dan Campbell. I, I would love to see Detroit get back to the playoffs and do some damage. Um, I mean, it's so, so, but that's, that's what makes sports crazy, Bill. That's a, that, that, because last year, nobody expected your Patriots to get to the Super Bowl.

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  No, no, I thought they would be good. I didn't see it.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  How about Sean Payton, uh, in Denver? Denver might be the favorite in the AFC. They might've got to the Super Bowl last year if, uh, if my, if my boy, so Nickson Auburn didn't get hurt. I mean.

• 1:31:58Bill Simmons?

  There was two teams, the, the Denver absolutely could have beaten the Patriots and probably would have if Knicks didn't get hurt. And then Houston would have beaten the Patriots if Stroud didn't completely fall apart in that game. Because Houston had the best defense, at least in the AFC, maybe in the whole league.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  And also, can he rebound? He, he probably, he probably got more pressure on him than any player in the NFL. When you got a defense that good, and you were the rea- the single handed reason they lost. And like, he's probably, in my opinion, he's probably got more pressure on him than any player in the NFL. I truly believe that.

• 1:32:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that's the difference between basketball and football, because in basketball, you're all basically one unit and you have a starters and the bench. In football, you have the offense and the defense. And if you have an awesome defense, and your QB is just letting you down over and over again. It's, it's almost like, like when Matt Maloney couldn't hit a three point shot in the playoffs for you guys. And it's like, that's one guy. But this is like an entire unit that's just submarining you.

• 1:33:02Speaker 01

  And you just, the thing is, you just don't have to turn the ball over. You don't have to play great.

• 1:33:08Bill Simmons?

  Right, drive the car.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did, uh, yeah, just keep us, keep us on the highway. And so, and that's, and that's the thing. It's hard to play sports under pressure. Is he gonna just let it fly or be tentative? That's the hardest thing about sports that people don't realize. It's hard to play sports under pressure. Uh, like, if, once he throws his first interception, how's he gonna react? So, that's what, but that's what makes sports intriguing. That's why we watch.

• 1:33:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then the quarterbacks, just in general this year, we have, Lamar is at a really interesting point in his career. Um, you have Knicks who I think has a team that at least is like a top 16 potentially, if he's good enough. You have Jalen, Jalen Hurts, who you haven't even mentioned yet, with a huge spotlight on him now, with another offensive coordinator, no A.J. Brown. Making a lot of money out of Eagles fans. What, what are the, what are the Eagles fans saying with Jalen Hurts these days?

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  This is gonna be a big year for him. This is gonna be a big year. Uh, this is gonna be a big year, because, you know, they took the noise out the room. And like, okay, because they choke, it's the other guy. So we got rid of the other guy. Now, okay, it's on you. Uh, and, and listen, that's the way this thing work. We have, they picked a guy. They said, okay, this, this, this relationship is not tangible. And they're like, we gonna take you. And that's just the way this bounces. It, it's all on Jalen now.

• 1:34:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Rams thing is interesting, because comparing it to ba- basketball. When you have heavy favorites in basketball, like San Antonio and Oklahoma City, you can't even bet on them to make the playoffs. They've made the odds so high. It's like literally impossible to bet on it, because you know, like, whatever happens, they're gonna have the infrastructure to be good. And in football, you know, the Rams, as good as their like top seven or eight are, and as great as their coaches, it's still football. And you lose two of those guys and you have a top heavy team, and all of a sudden that can tilt away. So anytime I ever see somebody that's a prohibitive favorite, I just don't, I'm not buying it. I don't think anybody should be a prohibitive favorite.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Well, you know, listen, you have, guys on television and radio have to pick somebody. And they gonna pick the prettiest, the prettiest girl. You know, can Matt, can Matt Stafford stay healthy? You know, he, you know, he stayed healthy and won MVP, but you know, he's up there in AIDS. So it's, you know, they might, they took the kid something from Alabama. He can go out there and play other rookie. So, but that's what, man, that's, that's what makes sports amazing. Like, sports, like, in real time. Like, you get to be high, low, mad, sad, excited. We do all this stuff in real time.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  That's, that's why when a season first starts, Bill, it is such, it's such a ray of joy over cities, over people. Like, it's, it's beautiful to watch.

• 1:36:15Bill Simmons?

  All right. So it sounds like, so I have, uh, Houston and Seattle in the Super Bowl, and I have Seattle winning back to back. Your Super Bowl pick is what?

• 1:36:25Speaker 01

  Them two defenses that you pick, the final score gonna be 17-14. That's gonna be, as my man said, that's gonna be a slobberknocker. Um, I'm gonna, I'm rooting for Josh Allen. I'm gonna go Buffalo Bills against Seattle. And the Buffalo Bills are gonna win the Super Bowl over Seattle. 21-17.

• 1:36:48Bill Simmons?

  Wow. Buff- so you're saying they finally get off the hump. Josh Allen gets off the shit list. Buffalo as a city gets off the shit list, just like a shit list cleansing.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  And it's gonna be one of the great days in sports. My man Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Darryl Tally, Cordean Bennett. Uh, see, I forget, what's Steve's name? The point returner, the great crick returner.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Steve Lasker?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Forget his name.

• 1:37:18Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  Is it Steve Tasker?

• 1:37:21Bill Simmons?

  Steve Tasker, yeah, Steve Tasker, yeah.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I, I love those guys. I became a Bills fan because of Cornet Bennett and Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas and those guys and Bruce Smith. So I want them to get off the list, because just same way I saw, you see the excitement on those Knicks players, Patrick, Larry Johnson, John Sparks and all those guys.

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  It was great.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  I would have, yeah, so I would love to see those guys be on the parade with the Buffalo Bills. Got a new stadium and everything.

• 1:37:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the, really, now that the Knicks have won the title, I would say, is it the Suns? That would be the most euphoric fan base if they won the title. And they haven't, they haven't, since 1970, they've had a team and they have great fans.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  We're not gonna win a championship. That's your per se, brother. Stop that, Bill.

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm saying down the road, not this year.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Well, how about my sisters? That'd be great too.

• 1:38:11Bill Simmons?

  Hey, you won in 83.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Bill, that was.

• 1:38:14Bill Simmons?

  I guess that was a long time ago.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Fast millennium.

• 1:38:16Bill Simmons?

  Suns never won.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  I, I, I know. Thanks for reminding me. Um.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's true.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  But no, man, it was great for New York. I said it was exciting, but man, that's the beauty of sports, though, man. You start from, you start from the bottom every year and whatever happened, it plays out in real time, real time.

• 1:38:43Bill Simmons?

  So would you, would you expand if you were the NBA? Or would you just move Brooklyn and the Clippers to two different cities and stay at 30?

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Well, we need a team in Seattle.

• 1:38:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Seattle, Seattle has the best fan base in pro sports, probably. That was one of the worst decisions they made, moving that team out of Seattle.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  I, I, I always, I always feel bad about screwing a fan base, moving a team, but the number one priority, we need a team in Seattle, period. And I know they want to do Vegas, but the number one priority should be Seattle. They have the best fan base in sports.

• 1:39:22Bill Simmons?

  We agree. Charles Barkley, a pleasure as always. We'll see who's right. We both have Seattle in the Super Bowl. You have Buffalo, I have Houston, I have Seattle winning, you have Buffalo winning.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Hey, man.

• 1:39:32Bill Simmons?

  And we'll see who wins.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, man. You're a good fan and continue your success. Thanks for having me.

• 1:39:37Bill Simmons?

  You too. Always great to see you, Charles. Thanks. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Charles Barkley, thanks to Eduardo Gahal as well from The Ringer. And I'm going to be back on Sunday. We're going to be live on Netflix, I think at 7 o'clock ET, me and Sal doing Guess the Lines, Week One, plus our NFL Futures Draft that we always love to do. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday.

• 1:40:22Bill Simmons?

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