Part 2: NBA Trade Team Grades With Rob Mahoney and Wosny Lambre. Plus, Super Bowl LIX Million-Dollar Picks.

In Part 2 of our NBA trade deadline special, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre share some lingering thoughts right after the deadline, plus more on the Luka Doncic trade, including two appearances from "Conspiracy Bill." They also talk about who the odd teams out in the Western Conference playoff race will be, grade the teams who made trades, and more (1:52). Finally Bill reveals his Million-Dollar Picks for Super Bowl LIX (1:10:45). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney and Wosny Lambre Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. 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.

• 0:01Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, part two of the big NBA trade deadline extravaganza next. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a Before Sunrise rewatchables on Monday. You can watch it on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel. You can also watch me and Sean and Chris doing a trailer reaction to Jurassic Park: Money Grab, the new Jurassic Park movie. I think that's the title. If you missed it, part one of the Trade Deadline Podcast, which we did live on YouTube, which you can follow if you subscribe. Bill Simmons is the YouTube channel. Me, Rob Mahoney, Big Waz. We covered all the angles from the week, and then this is going to be part two, which we basically started recording

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  right as the trade deadline ended at 3:00 PM ET on Thursday. That is the first part of this podcast. First part of this podcast, then the first part of this podcast. And then after that, I'm going to be doing Million Dollar Picks for a little game they call the Super Bowl. We did not do a lot of football this week, but football was all over the place on the Ringer.com, on the Ringer Podcast Network. We had The Ringer Gaming Show, Ringer NFL, Russillo did some stuff. The Ringer Philly special was great. So if you want football stuff, I would steer you to the pieces in the podcast we did. And sometimes it's just one of those weeks. I really wanted to do a podcast on Tuesday night. I thought Durant was getting traded to Golden State, so I paused

• 2:13Bill Simmons?

  it and then the window passed and we ended up doing a two parter for today. This is part two. First, our friends from Pro Gym.

• 2:41Bill Simmons?

  Okay, so it's part two right now officially is 1201 PT. And we're going to talk a lot about the Lakers down the road. Once we know all the trades. The big thing we're waiting up, there's been another trade. Shom says Indiana trading James Wiseman and cash to the Toronto Raptors. He can't walk. He blew out his Achilles. So that's our first one.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06Bill Simmons?

  But we're on Grizzlies watch now because they're clearly up to something. They're dumping salary and creating cap room for some reason.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  And roster spots, it feels like.

• 3:14Bill Simmons?

  Is it Cam Johnson, maybe?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  I mean, they've been linked to Cam Johnson for sure. He makes a lot of sense for them.

• 3:19Bill Simmons?

  What are your Cam Johnson? What's your Cam Johnson feelings?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Very much like him as a player. I think he has been now appropriately placed. Now that we've had the Luca craziness, we've had De'Aaron Fox, we've had Jimmy Butler, everything has cooled down. Cam Johnson is a really good player who could help a bunch of different teams, including the Memphis Grizzlies. And now that is the context in which he lives.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's not the kind of guy that you just stick him on a great wing and think, oh, it's gonna be fine. He's not. The D part of the three and D is.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  I think we finally like, let it go. He's a good, he shoots the hell out of the ball. Variety of ways to get a shot off, which I think is going to be important for Memphis. And he's respectable on defense. Like that's.

• 4:02Bill Simmons?

  I like that we're putting him in the Grizzlies now. This is fun. Yeah, I think Memphis, he's gonna help them with shooting.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  If.

• 4:07Bill Simmons?

  No, no.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Well, but this is the kind of thing where I don't know to what extent these conversations could be linked, but if the Bucks could have gotten in on Cam Johnson instead of Kyle Kuzma, like that's the kind of fit it honestly might be.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Too high.

• 4:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Brooklyn just doesn't trade any.

• 4:22Bill Simmons?

  Kuzma's been kicking ass this year.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  You guys are gonna ruin the day. You laughed about the Kyle Kuzma deal.

• 4:30Bill Simmons?

  I mean, when you can get a minus 59 plus minus in one game, you've really accomplished something. I have a quick Nets take before we find out the rest of their trades. Do they really need to do anything else? I kind of like Cam Johnson. I kind of like Nick Claxton. They're gonna suck anyway.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:45Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna be a bottom 10 team, which is their goal. And why not just keep those guys and keep them as assets for the, for the, for the summer? I'd rather do that.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  I don't think there's a tremendous amount of urgency. I think they do have the option to play out some things. There are a couple of guys, like Cam Thomas is sort of the one that comes to mind. Do you really want to be paying free agent Cam Thomas?

• 5:08Bill Simmons?

  Probably not.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  But, you know, he's also a tougher sell for a lot of different teams in the first place. He has his own injury concerns that winning teams that are trying to contend right now might not want to take a flyer on something like that. So the guys that I look at for Brooklyn are more like, oh, is there not a way you can flip D-Lo again? Is there not a market for Cam Thomas? How do you really feel about Dayron Sharp? Why not?

• 5:30Bill Simmons?

  D-Lo and Schroder, just start just trading them for each other. Was, I didn't want to bring this up because I don't want to spoil the mood because we're having a good time. I know Ben Simmons being traded on trade deadline as an expiring contract was a dream for you. And it feels like the dream is dying right now. What would have been your dream Ben Simmons team?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  The dream Ben Simmons team?

• 5:54Bill Simmons?

  To the team that gets him and is like, I don't know, we'll see what he has. Maybe he could be an asset.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Who are those teams? There's gotta be like a Charlotte. It's gotta be a Portland. It's gotta be a team that's like going absolutely nowhere fast.

• 6:09Bill Simmons?

  Portland right now, they're on fire.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  You know, uh, what, like, who is the team that says, Ben Simmons, let's take a flyer on this?

• 6:16Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking with Charlotte just losing their mind, he would have been like a fun LaMelo Ball kind of combo.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I mean, they got time to kill at this point.

• 6:25Bill Simmons?

  They got so much.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Can I share something kind of funny with you guys? After all of these moves, the Wizards are now officially over the first apron. I mean, when you have a chance to really pay out the nose for a roster, that is technically true at the moment.

• 6:36Bill Simmons?

  Just because they wanted to acquire 100 second round picks?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Took on a bunch of picks, took on a bunch of money. Congratulations to the Wizards for winning the first apron championship.

• 6:44Bill Simmons?

  And if you're over the first apron, what does that do exactly?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  For them, basically nothing at the moment. It just kind of limits the ways in which you can acquire players. I don't, and I think by the time that the summer rolls over enough of that money will come off that it won't prevent them from like getting somebody in a sign and trade or something like that.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  Apparently, Shams said on TV that they are not moving Kevin Durant to Suns.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  I wonder if they were ever really interested in moving Kevin Durant and I wonder if anyone in Ishbia's conference room was like, you, we're gonna trade Kevin Durant and get Jimmy Butler back? What are we doing?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  No, I don't think.

• 7:17Bill Simmons?

  Why are we doing that?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  That seemed like a pipe dream for the Heat.

• 7:20Bill Simmons?

  That was, that was. I think that was the Golden State trade, though.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  That was, that was their attempt was to make it a three-way deal.

• 7:27Bill Simmons?

  But I think, I think if he wanted to go to Golden State, I think that trade was probably happening in some form. And there was the, Phoenix was getting Butler and some, maybe, maybe the protected pick from Golden State or whatever else.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  But if you are Phoenix's part of that, that's what we're saying. Like, the Beal for Butler conversation makes sense. The Durant trade, lose Kevin Durant and replace him with Jimmy Butler.

• 7:47Bill Simmons?

  But that's what I'm saying. I think they were gonna do it, though.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  That's.

• 7:51Bill Simmons?

  Which if I was a Suns fan, I would just be alarmed.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  I think they should be alarmed for many reasons.

• 7:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. You know, Rob, that's a great point. The Suns fans, the alarms are going off either way. Uh, we do not have, the Knicks are not making a trade. So, all right. So, let's start the Lakers part of this conversation and then if anything else happens, we'll just audible and stop and keep going. So, the Lakers trade, Connect. I don't know if he's gonna get a 30 for 30 for his 50 Laker games or what's gonna happen, but it was a roller coaster ride. He seemed like the steal of the draft. I think I have a podcast somewhere where I was shitting on Miami for taking Ware over Connect. It's probably somewhere in my archives.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Let's just delete that.

• 8:40Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, so they turn Connect, Cam Reddish, who I think is just 24 years old for the next 10 years. I don't know if he ages. And then a 2031 first and a swap. And they bring Mark Williams back. The swap, whatever. Is Charlotte ever gonna have?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:56Bill Simmons?

  Come on. Uh, and then, um, the 2031 first for a team that is almost definitely gonna have Luka Doncic on it.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 9:05Bill Simmons?

  Probably.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 9:06Bill Simmons?

  At 31 years old, probably. I'm not doing backflips about that. Why would they trade Mark Williams, a young center who has really played well the last six weeks? Is this offer like just too good to refuse? What was it?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I really like Mark Williams, the basketball player. Mark Williams, the injury risk scares the hell out of me.

• 9:26Bill Simmons?

  You mean the 85 career games in three years?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  He has played less than 40% of his games.

• 9:32Bill Simmons?

  And he's had like three ankle things. He's had a back thing, broke his thumb, not his fault. The back thing was probably the most concerning. Then they said he had some sort of foot issue that they feel good about. So that's the risk.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  It's one of these things where I get why Charlotte would look at this offer and say, you know what? Maybe we just get out of the Mark Williams business. We like him. We like what he's brought. We like his potential, but ultimately maybe he's just too risky. And between connect and the pick and the swap, that's enough value. And I also honestly do get it from the Lakers. You know, they're not going to have many chances to take swings on players this young and this promising.

• 10:08Bill Simmons?

  Cheap contract, like five, six million?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Cheap contract, but it's going to come up sooner than you think because he's already been in the league and hurt for so long. And he's going to be just a hell of a lob target for Luka Doncic. Just an incredible finisher, already a pretty good rebounder, really needs to figure it out defensively. But as far as a team that can grow and build around Luka, that's, that's a great place to start.

• 10:27Bill Simmons?

  So we know this because we're on the West Coast. The East Coast teams that start playing at four o'clock in the afternoon here. And you're like, oh, basketball's on. And then it's like Pistons, Hornets, Wizards, Hornets. Literally the games. And for whatever reason, most of the bad teams this year in the East, and those are the teams playing at four o'clock. So there's some people probably talking out of their ass about Mark Williams, but I think we've all probably watched him. And I've definitely watched the Hornets recently and noticed how good Mark Williams was. And they had, there was a Denver game, Jokic got all his stats, but Mark Williams was also getting stats. And I liked them coming out of college.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:09Bill Simmons?

  I think one of the reasons they traded Nick Richards was they felt like he was ready to be a guy. And he was a guy. And he was like lob guy. Who knows with the defense? He's been on bad teams. We have no idea.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 11:20Bill Simmons?

  Lob guy, gets 2012 basically every night and is exactly the kind of guy the Lakers needed. I thought it was a good trade. They gave up a lot, but I liked it.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I'm a little bit more lukewarm on it just because I think the price was high. In terms of that 2031, everybody's like looking at that as the one.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  And that is kind of their one shot was like, I guess they still have Austin Reeves. They could move Reeves at some point, but connect and the pick. And I guess to some extent the swap were their primary catalyst.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  So I think that was, that was pretty high. And I think with Luca, building around him, I think you should be thinking defense first. And Mark Williams is an offense first player. We get it. He's a huge guy. Like he's like in the Rudy Gobert category in terms of like length and size and all of that stuff. But he has never shown to be like a great defensive kind of guy in his limited.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  You know why he's never shown it? Cause he's played 85 games.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  It all makes sense.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  And that's the thing, like maybe he's going to turn into this defensive monster, this rim protecting beast that he hasn't shown yet. Cause he does have the tools. He's not very mobile, but I just think with Luca, you should be thinking defense first and offense like with Luca, like you just don't have to be that great. In order to make it work around everything that he does. And so that's the only.

• 12:38Bill Simmons?

  He's like seven feet, two 50.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And a crazy athlete, like really, really athletic. And most importantly, he is not Jackson Hayes. So huge upgrade right out of the gate.

• 12:47Bill Simmons?

  As you guys know, it's, it's, I have to always do a disclaimer. I hate the Lakers and I don't want them to succeed. I saw this trade. I thought they gave up a lot for a guy who we don't need, has not even played a hundred career games yet. But deep down I was like, fuck. Mark Williams is good. He's a good player. And I was just the fun, the Celtics fan side of me was like, fuck that guy. So now I think about the Lakers in a series. And I really want to talk about this.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  Size, they're gonna, they're gonna play with a certain pace with Luca and LeBron.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Oh, slow.

• 13:20Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be slow, methodical. They're gonna be big.

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  And it's the kind of team, if I'm OKC, I'm not pumped about playing. A team that's going to be able to try to dictate the pace against us, that's going to throw big bodies all over the place. And it's like, we're going to take Mark Williams out. Now, all of a sudden, we have LeBron, Luca and Rui Hachimura as our bigs. Like, they're always going to have size and length basically everywhere except the point guard position. But I don't think in the playoffs-

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Even at the point, like Austin Reeves is a big point, or Luca, whoever you want to consider to be the point guard.

• 13:51Bill Simmons?

  And in the playoffs, like Luca just might be the point guard. They might just be Luca, LeBron, two wings and Mark Williams, and that's their crunch time lineup. I'd be really scared of this team in the playoffs.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  The only thing about the Lakers is you gotta do have to think about the defense because it's like, is LeBron guarding threes full time? You got Luca as a defender-

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't guard one, two, three, four or fives.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  You got Austin Reeves, and you got Mark Williams. Like, it's not the greatest defensive situation happening there, but like Luca and LeBron figuring out your little postseason defense, that's scary.

• 14:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, when, you know, people, people try to zag on the trade, like, how are those guys going to play together? They both have the ball all the time. And it's like, I'm positive they're going to figure this out.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Not worried about it.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  LeBron and Luca are going to figure out how to play offense.

• 14:36Bill Simmons?

  Who has the smallest guy in them, you or me? Oh, you do. All right, you're going to have the ball now.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Bludgeon him to death.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Also, low key, Luca, I thought was a pretty good sport about playing off the ball more this season in general, like had actually started to make some meaningful improvement in that part of his game. LeBron can obviously do it. These are brilliant players. It's not going to be a problem in terms of the offense. And you're right, the thing that we talked about is maybe the most important skill set in basketball is how do you break down half court defense? And can you score one on one against anybody?

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  They have guys who can do that at an incredibly high level.

• 15:07Bill Simmons?

  Two of the most brilliant basketball players of this century. They're now together. They have a team that, that the worry is where we don't have enough size. How are we going to guard people? You know Vanderbilt.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Finney Smith.

• 15:21Bill Simmons?

  Finney Smith. No, we'd be like, all right, if we're playing some hot wing in a playoff series, do we have somebody that we can at least cover them with? They have that. I don't think they're gonna be able to guard point guards at all.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 15:33Bill Simmons?

  So like you pick a point guard, that guy's dust in them.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Play a team that wants to spread you out because again LeBron, Luka getting spread out like.

• 15:41Bill Simmons?

  But first two runs in the playoffs, like it's, it's like three, four. It really doesn't get to conference finals when it's every other day. And I think they could make the conference finals. Like, I can't believe how things have flipped. It makes me wanna pull one of my kidneys out and whip it against the fucking wall. But they're gonna be really hard to play. And if I look at like OKC number one, who's number two?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:04Bill Simmons?

  For playoffs, who has the ability to do this? The Lakers are the first choice.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Denver's still my first choice, but again, like you're gonna have to pry Denver out of my cold dying hands, right?

• 16:16Bill Simmons?

  So maybe, maybe they're two B. Yeah. Lakers, Denver, two A, two B and some.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Houston is so young. The offense is like, you still gotta make shots.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  The Grizzlies are a sure.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  No, the, the Grizzlies.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Come on, guys. I think the Grizz are gonna be really good in the, even in a playoff. They have a lot to prove, as all these teams do, the Lakers included. Like, we need to have the Lakers guard.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Ja is taking all his time off. He's saving his body.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  I hope you're right. I hope you're right.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  That's where, uh, that's where my train gets off.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  The Grizzlies?

• 16:45Bill Simmons?

  No, with the Ja thing. I just, he's just not playing basketball enough.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Got you.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  And it feels like they're beholden to him and the potential of what he can do, but he's just not doing it regularly. And so I think that's probably the team that has the, the upside ceiling.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yes, they could.

• 17:02Bill Simmons?

  But if I'm just betting, I'm taking Denver and the Lakers are the two.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Another Laker thing with this trade, I think they're betting majorly on free agency in 2026. And I looked at it, it is a blank. You can look it up. It's like a bunch of older guys and the number one prize is Jaren Jackson, which.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  I'm not doing, I'm not doing that. I'm not putting the Laker jersey on Jaren Jackson. I'm just saying LeBron might be done. Obviously, he's good.

• 17:32Bill Simmons?

  To grow up a Laker fan is one of those?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. I'm just saying he is the, the main target of pretty much every team in the league at this point.

• 17:41Bill Simmons?

  But I think that's why they did the smart trade though, because I think Memphis is trying to give him a massive extension. By the way, he might be an all NBA guy.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he's in the running.

• 17:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like he could be.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  A tremendous season.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  But the rest of the guys in 2026, which I think the Lakers are also banking on that they're going to bring in a major talent in 2026 as well, that summer.

• 18:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Let's take a, we'll take a quick break for the podcast.

• 18:08Bill Simmons?

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• 18:50Bill Simmons?

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• 20:20Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery. One bottle, available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you. Visit corepower.com to learn more. I'm going to read you the Western Conference odds. OKC is plus 105. Who do you think is the number two best odds in the West right now?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Probably the Lakers, just because everyone bets on the Lakers, I would think.

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  What do you have, Wes?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  I would go Memphis.

• 21:06Bill Simmons?

  So Denver is second at 6-1. Who do you think is number three?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  I'm assuming it's, I'm just going to keep saying the Lakers until they show up.

• 21:17Bill Simmons?

  Lakers plus 750. So basically what we said before, the gambling public also agrees, Grizzlies are fourth.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  People seen that Laker, people seen that Luka trade and just said, yeah, I need it.

• 21:28Bill Simmons?

  Grizzlies fourth at 11-1.

• 21:31Bill Simmons?

  Houston, I'm sorry, Clippers 16 to 1.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  And this is to win the West?

• 21:35Bill Simmons?

  Win the West.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Clippers are above the Rockets to win the West?

• 21:38Bill Simmons?

  18 to 1. You know why they're above the Rockets? Cause everyone's seen these fucking crunch time Fred VanVliet plays. Nobody can watch them anymore. How many, how many, how many terrible step back threes can you have in one season?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Leave Fred alone.

• 21:51Bill Simmons?

  How many? I like Fred, but how is that your offense at the end of games?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  It shouldn't be, it shouldn't be. He's, he's turned out to be like quite critical to making them functional.

• 21:58Bill Simmons?

  Do they draw those up in the huddle?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  I don't think that's the move.

• 22:02Bill Simmons?

  Fred step back three again. We're, we're, we're only down two.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  He's miscast in his role as number one crunch time.

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  I think he thinks he's the guy on the team though.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  But often like who is going to create?

• 22:14Bill Simmons?

  I'm just spreading the floor for Thompson and just get to the basket somehow.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Maybe that's where they get to.

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  Just get to the basket.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  He may can't, he's not gonna bring himself to be like a men Thompson is now our freaking crunch time.

• 22:26Bill Simmons?

  Or Jalen Green, one of those guys. Spread the floor.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Jalen Green is the one.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  No, you lost me at Jalen Green. Look, he's had great moments.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Rob has hated Jalen Green.

• 22:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm just going to the basket over the Fred VanVliet step back. I can't do it again.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  I, I feel that, I feel that. I think Amen right now is thriving in chaos. Anytime the floor is unstable, unbalanced, unsettled, he's so good. Set half court defense coming out of a timeout, drive with a guy right in your face. Not quite his game yet.

• 22:50Bill Simmons?

  Houston 18 to 1, Golden State 20 to 1. Minnesota 23 to 1, interesting, cause they have a chance to be a top five team.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  I want to say this too, there's a difference I would say between the odds to win the West and the odds to also make the conference finals alongside the Thunder. I don't think Memphis can beat OKC in a way that you can talk yourself into the Lakers. You could talk yourself into Denver. You can see the way their advantages profile.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  The, the, the, the size advantage and the sort of mind advantage of, you know, execute, out executing this really young team. Who's still only ever done the second round last year. Uh, you could see it's a Memphis is not going to have the IQ advantage in any series that they're in. It's just not going to be the case.

• 23:34Bill Simmons?

  They're super young and relying on dudes that have never been there. So I haven't done a podcast since Sunday night with Goldsberry. And definitely not since the press conference, which I know, I think you guys talked about. Didn't you guys agree to that?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Nico Harrison press conference?

• 23:50Bill Simmons?

  No, the Luca press conference.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. We, well, actually we didn't talk about that.

• 23:53Bill Simmons?

  You didn't talk about that?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  No, no. You want to talk leather jackets or what? What do you want? What do you want to go?

• 23:58Bill Simmons?

  I've been obviously like you guys talking a lot about this Luka trade the last few days. And so if you're in the room with Nico Harrison and he, he bring, first of all, let's live in the facade of the world where nobody knew about this trade except Nico Harrison, the Mavs owner, Jeannie Buss and Polinka. We'll, we'll, we'll be in that pretend world where LeBron didn't know and, and Rich Paul didn't know and Jason Kidd didn't know. Let's, we'll be in that pretend world that didn't actually exist. And you're actually in the room and Nico Harrison is like getting close. We might do this. Did anyone around him at some point say, don't do this. You're going to trade Luca to the Lakers. All the things that frustrate you about him, all you're doing is putting a giant fucking

• 24:43Bill Simmons?

  chip on his shoulder and he's going to turn into Liam Neeson in the second half of Taken and be fucking awesome for the Lakers. You have to factor that in the trade. You're not trading this guy now who has 280 pounds in December and you know, as he's kind of, maybe he's kind of a dick to people. Who knows? Who knows what the reasons are? But just, this is what, this is what will be the result of the trade is this fucking maniac on the Lakers trying to get his vengeance year after year on you and the Mavs. Don't do this. And I don't think anyone said that to him.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  I think the Luca having issues with his body and his conditioning.

• 25:22Bill Simmons?

  He's 25.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  It bothers people who, Jason Kidd, who was a great player himself, been around greatness, hyper competitive guy has, yo, talk about calling Luca out. Nobody in the history of Luca's career has done more publicly to call Luca out. I remember him saying, I'm not the savior. I'm not the one who people call the savior of the franchise. Like Jason Kidd and Nico Harrison, who again is a big Kobe guy. And you think about the way Kobe comported himself and took his superstardom so seriously.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Eventually came to comport himself. Didn't start out that way.

• 25:58Bill Simmons?

  Sure. The revisionist history of that one. We've just thrown out the entire mid 2000s.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  But, but that's the thing though, like he was around Kobe when he was that maniacal person. I think there's just like a boy king factor where it's, you just feel like this, we can't get Luca to do these things now. Why wouldn't we guarantee him $350 million? Is he going to do it?

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  Cause he's Luka Doncic? Cause he's off to one of the best five starts in the first seven years.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  I I'm playing devil's advocate here. I could see a bunch of hyper competitive people being like, this guy's just the next Embiid. He's never gonna do the requisite things to get his body in check. He's never gonna actually be on the floor for us. We get it. He took us to the finals, but he just doesn't care enough about this extra stuff. And so let's get out of this business. I don't agree.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Rob, that's just, it's such a narrow view of what greatness looks like. Of that it basically has to look like Kobe Bryant's like basically fake work.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  I don't, I disagree. Look at Steph Curry. Look at LeBron. Look at um Jokic. He, look at what he did to get his conditioning and all of his stuff right. Like the best players actually do this.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  I I don't disagree with you, but like you could look at Giannis' injury history. And that's a guy who takes great care of himself, who puts incredible work on his game, on his body. Some guys get hurt and some guys get hurt for reasons that have nothing really to do with whatever their conditioning is, or whatever state their body is in. And honestly, the problem with the Embiid comp, and it's come up a lot. Like this is sort of the primary defense you hear is a Joel Embiid comparison for Luka Doncic.

• 27:30Bill Simmons?

  Plays half of the games in his career.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Also, Luca has our, Luca at his best is better than Joel Embiid has ever been. And he has done more in the playoffs than Joel Embiid has ever done.

• 27:40Bill Simmons?

  Nine months ago.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Nine months.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  That's the thing. I also think going to the finals is the thing for me. It's like, he's, he's put it on, he's put it on the floor. Like that he has it in him to carry a team to the freaking finals. Like, he's 25.

• 27:56Bill Simmons?

  He's 25. He's not the person, human being slash work ethic guy he's gonna be.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:02Bill Simmons?

  We've seen people, I know I made a shitload of mistakes in my mid twenties. I'm sure you guys did too. Things you would take back. We've seen it with athletes over and over again, including Kobe Bryant, by the way. Mid twenties aren't, if the talent is there and the competitiveness is there, which it has been the entire time with this dude. And your only thing is, ah, I wish he was in better shape. I wish maybe he treated people around here a little bit better like those aren't real reasons to trade him and and I just think they did him the all time favor you could see in the press conference he looked miserable no he looks shell shocked dude he looked like he couldn't believe this happened and I just think I maybe it's because I'm older and I've I've been

• 28:44Bill Simmons?

  down this this road a few times in sports like I just think he's I would bet anything he's gonna be awesome on the Lakers I just think this is the kind of thing sometimes guys need it's like the cattle prime and that's it

• 28:56Speaker 01

  and again their bet the Mavericks have effectively bet not just by trading away Luca but by bringing back a Lakers pick as the primary future return of the deal that this will not work

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  or that he's gonna leave

• 29:06Speaker 01

  or that he's gonna leave I think I think both of those things are bad bets and in to put yourself in Luca's shoes oh boy

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  oh my god conspiracy bills back it's almost like they think he's headed somewhere in the summer of 2026 and that's why they wanted that 20

• 29:25Speaker 01

  but also they and Luca have said

• 29:28Bill Simmons?

  like they're it's like a like they know something

• 29:32Speaker 01

  they're on Nico Harrison is now on the record as saying there was no indication that Luca from him or any of his representatives would not have taken the super max

• 29:40Speaker 02

  he's though but he's kind of talked out of both sides of his mouth on the

• 29:44Speaker 01

  well Luca also basically laughed at the question when it was presented to him of did you ever say that you were not gonna take the super like why would he turn down over a hundred million dollars to continue playing for the team that he just took to the NBA finals

• 29:59Speaker 02

  a couple guys have

• 30:00Bill Simmons?

  because he likes Florida maybe

• 30:02Speaker 02

  AD did it in New Orleans AD asked for his trade before he could sign his big super max in New Orleans Kawhi did it to San Antonio yeah so there are guys who have done it before there's no indication that Luca was headed down that path

• 30:21Speaker 01

  We have, we have so little evidence or justification for this trade. You have to invent reasons why it could be valid.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Our memories are kind of short too, because remember before the, the Gafford deal, the PJ Washington deal, that was like a big part of the chatter around Luca. Dallas needs to do something right now to prove the Luka Doncic that he needs to stay here. But so it wasn't that long ago.

• 30:42Bill Simmons?

  That's like the lazy NBA discourse of they gotta, blah, blah, blah.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Man, I think it was people that were plugged in with like, they need to prove that they're building a winner. That was a big part of the combo.

• 30:51Bill Simmons?

  Is it possible Luca's just not from this country and sometimes an organization of mostly American people that couldn't really get a handle on a guy from Slovenia? Like, does it seem like Denver has a handle on Jokic?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  I mean, Nikola Jokic could retire this summer and I wouldn't be surprised.

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  If you talk to anybody who is either remotely associated with the Nuggets, they're like, that guy can fucking retire in two months and none of us would be shocked. So.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  And his jersey would go up in the rafters and still be one of the greatest players of all time.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Like we're doing the two like Eastern Bloc guys, but like.

• 31:22Bill Simmons?

  But I'm saying obviously.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Jokic is different.

• 31:24Bill Simmons?

  But there was a disconnect with the organization and their best player and it's come out ever since and they had no problem.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:31Bill Simmons?

  Especially when they realized how unpopular the trade was. They had no problem leaking stuff out left and right, including stuff I'm not going to say in the pod. But the, uh, the, the, the fact that they kept this trade secret because they knew their fans were going to be so upset about it.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:49Bill Simmons?

  That the moment it leaked, there was going to be such a reaction against it that the owners would have backed out. Should tell you, you're making the wrong trade.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Probably should.

• 31:58Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's all I need to know. It's like, hey, we have to keep this between us. It can't get out. Why can't it get out? What would be the bad thing about it getting out? Because then more teams would offer stuff for Luka Doncic. No, it can't get out because you don't want the Mavs fan base to have a riot outside the arena.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, again, I personally would have signed the guy, then tried to move him if I hated his, his professional work habits so much. That's what I think they should have did. However. If you are of the mind, you put together a team that went to the finals last year, you have a guy who cannot play and you think if you bring in an all NBA level player, that you are going to continue to be a championship worthy type of squad. I don't agree, but I don't think it's the craziest thing that you could say.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  It is a little bit if you put the ages of those players into the conversation.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  If you're prioritizing this year, looping Luca and his agent and everybody and does not help you. They start telling teams, no, don't do it. No, it actually does start to handicap the amount of teams.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  I hear you.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  You can go about moving to. So if you, if you're going on Nico Harrison's idea of what, how good Dallas could be this year, it actually makes sense. I just think he's wrong.

• 33:13Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna be in France with David Kahn in like two years. That's where it's headed for him.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  What, what gets me about this is you don't trade Luka Doncic, period. That's a failure. The decision to trade him because you don't like what basically are these puffs of smoke about his work habits and his conditioning, not real actual basketball factors.

• 33:34Bill Simmons?

  And then also in the finals last year when Windhorse had the rant after game three, because Luca acted immaturely and caused those moments.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That absolutely happens. The real thing that's a part of his game. I still would not trade him for any of those reasons. If you did decide to trade him, keeping it secret, not lobbying offers. And I, I hear you that for this season, that would be complicated. So play out this season, a season in which Luka Doncic is going to be a better basketball player than Anthony Davis, provided that he's healthy and back on the court. Play it out and then once you get him under contract for the super max, ask Crawford.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  But then that becomes another thing, like how, you, you can't bring Luka Doncic back after you put him on the trade market.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  If your assumption is that he wants to leave, then it's all part of the same process.

• 34:17Bill Simmons?

  It's a scare, it's a scare tactic. Can we bring back in conspiracy bill? Let's do it one more time.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  So it's getting a workout today.

• 34:25Bill Simmons?

  So the Mavs, Cuban sells the team, which was fishing to begin with. He was always like, I'm Mavs owner for life. And all of a sudden he's like, yeah, I'm selling, sells it to this, this Vegas group that has gambling ties, all this stuff. The league greenlights it. Did the league say, this is why conspiracy bill is sometimes he's on crack.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:48Bill Simmons?

  Did the league say, well, we'll greenlight the team, but you gotta trade Luca to the Lakers in two years.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  So, so that's, that's.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  This is coming from a place of deep hurt. I can tell conspiracy bill also wearing green.

• 35:00Bill Simmons?

  Conspiracy, this is Q non, Q non bills here.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  That is another part of this. That's like Mavs ownership group is completely out to lunch on this.

• 35:11Bill Simmons?

  Or are they, or are they, or they have a much?

• 35:14Speaker 02

  How do you put your stamp of approval on this?

• 35:17Bill Simmons?

  Or are they, or are they hoping they just swap teams with the Vegas expansion in a couple of years and get the F out of Dallas?

• 35:23Speaker 02

  I don't, I mean, Vegas in terms of a market is not even close to Dallas.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Not even comparable market sizes. No.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Planet, like Vegas need to be compared themselves to Memphis.

• 35:33Bill Simmons?

  It's funny that this trade happened five days ago and we're still struggling to understand a reason.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  We're at the level of like, looking at the Texas state legislative calendar to figure out when, when betting should become legal.

• 35:44Bill Simmons?

  You realize what's gonna happen? Like five days from now, seven days from now, Luca's gonna have like 59 points in a game. And people are gonna be like, what just happened? How did we allow this trade? We're gonna move into that.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Have you seen the Anthony Edwards sound? Where he's just like, guys, he kicked our asses to get to the finals. This guy is a stone cold killer.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's Anthony Edwards.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  If this guy can be traded, like, bro, please don't trade me. If you could trade Luka Doncic.

• 36:18Bill Simmons?

  So his next games, he's, so if he comes back Saturday, and I'm sure he's being a menace.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  I believe he's expected to come back Saturday at this point.

• 36:25Bill Simmons?

  But figure, so rest of the schedule is Indiana, Utah, at Utah.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  Home Charlotte, February 19th. That has 70 written all over it. At Portland, at Denver, home Dallas. Oh my God, home Dallas.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  I think they have two games left.

• 36:41Bill Simmons?

  So February 25th, Dallas, and then Minnesota Clippers. He's gonna have like 59 in one of those. There's gonna be a game when we just all lose our minds that this happened.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  By the way, he had a tough start to the season for Luka standards.

• 36:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Felt like he wasn't, you know, didn't come to camp. And you know how a lot of the guys, best shape of my life, blah, blah, blah, 10% body fat. We didn't hear any of those rumors about Luka coming into camp.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  But the tough start is 28, 8 and 8.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  That's a tough start for Luka Doncic, you know?

• 37:12Speaker 02

  33, 9 and 9 in the conference finals last year.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  What are we doing? What are we doing?

• 37:18Speaker 02

  He traded Scott to the Lakers. Oh.

• 37:22Bill Simmons?

  My dad called me the next, cause he was asleep and the trade happened. My dad was terrified. He was terrified of Luka in the finals and he hates the Lakers more than I do. And he just, he said he got all these texts and he woke up the next day and thought, thought we made a trade, the Celtics, and then saw that was a trade. He was like, I, like, I don't, like, how did they not stop this? Like, yeah, now we have to deal with Luka, who's gonna be pissed off and humbled and, uh, big picture.

• 37:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to see them in a playoff series if I'm anyone in the West.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  No, and that has changed dramatically.

• 37:58Bill Simmons?

  Would not have said that about the Lakers.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  Three weeks ago, that Knicks game when LeBron was starting to look better. I was like, oh, when Davis comes back, this team's interesting. I could see them maybe winning around and throwing some punches around too. And now this is the team that LeBron James at age 40 now has a chance to make the finals again.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Well, it's a classic, like Anthony Davis raises your floor, Luka Doncic raises the fuck out of your ceiling.

• 38:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he knocks out the ceiling.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 38:21Bill Simmons?

  And you, you have no idea what to expect.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  And Denver, OKC are the only two teams you can credibly say Luka won't be the best player in the series. Head and shoulders, by the way. And then, you know, he's got LeBron backing him up. Pretty good. Pretty, pretty good.

• 38:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and you go through the rest of the West. I like this Clippers team, but, uh, the fact that they went backwards, I don't, Harden in a playoff series, I don't see it. Minnesota, mess. Phoenix, no way. Dallas is a possible wild card and Golden State is a possible wild card. And that's really it, unless Wemby just...

• 38:58Bill Simmons?

  Does something absolutely all time insane.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  It would be shock, not shocking if the Spurs make the playoffs. If they advance would be pretty surprising.

• 39:05Bill Simmons?

  That would be a huge mega upset.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  They have so many young guys, they need to learn a lot. Like the Warriors are a team that I could envision making it through to the second round. Not a run run, but keeping competitive, scaring somebody a little bit. That could be a thing.

• 39:18Bill Simmons?

  Jimmy Butler was something to prove.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:20Bill Simmons?

  It's something I want to bet on.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Quentin Post.

• 39:23Bill Simmons?

  Was.

• 39:27Bill Simmons?

  Was, can you walk us through the Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green text messages?

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  Lot of profanity. What Draymond does sends the first text, right? Definitely Draymond sends the first. Like a let's get it exclamation point? It's more like we're gonna rip people's faces off, chew them up, spit them out, kill them. They're a bunch of P words. These guys have nothing on us. It's about time we got together. Like we're talking about two of the ultimate like confidence maniacs that have ever existed in the NBA. They, I think we're together in the 2016 Olympics.

• 40:07Bill Simmons?

  I, I think they're good.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  I'm not worried, like I see a lot of chatter about, oh my God, these two big personalities.

• 40:13Bill Simmons?

  Off of each other.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  The people Jimmy Butler doesn't like are not the Draymond Green types. They're, they're the people that he sees as like timid or unreliable. And like Draymond shows up.

• 40:23Bill Simmons?

  Andrew Wiggins type.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  The young Andrew Wiggins.

• 40:26Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Pre, pre Warriors revolution, Andrew Wiggins.

• 40:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's like, I think it'll be fine. I would say Draymond's short term, probably a bigger risk to everything than Butler. Because then he Butler will be on his best behavior for the season at the very least. And he'll probably come to Golden State. Maybe he'll launch a podcast with the Ringer, who knows?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Invest in AI.

• 40:50Bill Simmons?

  Bring them in.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Move some coffee, like he's got stuff to do.

• 40:52Bill Simmons?

  Maybe invest in Draymond Green's restaurant. Get his agent on a podcast. Bernie, that guy's got a lot to say.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Character of the year.

• 41:02Bill Simmons?

  So if you had wild card teams and I gave you Golden State and I gave you Dallas, for one of those two teams will be in the Western Finals, which one would you pick?

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Golden State.

• 41:12Bill Simmons?

  I would take Golden State. Over Dallas?

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Golden State.

• 41:15Bill Simmons?

  So you just think the stink of this trade is gonna submarine Dallas this season?

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Like Jimmy Butler and Steph's playoff pedigree and like level that these guys have gotten to, even if they don't get to what they've been, anywhere in that neighborhood is just no.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  I think the part that, I mean Nico Harrison, there are many parts he missed with the trade. I don't think he realized what a distraction slash disaster slash running, running story this was gonna be, especially if Luka starts playing well for the Lakers.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:46Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna single-handedly submarine their season, I think.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  It's gonna follow him and the team for the rest of his career as a general manager, I would think. We'll see what it ends up doing to the Mavs. My concern is not just, oh, you gave away Luka Doncic. It's really hard to make long playoff runs when you basically have no plus level passers on your roster. And if you look at what the Mavs lineup is gonna be now, AD at the four, either Lively or Gafford at the five, Kyrie is now your primary and basically only creator, Klay Thompson, PJ Washington. How are you breaking people down beyond Kyrie just going Uncle Drew one on one?

• 42:18Bill Simmons?

  The funniest thing about the trade is that they built this whole roster around Luka. All these dudes that were meant to fit with him and then they trade Luka.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  And like even those lineups where you're benching both Lively and Gafford and you're playing AD at his most optimal position, it's still Kyrie making that pick and roll happen? And that's just not.

• 42:39Bill Simmons?

  And Kyrie, we know, and I think Kyrie's been really good the last couple of years, but.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  He's lost his stuff.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  I also think you can, like the Celtics, the big thing when Luka fouled out in game three and it was like, all right, Kyrie, take us home. The Celtics shut him down.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  And you can shut him down with, with wings and size and if you know he's getting the ball, it's not the same Kyrie from five, six years ago. Davis, you know, Davis can be overpowering. Maybe he'll have a chip on his shoulder. I don't know.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Depending on the matchup, like there's matchups that he overwhelms where like he can be that one-on-one guy. But for, you know, for the most part, it's not gonna happen.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Bill still very upset about the Luca trade.

• 43:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know if it's because I'm older and I just know how it's going to play out because I've seen it. But you know, same like it was similar to when Shaq got traded to Miami and it was like Shaq's out of shape. Shaq's fat and it's like, cool. He's not going to be fat anymore because you pissed him off. And then he went to Miami and he had two awesome years for them. If I had to go four West teams that I don't think are going to make it.

• 43:42Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio. Sacramento.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Those are my odd men out.

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  Phoenix.

• 43:53Bill Simmons?

  Dallas because I think that I think that the karma and all that shit from the trade, those would be my four.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  If Kyrie goes down, it's toast.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  And he has a bulging disc in his back at this moment.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  It's toast. PJ Washington is going to be creating offense. You know, like Spencer Dinwiddie, who's been a nice backup this year, by the way. But he got signed for a minimum contract for a reason. Like I like Spencer Diddy. Diddy, Spencer Dinwiddie.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  But I, I just, I can't.

• 44:26Bill Simmons?

  You're going to have to edit that out of the pod because actually they said Diddy. I'm not sure we're allowed to say that on a podcast.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  I think the Clippers might slide out. I say that with all due respect, all due respect to the season they've had. I just think they could be a candidate.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  They're overachieving like hell.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they probably will end up as a play in team, but maybe get bounced out of that group.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  And they haven't had one part of the season where they've had like lose five out of seven or like they haven't done that. They've just been consistently solid all year. They're due.

• 44:57Bill Simmons?

  Philadelphia before we go.

• 45:01Bill Simmons?

  Just seemed like they're shedding salary, maybe to pay Yabu in the, in the summer.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  As they should.

• 45:06Bill Simmons?

  Most popular sixer. Four points maxing.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  One of their best players.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Going to make the play in.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Are they?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  Wes, how'd you feel about Embiid missing the Boston and Denver games, but being ready for Dallas and Danu Gafford and no Luca?

• 45:21Speaker 02

  That's not really like him. He's always like for the big regular season matches.

• 45:24Bill Simmons?

  Did that jump out to you or no? The Dallas game, he was ready.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Look, man, um, this really, I feel very, very privileged to be at the table with two bona fide Embiid skeptics for a long, long time.

• 45:37Bill Simmons?

  I've been, just play basketball. It's one of my rules. If you're a basketball player, play basketball.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  I gotta give it up to my guy Ben Golliver. He was actually the first person to point this out to me. He's like, oh, this, nobody, like, it's never his fault. It's, it's Tobias Harris. It's, it's Ben Simmons. It's.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Brett Brown.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Brett Brown. It's Sam Hinkie. It's, it's, it's always somebody else's fault. And now everybody's like, hmm.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Bill has come due.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's tough. But no, the Bulls are, the Bulls are in the 10th seed and they're one game above the Sixers right now. They're done.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  The Bull season is, is.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  You don't think, you don't think Pat Williams is gonna save these guys?

• 46:13Speaker 02

  I don't think Pat Williams is coming to the rescue. And the Hawks are.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Counter?

• 46:18Speaker 02

  What was that?

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  I like Budzellis.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Well, sure. But do you like him as a player who's gonna cement a play in?

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  I wonder if they can patch together a lot of Levine's stats with the guys they have. If Lonzo can play more minutes, Budzellis can be pretty good. Um, they kept Vucevic.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  They did.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  I think it's just a Kobe White, just shooting more.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  Kobe White get more, like, I, I do feel like they can patch together 24 points a game from other people.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  I think the Bulls are done. And I don't think they wanna be, you know.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, they wanna be in the bottom 10, right? That's one of the teams that has the.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  They have the incentive, but you know, they got their pick back.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  They did get their pick back. Nothing sweeter.

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, so Philly.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  If you love something, let it go. When it comes back to you.

• 47:07Bill Simmons?

  Philly, um, Philly beats Dallas. Embiid looks good. Doesn't play the next night against Miami. And they end up losing to Miami by seven. Paul, Paul George didn't play either. Oh, no, he played 32 minutes and had nine points and one rebound and two assists.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Are we doing worse contracts in the league this year?

• 47:25Bill Simmons?

  You fucking better believe we are. He's in the running for number one pick.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  That's tough. Newly minted too. Not even, didn't take any time to age into milk, you know, just.

• 47:36Bill Simmons?

  He's, there should be a Twitter account, Twitter account that just says, I, that the name of the account is, I don't understand why you're not playing tonight. And it could just be like, John Rant's not playing because, you know, his heel hurts. Paul George knee rest maintenance. Like these excuses these dudes have, the Paul George thing's really rough.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  They did get Quentin Grimes.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  I don't like, as far as trading Caleb Martin for Quentin Grimes, a better, younger player.

• 48:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I didn't understand that trade for, from Dallas's side.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  That's when I started getting scared for Nico Harris.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Well, Jason Kidd hasn't trusted Grimes all year. At least that's the way it appears.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  What do you think that is though?

• 48:13Speaker 01

  I don't, cheap scorer. He can guard. He can guard. He can play. I thought he's off the dribble game. Has that actually been pretty useful? I don't, I never really got why he wasn't more of the, of like a fixture in the rotation of Dallas.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure I fell in love with Quentin Grimes the same summer league. I thought Matt McClung could, could stick on a team.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  That dream is still alive.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Osceola magic stand up.

• 48:36Bill Simmons?

  Was, how are you feeling with all the Lakers moving? Is, uh, is there a spot for Bronny now in the 10 man rotation or no?

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Still gotta pay his dues in the G League. Probably won't be on the playoff roster.

• 48:50Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  But it's early. He's signed a four year deal, Bill, so.

• 48:55Bill Simmons?

  It's a marathon, not a sprint.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  It's a marathon, not a sprint with the great Bronny James.

• 49:00Bill Simmons?

  Any last things before we go, Rob?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  I just can't believe we're still here with the Suns. I can't believe they didn't, like, they moved Usir Nurkic, all that spinning of their wheels. And we're just gonna have to watch them like try to get better by doing what exactly? I don't know.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Ryan having KD more regularly.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, he's been pretty healthy. Like, I know he's out with the ankle thing right now, but like had pretty good health by Kevin Durant, modern standards. I guess you're just banking on some members of your rotation to play better, to somehow guard better. I just, I'm, I'm very disappointed by where Phoenix's season has ended up at this point.

• 49:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, it could be worse. They could have given away Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson and seven first round picks.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  They could have.

• 49:43Bill Simmons?

  I still, I'll never get over them just throwing Cam Johnson in that trade. On top of everything else they were giving up and, and then Ishbe was, we gotta get him. All right, fine. Throw in Cam Johnson. Like, that part was nuts.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  He was thirsty, man. He had that new owner thirst. He had that look.

• 49:59Bill Simmons?

  It's great. It's the opposite of the look that new owners of the Mavericks have.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I've never.

• 50:04Bill Simmons?

  To antagonize the fanbase.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  I've never seen anything like it.

• 50:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you know, a few Mavs fans, right?

• 50:10Speaker 01

  They're devastated. There's, I've never seen a fanbase this inconsolable and I get it. I completely get it.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Also, like, if you know anything about their new owner, she's like, got her hands in things.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  She's got her hands, yeah. There's a lot of involvement.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  More than basketball.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I want to say.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  She's a busy woman.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  As far as the fanbase part of it goes, I thought, uh, Josh Bo of Mavs Moneyball made a point that I thought was really well stated, which is that part of what makes this really hard, if you're a Mavs fan, is that you, for this trade to be successful for the Mavs, you basically have to root against, like, Luca has to fail for this to be a Maverick success. And this is the guy they've invested so much time, so much attention, so much like fan adoration in, and now you have to actively root against that guy if you want the Mavericks to be good again.

• 50:54Bill Simmons?

  I just don't get it.

• 50:57Bill Simmons?

  I just don't understand it.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  You and us and the rest of the NBA.

• 51:00Bill Simmons?

  I just don't get it.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  And the sad thing is, at least for me, loves the Celtics.

• 51:10Bill Simmons?

  I think he's gonna be awesome on the Lakers. I think the fans are gonna love him.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 51:14Bill Simmons?

  There's always been a weird LeBron thing, cause he followed Kobe, cause he wasn't a Laker.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  No baggage for Luca.

• 51:20Bill Simmons?

  It's zero. It's like, I had a couple of people say to me that it was like their version of like when JFK got shot, like hearing the news. Like, they'll remember, I mean, in a good way.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 51:32Bill Simmons?

  No, no, in a good way, where they'll always remember where they were. I was at dinner and I got a text. Like, it's like one of those trades that you always remember for the rest of your life.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Other points in history, we could refer to other than JFK getting shot.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  For me, it evoked the decision.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  For me.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Like, I'm going to remember exactly what.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  But we knew the decision was coming.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  And we knew Miami was possible.

• 51:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  I just remember looking at the TV and being like. LeBron is on the Miami Heat. This is with D Wade and Chris Bosh.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, brought to you by Vitamin Water.

• 52:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, normally, normally when you

• 52:07Speaker 02

  My man Jim Gray.

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  Normally, when you remember where you were, it's usually because something terrible happened.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 52:13Bill Simmons?

  Or something completely insane happened. Like, I remember where I watched the second Holyfield Tyson fight, you know, it was like, this is insane. I'll always remember this. But the Luca out of nowhere, just hanging out on the couch with my wife about to start a movie on a Saturday night. And then just trying to decipher what was real for 10 minutes, like for 10 minutes trying to, and Shams having to reassure people that the trade happened.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  I'm telling the truth.

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  There's never gonna be another moment like that. Cause we had some other weird shit in the NBA this last decade. Like, we had that, a really fun one was the Deandre Jordan to the Mavericks and then he wasn't gonna go to the Mavericks.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  The hostage crisis.

• 52:50Bill Simmons?

  Yes. The Anthony Davis, uh, not Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Yes, Lakers or Clippers.

• 52:56Bill Simmons?

  And then on that Friday night, all of a sudden it was Paul George too. And, but never without warning.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  And I think, like I was saying, like, people are making lists about, was this the craziest sports trade ever? I'm not gonna compare this to the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees. That's fucking crazy.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:12Bill Simmons?

  But it's certainly like, since we've all been working together, the craziest thing that's happened. I think it's the craziest trade that's happened since I've had like a column or a podcast. So that's 30 years.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's also the craziest that you can't compare it to something like the Babe Ruth trade for obvious reasons, but also we are so trade pilled now.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, no trade makes, like, you would just say Jimmy Butler, who cares? I don't need to do an emergency podcast. Like, no trade shocks you like.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Well, when a deal goes down, it's like, oh, we already know the three players who are probably involved for salary reasons. We've worked it out. It's been trade machine to death. If you're one of the apron teams, we basically already know what the deal is gonna be by the time it's made. This was a complete shock in an inexplicable move.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Player for player. Pick exchanged, done.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Yep, it's gonna go great.

• 53:59Bill Simmons?

  We had some good ones in the 90s and it kind of brought me back. Like, I remember being on the phone with House after they traded Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond and he was just disconsolate. Even though Chris Webber was kind of a disaster on the Wizards, but it was still one of those trades where you just knew the upside for us is we might win round one. And the downside is Chris Webber might go to the Kings and be awesome. He's like 25. And this was like 100 times worse than that.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  One of the, one of those for me that I vaguely remember is the Knicks getting Sprewell. Because it was his first team after he choked out.

• 54:32Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Jay Carlisle.

• 54:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  And it was like, wow, New York media was not behind.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  So, you know, they weren't crazy about it, but like, I just wouldn't be like, damn, they got Sprewell? That's, that's nuts.

• 54:46Bill Simmons?

  Couple of questions from the chat before we go. Someone asks, how is LeBron gonna handle not being the most popular guy in his own basketball team? Which has never happened.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  So, not being the most powerful guy.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  That's a change.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  He is less relevant. This is the first time he's been less relevant than somebody in his organization ever besides Pat Riley. That's it. That's the only other time he's been on a team where there's a guy who's clearly above him in the pecking order. In terms of like, you can't tell ownership, anything like, there's nothing you can do about this guy. Luka, like you, you're, you're irrelevant. In comparison to Luka, like it's a Luka, you're living in Luka's world.

• 55:26Bill Simmons?

  Or LeBron because of the way his brain works and the skills that he has will just figure out an awesome way to be. Not, not quite a sidekick, but like, a 1A, 1B type thing.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  This is now. We're a united front.

• 55:40Bill Simmons?

  He'll treat this like a buddy cop movie, which was the way they tried to do it the first year with Wade.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:44Bill Simmons?

  In 2011.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Joint media availability every time.

• 55:47Bill Simmons?

  In 2011. Like, those guys.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  So good.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  Those guys were equal as great players that year. LeBron was better the two years before, but, but I, you know, that was the last time we've seen at least somebody at the same.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  Length of them. I think it's interesting that it's a teammate that has a lot of the same bad habits LeBron has. Luca not too interested in defense, LeBron uninterested in defense.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Well, he's been interested when he's.

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  No, right now, age 40.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Both of them. If you're 40 plus, defense is optional. Like, that's just, that's one of the, one of the rules.

• 56:18Bill Simmons?

  Both of them can be a little bit, guys, I got it. Can you clear out for me at this stage of their careers? How they navigate that, but I, I have no doubt that they're gonna navigate it.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  But I think it's the discrepancy between these things where I think LeBron is still wildly more popular than Luka Doncic. Luka Doncic is a huge institution to basketball sickos like us.

• 56:36Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  To the outside world, it's not even comparable.

• 56:38Bill Simmons?

  That won't be the case for very long.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  That is true. So that Luka is gonna move.

• 56:43Bill Simmons?

  Someone on the YouTube chat asked for trade grades before we go. Hunter to the Cavs. Cavs, what's the grade?

• 56:49Speaker 02

  B plus, B, B, B, B.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  For the Cavs?

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  I think B is fair.

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna go B plus. I like Hunter for the Hawks.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  B minus. I like, that's a nothing move. That's a backwards move.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  I might go C, just because I don't, I don't see the urgency of it.

• 57:07Bill Simmons?

  Laverne, two second round, three second round picks, two swaps. D minus.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  Butler to Golden State. Uh, Golden State, I have A minus.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  A minus.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe even a solid A. Like, you have one objective and it's to make a Steph Curry team as good as you can.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Star. When Jimmy's right, he's a star.

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  I said it wasn't a hail Mary, but it was third and 13 to A.J. Brown in double coverage.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  100%.

• 57:35Bill Simmons?

  It's double coverage. Let's hope A.J. Brown gets to make the play or pass interference. We're trying to get some sort of thing to happen. Uh, for Miami, what do you got, Wes?

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Miami, this is A plus, honestly.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  This is A plus?

• 57:48Speaker 02

  A plus. What were they gonna get for Jimmy who no longer wants to be around them?

• 57:52Speaker 01

  I think for the Miami grade, you have to factor in the longer saga.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  He's done.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  You have to trade him in the offseason.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Okay, well, okay, we're factoring that.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  I think that's part of the deal.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Oh, then.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Like, they should, they should have traded him last summer. Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  Then D.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's probably a D.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Their handling of the Jimmy situation as a whole?

• 58:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Oh, D, F.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I want to say it's a D.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  You gotta go to summer school.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  And also, they might still be the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference by the end of the year. Like, I think both things are true.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  But the deal is like, as the world exists right now.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  After Jimmy just tanked his value, after like, you literally couldn't bring the guy back.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Okay, but like, no, the way they handled, managed the Jimmy situation, F. Sorry, Pat.

• 58:32Bill Simmons?

  A minus for the trade, F minus for the last six months.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  And F minus for Jimmy, too. Nobody, nobody covered themselves in glory. Mark Williams to the Lakers. What do you got, Moni? Lakers, great.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  B minus.

• 58:48Bill Simmons?

  Was?

• 58:49Speaker 02

  B minus for me as well. I think they, they kind of jumped the gun on this one, a little bit. For a guy who's very unproven.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  They clearly identified a player they really like, and I like him too. I, I just am very spooked by his overall injury. Love, the level of consistent injury concern with multiple parts of his body is concerning.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm going B plus. I think LeBron takes him under his wing, introduces him to the versa climber. And some Pilates shit and all the other stuff LeBron does.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  The people say this about Christian Wood, they say like, we, we've had that.

• 59:22Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing though, I don't mind trading for injured, injured guys from shitty franchises, although Charlotte seems like they've turned it around a little bit, but this is a guy, he's going from like, worst possible franchise you could be on, although they turned around with Charles Lee at least this year to now Lakers, big spotlight. But I'm going B plus just because he really jumped out of the TV the last few weeks, like.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  He's good.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  He was noticeably impactful on, on both ends, even though I'm not positive he knows what he's doing on defense, but he's big, he's got size, he leans on people. If he's around where the rebound is, he's getting it, like I just think he's a good player.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  I want to say this too, Rob Pelinka is not a good deal maker, but the Lakers.

• 1:00:04Bill Simmons?

  No, we can't say that anymore because he, he stole Luka Doncic from.

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  Stop it.

• 1:00:08Bill Simmons?

  He Jedi mind tricked his buddy.

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  Stop it. The Lakers' ability to like, recognize talent, young people that have some level of talent.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  More to give.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  They scouted well.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  They're pretty good at that.

• 1:00:21Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Charlotte grade? What do you got, Mara?

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  B plus.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go just straight B.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  B plus.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  It's, it's, the only reason it's tough for me is like Charlotte is a team that should be betting on upside, given where they are in their cycle. And so for them to fail.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  They've had the guy in their building.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  They've, they've been through it. I, I give them that. But like Dalton Connect is not an upside prospect.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  Dalton Connect is older than Mark Williams.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  It's not what you want.

• 1:00:45Bill Simmons?

  Not only is he older, he's like two, three years older, I think.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Oof.

• 1:00:48Bill Simmons?

  I think he's like almost 25.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's, um, he's, he's, he's a senior citizen rookie.

• 1:00:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm going, uh, I really wanted to do a D minus, but I'm gonna go C minus because I think Mark Williams was hurting their plan to get Cooper flag at all costs. When he's putting up 25 and 16.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Too good.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  On certain nights.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Too good to be a Hornet.

• 1:01:07Bill Simmons?

  Off the roster.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Gotta get Yusuf Nurkic in there.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  But you make the key point. Like if you're a young up and coming team, you kinda want the 22 year old guy who's two years away from being a free agent, who's put up huge stats.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Like you can afford to see if he can get healthy, if you're the Hornets, uh, even more so than the Lakers can, frankly.

• 1:01:24Bill Simmons?

  My fear with the Lakers, if I'm them, is like, why is Charlotte trading this guy? It's like, hey, you wanna buy my car?

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Bill Simmons?

  No, it's going, it's running great. Did you see? We just took, here's some pictures of the road trip we just went on. Car's doing good. Uh, next trade, Brandon Ingram to Toronto. I'm gonna start and for Toronto, it's a D.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  D.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  D minus.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  D.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  I, I don't have any understanding of why this deal is happening.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  Masai flew too close to the sun with the title.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 1:01:53Bill Simmons?

  He's been the same since. Uh, for New Orleans, eh?

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  They got, New Orleans, if you told me a week ago, the Pelicans got a first round pick for Brandon Ingram. I'm giving him the standing ovation. That's like an, that's a B, B plus, B plus from me.

• 1:02:07Bill Simmons?

  Is Bruce Brown a buyout guy? And could he be a Denver Nugget?

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Ooh, now we're talking. Now we're, now we're cooking.

• 1:02:14Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, I like Bruce Brown.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I like Bruce Brown too. He's, he started putting together a little bit. Kelly Olynyk too, a player who I, I kinda thought might get rerouted by the actual deadline.

• 1:02:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Also could be a buyout candidate, but they need bigs there. So maybe not.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  Bruce Brown, like athletic feature a month from now, headline money isn't everything.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:02:31Bill Simmons?

  About Bruce Brown's tough last two years after winning the title.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  But it was.

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  Was it worth it?

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  If he gets the money and still gets to go back to Denver.

• 1:02:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  You get, you can have it all.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  Middleton, Kuzma, uh, I'll start. Milwaukee, F plus.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  Not quite an F minus, but an F plus. Cause I've watched Kuzma play basketball this year.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  I didn't know they gave F pluses.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Solid B for me.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, they got under the cap.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Solid.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  The last Kuzma fan.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Solidly B.

• 1:03:00Bill Simmons?

  What planet are you living on?

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  I think Kuzma won. He like looks like a crazy person with the way he dresses and the hair and the tattoos. He's actually a pretty grounded dude.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  He posts about RFK Junior all the time.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  Not a.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  This is your grounded dude?

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Lot of reasonable people are RFK heads, believe it or not.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Alright, alright.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 1:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Fluoride?

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  We don't, we don't, we don't, look. We don't have to agree with everybody who loves RFK, even if we don't.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  I'm not the person propping up Kyle Kuzma as the voice of moderation and good sense.

• 1:03:33Bill Simmons?

  I know after two hours, we'd end up in a Kyle Kuzma fight.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Basketball. Kuz is gonna get it done, y'all.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Alright, alright.

• 1:03:41Bill Simmons?

  I mean, when you miss 73% of your threes, what's not to love?

• 1:03:48Bill Simmons?

  Trade grades. Did we do New Orleans for this? Yeah, we did. So then I guess Phoenix would be the other one, Nurkic. Getting rid of Nurkic, using one of your dumb firsts that you gave up the 2031 first for. Getting, getting your fans excited about Martin, who's like the 19th swing you've had, who's like a defense shooter guy.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  I'm indifferent.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Okay, yeah, how about this? No grade.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no grade is fine. Not applicable. Did not register.

• 1:04:14Bill Simmons?

  And then Memphis, whatever the hell they did with Marcus Smart.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  And just like clearing out players who could help them?

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't understand. Like just giving up on Marcus Smart being a playoff contributor. If you think, if you have designs on being a serious player there, maybe his injuries are so cooked that they don't think he'll be on the floor anyway. That's the only thing that makes sense.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  They are a potential buyout team, cause they're not over the aprons, so cleared to roster spots, have some potential there.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Maybe they've already been on the phone with some folks.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Maybe so. I want to say I saw it pop up that I think they took back Marvin Bagley.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Marcus Smart to the Celtics.

• 1:04:49Bill Simmons?

  Oh, are we allowed to buy out? We're not allowed to get buyouts.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  I don't believe so, no. I think they're over the second apron, so no buyouts whatsoever.

• 1:04:56Bill Simmons?

  The apron just ruins everything.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  Except gave us the weirdest, craziest trade deadline in the history of the league.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're probably right. Uh, wait, Sacramento, San Antonio. The Fox.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  For Fox?

• 1:05:07Bill Simmons?

  I have an A plus for San Antonio. And like a C for Sacramento and then an F for Chicago.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  Solid A, solid A for San Antonio.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yep, I'm there.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  I think B for Sacramento, like, I don't know, I thought the haul was good. The Bulls, what they got back for Levine and just making themselves a part of this trade, like, I called it a hill of beans. Rob said it was a stump of beans.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Something less than a hill.

• 1:05:35Bill Simmons?

  What was the Vince Carter trade when Toronto got back like Alonzo Mourning, but he had kidney issues?

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  With Eric Williams and then some other terrible contract and like two bad firsts?

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  When the.

• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  It's always bad when you're taking the bad contracts back in trade.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  And for the only benefit being your own pick that you were gonna keep anyway because your team is bad.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  The pick was protected, like you were gonna keep it.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  The pick was top tier protected.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  So yeah, F for the Bulls.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  What they got was, yo, take the protection off. We're, we're one of the five worst teams in the league.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  I think, I think the Kings did all right. I'm gonna give the Kings like a solid B, especially under the circumstances. They didn't have a lot to work with.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  Under duress.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Under duress.

• 1:06:16Bill Simmons?

  Before we go.

• 1:06:19Bill Simmons?

  Luka Doncic getting traded. What's your best Luka Doncic trade that you think would have been a better trade for Dallas than the trade they made?

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Player for player?

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  I think it's gotta be a pack. It would have to be like a Houston haul or a Memphis haul.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, the only thing that would have made people happy was six years of picks, you know, owning somebody's draft picks from now till Timbuktu. And some young guys that are nice. So, I don't know, Houston making the money work. A Man Thompson, bunch of picks in the future.

• 1:06:52Bill Simmons?

  You can't keep him in Texas, though. He has to leave. You can't.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Well, like sending him to the Lakers.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  Trade him to your division.

• 1:07:00Bill Simmons?

  You can't keep him in Texas.

• 1:07:04Bill Simmons?

  Who says no, who says no Tatum-Luka if you know Dallas is trading Luka?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think, I don't think Boston would do it.

• 1:07:12Bill Simmons?

  I agree. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't a homer.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  I mean, obviously Luka's a much better player, but karmically, that's just a, that's a disgusting move.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  It's almost like if you go to the finals, don't blow up the superstar core of the team that just went. You know, like that's, what a crazy thought.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  It's like you leaving your wife for Sydney Sweeney.

• 1:07:31Bill Simmons?

  You're trying to get a reaction.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  Everybody would think that was insane of you. Good boy.

• 1:07:41Bill Simmons?

  Bam and hero and every Miami pick for Luka on a contract.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  I don't like, I don't like that. But you know what I would like is listening to all these offers. I would love if I were the Mavericks to sit there and actually feel them.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  I was like, would Minnesota trade Ant Edwards for Luka Doncic?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  I would.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  100%.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Love Ant Edwards. I would absolutely trade him for Luka Doncic.

• 1:08:02Bill Simmons?

  But the problem is if you're trading for Luka, you also have to factor in, will he want to stay in a year and a half?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  That's the thing. That's what Nico Harrison's trying to say, guys. About all of these picks and all of these great trades that were out there. That's what Nico Harrison's trying to explain to you guys.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  What he's trying to explain is the defense wins championships, apparently.

• 1:08:19Bill Simmons?

  The only one that makes sense from a basketball standpoint that I think would have been six hour meetings on both sides is Giannis.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, for both sides. And I get, if you're Milwaukee, you probably don't do it because it's like, well, why would Luka resign here in a year and a half?

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  And you trade.

• 1:08:35Bill Simmons?

  But fundamentally for what he wanted from the trade, which was size and rim protection, Giannis is the better version of Davis.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  All NBA MVP kind of guy, win now.

• 1:08:45Bill Simmons?

  I still feel like if this trade was Reeves, Davis, 29 and 31 in two swaps.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Different conversation.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  It's still not enough, but at least it's like, oh, I see it. They don't feel like they can resign him. That's a lot.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Combo.

• 1:09:01Bill Simmons?

  Whoever they got, wasn't it? Uh, thanks to Michelob Ultra. They sponsored our little YouTube live thingy. The Superior Light Beer, the official beer sponsor of.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Also, we should say happy birthday to Was.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Thank you.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Today?

• 1:09:15Bill Simmons?

  Today.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  Today's my birthday.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  Happy birthday to our colleague, Sir Sohi as well.

• 1:09:18Bill Simmons?

  We got you Kyle Kuzma.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Shouts to Sir Sohi, my birthday twin. We never get our love.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Oh, Sir.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  Yes, we never get our love in the Ringer Slack on the birthday love.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Called out.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  So we're doing it right now, live on the Bill Simmons Trade Deadline Special.

• 1:09:36Bill Simmons?

  Wow, what a weird way to end the pod. Happy birthday. What happens today?

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  You and Luka just going out?

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Uh, going out.

• 1:09:44Bill Simmons?

  Just making bad food and drink choices?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Going out for steaks tonight. Um, so yeah, man, that'll be it. Just a steak dinner. That's my birthday today.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  That's actually what I do every birthday.

• 1:09:56Bill Simmons?

  What part of Los Angeles do you think Luka Doncic will live in with the limited information you have about things that he likes?

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  I like this as like a personality test.

• 1:10:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Things that, I mean, realistically, he should move to Beverly Hills. Cause it's close to all the things that he's going to like socially. Uh, it's not gonna be in Beverly Hills itself, but Beverly Hills is adjacent to where a lot of these things happen. So, yeah.

• 1:10:21Bill Simmons?

  What's the hooka proximity?

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Hooka proximity is close.

• 1:10:24Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  Somewhere in the Beverly, the hills of Beverly Hills. Um, cause Brentwood is too far from the action, to be honest with you. Brentwood is too far. Bel Air is too, is a little bit too secluded as well. Uh, what's another one that folks, he's clearly not an East sider. He's not gonna move with the freaking Hollywood East Side people. Uh, I think he's a Beverly Hills guy.

• 1:10:48Bill Simmons?

  All right, caveat. They practice in Oceano.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  Mmm. He's 25.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 1:10:58Bill Simmons?

  Has mentioned the beach and the ocean a couple of times.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  Yes. So I guess that is a Brentwood is, you know, you get the crib and you get to be closer to the ocean. I don't think he moves like, what are you thinking, like Manhattan Beach type of thing?

• 1:11:12Bill Simmons?

  I was wondering, could he be like, like where the, like, that's where the hockey players live, right? The LA Kings live in like Manhattan, Hermosa, Rusolo's there.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Luka's not a hockey guy. He's, he's a different, he's, he's an NBA guy. Let's just, let's just put it like that.

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  I see him in the Bay for a year while he figures it out.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:11:34Speaker 02

  I don't think he's gonna do that.

• 1:11:35Bill Simmons?

  Do you think you run into Luka Doncic in LA at 2:00 in the morning at a club in the next 2 months?

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  You think so?

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Yes. And maybe not a club, but like, you know, one of the, you know, one of the things my guys at H would do. I could see him being a H would guy, 100%.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  I'll have to take your word for it.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  100%. And it's not gonna be like a nightclub, loud music, blah, blah, blah, but like, you know, like,

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  A lounge.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  Leo's gonna be there.

• 1:12:00Bill Simmons?

  Is there a world where Luka lives with Rob and his wife?

• 1:12:06Bill Simmons?

  If Rob moves to LA?

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Hypothetically.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  Rob just, Rob gets a guest house in the back of his Brentwood estate. Would it be, would it be ethical or unethical for you to live in the guest house of Luka Doncic's Brentwood estate?

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  I think I would officially have to give up my awards vote if I'm living in Luka Doncic's house.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  First of all, there are,

• 1:12:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad you're open about it.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  There are media members in LA who that's open to, but they do not work for theringa.com. I promise you that.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  We stand up for journalism here.

• 1:12:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we try.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Well, everyone but conspiracy.

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  We're gonna be holding these guys' feet to the fire.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Speaking truth to power, maybe living in their guest house.

• 1:12:45Bill Simmons?

  Guys, I had a blast. Happy birthday, Wes.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:12:47Bill Simmons?

  Thanks to everybody behind the scenes and thanks to everybody who listens. Thanks for the questions, too. We're gonna take a break. I'm gonna come back with million dollar Super Bowl picks.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

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• 1:14:21Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I already have my dream job. I run the Ringer, argue with Chris Ryan, AKA CR. But even dream jobs have not-so-dreamy parts. You know, the work that slows you down never seems to go away. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They're like digital teammates who actually do the job, start to finish. No handoffs, no homework. That means more time for the work that actually matters, which for me is talking about whether the 86 Celtics can beat the 96 Bulls, which they could. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. All right, Million Dollar Picks, Super Bowl edition, presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. We don't have House this week because he is in New Orleans.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  He's hanging out with Sal and with Van and all these Ringer dudes, the fantasy guys, and it just hurts my feelings. He didn't have time for us. I'm gonna carry on. I have a bunch of stuff I like, but I wanted to talk, big picture, about what I was seeing from the game, because I stared at this game, I don't know, for 10 days, and I just kept thinking Philly has more talent. Philly has more talent. Philly's better all over the place. The only things that you wouldn't give Philly the advantage are coaching, QB, pedigree in late-game crunch-time situations.

• 1:15:38Bill Simmons?

  So I thought I was gonna take Philly for about a week and then I thought about more and more, I went to the playoff gambling manifesto. I looked at all the rules. Rule number one, first rule, beware of the looked a little too good, the previous playoff round team. That was Philly going against this Washington team that already was probably lucky to make the conference title game to begin with and then had a couple of big injuries and Philly looked awesome. Uh, rule number five, beware of the everybody believes in us team and the nobody believes in our QB but us team. So KC is a little bit of the everybody believes in us team just because everybody's like, KC can't go against Mahomes. Philly's got a touch of the nobody believes in our QB but us stuff, although I don't know, Hertz is making 50 million a year and he gets taken high in fantasy drafts and people know he's

• 1:16:21Bill Simmons?

  good. So KC a little bit, Philly a little bit, but I'm not too sold on any of them. Rule number 10, when in doubt, gravitate toward one pick that would screw over the most gamblers and experts and would definitely go against the single worst gambler you know. Again, there's some KC stuff. I still feel with the, with people, just the infrastructure, 3P, don't go against Mahomes. I still feel like when we get closer to game time, I think this line's gonna move. I think it's gonna move toward Philly. Right now, it's still KC minus one and a half. So I don't think this comes into play. There is a prop that I want to hit when we do props that I think qualifies for rule number 10. Rule number 16, take one last look at the quarterbacks and remember, there's plenty of time to bet

• 1:17:06Bill Simmons?

  against any QB or coach, except for the Super Bowl where you don't have a lot of time. Uh, take one last look at the quarterbacks, Mahomes, Hertz. What happens in a three-point game with nine minutes left and KC's down three and they have the ball and they're driving and you realize you bet on Philly and you didn't have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. You just have to factor that in and you also have to factor in rule number 17. Don't try to be a hero, just try to win money. The hero move is to take Philly and to say, this has been the best team. Uh, when you think about it, they only had three losses. They could have, they were three plays away basically from being undefeated for the season. They're loaded everywhere. Uh, they're gonna lay this smackdown and the only reason you're

• 1:17:50Bill Simmons?

  not gonna take them is because of Mahomes and Reid. The counter is Casey has just been spectacular at winning close games against teams where they do all the little things correctly and they make the little coaching decisions correctly. And they always get one little break around halftime when the other team does something stupid. And maybe there's a bad special teams player, they get one fumble. They always kind of hang around, hang around, hang around and take care of business in the fourth quarter like they did with Buffalo. Mahomes is 17 and three in the playoffs career. He's 17 and zero in the last 17 one score games. That zero means no losses. This team just takes care of business all the time, over and over again. Meanwhile, Philly, their best wins this year, Green Bay twice, Washington, they went two

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  and one, Baltimore, they beat by five and Cincy. So the record is awesome, the stats are awesome, the fact that they're three plays away from being undefeated is notable. Their defense has looked great and yet you can make the case Casey has just had a much tougher schedule, a much bigger bullseye in them and over and over again has delivered. So I was trying to think, I was trying to do this for the Super Bowl. I do scenarios, best case, worst case, because I started leaning toward the Chiefs over the weekend. Best case scenario, comparing the Chiefs to Brady and the Pats, because I think there's a lot of similarities, including like the infrastructure, the coach, the experience in big games, all the veterans you have, just the ability to just pull out these close

• 1:19:19Bill Simmons?

  games over and over again. What Brady's Super Bowl win would this be like for Mahomes? And I settled on Patriots 28, Seattle 24. Ironically, 10 year anniversary of that game this week. Really great YouTube clip that the Patriots put up with all this extended audio and video stuff from the game. I watched the whole thing. I made my dad watch it. I think it's probably my favorite Patriots win of all the wins that has the Malcolm Butler game. Anyway, they're down 10. They win the game by four, 28 to 24. It was a pick 'em line, so similar to this, 47 for the over under, pretty close to this. It was a game that had 10 punts, three turnovers, seven touchdowns and a field goal. So 10 possessions on each side.

• 1:20:02Bill Simmons?

  That feels a little similar to what I think the game's gonna go on Sunday. Patriots couldn't really run the ball. 21 for 57 running it, but 37 for 50 for 328 passing. That feels like what's gonna happen in this game for them. I don't think they're gonna be able to run the ball that well against the Eagles. And I think the Eagles are gonna try to, try to push them to do short, medium passes. Just keep trying to move the ball downfield and eventually we're either gonna get a sack or a tip or we'll break up a play, something, but just take your time going down the field. Seattle on the other side in that game, 29 for 162 from the run, for the run, which kind of feels like what might happen with Barkley. They were 12 for 21 passing for 247.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  That feels in the ballpark of what usually happens with an Hertz Eagles game. The Pats were 8 for 13 on third down. Big time of possession for them, 33 46, because it was a lot of the short, medium completions that just kept the clock moving. Brady ended up 37 50 for 328. So, close game. They had to throw the ball a lot because they weren't able to run it. And then they took care of business down the stretch. And then Malcolm Butler came up with the most famous play in the history of the Super Bowl. I think that if the Chiefs win, I don't think it's a big win. I don't think they win by 10 plus. I think the game is tight in the fourth quarter and they pull it out. All right, what would be the, the worst version of the game for the Chiefs? What bad Mahomes loss would this be like?

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  That's obvious. That's Bucks 31, Chiefs 9. That was the Super Bowl result. KC favored by 3. They ran the ball a little bit in that game, 17 for 107, 26 for 49 passing. Mahomes is okay, but he had a couple turnovers. And then Tampa ran the ball on them, 33 for 145. Only 8 incompletions for Brady, no turnovers. Took a big lead, held them off. Took over the game in the second half with their pass rush. And KC just couldn't do anything, 9 points.

• 1:21:59Bill Simmons?

  I'm a little scared of that result for this. And I think if you're taking, if you're taking the Eagles, you're almost better off taking them by 10 plus. That's the, they're not, I don't think, winning a close game against Mahomes and the Chiefs in the fourth quarter. Which makes me think, if you're taking the Eagles, just take the minus nine and a half at plus 350 and get some juice on it and root for a game like that Bucks game, the 31 to nine game.

• 1:22:28Bill Simmons?

  I am looking at this as a Chiefs win and a nail biter of a game. There's some advantages for the Eagles. Number two and limited explosive plays, according to Shio Kapadia. Really good tackling team. And then they have that recipe that used to work against Brady in the past. And I think the Eagles have it where you just rush the four. They're constantly pushing the pocket. And then you have the other seven guys can basically be doing all kinds of, you know, are they blitzing? Are they bouncing back? Are they pretending to blitz and then blitzing? That's what used to frustrate Mahomes. So I, Brady, so I feel like there's some recipe stuff here, but ultimately I just can't take,

• 1:23:11Bill Simmons?

  I can't take Hertz over Mahomes and I can't take Sirianni against Reed. And if anything has taught us about this Chiefs team over the years, they just benefit from dumb shit from the other teams or just the play shouldn't have made. The moment that you can't believe this happened. And it's just, it always works out for them. I'm not going to talk about the refs. So here's what I'm doing. For million dollar picks, we lost 211,000 last week. We are still up 1.071 million dollars for the season. I'm going to try to double it. We're going to bet 500K in the Chiefs minus one and a half. We're going to bet a 250K parlay. Listen to this one. Eagles plus eight and a half. Mahomes 200 plus passing yards, under 60.5 points.

• 1:23:56Bill Simmons?

  So it's a little bit of a hedge against that Chiefs minus one and a half because I think the game's going to be close and I'm going to try to middle it with that parlay. And that parlay is dead even on Fandel. So doing those two. And then 50K on the following Super Bowl props. Ready? Hertz anytime touchdown, minus 115.

• 1:24:17Bill Simmons?

  I just, at some point, the tush push is happening near the goal line. That's just the way this goes. Mahomes over five and a half carries, minus 128. You go back, you look at all the Super Bowl, Sal and I talked about this on the Super Bowl props. He uses his legs in every big game. And even if he doesn't get to five and a half carries, it's five instead of five and a half. So the odds are in your favor on this, especially if they're going to rush four and he's going to be able to scramble around and buy himself some time. Think about the Eagles defense, if they get a little tired in the fourth quarter, who knows? I just think he gets the six carries. I like that a little more than the yards because the yards, if they had the lead, the kneel down, start cutting in the yard total, not doing that. Mahomes over 11 and a half yards for biggest rush, taking that.

• 1:25:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm also taking Hertz over 11 and a half yards for his biggest rush. Figure one of those guys is rushing for 12 yards, maybe hit both. Worst case scenario, you split them. Chris Jones sack, plus 136. We talked about this on Sunday. Line pushes forward, Hertz holds the ball, holds it too long. And then all of a sudden, Jones gets him. Both teams get a fourth down conversion, minus 124. I think there's probably going to be a point in this game where both teams have to get a little bit aggressive. Because they're going to be worried about what happens if the other team gets the ball back. So even fourth and ones, fourth and twos, I just think both teams are getting a fourth down conversion. And then we have a boost on FanDuel that I'm just going to jump on for 50K.

• 1:25:43Bill Simmons?

  KC wins, Mahomes over 225 yards passing, which you can use the profit boost token and go nuts on. And then I have some small 25K Super Bowl props. Mahomes 40-plus rush yards is plus 180. I like that one because if I'm betting on his rush over, I might as well just go for it and think he's going to go like eight for 45, whatever.

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  Eagles first half, Eagles to win the first half, Chiefs to win the game, plus 750. This is the Cousin Sal special. Can see it happening. So we're putting 25K on it. I think this is going to be a tight game. I do not think the Chiefs run away with this by any means, and I could totally see the Eagles winning the first half. So we'll fly on that. And last but not least, going back to the manifesto, no Barkley touchdown is plus 150. And at Fandel, they were saying, I heard through the grapevine, this is the least bet Super Bowl prop. So you want to have the prop that everyone has been in the other side on, plus 150, we're putting 25K on that. And those are the million dollar picks,

• 1:26:49Bill Simmons?

  Super Bowl edition. Don't forget, Sunday night, me and Cousin Sal, at some point after the Super Bowl ends, we will be going, we will be going full tilt on everything that happened in the game. We're not going live on YouTube, but it will be on this podcast. We'll get the video up as fast as possible on YouTube. So there you go.

• 1:27:11Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Crichton and Sarudy and Gahaw for producing. Don't forget, you can watch all the videos and clips from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can also check out the rewatchables on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel or on the rewatchables feed we did before sunset. We have a monster movie coming on Monday, a movie that was always on the shortlist. So stay tuned for that. I'm not going to tell you what it is. You don't need to know what it is because you've seen it. So there you go. I will be back on Sunday after the Super Bowl. We're not going live, but we will be doing a Super Bowl reaction pod with Cousin Sal, the final podcast of the year. Don't forget to consume all of our NFL content on the Ringer Podcast Network,

• 1:27:54Bill Simmons?

  on the Ringer.com. We're doing some great stuff. We have a bunch of people down in New Orleans. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the game. See you Saturday.

• 1:28:26Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy

• 1:29:10Bill Simmons?

  Award winner Martin McDonagh, writer-director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9. Only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.