NBA Lie Detectors, Duren’s Future, Tomlin’s TV Splash, and a 2026 Sports Media Check With Kirk Goldsberry and Bryan Curtis

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry to talk about the Jalen Duren contract drama in Detroit and the NBA rule changes before reacting to quotes from NBA media day. Then, Bryan Curtis joins the pod to discuss the NFL broadcast, sportswriting, and much more! (0:00) Intro with Red Sox–Yankees Game 1 reactions (7:04) Jalen Duren pushing his way out of Detroit? (19:09) NBA rule changes (24:09) “Do you believe this?” NBA media day quotes (58:37) NBA Vegas expansion (01:03:45) Football broadcast discussion (01:09:28) Tomlin, Brady, and the best NFL broadcasters (01:28:29) College football and Herbstreit (01:34:32) Charles Barkley’s retirement (01:40:47) MLB playoff announcers (01:49:12) Sportswriting Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and Bryan Curtis Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 0:39Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did 13 going on 30. We also premiered a hockey podcast. We've never had a hockey podcast, not at Grantland, not at The Ringer. Now we have one. It's the What Chaos Show. It's been around for a couple of years. It is the best NHL podcast. Please go check it out. The season started this week. These guys are great. They feel very ringer-y and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give. I'm hopefully going on there next week or at some point this month to, to talk a little puck because we now have an 84 game regular season. Somebody decided the NHL season needed to be longer, apparently. WNBA playoffs in full swing. You can follow The Ringer WNBA show as well.

• 1:22Bill Simmons?

  We'll be covering all the stuff, including, the Lynx already out. Myles got hurt. The Liberty got healthy for a brief second. I think the fact that the league stopped for three weeks probably helped, but they knocked out the Lynx. So they're out. Fever beat the Aces tonight and we have a Fever-Aces pivotal game three coming up. Let's see what happens. So, baseball, playoffs started today. You heard me talk to Sal on Sunday about how I was not optimistic about the Red Sox. I think he thought I was doing like a reverse jinx thing. The Red Sox offense died at some point in August.

• 2:03Bill Simmons?

  This team peaked in July and August with that incredible win streak. They won the city back. They ended up getting the manager. He had the interim manager removed. He became the full manager, Chad Tracy. The GM, Breslow, somehow got an extension through, he was supposed to go through 28. Now it's through 29 and 30. Still unclear why he got an extension. Because if you watch tonight, this team, Raffiella barely played in September. Contreras, who was hurt off and on and for different reasons in the second half of the year and got hit in the hand two weeks ago. And he hasn't been the same. Trevor Story died five years ago.

• 2:46Bill Simmons?

  Gasper carried the offense for two, three weeks there and then got hurt, of course, right before the playoffs. So no, he's nowhere to be seen. Roman Anthony, who was hurt all year, came back, was out of the fire for a week, didn't look terrible, started to show signs of life here down the stretch this final week and apparently got hurt again because he left halfway through the game, symbolically. But the game was already over because the Yankees had already scored two runs and, and there was no way the Red Sox were going to score three against Schindler in the Yankee bullpen. Look, this was a pretty limited Red Sox team that couldn't score and their only chance in this series were 1-0, 2-1, those type of games.

• 3:29Bill Simmons?

  And once the Yankees were able to put more runs than that, that was it. I did not agree with the Peyton Toly decision to take him out in the fifth inning and bring in Miller, who has not pitched well all month. I don't know why they did that. I thought Toly, especially in Yankee Stadium in a big spot, I just trusted him to come through. I thought he was going to come through and pitch at least six innings tonight. But Schindler was amazing. He's, the two best pitchers that I saw this year were him and Cease on the Blue Jays. But Schindler did everything he had to do. Ben Rice, who has turned into a Red Sox killer, they talked about it during the game, is from Cohasset somehow as a Yankee fan. Seems like he hits the hell out of the Red Sox all the time. So anyway, they won game one. They were supposed to win game one.

• 4:11Bill Simmons?

  I have no idea why they were only, I think, like minus 170 favorites for this series because again, the Red Sox offense is effectively dead, especially Abreu, who I didn't even mention, who hasn't hit for a month either. So I don't know where the runs are supposed to come from. I said to Sal on Sunday, I probably trusted Anthony and Sogard the most of anyone in the lineup and Anthony is now gone. And I do not have high hopes for the rest of this. But the good news is the Patriots are a disaster. Yeah, if you're doing the Boston sports, what team do I feel best about? I think it's the Celtics. Then we had the Pats playing in Buffalo this weekend. This is, you're not going to feel bad for me. I don't expect your sympathy.

• 4:50Bill Simmons?

  But this was not, not a great Boston sports stretch, especially when you think Anthony and Drake May and Tatum were supposed to be the three people basically carrying those three teams and the, the young superstars, all under 30, Anthony and May even younger than that. And now I have serious concerns about two of them. Can Anthony stay on the field? Is Drake May, where is he mentally? I was driving around, my daughter had a game yesterday and I was driving, I was listening to WEI and they had their, their weekly Drake May interview, which for some reason he decided to do, I guess he had to contractually.

• 5:32Bill Simmons?

  And they asked him about his shoulder and he just gave a non-answer. And then they were like, hey, can you answer this? And, and pivoted back and he just didn't answer it. So I, it doesn't seem like he's healthy. I've narrowed it down to his shoulder and, and his head are the two things to be concerned about here and I don't feel great about either. They play Buffalo this weekend. We will talk about it on the podcast on Thursday. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk to Kurt Goldsberry about a bunch of NBA Media Day, opening, opening topics, all kinds of things. And then Brian Curtis, every once in a while I have Brian Curtis on to talk about a bunch of sports media stuff. We want to talk about football broadcasters, Mike Tomlin, best, worst playoff, play by

• 6:17Bill Simmons?

  playing and color guys and all kinds of, and, and we ended up talking about writing and had a typical convo that Curtis and I usually have, which I really enjoyed. Enjoyed the whole podcast. Enjoyed everything except for the Red Sox laying his think egg in Yankee Stadium today. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then come back with Kurt Goldsberry right after this. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all-time FanDuel Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to fanduel.com/bs to start earning with FanDuel Rewards Club.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  21-plus select states or 18-plus DC or Wyoming. Game prob, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut.

• 7:37Bill Simmons?

  Kurt Goldsberry is here recording this part of the podcast, mid-afternoon Pacific time on Tuesday. You don't know this, but this is an all Texas podcast because Brian Curtis is the other guest.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Book of horns.

• 7:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you went to a game together recently too.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  We went to the Ohio State game, which was an incredible moment. I promised my students, Bill, if we won that game, I would grow a mustache and wouldn't shave it until the Texas football team lost. So after a tight game in Tennessee, I still have this stupid mustache.

• 8:06Bill Simmons?

  I thought you were just prepping for Movember, but no, it was you bet your students. I love it. Okay.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of bets, Duren on the Pister, on the Pistons is, is betting that $200 million or whatever they offered is, is, there's more out there. This is turning into one of the weirdest contract stories we've had. I wasn't really buying in on this and, and Jalen Duren actually pushing his way out. And yet, now it feels like he might, there's a possibility he might push his way out. Are you, are you following this story and how real do you think this is?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Oh, it's incredibly real. I think when it gets to Media Day and this dude isn't there and he's not on the roster. And I have a take, usually I'm pretty nuanced on this stuff, but I think this young man, Bill, needs to take the money. Five years, 200 million. He just had an awkward playoff run to be kind.

• 9:02Bill Simmons?

  To say the least, yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  But I think he needs to take the money. The game has changed. The salary cap system has changed in an era, Bill, where we have this hard cap. And let's call it what it is, a hard cap, the second apron. Overpaying top talent is a cardinal sin in the league. And I think some of the league's agents aren't doing a great job of updating their players, that this is just a different era. Five years, $200 million at age 22. That's a great deal. Maybe I'm an old grumpy dude at this point, but I think he's got to take it.

• 9:34Bill Simmons?

  No, but you're talking about it realistically in a league where I think six centers out of 30 teams are making 35 million or more. Right?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:43Bill Simmons?

  And out of those six, probably four of the teams regret the contract, I would say.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And one more thing. And the, and the guys that are making that money, Embiid, Wemba Yama, Joker, what have they done, Bill? They've completely reinvented the position.

• 9:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  They dribble, pass and shoot the heck out of the ball. And Duren is kind of old school. That's why I love his game. He's like a big that you and I grew up with.

• 10:06Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  But I think he's got to take this money and move on.

• 10:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, you look at the Celtics, right? They have Mitchell Robinson and they have Cade, who this year are going to be making less than 18 million combined. Next year, Cade's extension kicks in and him and Robinson will be making 28 million combined.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:27Bill Simmons?

  And I really liked Duren. I thought he was a huge part. I've talked about this before. I thought he was a huge part of the identity of that Pistons team. But I don't think you, if those two guys together are making 28 and I have to pay Duren and Paul Reed, you know, almost 50 million bucks. I just don't think that makes sense with the way the NBA is. I don't think the position is valuable enough and it's too easy to be able to patch, unless it's Jokic, right? If, if it's somebody on that level, sure.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:57Bill Simmons?

  Because now it's a superstar thing. I think it's hard with the centers because you can play some of them off the floor. You have situations like you had in the playoffs last year. His age is the right age, but it, it feels like there's bad blood, which is sometimes doesn't go away. We've, this has been a legacy of the NBA where sometimes the staring contest that like 30 years ago, Sean Kemp in Seattle, all of a sudden they were trading him because he was so mad that Jim McAvoy was making more money than him. And then they had just made the finals a year earlier and they're, and all of a sudden he's getting shipped out. So it makes me think he's going to get traded.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's more real in the last couple of weeks. Again, since it got to media day and the roster and it's, there's, there is a staring contest. It does feel like a trade is a possibility.

• 11:45Bill Simmons?

  And Thompson extension, who got less than what Duren wanted. Yeah, they took care of the teammate and it was a better deal than the Duren deal. But that, I don't think that helped either.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  How many, how many players are worth five years, $200 million in this economy? In this economy, uh, and again, he came, he, he went from a 20 point a game scorer in the regular season. Everybody had him all NBA, myself included, on my ballot.

• 12:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  In the playoffs against Orlando and Cleveland, not exactly the greatest teams we saw in the playoffs. This dude dropped to 10 point a game, uh, and his on off splits were terrible. Detroit was a much better team when he was off the floor. And, and look, he should be, I think he should be happy to get this offer, Bill.

• 12:28Bill Simmons?

  The problem for them is the sign and trades become problematic. Cause in my head, I was like, oh, they should just do a deal with Washington and get Anthony Davis back and picks. And that's short term, that helps them. Long term, they don't have to worry about this contract being an albatross. And they're building around Cade and Thompson and other stuff they've done. The problem is Davis is at 58 million, right? And so if you're sign and trading him, I assume you're sign and trading him to a team that is going to offer more than five 200s. So the only team dumb enough to do that is Sacramento, who of course is in the middle of this and is obviously wink, wink to the agent like, oh, we'd go higher than that, which is the old Daryl Morey, James Harden move

• 13:12Bill Simmons?

  with the OKC extension in 2012. Well, we do five for seven, five for 80. They said they're only offering four for 55, like.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:22Bill Simmons?

  We're, we're at 580 right now, if you can, if you can figure it out. Sacramento has to be Sabonis. And I'm just not doing that if I'm Detroit. I'm just not.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  He doesn't seem to fit. And I do think like the Cade part of it is huge, right? They have a franchise piece that almost any other team in the league would, would say. So they want to get somebody on that timeline. I think a sort of Thompson fits that too.

• 13:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  But that's where the AD thing is, is sort of a hiccup. And the other thing is like Trajan Langdon, within five weeks of getting to New Orleans, was part of the deal, that part of the front office that traded AD to the Lakers.

• 14:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  So I'm not sure he wants to get back into the AD business.

• 14:07Bill Simmons?

  It's not going to work because that, that floated around yesterday with AD. And it's just the salaries don't work. Detroit would have to put another guy in the trade and it just doesn't make sense.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  I like it from Washington's perspective. That's a team that's young and, and, and could get, could fit, could find their, the center of the future to match their age profile. But yeah, from the Pistons perspective, remember this number one seed in the Eastern Conference, Bill, they won 60 games last year.

• 14:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, they're not winning that this year.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  This is just super awkward. I was going to ask you if you could remember, you said Sean Kemp, but it's like, I couldn't, I haven't seen something go this sideways, this fast with a young all NBA player like this for a rising team in a long time.

• 14:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, usually it's, it's like a Vince Carter type of situation.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:51Bill Simmons?

  Where somebody's unhappy or T Mac in Orlando. This happened a lot in the 2000s, but the guys already had the money at that point. This almost feels like the disrespect is such a huge piece of this. I look at them like, I don't think, I didn't think they had any chance of winning 60. I don't really like what they did this, this off season. Right? Even, even like I look at the lack of, they basically have one shot creator, right?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  Tobias, who is now on San Antonio, who is always everyone's glass half empty on him all the time, but Tobias, at least they could go to him and he could hit a shot, which especially in the playoffs, like when, when either Cade was out or Cade was struggling, like at least you had somewhere else to go. I don't know where they go now.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And remember the, the bread and butter action was this Cade, Duren pick and roll, which was one of the most spammed actions in the entire league last season. And you look at the most common pick and roll combinations. It's very, very close to the top, if not the top. I don't remember, but, so even from Cade's perspective, like this is very risky from the team. From, from the perspective of the Detroit Pistons, like that's his running mate. That is Cade's number one bread and butter action too. And so if this thing really goes sideways, Cade's going to have to reinvent how he plays. And you mentioned the departure of Harris. You're going to have a completely new look offense in Detroit.

• 16:16Bill Simmons?

  And Stewart's gone, which it seems like there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes, but I always liked Stewart. I thought he had a weird year last year and the fight definitely mixed it up in the wrong way. But they lost Harris and Stewart and Levert, who I've never been a fan of. Replace those guys with John Collins, Isaiah Joe and a Corey. Corey's a rookie, like you're asking a lot. Isaiah Joe, I think we all like as a shooter, but never really has played significant minutes on a really good team ever. And then, I don't know, I watched Collins last year, some Clipper games. He's fine.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Bill Simmons?

  I, I personally think would rather have a, would rather have Tobias. I know that like John Collins is an advanced stat. People, there's a lot of positive things behind it, but I don't know.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  I don't like, I don't like it.

• 17:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't like what they did. So the, what the other trade, because I was like, obviously Milwaukee just says too many guys and God only knows what they're trying to do. But there's some sort of framework of like hero and where basically some of the guys they got in the honest trade and could they throw other stuff in? There's only one trade that I really like, and I don't know if you were focused on this one, but Atlanta.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the one I was hoping you'd say. Tell me more.

• 17:35Bill Simmons?

  I just think a Kogu and Daniels for, for Duren makes a shitload of sense to me for everybody involved, especially when they got the Lou Dort.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:44Bill Simmons?

  Adding him, he can just basically go in the Daniel spot as another lockdown defender for them. And now you're upgrading at center. And then if I'm Detroit, I get out of this, I've split up the contracts. Daniels is at 25 a year, which is probably fair. It's a little, it's a little high considering that he doesn't seem to be growing offensively at all, but that, that was the only one that made sense to me.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And if you look at the pattern in Atlanta over the last couple of years, there's a couple of sort of things they're obviously targeting, which is size and strength and athleticism, which Jalen Duren, more than almost any other player in the NBA, checks those boxes, especially at his position, just one of the more physically imposing dominant bigs.

• 18:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Uh, in the league. And I think if that's what Quinn Snyder is going for in his lineup, it fills a big need there. Remember this is a team that filled, uh, finished last season before the playoffs, about as hot as anybody in the league. Uh, and then was the only team in the East or in the West, for that matter, to take two games from the Knicks in the playoffs. So, you know, Atlanta is the team to watch in my opinion. They've been active.

• 18:50Bill Simmons?

  Do you like that crunch time five? If it's Duren, Jalen Johnson, McCollum, Lou Dort.

• 18:59Bill Simmons?

  And Alexander Walker. And that's all I'm rolling with with six minutes left in a huge playoff game. I kinda like it.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I kinda like it. I still think CJ is running on borrowed time a little bit. They drafted a point guard.

• 19:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, they have his replacement ready to roll, yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so if that kid comes along.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  And I, I think they proved it to me at the end of last season and in the playoffs. I don't know if I love it like I like the Knicks five or like when your team was really humming, that five man group.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  But I think it's an upgrade for the, for the Atlanta Hawks in the front court.

• 19:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, we'll see what happens. I do not think a center should make 40 million a year up in this current salary cap economy, unless it's Jokic or Wemby, but what do I know? They also announced some rule changes that they're going to be looking at.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Points of education. Now they're called points of education.

• 19:50Bill Simmons?

  Are we calling this the Jalen Brown? Who are we naming that one after? It's basically they're saying you can't use the stiff arm as you're driving. LeBron does it too. I've been a bunch of people do, do this, but I'll be interested to see how long they stick to this one.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  I've heard trainers call it the paddle, the off arm, like, and they're training it now. They're training it. Yeah, the paddle, like you're dribbling with your right hand and you can't use your hand as much, but you can sort of maneuver your off arm like the Heisman Trophy a little bit. As long as you don't fully stiff arm. But yeah, that came out today and I, I count me among the people that are sort of happy that they announced this. A little bit cynical that they're going to enforce it, Bill. We've seen these kinds of points of emphases now called points of education for years. Sometimes they last a week. Sometimes they last a month. Sometimes they actually last. So I, as an old guy, hand checks were part of the game. Now it feels like the offensive players in this attacking guard era, SGA, Jalen Brown,

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Luka Doncic are, are weaponizing that off arm and almost committing like reach in fouls as an offensive player. And I would love to see it go away. You don't see it in college basketball. You don't see it women's basketball. You don't see it in European basketball. It's an NBA specific issue that I think has arisen in the last 10 years. That has gotten out of hand, no pun intended, in, in, in the 2020s. And I associate with SGA. I'll go ahead and say it.

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 21:19Bill Simmons?

  I still think Jalen, but it's because I watched the most Celtic game. But you're right, SGA probably perfected it. I wonder who.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Well, Jay, yeah. Jalen was the example they used.

• 21:28Bill Simmons?

  LeBron was sneaky good at it though. Cause he could.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  You'd be a fool not to. By the way, I'm throwing shade.

• 21:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  If, if you can get away with that, you should do it. And I'm not insulting SGA. If you can get away with it, it's a brilliant play. I mean, but it's kind of the thing if, if you were playing pickup basketball and you started doing this to people, they'd be like, dude, what are you doing? And it's just commonplace in the NBA.

• 21:48Bill Simmons?

  It's funny in FIBA, that does not work in FIBA and they call it and they get mad when you do it. And then they have to adjust. The other one I'm more excited about is the illegal screening. I thought the screening stuff was out of control the last two years and, and really more noticeable in person than anything. Where you could really see guys were just never set anymore. And it was becoming A, harder to guard everybody 30 feet from the hoop. But then B, I, I think real potential for injury and knees knocking and all kinds of bad things. So I see them actually sticking with this.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  I blame Steve Kerr, Draymond Green, David Lee and Andrew Bogut. And I say that lovingly.

• 22:28Bill Simmons?

  The founding fathers?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  The moving screen warriors. But I think they deserve credit. And I would always say to people in the 2010s, if you're not getting called for one or two of these violations, every game, you're not setting dirty enough screens. And they really put the onus on the officials. And to this point in 2026, Bill, I think it is fair to say that screens are dirtier than ever and breaking rules at a higher rate. They just haven't been enforced. And in the examples in the videos they show have a lot of guys, you know, pushing guys away, moving into the contact and disrupting what they're calling freedom of movement on the defender, trying to get around a screen. So like you, I, I think it's an ambitious one. I'm, I'm glad they're focusing on it.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  But my question back to you is, do you trust that they'll follow through on both of these going into the new season?

• 23:20Bill Simmons?

  I think they'll follow through on the illegal screens. And I think they'll see how it goes with the stiff arms.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:26Bill Simmons?

  Because on defense, they're also doing stuff, right? So I, I don't know, it'll be a push and pull. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel. Postseason baseball is here. FanDuel has something pretty nice for the wild card series. With FanDuel's early win, you don't have to wait around to see how a game ends. If your money line, that one you picked goes up by two, two runs at any point, you win instantly. How about that? That's it. Up two, you win. FanDuel is doing it every day of the wild card series. I would stay away from Red Sox Yankees with this because I think every game is going to be like one, nothing, two, one, uh, three, two, somewhere in that. I think the Houston White Sox series is a good one for this.

• 24:10Bill Simmons?

  Uh, cause I think there's going to be, I know it's a best of three, but there'll be a game where Houston scores like nine runs. So I would think about that. Anyway, uh, figure out who you like, make your money line pick. If they get that two run lead, you've got yourself an early win. Download the FanDuel app to get started. FanDuel, your home for home runs. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. I have, I wrote down, I was on a six hour flight today. I wrote down, I went through painstakingly and wrote down a bunch of quotes from media day.

• 24:52Bill Simmons?

  And we're going to play a little game called, do you believe this?

• 24:59Bill Simmons?

  LeBron is the first one. He said, I didn't come here to lose in the second round.

• 25:08Bill Simmons?

  Felt like a slight dig at Embiid, like just a little, Embiid's never gotten out of the second round. Very pointed that it was the second round. Here's what I thought was interesting about this. Why didn't he say, I didn't come here to lose in the conference finals?

• 25:23Bill Simmons?

  Because the way this is phrased, I didn't come here to lose in the second round. So the conference finals, if he loses, that's okay? I just thought the second round thing was weird. Wouldn't he say, I didn't come here to not make the finals or something like that? But this second round, I thought was odd.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Well, it was even weirder because he said, I didn't leave my family behind or something along those lines. Like he was, he was very emotional, but I, I think he really thinks this is one of the best teams in the East. And I think it gives him the best shot of winning. And, and ultimately I think if we asked him, Bill, about why he chose Philadelphia, he thinks it's a superior place to win basketball games than Cleveland, which I think was the other big choice for him. I know he thinks very highly of Tyrese Maxey, Jalen Brown. Um, are personal friends of his. So I think he thinks this is a great team. Uh, and I, I don't read much more into it than that.

• 26:13Bill Simmons?

  I don't think the Cleveland thing worked out because they couldn't get rid of Harden. The Lakers didn't want him. San Antonio and OKC didn't want him. And the Knicks won the title and Philly turned out because of Jalen Brown thing. I'll be, I, I would love to know if Jalen Brown, if that hadn't happened, would he have gone there? But we'll never know. Next one. Draymond Green on LeBron. Said he passed on the Warriors. He couldn't get over the past quote, which is, I battled these guys over and over again. What is that going to look like for me if I sign there? What type of beating will I get if I go there? That's why Draymond thought LeBron didn't go to the Warriors. So on a do you believe, I actually believe this. I think this was the reason he didn't go to the Warriors.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  I think that and the, I think it stacks with the previous point. I don't think he thinks the Warriors are going anywhere. And you know, Jimmy Butler is banged up. Stephen Curry, is he 37 or 38? Um, we saw the Porzingis news this week. You know, and this is a Western conference that has two juggernauts sitting at the top.

• 27:16Bill Simmons?

  That you're not passing.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  And Nikola Jokic sitting there in third or fourth, Anthony Edwards. It's just a harder path. As much as the East has improved, I still think he just didn't think the Golden State Warriors were going to make a lot of noise come April and May.

• 27:30Bill Simmons?

  It was noticeable, noticeable that Embiid is in much, much, much better shape too. I don't know if LeBron, how much he had to do with that, but Embiid looks like the guy from eight years ago.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  When he's good, as you guys saw, like the Boston Celtics fans know exactly what we're talking about. If he can put it together, he is still one of the top five players in the league. Like if he looks good, he looks incredible. Um, and you know, he can't sustain it. So we'll see. I, I've yet to see it and you make this point better than anybody. How many games does he play every year? You know, his body breaks down. He has bad luck, but.

• 28:06Bill Simmons?

  Being skinny will help him not get injured is my expert take. How about this? Just emulate what Tim Duncan did.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Well, I, let's do it. And I love what you said, uh, earlier this week, just play once a week. Like, I don't know if they're going to be able to get away with that sparse. But yeah, like with the depth they have with LeBron James, Jalen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, he can sit out back to backs. They can still win games against decent teams if they program Joel Embiid's usage and load management. I think that we could see the LeBron effect for Embiid actually being a sustainability for that dude.

• 28:44Bill Simmons?

  Next one is a tweet from John Krasinski, who does an excellent job covering the Timberwolves.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, he does.

• 28:50Bill Simmons?

  Tim Connolly says he's quote, super happy in Minnesota. He's entering the last year of his deal, but notes he's had opportunities to move in his state. Says he's focused on winning here. Do you believe him?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  I think he wants to see what happens with this crazy LaMelo risk that he took. And I for one am very cynical. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to work. Uh, if for no other reason that LaMelo Ball is never going to be healthy to play 82 games. I think it's the most sort of under reported thing about LaMelo is his own injury history, his ability to stay upright. Uh, and again, in the context of a brutal Western conference, you can't have any kind of mess ups. Tim Connolly deserves a lot of credit for building a team, uh, two teams in the Western Conference that have been very good over the last decade. Um, so I could see him going elsewhere if this thing falls apart.

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  I didn't believe that tweet. He said he's had opportunities to move and has stayed. You stayed because you were under contract and you couldn't move to the other opportunity. So I just don't believe it. And I think the LaMelo Ball trade was, was a hail mary to some degree. Where you're just basically trying to game the variance of a ton of three pointers and take some pressure off Ant and you're going to cross your fingers and hope it works.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  I, I said at the time, I thought it was an overreaction. I thought the reason that they didn't succeed like the way we, we maybe thought they would was because they had a ton of injuries at the wrong time.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ant Man was on one leg. Like, let's not forget it.

• 30:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And the Randall thing got weird because they were trying to desperately trade everybody in February for Durant and whatever else. Next one, Tyron Lou. Quote, "I wouldn't want to be at any other place."

• 30:35Bill Simmons?

  This is my first, I'm a zero out of 10, I don't believe this. There's no way you wouldn't want to be in another place. I'm gonna guess you'd be in 20 other places.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  He hasn't been this happy since he was looking up at Allen Iverson's crotch when he was getting stepped over in 2001. That is the biggest baloney sandwich I think we heard at media day and that's saying something, Bill. Like, this is such a bad situation and now Brandon Ingram appears to have some really bad injury news too.

• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  Appears he has a partially torn Achilles. So, this is the, the Clipper fans I know are like, so that, is this why they got more than maybe it seems like they should have for Kawhi? Because training for a guy who was injured and has a partially, first of all, how do you have a partially torn Achilles?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, I think it's like a small tear, but is that something that comes out in the physical that could have slowed down the trade? Is that what you're getting at? I don't know.

• 31:32Bill Simmons?

  Or do you, the Raptors didn't know?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I need to read more.

• 31:38Bill Simmons?

  They didn't know he had this injury? They just found, figured it out? He was, said at the end of the year, he was hurt last year.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:45Bill Simmons?

  Anyway.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  I mean, that, but yeah, so I think I'd put Ty Lou with Tim Connolly, right? These are two really high caliber, Ty Lou's a great coach. I'm not throwing any shade at him. And Tim Connolly too, like, these are very marketable player or people in, in the NBA if they choose to go somewhere else.

• 32:05Bill Simmons?

  I think they both will. Jason Tatum. Quote, "They're asking about what it's like to have your own team. It's not a simple thing, like, this is my team. No, it's not just saying it's my team and I'm not going to say that. I've got 14 other teammates I'm going to lean on and we all need each other. So this is going to be his tactic all year of being like, this is not the Jason Tatum show, this is not my team."

• 32:30Bill Simmons?

  I have a, I have a little news flash for Jason. This is your team.

• 32:35Bill Simmons?

  They built the whole thing around you and they traded Jalen Brown to make it your team. So whether you don't want to admit it or not, this is your team.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Well, as one, one of the joys of my summer, Bill, was to be a guest, I would say, in the third chair of the colonoscopy pod. And it was, it was just electric to be a part of that, that BS history. I'd turn it back to you. I know your fans want to hear you riff more because I know you've come around on Paul George.

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  What are your thoughts on Jason Tatum finally being the alpha dog? I mean, I know you've talked yourself into this trade, but can he be an effective leader?

• 33:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had no choice but to talk myself into the trade because they made it. I do understand why they did it.

• 33:17Bill Simmons?

  And the Paul George, I don't know, he's kind of sucking me in with his quotes. This place is great. I wish I had gotten here sooner. I was like, okay, Paul George, twist my arm. I understand why they did it. And I, we didn't have this information during the infamous colonoscopy pod, which I'm sure for you, the, you had the colonoscopy pod in the Ohio State game, being in person for those, probably your two highlights of 2026.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 33:43Bill Simmons?

  We didn't have this information, but Brad Stevens basically admitting, "We took that group as far as it could go and we had to do something." And that's, he said it in so many words in multiple interviews that I did not feel like this was sustainable anymore. And that's why they did it. And he had less value than they thought.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  And I agree. I think the second apron, which we brought up earlier in the context of Jalen Duren, I think is a huge part of this and Brad referenced it. The more I've thought about it, and he, he said it exactly, something to the effect of, "We can't have this much usage tied up and, and this much of our cap tied up in two guys." And I think that's fair in, in a league though where depth is so important that you can't achieve depth if you have a Jalen sized contract and a Jason sized contract stacked on each other.

• 34:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're looking at it. Oh, good.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. That, it doesn't explain bringing in Paul George, who has basically the same amount of money due to him, but for one or two less years, right?

• 34:42Bill Simmons?

  That's why I don't know if it was a, I mean, it was a salary trade for that third year and he's an expiring next year. So you're looking at this year only plus season expiring.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  I think they looked at it and you add up the stats of those two guys and how much they'd have to both have the ball, what that comes at the expense of with the rest of the team. And they thought, you move Paul George and Hugo and Shireman, you know, give them a lot of those minutes and you spread the rest of this stuff out and Tatum's going to do a lot of the usage stuff that Jason did last year. And that this was the only way we were going to have a happy situation, I think is where they landed. I don't know if they're wrong.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yep. And Paul George, one of the most underrated part of his games is he is a knockdown catch and shoot player. He can play off the ball really well and he's content doing so.

• 35:28Bill Simmons?

  Switches on D, yeah, doesn't know.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Smartest defender on the court. Maybe, maybe have lost a little step in his mid 30s, but even the Sixers were raving about this dude's defensive leadership and his ability to perform on that side of the court. So you can talk yourself into it. I'm happy to, to, to sort of endorse that.

• 35:46Bill Simmons?

  This is from anonymous. From media day. Ben Simmons is cringe, cringe. He's lucky he's fine. Zach Levine is cute, but his personality fucking annoys me. It just seems like he's a prick.

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  Hot mics, baby.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 36:02Bill Simmons?

  Only the Kings. If we did a draft of like, what team will this happen to? What team will have a hot mic controversy? The Kings somehow, even though there's 30 teams having a media day, you just would have assumed it was the Kings.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Electric group text moment, that going around. And yeah, like Zach Levine got, got, I think, thrown under the bus a little bit there by one of the media members who's anonymous. But I feel bad for anonymous, Bill Simmons. I do not.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  That's a good Zach.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  If the craziest shit I said were caught on a hot mic, it would be a terrible day in my career. We all say stupid things. Some of us get caught and I feel bad for anonymous. Shout out to anonymous. As far as I'm concerned, you're forgiven.

• 36:49Bill Simmons?

  Shout out to Andy Anonymous. J.J. Reddick. Quote, "There's a reason we wanted a lot of these new guys on our team. They offer something different and we feel like the pieces really fit."

• 37:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm like a three out of 10 on that one.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they sent a lot of resources to get Walker Kessler, another person with severe injury issues.

• 37:15Bill Simmons?

  A lot.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Who's unproven.

• 37:17Bill Simmons?

  They have a lot of offense and now they are doing this with Matisse Thybulé.

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  Can you please be our shutdown defender? Because if you're not, we're in a lot of trouble this year.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  I think they're in a lot of trouble anyway at the point of attack. And we've talked about this on the show before, but if you look at the Western Conference guards, who you're playing on a nightly basis, the idea that Austin Reeves and Luca are both on the court, well, you're talking about Stephen Curry or Anthony Edwards or Stephon Castle or Shay Gildes Alexander, they're going to be able to pick on something there. And that remains a, like a bright red flag for the Lakers.

• 37:55Bill Simmons?

  Ja Morant on starting. Quote, "I think winning is the most important thing for me."

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to say he wants to start.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I think he wants to start and I think he probably should start to start the season. I mean, he has a very high ceiling as a player and there is a world, and you and I have been around this league a long, not enough time for a redemption arc here, where this guy gets his shit together and starts being an all-star, an all NBA player. And Chris Vernon is losing his mind in Memphis. But yeah, like, I think Portland, who showed some signs last year and has an awkward offseason story here where Tiago Splitter leaving, the coach getting a one-year deal from Minnesota to come over. It's just an awkward situation, but it could all click. We'll see.

• 38:47Bill Simmons?

  We got him one-year deal, but they, they gave him a food card, apparently, for like a $300 limit.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Free chicken tenders on game day.

• 38:53Bill Simmons?

  $300 limit. He's can take himself out to lunch every couple of weeks.

• 38:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man. This might be my favorite. John Horst, Bucks GM on extending Gary Trent Jr. He's an elite shooter. I think one of five or six players to shoot and make the amount of threes he has as a reserve over the last couple of years. Only 27 years old. Was big for us in playoff moments. So there's a big belief in Gary for what we think matters, and that's elite shooting in the NBA. That's hard to find. John Horst. I'm gonna give this a zero out of 10. Do you believe? Maybe a minus one.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  That is a CYA statement, I think would be the technical term. But yeah, some murky stuff at best in Milwaukee with the Gary Trent Jr. Stuff and if you look at the, if you look at the game, the way I do Gary Trent Jr. Was a, that's the player he was describing three years ago at 24. I co-sign it. But it has been very bad the last two years. And in fact, his efficiency is a catch and shoot player. When Giannis is on the court and those opportunities aren't going to come anymore, was very disappointing over the last two years. So kind of, I'll just say it was a surprising contract that Gary Trent Jr. Got.

• 40:06Bill Simmons?

  Not surprising if you knew they agreed to it a year ago. 36% shooting threes last year for Gary. I'm pretty sure there's some guys that did better than that. John Horst is like, please, please don't suspend me for a year, please.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Well, here's my, my, my Bill Simmons question. I was talking to some students about this earlier. Are we, is the new, the new kind of cheating, like remember we went through the doping phase with Lance Armstrong and all the baseball players? It feels like we're in a new era of cheating, Bill, where we're just talking about financial crimes on the show all the time. And it came through like Manchester City today. Just got absolutely leveled. And so now we're talking more and more about freaking financial crimes. Thanks to Pablo Torre, Manchester City. This caps our convention story in Milwaukee. I'm already sick of it, but I feel like we're just warming up.

• 40:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but the thing is, everybody was doing this forever. The reason Joe Smith got caught was because they found a contract that they all fucking agreed to and signed that because of the agent.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, the agents, like the, the agency he was represented by dissolved and they had discovery and that was the only reason they found that. I'm not naive, but I'm just also like, don't want to be doing podcast appearances where I'm talking about like the Securities and Exchange Commission and committees looking at financial fraud for the next 20 years.

• 41:26Bill Simmons?

  To me, the joke's been made by everybody, but the punishment should be you have to pay Gary Trent for your 64 million. Like we've decided and that's what you gotta do. Darius Garland, quote, "The vibe is immaculate right now." That's his media day quote. I'm a one out of 10 on that one.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, I'll go zero out of 10. Cause this is like on the heels of the Ingram news.

• 41:49Bill Simmons?

  What is immaculate about the vibe? They've lost their owner. They lost their GM. They traded for a guy who now has a partially torn Achilles. Their over under in Vegas is 20 and a half wins and a big chunk of their fans are really disappointed slash despise everything that happened and can't believe they have to watch this team all season.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, yeah, it's, it's well said. And did you get an update on your season tickets? Are you able to get out of those? Everybody wants to know.

• 42:18Bill Simmons?

  Not an update. And by the way, I've not heard anything for two weeks. And now I'm gonna have to, now I'm gonna have to pull some stuff.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  I don't know what that means, but I don't think the vibes are immaculate.

• 42:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, the thing is, if they're not gonna take my tickets, then that means I will go to the games. I will just say that. Joe Dumars, quote, this is the Astro Dumars, why he didn't do a lot of moves this summer. I don't know if you noticed, but the Pelicans weren't good last year and then just brought everybody back. You can't be reckless with your aggression. I am not going to do a deal just to do a deal. So we could say, yeah, we did a deal. And it's not even something you really like. If it's not really that good for us, why do it? I'm like a nine out of 10 on this. I think he actually believes this.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:12Bill Simmons?

  He's like, I'm not just gonna do a deal to do a deal. But the alternative is, well, you're bringing the same team back that sucked last year. You realize that, right? And the pieces don't match. And you just gave Siddiq Bay $55 million for reasons that remain unclear when you have a bunch of, and then you also paid Ben Matherin. What are you doing?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  And he has very attractive trade pieces to, to your point. We've talked about Trey Murphy for what, two years, three years in this context?

• 43:42Bill Simmons?

  Herb Jones for 14 million a year or something?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think a lot of us are bewildered at the state of the Pelicans. And I think we look at a team that has some talent, but clearly isn't going to make a lot of noise in the Western Conference. So it's almost a what do you have to lose situation here? Like what, what is Joe Dumars like truth serum? What is the ceiling of this basketball team in his head, Bill? Do you, do you think Joe Dumars believes the New Orleans Pelicans could be a play in team? Do you think he thinks that could be a four seed? Like what is driving his reticence to make some of these moves?

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  You probably talk, like if we were running the Pelicans, you probably talk yourself into Zion like it's Stockholm syndrome at some point. You do a lot of if only, if we can just get Zion going and oh Zion, he said that, do you see this quote he said? And you talk yourself in the reality of if this guy has his head on straight, he could be a top 25 guy in the league. So we got that, but we haven't seen it. And he's been in the league since 2019. I don't think it's gonna happen.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm with you on that.

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  And I don't think he has the same athleticism that he had when he came in the league. So we'll see. Aaron Gordon, quote, "When we have all our guys, we're still the best in the league." I admire that he said this and I admire his conviction. But even when they have all their guys, they're not the best in the league. So I'm gonna have to, I admire that he would say this publicly, but I don't, deep down, he can't believe this, right?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Can I respond with a stat?

• 45:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  So for the first time in NBA history, players 30 and over played less than 20% of minutes last year. It's something I've been thinking about. You actually got me on to looking at calf strains and hamstrings, which I think is very relevant to Aaron. I think every basketball nerd loves Aaron Gordon. Everybody roots for him to be healthy. But the combination of aging bodies and the way we're playing this game and how frequently the league is insisting on making these guys play. I agree with him. If everybody's healthy, that's a very hard team to beat. But you've been saying it for years. I've been coming around to it. It's like, I just don't, I just don't believe that this is gonna happen.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Like that's, show it to me. And it's been how many playoffs in a row where he just can't stay upright and it's a bummer.

• 46:08Bill Simmons?

  And then Murray ran out of gas last year in the playoffs.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  And he's had catastrophic leg injuries too. I just, I think once your snake bit, it's really hard in this grueling NBA schedule to sort of get back into your, your full capabilities. Especially when you're on the wrong side of 30, like Aaron. But that said, I agree with what he said. If they have a perfect health team and you're playing one game to win a championship, I might take the Denver Nuggets. That's a hell of a team. The problem is we play 100 of these things by the time we get out the, the, the title.

• 46:43Bill Simmons?

  Right. Rui Hachimura on why he joined the Clippers. Quote, "One thing everyone says about the Clippers is how well they take care of players."

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  Technically true. I'm very, I don't think he's lying. He also, this is a Law Murray tweet. Rui mentioned that he is looking forward to reuniting with former Washington Wizards teammate Bradley Beal. All right, Rui, you pushed your luck with that one.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a, that's a lot of a reunion thing. But maybe it's true. Bradley seems like a great guy.

• 47:18Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't really miserable in Washington? And then when the Lakers traded for him, they only had to give up a second round pick because nobody knew if he was any good or not?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  And didn't he disappear for an extended period of time to Japan?

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and the Wizards didn't seem to have any fun during that stretch he was on the team. Oh, speaking of Zion, quote, "I'm not where I want to be. I'm just not where I need to be and I'm not where I want to be."

• 47:44Bill Simmons?

  We agree. Rudy Gobert, quote, "The vibes are great. Sometimes I have to turn off the group chat because it's buzzing too much."

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:53Bill Simmons?

  I think I believe that.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's just an old guy.

• 47:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, they went to Paris and he showed them around. I do think the vibes are good. And I think the Randall thing was bad last year. I think when, he was really mad when they, he felt really betrayed when they tried to trade him and his name was in all the rumors. And I think from the moment that trade deadline happened, that team had a weird energy to it.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Counterpoint?

• 48:14Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Who did they also send away to get LaMelo?

• 48:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, their guy, Nas Reed.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  And I, yeah, fan favorite, culture driver.

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  I'm really worried about the absence of Nas Reed in that group and that organization too. And I know a lot of Wolves fans and people around that team are too. So it's not just you got rid of Randall and you have this party vibe. You've lost Nas Reed, who is, what, the third most popular Timber Wolf player of all time, Bill?

• 48:47Bill Simmons?

  My note to the T Wolves fans is as follows, because I think we all want to watch this team and we're all excited about it. Just take the regular season carefully. You're gonna have a couple nights during the season when you score 152 points and you make 28 threes and it looks awesome. And you're definitely gonna have a TNT night, oh, they don't have TNT anymore, an Amazon night, a Peacock night, where you just light somebody up who's really good and the potential of the, the running gun and the, the threes and it's just gonna look great.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  I just want to see, can LaMelo play 2,000 minutes?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:29Bill Simmons?

  But is that, is that allowed to ask? 2,000 minutes?

• 49:32Speaker 01

  It is for a guy. And when you talk to people around Charlotte.

• 49:35Bill Simmons?

  2,200 minutes would be a miracle?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think that's why they, Charlotte, one of the reasons they got off of him. It's not just the sort of enigmatic.

• 49:45Bill Simmons?

  I think it was the reason they got off of him. They didn't, they didn't feel like he could hold up.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  I think that's right. And so same thing with Aaron Gordon. I don't like to say this, but the older I get and the more I analyze this league, like, these dudes are, some of them are very fragile and you have to sort of factor that into your predictions and your analyses.

• 50:06Bill Simmons?

  Luka Doncic had said on Walker Kessler, "I really wanted him." I do believe that's true. He also said on, on LeBron, "It's kinda sad, you know? Playing with LeBron was amazing. There's a lot of things I learned from him and we all know who LeBron James is. We spent time together. It was amazing." I think that whole team was ready for LeBron to go. If you, if you read between the lines of the media day thing, I think, I don't think he was really happy for most of the season. And I, I think they were just kinda stuck with each other and then they had to all jockey to pretend whatever. But I don't, I think, I think him, Reeves, JJ, they're all fired up for the post-LeBron era was my take.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the, and the Mark Walter stuff. And they've had all sorts of craziness in that organization over the last few, I mean, getting Luka in the first place at a team where he, that wasn't really built for him, was, was a whole sort of just big bombshell move. And then, yeah, the LeBron-Luka thing was never meant to, to work out. But I agree with that. I think, I told Zach, like, I think Luka has a ton of pressure on him now. Cause this is 27-year-old Luka Doncic. You, I, Zach, Mahoney, everybody thinks this guy, thinks the world of him, but he's 27 and you know better than anybody as the sports guy, like 27, 28, 29, those are the prime.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Those are the years. And now you're in LA, it's your team. What are you gonna do? That's a lot of pressure for Luka Doncic.

• 51:33Bill Simmons?

  Luka, 36 points a game on Fanduel, 5-2.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 51:40Bill Simmons?

  Only, only a couple guys at Harden did it. The card was the last one.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Did he get to 36?

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  I thought he got to 36, yeah. 34, 34 was like plus 150. Speaking of Luka, his teammate Austin Reeves talked about this year's team and said, "We'll do different things we weren't capable of doing last year. We'll be able to play more free-flowing basketball. It's not going to have to be pick and roll every single possession."

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Huh. Man, did they get a new coach? No? Still JJ Reddick?

• 52:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I wonder what's different. Nikola Jokic, quote.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  One more thing on the Lakers. I just want to go on the record here in September before we get to the Jokic quote. The problem for Austin Reeves, it's not at the offensive end, buddy. It's on the other side of the court.

• 52:25Bill Simmons?

  Nikola Jokic, "I'm going to sign next year if they want me." That was his future at Denver. I believe that. I don't think he wants to sign anywhere else.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Biggest quote out of media day, Bill. Cause people have been speculating, he is a private guy. Everybody loves Nikola Jokic. Obviously Denver wants him to stay there forever. But there was real smoke starting and the gossip machine starting. And he's not somebody who just says anything. So there's no guarantees there, but knowing what we know about Nikola Jokic, I feel like that was the biggest news of media day and great news for Nuggets fans.

• 53:05Bill Simmons?

  I 100% agree with you. The number two biggest news was Cade Cunningham said about Jalen Duren, "That's my brother." Made me think of Stephen A. Smith and CR doing the Stephen A. Smith impersonation.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  "That's my brother."

• 53:21Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi said he learned last year with the Clippers that, quote, "He needs pressure and needs a winning situation."

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that's true. Kawhi, I mean, had the most interesting media day, I think, from the awkwardness. And he sort of was happy and in a vibe that I don't really associate with Kawhi, like grinning ear to ear, almost like Magic Johnson grin on his face. I was like, what is going on?

• 53:47Bill Simmons?

  It's ridiculous. I don't know where it came from and nobody can figure it out.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  But I'll tell you this, dude. I think Toronto won 46 games last year. I think they're one of the best defenses in the league. They have a great coach. If Kawhi has a chip on his shoulder, and I know for a fact that dude loves basketball and he does want the bullshit to leave and he just wants to play basketball.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  And if this move to Toronto really clicks and this dude can play 60 games, the Toronto Raptors are a very interesting team to watch in the Eastern Conference. So I thought his media day was fine. It's just weird, right?

• 54:21Bill Simmons?

  I'm not doing over-unders with Zach and House for two more weeks, but Toronto really jumped out to me. I thought it was too low. It was like.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Was it 46?

• 54:29Bill Simmons?

  46 or 47, it was somewhere in there. But to me, that's a 50-win team.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:33Bill Simmons?

  They just have too much length and too much defense. I don't know if it's gonna translate to, you know, winning three straight playoff rounds or anything, but they're gonna be an absolute bitch to play with all those dudes. That's a team on your calendar. You're like, oh, no.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  You and Mahoney had a great Nerd King, Justin Herbert segment and I texted you guys after the podcast last week. And I was like, we definitely need a Nerd King for the NBA. And I think, for me, I said it's Chet Holmgren. But I also think Kawhi Leonard has a sneaky case here too, because the advanced stuff for Kawhi is so insanely high. The same exact numbers that made Jalen Brown look so bad in the, in that discourse. If you look at Kawhi and things like estimated plus minus, he's number three in the league, number four in the league. The nerdy stuff still points to this guy being one of the most impactful players in the whole league when it comes to winning basketball games. Obviously, he has to stay healthy, but when he is out there, he could be the best player in the Eastern

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Conference. Like, I know what that sounds like, but he is that good at, at this phase of his career.

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, his old team, the Clippers, the acting GM, whatever he is, Trent Reddick, he said, talked about Clipper fans, "We hope to fulfill our promises to them and build their trust." Good luck. Ben Simmons had, had a, really like got passionate about it. He said, quote, "All these people talk about, 'I don't love the game.' That's bullshit. I love this game."

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  I know he's had some physical stuff, but the, the way he handled himself the year after the Atlanta series with the Sixers, I think speaks for itself.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Well, let's do this. Who loves the game? Like, I know when I think of guys, guys who just want to play no matter what, right?

• 56:27Bill Simmons?

  Guys who want to hoop. I feel like Durant loves the game.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Durant is number one.

• 56:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. There's gonna be footage of Durant just playing in some parking lot pickup game when he's like 48. Shoot. Yeah. There's certain guys you love, you know, they love hooping.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, I think LeBron loves to hoop.

• 56:45Bill Simmons?

  No question.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  I don't think Ben Simmons likes to hoop. I, I don't think he does.

• 56:51Bill Simmons?

  It's the rap on him until he proves everybody wrong who's coached or played with him. He doesn't like basketball that much. Bradley Beal on taking number three.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 57:00Bill Simmons?

  Quote, "It's no disrespect to Chris, Paul. Chris and I are amazing friends. I asked the team if number three is available. They talked about it. They came back and said, we'll do it."

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Have you talked about this on the show before?

• 57:16Bill Simmons?

  If you're giving it up, you're not giving it up to Bradley Beal is my take.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  You're not giving it up. I mean, you're a Clippers season ticket holder. Who are the two or three greatest Clippers of all time?

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  He's one of them, but you know.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And what do we do with those numbers? This is not like,

• 57:33Bill Simmons?

  He played there for six years, never made a finals, had a lot of disappointing things. I can see both sides. I personally think his number should be retired, but what do I know? They don't have a retired number. They haven't retired a single number. I think Bob McAdoo, I would retire Bob McAdoo. I'd retire Chris Paul. I'd retire Blake Griffin. I would not retire Kawhi or Paul George.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. On the list of things the Clippers fucked up this year, like the Chris Paul relationship is somewhere in the middle of that long list. For one, yeah, I mean, I, I think six years and it's in an organization that starred for any kind of legacy like that. Count me on the side of like, what are you doing giving that to Brad Beal? Like that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry.

• 58:16Bill Simmons?

  Last one, Michael Porter Jr., quote, "My goal is to definitely be the best off the ball player in the NBA." Thought that was the weirdest thing I heard immediately. I don't even know how he decided that was his goal.

• 58:28Bill Simmons?

  He realizes he's playing with Igor Deman and Mikel, Mikel Brown and like, what does he think is gonna happen next year? Julius Randall? Does he realize what's gonna happen with Julius Randall?

• 58:41Speaker 01

  He's another one like Paul George that I think the casual fan doesn't realize just how fucking good this dude is at catch and shoot threes. And he is off the ball and that's why he was so great next to Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic. But you're exactly right. I mean Julius Randall's a good passer. Yeah, that's right.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  But he's gonna have to be on ball too, in that environment in Brooklyn, because there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of options in that offense.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  Brooklyn. Okay. Kurt Goldsberry, anything else before we go?

• 59:13Speaker 01

  No, that's it. I think that we should talk briefly about the Vegas thing, uh, because that came out.

• 59:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, let's do that. Yeah. So they said between 12 and 13, which means 12. They also said the arena was involved, which is between two and two and a half. So the number is where everybody thought it was gonna be. It's gonna be nine and a half. There's three groups. I learned nothing. They're gonna pick between the three groups. They staggered Seattle, hoping one of the two losers with the Vegas bid will then talk themselves into Seattle. Cause the number's not nearly high enough. So.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  I learned nothing today.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we learned that they don't have the Seattle number, I think, which.

• 59:51Bill Simmons?

  Not even close. We knew this for two months. They're not even close. So they're gonna go 31 teams and, and I think staggered, I think is how they're gonna go. And it doesn't really bother me. Yeah. Minnesota moves to the east. Maybe you have 16 east teams, 15 west teams for, or.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. I don't know when they would do the move, right? Because yeah, that's interesting.

• 1:00:13Bill Simmons?

  It'd be 16 west teams. Yeah.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. I know you've been following this Vegas thing for a long time. I remember when they first started talking about it, the number was like five or six. So it just speaks to how quickly these valuations have changed. But yeah, the NBA obviously wants a new building there. For those who have been to the NBA Cup, the T-Mobile Arena is not, I think that's what it's still called.

• 1:00:36Bill Simmons?

  I, I, to me, it's an insane number and, and there has to be, there has to be, I'd never, I haven't studied the part of this where, can you fill the arena for 350 days a year? And if you own the arena, is that just a crazy amount of revenue? The Warriors did this when they built the Chase Center and it seemed crazy how much money they spent on it, but that thing's a cash cow for them. So they were obviously right. So maybe that's the feeling with Vegas too. It's not just a basketball team. It's you get all the other stuff too.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's a city where they need that stuff. So yeah, it's a real estate play. Um, I, I'm a little bearish on Vegas as a long-term sports city. But it's gonna be exciting. And I think the more interesting thing for me, Bill, is what will they end up doing with the expansion draft as soon as next summer? We could see players being peeled off of, of the other 30 teams' rosters to go populate this new team, which, you know, is gonna be really fascinating for us to go through.

• 1:01:32Bill Simmons?

  So if it's nine and a half, just for Vegas, divided by 30, that's basically like a $315 million check to every single owner.

• 1:01:44Bill Simmons?

  Matt Ishby is like, can you wire it to me?

• 1:01:48Bill Simmons?

  Any chance I can get that this week? Mark Walters is like, can I have that now? I'll drive to the office.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not bad though, but that'll be interesting. Do you, do you have a preferred nickname for this team? Have we talked about that?

• 1:02:04Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:02:06Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I'm just assuming it's gonna be terrible.

• 1:02:11Bill Simmons?

  And that they'll overthink it and they won't do something relatively simple. Do you have a preferred nickname?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I love the Knights. I don't think they can do it, uh, because the hockey team is, is that, but that, I think the hockey team did great there. And they didn't lean into the cards or the gambling, you know, whatever that sort of cliche might be. But I don't know. I'll be a little more optimistic than you. I think it could be cool. Maybe they lean into the desert nature, but um, yeah, it's gonna be fun just to see a, a new NBA team pop up and brand and, and the expansion draft and all that.

• 1:02:40Bill Simmons?

  I like that they're moving into cities that clearly can support an NBA team, at least Seattle, we know we can, Vegas hopefully. But um, I still don't think it solves the problem of some of the other franchises that they currently have.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  They're just kind of looking the other way with that stuff. Anyway, Kurt Goldsberry, good luck with the rest of the Texas season. I hope you have your mustache for the whole year. We're gonna take a break. Come back with your guy, Brian Curtis, right after this. And now it's time for Sports Power Weekend presented by Mazda, which has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It's true. All right. So what sports are we looking forward to? First of all, we're heading into October, which I think is the single best sports month of the year. Sometimes I decide it's April, but usually it's October because of the World Series, college football, NFL, NHL's kicked off, basketball. There's always a good UFC thing. If you look toward the end of the month,

• 1:03:35Bill Simmons?

  I think it's October 24th. There's no football on a Saturday, but there's UFC, college, uh, all the other sports are in play, World Series. Anyway, uh, this week I am the most excited for the NFL because we have the London game going all the way through to the Sunday night game. It's 14 straight hours of football. I hope I can handle it. Anyway, there's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind in the Mazda CX 50 Hybrid, which comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. So confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Mazda, move and be moved. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more.

• 1:04:18Bill Simmons?

  This segment is brought to you by Uber Eats. My old, old, old friend and colleague, Brian Curtis is here. We've known each other since the 1890s. He hosts The Press Box on the Ringer Podcast Network. He writes pieces for us. Rumors of other stuff maybe coming. I don't know if, maybe, who knows? Something down the road, maybe, possibly.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  I have a lot of media stuff for you and I want to start with Mike Tomlin. Because this is the first time I've been excited about a football studio hire.

• 1:04:53Bill Simmons?

  You tell me, since when? When was the last time we were like, wow, halftime's coming?

• 1:05:00Bill Simmons?

  I shushed my wife at halftime of the Sunday night game and upset her. But I was like, Tomlin's talking. Just like, give me two minutes here. And she's like, it's halftime. I'm like, no, no, Tomlin has good stuff. I want to hear this. Then she got mad.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  You didn't feel that way when CBS had Russell Wilson?

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  I didn't.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Or Matt Ryan?

• 1:05:19Bill Simmons?

  I didn't.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  These are some of the most exciting people on the planet, Bill.

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel this way really with anyone who does this, but yet with Tomlin. Tomlin before that Rams game, Rams Broncos, Sunday night, like spelled out what was gonna happen. He's like, I think the Broncos are in trouble. Sean McVay, blah, blah. And they, they were up 16, nothing at one point. And he seemed like a genius. But he forgot to factor in the altitude. Anyway, they're using him really, really well, really, really smartly. And I'm, it almost like Sal said, Sunday night, it makes me mad. He didn't do this sooner.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  I agree. And I'll tell you what I loved especially about halftime on Sunday night. Two things. There was one person there with Maria Taylor.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  There weren't four people.

• 1:06:00Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  We weren't doing the pregame pass the ball around the perimeter thing where everybody talks for 15 seconds. And as a viewer, you're like, what did you just say?

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  And nobody listens to anybody. It's just you wait your turn and you say your 15 second. They're not like actually interacting.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  You never have a conversation.

• 1:06:16Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  You never get deeper into anything. And that's my second point, too. What he did at halftime sounded like a football podcast.

• 1:06:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  If you remember, he was talking about Cowboys Ravens and he was like, hey, into the game Cowboys are in this defense.

• 1:06:30Bill Simmons?

  Umbrella coverage needed to be in it. Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Exactly. And they were in man to man. And then he went to the commanders and talked about their offensive coordinator and the plays he was calling in that great game down the stretch. And I was like, you know, the thing that has killed pregame shows, halftime shows and everything is a football podcast. Because even normies like you and me, we're not crushing all 22 on Monday morning. But we know way more about football just by osmosis than we did 20 years ago.

• 1:06:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  But these shows never changed. They never met us halfway. And I'm watching Tomlin. I'm like, that's the kind of point we would make on the Ringer NFL show on Monday morning. And you and I'd be sitting there listening and go, ooh, that's an interesting point. I learned something.

• 1:07:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's weird. They, they try to keep the old infrastructure of how they used to do stuff. And they're just going to go down with the ship for the rest of eternity with it 90% of the time. Like I, I was on the East Coast on Sunday night. I mean, I, on all weekend and on Sunday morning, got up early. It's that first time in a while. I'm like, fuck, the games don't start until one o'clock. What are, it's pouring rain out. I can't even go walking. I'm like, all right, let's, I'll put on the ESPN show. And it's just five guys interrupting each other, laughing at things that aren't funny and doing the whole thing. And I'm like, how are we, how are we still doing it this way? The cast just keeps changing, but it's the exact same show. And I agree with you. The, the putting Tomlin alone with Maria Taylor on Sunday, we're like, we only have three and a half minutes here.

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  We might as well just ride our best person. Everybody else clear out for Tomlin. Nobody does stuff like that anymore.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  Nobody. We don't need to hear from Jason Garrett at halftime. We also don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in the pregame show either, by the way, just throwing that out there. I also think this, I was watching.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Or the pre, pregame show or any show. Yeah, I'm with you.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  Really? We don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in American life is what you're saying.

• 1:08:14Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  I was thinking about that too. Remember when Jaden Daniels got hurt right before halftime the other day and they go to the Fox guys? And they just look like completely discompopulated at halftime.

• 1:08:23Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  I mean, Howie Long, I mean, just could not get the words out. And you're like, my guy, this is a kind of a big moment in the NFL right now. He, he gotta give me something. He's like, well, you know, they built a team around Jaden Daniels. Like, yeah, okay. Thanks, man. I appreciate your help with that. It's just, the whole thing is like, people don't watch games anymore. And so when you get a guy like that and you're like, oh, you watched this game. That's not even the game you're assigned to. It's not even the game you're at in Tomlin's case.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  And you have like a nice, brief, smart take on it. That's all we want.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you have to have the ability to ad lib, but also center in on two, three things during the day if you're going to be on another NBC show. Which they've, it's been a failure the entire time they've had it. You know, they, when, whenever they got football and it was always Dick Eversol, he loves spending money. He's going to go, he'll pay top dollar. But they never figured out the actual like surrounding shows. And I did, the only time I would ever watch it is if I was preparing for the Sunday night pod. And I just wanted to remind myself what some of the highlights were. But they're doing, like the last couple of years, they've been doing FaceTiming people in the locker room. Who's that for? Hey, Brian Curtis, great win today. And then he's just, his face is taking up the TV. Thanks, Maria. Yeah, we had a good win.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  I, I just, I, I don't get it. I mean, last year was probably the nadir when they had those, those super brief Matthew Berry fantasy things where he's like, I like Jameer Gibbs over nine yards. Back to you.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  And it was recorded at some strange time and you can't totally tell when.

• 1:09:53Bill Simmons?

  And then it's going down to Jack Collinsworth. They have like two different shows at the same location. It's like, how about you just pick four people or three people and let me know what's happening. So is Tomlin too good is my next question because sometimes when stuff is too good to be true with TV, it usually is.

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And this is always a problem with the coach.

• 1:10:13Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  When you get a coach who is not Jeff Van Gundy, he always wants to coach again. He wants to get back in the game and his TV stuff is an audition to get back in the game. And you know, I was a little bit surprised when he took a shot at the Cowboys for the defense. Cause sometimes coach doesn't criticize another coach.

• 1:10:32Bill Simmons?

  Crime. Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  Coach on coach crime. But I'm also like, hey, if you're auditioning for another NFL job, what better thing can you do than criticize another coach? You know, coach isn't going to hire you. GM is or an owner is. Like it's actually showing off how smart you are. And I mean, isn't he going to be the number one free agent with all the coaches next year?

• 1:10:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, he had the Browns gonna Browns thing, whatever he said that, every week he said something where you're like, wow.

• 1:10:58Bill Simmons?

  No, you're firing, you're firing shots here. Uh, it makes me think he doesn't want to coach. And I'm sure he's having a great time. Yeah. He's working, he's probably getting paid around the same that he got to coach, right? They had to have overpaid him to, to, for the 17 Sundays, couple of playoff games, whatever. I mean, I'm sure he's near the top of the salary stratosphere. He's working Saturdays, Sundays. Like he's flying, he's flying in maybe on a Friday or Saturday. He's having lunch with the guys the, the night before. He's in a big booth with TVs, watching the games on Sunday and he's home Monday, right?

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. I did hear, by the way, there wasn't quite the salary market for Tomlin that some people thought there would be. Just because there wasn't really an open, there wasn't really an opening anywhere.

• 1:11:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, we didn't know about Romo yet.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  We didn't know about Romo.

• 1:11:45Bill Simmons?

  So I get that, that was my third question. What is the best use of Mike Tomlin? Because I think if you're NBC and they always have, there's always one game where like Collinsworth isn't there. Or like you have to do the backup crew, however it works out. You've got to see what he's like doing a game, I think. And I think Collinsworth is as good as he's ever been. I'm not trying to push Collinsworth out, but um, I think you have to just test drive it. Or you have to put him in the booth with those guys, which I think would be awesome. And I think Collinsworth is a good enough broadcaster that if you put Tomlin in there, he'd be able to play off, you know, and Torrico would know how to handle it. And, but I, I think you have to see it at some point this season, right?

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  I completely agree. I mean, this is the Jason Garrett slot in previous years. He's been in the booth. This is the Drew Brees slot a couple of years ago when he was there, had that all time terrible playoff game Bengals versus Ravens, which convinced everybody that maybe he shouldn't be in broadcasting. Had eventually come back and take the number three job at Fox just to get back in the game.

• 1:12:44Bill Simmons?

  By the way, he's not bad.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  That's the thing.

• 1:12:46Bill Simmons?

  I think he's pretty good. I, I, he's been a revelation as not being bad.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  This is the thing with Fox. They always say, bring him over here. We get you tons of reps. We'll get you really good producers. And we think we can make you into the announcer we want to make you into. And NBC, he just didn't do a bunch of games.

• 1:13:04Bill Simmons?

  No. Well, we, and we've talked, ever since I've known you, we've talked about this, where they just throw these people into the fire, basically. With little Jerome Bettis, the most famous example. I still think he should have been good at TV, but they, they just pushed him in like basically off a cliff. Like learn how to swim and they just shove you. Uh, but with Tomlin, I think I like him more in this role.

• 1:13:27Bill Simmons?

  But I also feel like we're not getting enough of him. And I think there needs to be a second piece of it. And maybe this is just how much he wants to work. But I, you know, we've seen, like Belichick tried this, right? Belichick's like, I'm doing media. And he was on three different things. And I felt like he played it very safely. You could tell he was holding back. All the shows were different. Inside the NFL was probably the closest to being interesting, but I, I didn't go out of my way to watch it. And I just felt like he was tiptoeing. Tomlin's the first one in a while that doesn't seem to care if he's going to get another coaching job or not. Maybe he doesn't want to coach anymore. You know, he's done it for a long time. Maybe it's, maybe that's just it.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  Bill Belichick went on that tour because he wanted people to like him. He's like, I'm going to convince you to like me. And he convinced absolutely no one to like him at all. People already liked Tomlin. I think they would hire him if he was out there. But yeah, maybe he wants to be on the Cower track. I mean, how long has been Bill Cower been, speaking of guys you don't pay attention to on Sunday mornings? How long has Bill Cower been on that CBS show? But I agree with you. I'd put him in the booth. I think the three man is actually the best idea. Because as you said, Collinsworth is great. You don't really have that many games you throw them on unless you start throwing them on like college games, Notre Dame, that kind of stuff, which just doesn't seem like a very good use of Mike Tomlin.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  But I would just like find a couple of occasions where you're like, I'm just going to put you in here, even for a quarter. Just have some fun.

• 1:14:50Bill Simmons?

  As you know, I hate three man booths and I'm morally opposed to them with, with very, very few exceptions. This is one where even if he came in second quarter, it's perfect for this, right? Before halftime, you know, you can feel it out for 10 minutes, have him talk about what he's seeing in the game and maybe he leaves, but this is, I can't believe this worked out. And then, and then the other thing that's happened, Brady's now good.

• 1:15:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand how this happened either. He, he, he's letting it fly now. He's way more comfortable. And he's saying the meatball sub kind of stuff and the piss missiles. And just it, it feels like we're closer to what it's like to hang out with Tom Brady during a game. I don't think he's all the way there yet, but this is going better than I thought year one.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  He's got interesting parts of a bunch of different announcers.

• 1:15:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  He's got Tony Romo's enthusiasm. Like he sounds genuinely, I'm happy to be here. This is where I want to be in the world watching this game. But then he's got the Troy Aikman thing where when he sees crappy football, he's like, I don't like this.

• 1:15:55Bill Simmons?

  Right. He's horrified.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you can always tell with Brady and quarterbacks, like show me a Brady, Jalen Hurts game. You won't find any compliments. You will find grudging compliments. You can tell exactly what, even when, even when he won the Superbowl.

• 1:16:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  You could just tell Brady being like, nah, eh, not my guy. Mahomes loves him. Jared Goff loves him. Justin Herbert, ooh, might be in the Hertz column. After the other, he was just like, you can just tell the way, and it's like, this is what we want to know, right? We want to know what Tom Brady really thinks of people.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  Do you think it's weird that he's also owning a part of the Raiders and helping run that team?

• 1:16:33Bill Simmons?

  We, I talked about it last week. It violates basically one of the basic premises of things you're allowed to do in the NFL and media. And somehow everybody's decided it's fine because it's Tom Brady. I like the, the listener mailbag I had was, it was a Deflategate like kind of payback. We owe you because we screwed you over on this, so we're going to look the other way. But it's definitely strange. But he's, I think is, is at least in the top three now. Who do you have for the top three?

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  So it's Collinsworth, Aikman and Brady. That's my top three.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  So you wouldn't put Olson in there?

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  It's right there. I don't know. I think I'll go with those two. Those three is my top ones. I really do.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  So I have Collinsworth one. I think I have Brady two. And I think I have Aikman three.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  And then Olson?

• 1:17:27Bill Simmons?

  Probably. J.J. Watt, I need more of. That was another topic I want to discuss because I think Nance and Watt have been really awkward. And, you know, at some point, because once the play by, this happened with Mike Bryan too, who I don't, I don't think since Van Gundy and Jackson has really found his groove with any partner in the same way when he was, you know, throwing 99 miles an hour with really carrying Van Gundy and Jackson a lot of different ways. And I just don't think he's matched that since. But I think because it's Mike Bryan, we've already decided on Mike Bryan. So anytime the broadcast isn't perfect, you always tend to blame the other people, right? And I think that might be the case here with Nance.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  Like, it's, the really, really great ones would be able to pull out the J.J. Watt, but a lot of it still feels forced. It's a lot of like, whoa. It's like when we went to that Brazilian place last night, J.J. and you, the waiter finally tapped out. And it's just like, almost like, like they went into AI to have some like fake exchanges to print out, to execute or something.

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  All the Brazil stuff was so magical because we got steak houses.

• 1:18:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  We got dancing and we got Chrysler Redeemer. So I also played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego as a video game and

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  ought to learn those exact facts about Brazil. Thank you guys for, for filling me in.

• 1:18:49Bill Simmons?

  So, so you're in Brazil, right?

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  We're in Brazil.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  You're in Brazil. Okay.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  There's some culture here.

• 1:18:54Bill Simmons?

  You're in, you're in Brazil. Got it.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  First time ever in Rio.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. They like, they like field goal kicking here, J.J.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  I'm so glad you said Bryan is a comp because that's exactly where I was going to go. You got a guy who's in his 60s and Nancy, 67. You're in the last decade of your career, at least at like that level of calling games, you know, being the lead guy. And all of a sudden they're like, you know what? Your analyst isn't your analyst anymore. We're changing things up. You felt you were in a groove and, and with Nance, maybe it was twofold. Maybe Romo kind of collapsed on him. And now he has to like have this new guy. And I'm just like, it just feels, how many times, by the way, did he say J.J. Watt's name during that game? Did you notice that after we played? J.J.? What'd you see on that play? J.J.?

• 1:19:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, as you know, that's my favorite broadcasting crutch for we don't have chemistry yet. When, when they, I remember writing about it in my book with, it was Costas, Isaiah Thomas, Doug Collins. It's just like repeatedly just calling each other. And because nobody had, they had such little chemistry, they had to like repeatedly just call out each other. So they would know the other person was up next talking. So you know, that's bad.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  Did Costas call him Zeke? Remind me.

• 1:20:11Bill Simmons?

  Probably, probably year two, maybe.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  That was when you're like comfortable enough to call him Zeke?

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  The Watt thing is fascinating because I love linemen. We need more linemen in big jobs like that. And if you listen to him, he's really sharp. He sees the field well. He's got a little of that big galoot lineman in him.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  And it's funny, a friend sent me a text that was like, it feels like he doesn't know quite how much to lean into that.

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  You know, like, he had little moments where it almost sounds like Alex Karas did when we were kids, you know, it's like, I'm, I'm a big old guy, play football, you know, I'm that, I'm that kind of lovable lug. But I don't know, it all felt a little downbeat to me. He also started getting really shouty at the end of the game, if you noticed. When things got exciting, he was just, he didn't quite know emotionally how to get there.

• 1:21:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  The thing about Romo, you and I just have whacked Romo, you know, over and over again over the last couple of years. But like, Romo to me understood the emotional parts of football announcing.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  That was his great gift. All the, oh, Jim. Oh, here we go, Jim. Like, it was annoying, but that was his superpower. Like, he knew like, hey, we got Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow coming down the field in the fourth quarter. This is a big deal. Like, I need to underline this. I need to jump on this. I need to feel what the viewer at home is feeling.

• 1:21:34Bill Simmons?

  It was the, here we go.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  Here we go, Jim. Here we go.

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  Here we go, Jim.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  I know, and it, it sounds corny, but that's what Romo was really good at. And with Watt, you're like, hey, second year broadcaster, he's still learning television, but he just doesn't have that sense of the media that guys like Romo, Collinsworth do, where you just, you have to get a big moment. You have to just make it feel really big.

• 1:21:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And even when Romo, I, I just don't think he worked this hard the last couple of years and we could feel it. There's just no question.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  He didn't know the names of the linemen.

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. When they start saying the numbers, Herb Street does this too now because he's just doing too much, too many, too many games every week. But like, ah, 78 was there. It's like, all right.

• 1:22:14Bill Simmons?

  You know, by the way, I'd be a disaster because I wouldn't be able to remember anyone's number. It is a certain skill. But I think when you're, when you're doing a Thursday game and a, and a Saturday game, it's a pretty tall task to begin with. But with Romo, like, I, I did feel that his superpower was the more invested he was in whatever the moment or the drive or whatever, it made me more invested. And with Watt,

• 1:22:42Bill Simmons?

  I think he has good stuff. Like, he did the Pittsburgh, New England game. And it was annoying because his brother's on Pittsburgh, right? And it's like, there's no way you're not rooting for Pittsburgh. I know you're trying to suppress it. So as a Pats fan, I'm like, fuck, like, wait, really? We have to have T.J. Watt's brother do this game. But he did have good stuff. It's just, I, like, you wouldn't be able to do an SNL sketch about him. And which I think is weirdly a part of how to be a great announcer is you have to almost be able to be teased, like for whatever your character is. Like, and Brady already definitely has that. Romo had that in spades. Madden had that. And J.J. Watt, and I, I think Greg Olson fits into this too, where it's like, they're

• 1:23:23Bill Simmons?

  good at their job. They do, they do perfectly fine job, but I wouldn't be doing like J.J. Watt impersonations on my podcast on Sunday night. I don't know if that matters.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  What would you parody? Is what you're asking?

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's, he's fine. He does a good job.

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:39Bill Simmons?

  Right? He's like, he's like a B or a B plus.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  These sound observations. And I was thinking about this at CBS, right? So Romo's in purgatory. He's in timeout.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  That was going to be my next question. Like, where is he? It's going to be week, week four this week.

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  Week four, you're David Burson and you're sitting there and you're like, part of this equation, as we know, is not just a moral equation. It's like, do I have a number one announcer that I can just put into that slot and feel good about for the next couple of years? Or at least the rest of this year?

• 1:24:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  And I look at Watt and I'm like, I can see it. I could project it, but I'm not sure he's the number one guy.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  Or he's in a three man booth as a number two guy. I feel like he needs another person. And again, I don't like three man booths, but it, it just feels like it needs a little more, there's something to be said about seeing Brady.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  Especially seeing Brady these days, but seeing Brady and it just, it's like, that's Tom Brady. You know, Collinsworth has been in our lives for this entire century as an announcer. And it still feels like a big game when he's there. I think Tirico's the best he's ever been announcing football. Just in general, like, he's still, I feel like he's still climbing as a play by play guy. His football stuff is fantastic.

• 1:24:55Speaker 02

  He's leveling up in, in front of our eyes, which I didn't think was totally possible. Have you noticed like when there's a weird rules moment before the referee can even talk, he's diving in to tell you, I know it's not going to be a 10 second runoff here.

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  Because the clock was stopped. And just like, it's this command of small things.

• 1:25:12Bill Simmons?

  Combined with the moment too, like he's, if it's a good play, he's by far the best guy on a big play. You know, and this was what Al used to be great at forever, but Tirico's on top of it. He's got the right amount of excitement. But then you're right. He also has that nerd side, which I felt like was holding him back for the first 10 years. He had to be perfect with everything, right? He had to like, you know, he was like that, the batter at the batter's box who had to do his gloves nine times and grab his cup. And now he, I think he lets it fly better. I think he's the number one football play by play guy right now. I don't, I don't think it's close.

• 1:25:48Speaker 02

  I sat in a booth with him for The Ringer a couple of years ago for a piece and this dude came out for the Bengals. He was like a backup defensive tackle. And Tirico's calling the game and he pulls out this iPad that he's written all these notes on. And he's calling the game and he starts going like this through the iPad. This is weird. Television is, is happening at this point.

• 1:26:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  And he finds this note about this guy, about his like usage rate, you know, how many snaps he played in the last couple of games because he barely played it all. And has the exact number of snaps and just like goes all the way and then just puts the iPad away. And I'm like, how the hell did you do that? And just watching that, I mean, that's not something you, you can't remember everything.

• 1:26:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  So you're like reaching for things during the game and looking over here and all that stuff. And yeah, I feel he's really, really, really good and getting better, which is the scary part.

• 1:26:35Bill Simmons?

  He's probably, I would say this generation's Michaels for DeBoddy to basically be thrown into anything and be really good. And top of the line.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  I agree. And then the interesting part is also with Collinsworth. Because I asked him about this once. I was like, what's the difference between calling the game with Al and calling the game with Mike? And he goes, Al was a little more, you know, snarky, little, little down here. And so Collinsworth went way up.

• 1:27:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  He felt like he needed to be Mr. Energy. Oh, you know, I can't do the Cousin Sal imitation, but he felt like he needed to be that Chris. Mike's way up here, right? He's an energy guy. So I think that also allowed Collinsworth to come down a little bit. I mean, remember the great Caleb Williams started on the playoffs last year and Tirico calls the play perfectly. And then you just hear Collinsworth just laughing.

• 1:27:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He can pull that laugh out five seconds after the play now. He's, he's got it on command.

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  And then he laughs. It's great. And that was, that to me is like the perfect pairing for them. Collinsworth can kind of relax and be Chris Collinsworth, been with us since 1990 on network television.

• 1:27:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  And Mike is calling the game superb.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  I thought Luke Kigley was interesting, but unfortunately on Netflix, that doesn't get enough games. I almost wish he could get more reps calling stuff during this season, but that's another one where it's like the A traditional, he was a linebacker, J.J. Watson, defensive lineman, but I like the perspective of those guys. They always come up with a couple of things where I'm like, ah, you know, there was a lot, he did a lot of generic stuff, too, but for the most part, I thought he was pretty interesting.

• 1:28:05Speaker 02

  There was some generic stuff and some stuff that just sounded like I'm supposed to talk for exactly 9.8 seconds here and then I shut off, but he's another guy. Yeah, give him a full season on Fox or CBS and he could really turn into something interesting.

• 1:28:17Bill Simmons?

  So you noticed the Breeze thing, too. I thought I was, I didn't realize who it was and I was, I was flipping games around and then he, whatever game he was doing ended up with the sound. And I'm like, this guy's good. Who's this? And it was like, it's Drew Breeze? Wow. I was like pleasantly surprised, but I thought he said, he feels feistier now.

• 1:28:38Speaker 02

  He does. The Fox guys were always like, he, we felt like there was something there that didn't get used at NBC.

• 1:28:44Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  And mostly it's just doing games and do, hey, you're in the number three slot, you know, until you bring the sound over there, you're not like focusing on Drew Breeze like we would be if he had a big, big job. Greg Olson's gonna clearly go away and he's gonna be the number two guy pretty soon. And that's interesting.

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  Herb Street. I've been watching a lot more college football this year. It's really been a Bill Simmons college football renaissance, including, including the 4-0 UCLA, which is covering.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  We got UCLA.

• 1:29:17Bill Simmons?

  Covering by 50. I've watched every UCLA game. I try to watch the big game of the week. I'm fascinated by the quarterbacks. There might, there might be some wagering as well to pique my interest. But yeah, I put me in the camp of, if, if his name was Arch Lewis, I don't think he would be in the top three. I, like, I know other people have made that point. I think it's 100%. I don't, when I watch all these quarterbacks, they have flaws, they do good things, they do bad things, but I personally don't see it as a top three pick, but you, this is your team. You're, you're a Texas guy. So do you see it? What am I missing?

• 1:29:56Speaker 02

  When Kirk Goldsberry and I were there at the Ohio State game and it was 94 degrees at kickoff at 6:30 at night and we were like two old men in a sauna that are like talking to each other in towels. Uh, what are you doing here, Kirk? It's just like, he's the most incredibly frustrating guy I've ever seen. Cause I agree with you. If it weren't Manning, you'd be like, I don't think this guy's it. He's just not consistent enough. And the funny thing about him being a Manning is I think maybe his best skill is using his legs. He's a really good runner.

• 1:30:27Bill Simmons?

  A traditional Manning. Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. He's a great runner. And when, he's more like a, you know, a lot of college quarterbacks, like is a good enough passer, but when you combine good enough passing with like a really dynamic runner who can just go to the house all the time, that, then you can win some games. That's Arch to me. I don't see him as like a classic top five pick because hey, you know, he's got great pocket awareness and I mean, he takes forever to get through his reads. He makes dumb throws all the time. How many times, twice against Tennessee, if you were watching on Sunday, he threw balls past the line of scrimmage. You're like, what? Your fourth year? You're a Manning? You're throwing balls past the line of scrimmage?

• 1:31:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, with Herb Street.

• 1:31:09Bill Simmons?

  I just don't totally get it. What am I supposed to get?

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  As a college announcer, we're not talking about Thursday night football.

• 1:31:15Bill Simmons?

  We're not even going to NFL yet for the college. Cause I think that's, he's the most respected college guy, right? Is there somebody more respected than him?

• 1:31:23Speaker 02

  Joel Klatt's probably the one B.

• 1:31:25Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  On Fox.

• 1:31:27Bill Simmons?

  And I'm not saying he's bad, but what, what am I missing? Cause he seems pretty generic to me and like, especially compared to the NFL guys we talked about. I just don't think he's in the same class.

• 1:31:37Speaker 02

  As a college guy, his claim to fame is that he's a human computer. You got way more teams to worry about. You got way more players to worry about and the players change all the time. So it's just a completely different job in the NFL when you're coming back, year after, 10 years later, you're watching the same quarterback that you, games you've called. Well, I will say this, when he does a Texas game, he'll say little things about the roster and there are things that are not only just like correct, but are the, the really good take about it. I'm like, oh, that's the stuff I'm reading about on my message board.

• 1:32:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So he's incredibly well-prepared.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  There's a lot of really bad college announcers. So welcome to college football, first of all. And if you're watching UCLA and they don't have like the lead or the, even like the fourth or fifth telecast, it gets pretty bad. And you get guys like, man, did you read the program before you started calling this game? I've never caught Herbie in that situation, ever.

• 1:32:32Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Well, that, that's a good and compelling case. He certainly, like I, I haven't heard anybody that I thought was better with him in college, but I also don't feel like, it's not like John Madden. I'd have no idea why he's doing these Thursday night NFL games. Now, maybe they just needed a name and it was like, just this, oh shit, we have football this year. Who can we get? Who's available? And this is the biggest name and you do it. But I, I just think he's a college guy who also like on the side kind of seems like he's following the NFL. And I don't really learn anything from him during the games. And then I don't, he says pretty, pretty basic stuff. It's, it's not a great experience.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  You remember when they were looking to fill that job? It was Sean McVay, I think was choice one. Troy Aikman, they wanted. They wanted John Lynch.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  They wanted all kinds of people for that job. And then everybody was, said no or was unavailable. And all of a sudden it was like, okay, Herbie, let's put him with Al. And they could have had Greg Olson, by the way, for that job way back when. That was not somebody they pointed at. It's interesting. And this, this feels, I mean, this feels like maybe his, he's, he contracts up this year and maybe he just goes back and does.

• 1:33:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, now that he has the dog store, now he's, now he's, who knows where that goes?

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  That was in Mississippi? Was that what it was?

• 1:33:50Bill Simmons?

  Pop up dog stores? As you know, I love dogs.

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  You're a dog guy.

• 1:33:56Bill Simmons?

  But I've never had less than two dogs since 2004. Love dogs. Wrote pieces about my dogs. The dog stores.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Very memorable one.

• 1:34:04Bill Simmons?

  Dog store's a little much. Come by a coffee mug with my dog's face on it? A portion of the proceeds goes to veterinary clinics? What's happening? Like that is just a heat check. That is a classic, like, eh, nobody in your life. Tried to talk you out of that one.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  I have not sat down on the couch, the psychologist couch with Herbie, but also when I see him now, like this is a guy who got the game day job when he was 26 years old.

• 1:34:36Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, like a child actor.

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  30 years ago.

• 1:34:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:40Speaker 02

  He became the host of College Game Day on ESPN. And he's been calling the games for 15 plus years now. And it just feels like he's in this part of his life, part of his career where like, what do I do now? Do I just, you know, roll this out and go to Oxford? And I think he still loves that. Like he still seems like with college, he seems like he is into whatever's in front of him. But I also, there feels like there's a little bit of searching going on there perhaps.

• 1:35:04Bill Simmons?

  I think that sounds fair. Speaking of searching, Charles Barkley.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:35:09Bill Simmons?

  Said on my podcast a few weeks ago that this was his last year. It wasn't even really a news story because he said this multiple times before. And I joked on the podcast that he was the Muhammad Ali of retirements, which he took exception to and claimed he'd only try to retire once. I let it go.

• 1:35:27Speaker 02

  Fact check false.

• 1:35:29Bill Simmons?

  He said it again this week that this is going to be his last year. Do you believe him?

• 1:35:35Speaker 02

  I don't believe him. The only thing that made me think twice was the Ernie Johnson part of it. So let's say Ernie does retire, because that's what Charles is saying, right? This is going to be my last year on Inside the NBA and Ernie's last year.

• 1:35:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Could he do that show with somebody other than Ernie? And here's the more interesting question. Who'd you put on that show as a host if Ernie does retire?

• 1:36:03Bill Simmons?

  It's, it is one of those things. Every time it's not Ernie, I'm bummed out.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  Agreed. I mean, that's like Ernie's perfect place in the broadcast universe. Like, I don't know if you'd put him on, I think you would find if you put him on like an NFL pregame show or something like that, but that show is where he belongs. And if he were to leave and you were trying to keep the chemistry, which has already been kind of threatened by the ESPN thing and it's already, you know, everybody felt a little bit weird about it last year.

• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  They gave them a lot of time in the playoffs, though. I think my, my one fear about that the time stuff would screw them up was not really what happened.

• 1:36:41Speaker 02

  ESPN rallied late and gave them time, which was good.

• 1:36:44Bill Simmons?

  They did. It'll be different this year when McAfee's on the show.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  Is he doing that too?

• 1:36:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. It's funny that, you know, it seems like he gets written about a lot and my, my attitude on all of it is I don't really care. Like, he's done a lot of stuff. They absolutely like him. Like, more power to him. He works really hard. I respect the work ethic.

• 1:37:06Speaker 02

  When people freaked out about the NFL pregame show, I'm like, isn't this what you want Pat McAfee doing? Like, football talk, talk and ball on the pregame show? He's one of your big stars. Of course you want him on here.

• 1:37:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, I mean, and same thing with College Game Day. I think the, the Stephen A. Smith piece of it is fascinating though. That this was basically how they were treating Stephen A. Smith two years ago and putting him on everywhere to the point that people were getting pissed off about it. And then there's been organizational stuff behind the scenes at ESPN. There's new people in charge of this stuff who are, I would say, it's fair to say, pro McAfee. And Stephen A., who got this new deal and is on two other shows that aren't on ESPN. And it seems like they've come to a little bit of a, okay, you're just gonna do First Take, maybe pop on a couple other things every once in a while and that's gonna be his ESPN relationship. But that was not the case two years ago.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  Things really flipped, didn't they?

• 1:38:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  Remember writing Stephen A. is the most powerful talent in ESPN history became such a cliche that we all stopped writing it? And all of a sudden, you're like, ooh, I don't think he is anymore.

• 1:38:15Bill Simmons?

  They kept him away from Inside the NBA. I don't, did he ever even go on that show?

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they, I mean, they really.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  I don't remember.

• 1:38:23Bill Simmons?

  But that was interesting.

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  I thought so too. And now Pat McAfee can do anything he wants.

• 1:38:29Bill Simmons?

  We have to be careful because I don't want him to start his YouTube show tonight saying, "Bill Simmons, you and I have always gotten along. But my name was in your mouth and we have to talk about this." Stephen A. knows I like him.

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  We're gonna get down.

• 1:38:44Bill Simmons?

  Stephen A. knows I like him. I don't know if you should be on three shows a day. I don't think that's sustainable. It's just a lot of work. I'm somebody who does shows. It's hard to research them and follow everything and to just do three a day, every day. I am just, I, I worry about him. I don't know if that's ultimately gonna be efficient for him, but I guess we'll see.

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  I agree. He has different things on different shows, you know? First Take is still First Take, recognizably so, even if he didn't quite have the co-host go-to guy that he did in past years.

• 1:39:16Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:39:16Speaker 02

  But then like the politics thing just seems to be either like him interviewing potential presidential candidates or him just like calling out some journalist and getting into some huge fight with somebody from his past or, and I was like, what is this?

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there was a whole thing, I, I barely followed it, but he went on Jamel and Kerry Champion's show and then didn't like, and then it just kept going for a couple of days and.

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  And then was doing post the full interview after it was over?

• 1:39:41Bill Simmons?

  Every time I saw something about it, it was on my Twitter, whatever, but I realized that was on the For You page. I'm like, no, no, this is not for me. And then you go to the people you're following. But yeah, it just feels like you could have a side career just, just intermittently doing these, what are they? They're almost like wrestling things. It's like what we grew up in the eighties where it's like, "Magnificent Morocco, you had your name in my mouth. But when we're at the Nassau Coliseum on Friday night, I'm gonna show you." And that's kind of half of sports media now?

• 1:40:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, Undertaker voice, "Mmm, Kerry Champion."

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  Good luck to everybody. Charles Barkley, so you think he is coming back?

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  I think he's coming back. By the way, remember his retirement?

• 1:40:35Bill Simmons?

  After this year? You think he's back after this year?

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  I think he's back. I think he's back forever.

• 1:40:40Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:40:41Speaker 02

  I still, I'm old enough to remember when he was gonna retire to go to Live Golf four years ago. People forget about that retirement. There was the whole, I'm gonna retire when I'm 60, I'm gonna retire when the Turner deal's over, I'm gonna retire when Ernie retires, but there was also, I'm gonna retire to go to the Renegade Golf thing.

• 1:40:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59Speaker 02

  That just turned out to be completely bogus.

• 1:41:02Bill Simmons?

  Lot of money being thrown around, but, but the Live was the all-time, wait, how much are you offering? And then some golfers took it.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, Barkley had that quote like, I, you know, hey, I have a price. There's a price that I would go to Live Golf.

• 1:41:18Bill Simmons?

  I mean, we've seen that with comics. We've seen that with all types of people. We have the MLB, we're taping this during the Phillies Braves game, but we, we have the MLB playoffs, which is always interesting because it always reminds me that we've never been 100% satisfied with an MLB national color guy, ever. Who came the closest?

• 1:41:39Speaker 02

  Early McCarver?

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think that's the answer.

• 1:41:43Speaker 02

  ABC McCarver?

• 1:41:44Bill Simmons?

  ABC, and then like early, like with Jack Buck McCarver.

• 1:41:49Bill Simmons?

  Like probably till like the mid 90s and then people started to, he was one of the first announcers when I, I might even made fun of him in my college column, but when, when I had my website, just so easy to, to do McCarver material. And then we had him and Dierdorf at the same time and, and plus Paul Maguire on ESPN.

• 1:42:08Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:42:09Bill Simmons?

  And all the basketball guys were terrible. It was like a smorgasbord for me, the stuff to make fun of.

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  Whenever I, whenever I'm reminded, like, whenever I complain about announcers now, I'm like, it used to be so much worse.

• 1:42:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  There were just always like guys who were like, man, that dude's doing a national game?

• 1:42:23Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah. They'd surprise us over and over again, especially in the NBA.

• 1:42:28Speaker 02

  And McCarver got cranky. This is the thing. Why do baseball announcers get cranky the longer they're in the seat?

• 1:42:33Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that Joe Morgan, even a more famous example.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  Smoltz has gotten crankier.

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't. It's not doing it for me. And it's another, there's something about baseball too where every fanbase decides pretty early on that you hate their team.

• 1:42:50Bill Simmons?

  And I think Smoltz probably has the most of these. I don't know a single fanbase who's like, yeah, John Smoltz has been fair to us. Everybody's, John Smoltz, fuck that guy. He hates us. Everybody thinks he's carrying on these grudges, like he's Michael Corleone in these games and, you know. I, I just think that we've never figured out how to move baseball announcing into the 21st century. You know, I think about it when I obviously watch a ton of Red Sox and I think the Red Sox stuff is more on the higher end of some of these broadcasts, but it's still, it's a lot of filler. It's a lot of, lot of babbling. It's a lot of just trying to kill time.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  Yes, even with shorter games, killing time. It's funny. I texted a baseball announcer this morning because I knew you and I were gonna talk and I was like, hey, who's the color guy I should be really excited about to hear in the postseason?

• 1:43:42Bill Simmons?

  Ooh.

• 1:43:42Speaker 02

  Because I can't think of anybody. And the announcer wrote back, the reason you can't think of anybody is because there's not anybody.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  How's that possible?

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I was just trying to think of names like, you know, and I was like, what, what is it? It's like, is it, you know, Ron Darling and Jeff Francouer on TBS? Does that get you there? I mean, that, that's solid to me, right? That's not bad. Ron Darling, that sounds like baseball.

• 1:44:05Bill Simmons?

  I think Pedro could have done it, but it's easier to do his studio stuff. I think Pedro could have been really good. He's really smart with baseball.

• 1:44:12Speaker 02

  Poppy's good in studio, I think, like, but just in the booth, we haven't had that, haven't had that guy. I mean, I think Lou Merone, he's doing Red, the Red Sox Yankees series, right? With Jason Benetti on NBC?

• 1:44:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Lou's good. I, I actually think as a, as a local guy, he's about as good as we've had.

• 1:44:29Speaker 02

  That's not bad.

• 1:44:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. But I'm surprised he's doing our series. Like, if I was a Yankee fan, I wouldn't feel great about that.

• 1:44:36Speaker 02

  Oh, but it's also Joe Girardi's part of that too. So this is the thing with NBC, right? They like the local flavor, you know, get it in there. That's, that to me is not a bad solution.

• 1:44:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's not bad. It's just strange that we haven't had somebody, somebody who mixes like the old school way of how we used to talk about baseball when it was just, we were all full of shit versus the new school way using the stats and launch angles and all these different things. Like, there's some really interesting discussions out there.

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  Do you think that this is just the networks not paying enough attention to baseball because they've spent all their time thinking about their football stuff?

• 1:45:11Bill Simmons?

  Probably, but the, the difference is I think the baseball audience is, is really gonna keep growing this, this decade, assuming they don't have a lockout.

• 1:45:20Speaker 02

  Coming off the most amazing World Series you can imagine.

• 1:45:23Bill Simmons?

  Red Sox Yankees best two of three is just amazing that's, that's happening, right? And then we have all these other teams that are in the mix, like the Cubs and the Phillies.

• 1:45:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:45:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a weird mystery that they haven't developed, especially like one big national guy. You're like, I can't wait to hear that guy break down a game. Cause if this is the NFL playoffs, you and I'd be excited about Brady and Aikman and Collinsworth and Olson. We'd be like, oh, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Like, that'll be a fun, a fun listen. And I'm just like, who is that in baseball right now?

• 1:45:56Bill Simmons?

  I think with baseball podcasting, it's been a little similar. Cause there's almost two different conversations going on with baseball at all times. And nobody has figured out how to synthesize those for a larger audience. Whereas we have 50 NBA podcasts that could probably appeal to whoever. Like even this hockey podcast we just added, though, What Chaos Guys? They're really good. And it's like, the reason we never had a hockey podcast at Grant Lander at The Ringer is I just never heard one that I felt like could cover the sport the way, like, how fucking fanatical hockey fans are. But also would do it in accessible way to casual fans.

• 1:46:37Bill Simmons?

  It's like the hardest thing to balance. And hockey and baseball, and soccer, I think, to some degree, too. You really have to nail both demos. Cause if you don't, if you don't hit both, they, one or both will go. And that's just how it goes.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  Also goes back to what we were talking about with Tomlin. Like, there's a bridge between baseball statistics and all the great data we have at our fingertips now. And then appealing to a general audience and being like funny and relatable.

• 1:47:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:08Speaker 02

  And emotional.

• 1:47:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:47:10Speaker 02

  It's not, it's gotta be doable because there's so many football announcers that do it. Like, you know, Greg Olson does that, right? He dignifies the X's and O's and he's that guy. Like, Chris Collinsworth is that guy. You know, Chris Collinsworth used to own a data company, right? Like, this can be done. But I just don't know why that person hasn't been founded in baseball. And again, I just, I wonder how much they've even tried to develop that person. Gone shopping for it in the way they would with the NFL.

• 1:47:38Bill Simmons?

  Every time you think things evolving, PTI is just cranking out another year as the best half hour sports show.

• 1:47:45Bill Simmons?

  This format that was created in 2000.

• 1:47:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, they got that award the other day, you know, there's like, what was it from? Can't remember which college was gonna give them an award. And I'm like, they're just winning, they're into just like, oh, great, we're honored to accept another award. Here we go, you know?

• 1:48:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's like, like the Pitt season 12, just going up there, just getting more Emmys.

• 1:48:07Speaker 02

  And that's because they're grandfathered in, right? Like, we couldn't create another show on ESPN that would be that, right?

• 1:48:13Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like when Wilbon gave the answer about if Tony retired. When he said the thing about, well, I would, I would do it with Frank Isola then. I was really surprised he said that. I thought the correct answer would have been, it's my show with Tony. Like, I wanna do the show with Tony for as long as he wants to do it. I'm not gonna think about what's happening after. It was weird that he had somebody warming up in the bullpen. I was really, really surprised by that.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  I agree. It would be really weird to see it just with one of them permanently. It's weird when, when one of them's gone, you know? It's weird. That's, that's a show we like. I know they, they do fill-ins and stuff, including Isola, who's good. But it'd be weird not to have Mike and Tony together.

• 1:48:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, Tony's been retiring for 12 years.

• 1:48:57Speaker 02

  On the Charles Barkley plan?

• 1:48:58Bill Simmons?

  Almost at the end of 2026. I'm so old, nobody wants to look at me. I just don't see him. And the ratings are fine. I saw it the other day, they had an hour long show and that was like, maybe like three, four weeks ago. Which Tony has resisted forever. He feels like that would be the death of the show, the moment it went for an hour.

• 1:49:18Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't not interesting. Like, they made the little five good minutes, those interviews were longer. And they figured out a way to string along. You basically have to do 42, 43 minutes of content instead of 22. But I wasn't against it.

• 1:49:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:49:34Bill Simmons?

  Stuff, sometimes you gotta evolve a little bit, you know?

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  I agree. The shortness of it, though, back in the day was part of the magic. Cause it felt like the length of a column they would write in the Post.

• 1:49:44Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Remember columns?

• 1:49:47Bill Simmons?

  Remember those?

• 1:49:47Speaker 02

  How short they were compared to everything now? It's not like a sub stack that just goes on for hundreds and hundreds of words. It's like, oh, you know, nice and tight.

• 1:49:56Bill Simmons?

  You remember those?

• 1:49:57Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:49:58Bill Simmons?

  What do we think is the ideal sports column length?

• 1:50:02Speaker 02

  I don't know the inches, but I think like around a thousand words. Maybe, maybe, maybe you could talk me into 850.

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember when I was doing the magazine thing. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Don't read too much into that. But, um, but the, uh, I started out with 650. Which was just basically putting myself in a car bomb. Like, I had no chance. I'm just blowing up every week. I couldn't barely say anything in 650 words. Then they gave me like, it was like somewhere around 810. And that was a little better. Like, I could at least have like, here's the premise and race through it, hit some bits and go. But then I finally ended up at 1250, which was two pages. It was like between 1225, 1250. And I really felt like that was a pretty good length.

• 1:50:52Bill Simmons?

  So I, I personally think it's somewhere probably between 1,000 and 1250. But, you know, I, I've seen some stuff I've written, like some of the, not even mailbag things. Stuff I wrote that would be like 5,500, 6,000, 6,000 words. I didn't even think twice. I'm like, people will read this? I don't think anyone would read that now. I, I would have to spend like a month on it to make every single part of it perfect to even put that out. Because people are just, they're just doing this all day. I don't know how you could capture their attention like that.

• 1:51:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you're talking about with the magazine, stuff that's written, you have some time to do. Or you're thinking about a little bit.

• 1:51:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:51:32Speaker 02

  I'm talking about newspaper stuff that you're writing in a press box, you know, how long, you just, a game just happened.

• 1:51:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, fair, fair, fair. Yeah.

• 1:51:38Speaker 02

  Right. You got an hour.

• 1:51:39Bill Simmons?

  A Turner. Shaughnessy, I gotta say Shaughnessy, who I've had a lot of problems with over the years. He still cranks out those 850. I have an angle, boom, boom. Same kinda thing. I mean, Sally Jenkins is probably still, I would say, the best pure columnist for that. Although she's not at the Washington Post anymore. But, um, but there's still a couple of people that still do it that way.

• 1:52:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's such an art. It's such, I mean, just in terms of like having ideas and then having to react. You know, this thing happened right before me.

• 1:52:13Speaker 02

  And I gotta just sit down and write this baby. And it's gotta be great.

• 1:52:17Bill Simmons?

  Those were all my favorite things I ever wrote when I had a limited amount of time to do it. Because I think that's, that's when, when the degree of difficulty comes in on top of whether you wrote something good or not. But when you have some sort of obstacle and you have to do it, those are always, like, the best piece I ever wrote was after game four, game five of the ALCS. When, just coming home from that, having to stay up till five and write something that I thought ended up being really good. But trying to capture that, but having a limited amount of time, but also like, starting to fade because I'd been up for 22 hours. You know, and I'm drinking like a big gulp Coke, trying to get through it. Like, those are like, when you pull those off as a writer, those are the best.

• 1:52:57Speaker 02

  And it's so immediate.

• 1:52:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:59Speaker 02

  You're not, you don't get in your own head, cause you can't.

• 1:53:02Bill Simmons?

  You can't.

• 1:53:02Speaker 02

  It's just like, what's the metaphor? Okay, I'll take it. First choice, second choice, third choice. Let's go, you know?

• 1:53:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's what-

• 1:53:10Speaker 02

  What's a good lead? Okay, I'll take it.

• 1:53:11Bill Simmons?

  That's what screenwriters will say that, like, when they talk about, like, advice for screenwriters. And it's always like, don't slave over your script. Like, just try to bang out in two, three days, the bones of the first draft of the thing. And then worry about filling in all the color later, but try to bang out to structure all the beats. And you'll hear like, people will write the first drafts of movies, like famous movies that we know about in like two or three days. Cause they're just like, I'm putting my head down and going and I'm banging all of it out. And I'm gonna trust my fingers and see where it goes. And I have a general idea.

• 1:53:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. That, that, that became, as I got older, the part that terrified me.

• 1:53:54Bill Simmons?

  Which I think happens to everybody, but not to you, cause you're still writing.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Well, and then we became podcasters, so it's all kinda, it's deadline.

• 1:54:00Bill Simmons?

  Cause it's easier to podcast.

• 1:54:02Speaker 02

  It is way easier to podcast.

• 1:54:03Bill Simmons?

  It's way easier. And I still put a lot of the, you know, the beats and the thoughts and stuff I would do. But that, it's not, it's not even remotely as, I don't know, impactful as writing something that people could read. That you're actually, I think, the thing that worries me about some of the writing now is people. I think there's a sameness to a lot of the stuff. And, um, and I don't mean that in a bad way or a good way. It's just, I think people are so used to writing emails and texts and whatever, that when they write, they're like, here are my thoughts. And they kinda put the thoughts and they structure them a certain way. The stuff we grew up with, people would be like, here are my thoughts, they're over here.

• 1:54:47Bill Simmons?

  Now I'm gonna figure out how to tell you my thoughts, but I'm gonna use some sort of fun innovation or gimmick or thought. Or I'm gonna take these thoughts and twist them. Or I'm gonna take the way you thought I was going, I'm gonna zag the other way. And that was part of what we loved. All the great writers, you know, that, that we loved, the sports writers or culture writers or whatever. They, they all had that second thing. And now you kinda don't need it in 2026. It's like, here's my premise, boom, I'm going.

• 1:55:14Speaker 02

  It's almost a badge of honor to do the Axios thing. Like, here's some, here's some bullet points.

• 1:55:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:19Speaker 02

  Let's forget all that fancy lead and, you know, a zag. Let's just go straight down the list.

• 1:55:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, don't you think part of it is a fear of, if this doesn't work, I'm gonna be made fun of tomorrow? And it's way easier for a writer to be made fun of in 2026 and really 2020 and 2016 and 11.

• 1:55:39Speaker 02

  I guess so. I feel like I don't see the Purple Pro's ridicule as much as I did maybe like 10, 15 years ago.

• 1:55:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, just cause, maybe because there's not that much of it at all. And by the way, what you're talking about, what we grew up with and we were doing when we were younger in this business, Bill.

• 1:55:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  Like, sometimes you'd do that and you'd be like, wow, that was just, that was terrible. Like, that gimmick I came up with was really stupid.

• 1:56:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's the thing. You're knocking about 100% on gimmicks, you know?

• 1:56:08Speaker 02

  But it would also sometimes unlock something and be like, ooh, that was, that got to a different level than I could have gotten to if I just told it straight.

• 1:56:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, one of the things I used to do on my old website, I used to have these characters Murph and Sully that I would talk about Boston sports through. And I would just write these dialogues of the way, and I would try to, you know, make it like a bunch of the way I was talking to my friends when I lived in Boston. I would never do that now. And I don't even know if it worked. But I like, really liked it. And some of them worked, some of them didn't. But I was like, fuck it, I'll do another Murph and Sully. And now I don't think I would, it would never even occur to me to do it. You would never do like a fake-

• 1:56:46Speaker 02

  You're reading Mike Royko and Jimmy Brezlin and like, what's my version?

• 1:56:51Bill Simmons?

  Fake dialogue pieces. When's the last time you read one? But some of them ends up, but it seems like,

• 1:56:59Bill Simmons?

  in general, with, especially in the Substack era now, you're writing for people who really like you. And you're getting that audience. But then how do you pull other people in? It's going to be the big question, I think, of the next five to 10 years.

• 1:57:13Speaker 02

  I think so too. And also, if you're writing for an audience that likes you, how do you challenge the audience that likes you?

• 1:57:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:20Speaker 02

  They're there because you give them a widget. And what happens when the widget isn't something they want? Or something they like? I mean, the old, you know, the old way, you worked for a paper, you worked for a magazine. And part of it was just crossing up the audience sometimes. Just like, ah, you thought I was going to write this today, huh?

• 1:57:36Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:37Speaker 02

  Bam. Yeah, eat that. Send your letters to the editor, jerk, you know? And, and you just kind of live with it, right? And that was part of the way you made your reputation of being a little bit unpredictable and saying, I'm not, I'm not going to do what you think. I got, I got more pitches here.

• 1:57:52Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:52Speaker 02

  And I do wonder now if the change up is as common as it was. Because again, people expect a certain thing, you know? And, and, and challenging them that way, you're like, oh, not like people are going to unsubscribe from the paper because you wrote that column, but they might unsubscribe from the Substack.

• 1:58:10Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 1:58:10Speaker 02

  It's true, if you piss them off enough.

• 1:58:13Bill Simmons?

  Do you subscribe to Substacks more for information? Or for the, the quality of the writing itself?

• 1:58:22Speaker 02

  A little bit of both. I think what I do is I try to recapture what I liked about the old world in Substacks. There's a Cowboys one that I just love because it's just like, here's the Cowboys column.

• 1:58:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:33Speaker 02

  That I, that I, that I crave on. It's like, it's got a name, Bob Stern. But it's like, you know, here's the, here's the one about, the column about the offense, column about the defense, the preview for the big game. That's like really stat, stat driven, but also like well-written. And I'm like, yeah, this is what I want. This is what I need in my life, right? You can go out and seek out the thing.

• 1:58:49Bill Simmons?

  I, like, obviously, we have a ladder writing on the ringer.com, which I'm very proud of. I get excited when I see, you know, all the, all the angles that people could come up with have been done at this point. After we've been on the internet now for 30 years. But I, I always get excited when somebody executes the angle correctly. Like Austen Gale had a piece. He did the, the take meter with the, with the different things going on. And I read one, I texted him, I was like, that was just really good. You should be proud of that. Like you, you had the right things, you wrote them correctly, you had good jokes in there. Like that's, that's what we do. And sometimes, sometimes that's, that's, that's the win with this stuff. But I don't, will it ever be like 2011 again? I don't know.

• 1:59:34Speaker 02

  You mean the, when we launched Grantland?

• 1:59:36Bill Simmons?

  No, just that era of, of how many writers were coming up? Everybody, like the energy behind it. And all the different styles. And I, I just, I wonder if we'll ever have that many writers again, trying that many different things.

• 1:59:51Speaker 02

  I, I don't think so. Because everybody was coming up as a writer.

• 1:59:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:59:56Speaker 02

  You weren't coming up as a podcaster yet.

• 1:59:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, and also, people were reading back then.

• 2:00:00Speaker 02

  People were reading.

• 2:00:01Bill Simmons?

  Maybe reading will come back, just like book clubs happening. You're keeping it alive on Instagram.

• 2:00:07Speaker 02

  Movies are back, baseball's back.

• 2:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Reading's back. Reading's next. It's going to be unbelievable. My wife would say reading never left because she loves audiobooks. And a lot of people she knows who get older, when they drive around, they do listen to podcasts or audiobooks. So there's, those people are there.

• 2:00:26Speaker 02

  I think my reading has bounced back. My young parent years were, were pretty rough.

• 2:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:31Speaker 02

  I could barely write. And that, that was kind of my first priority, much less sit down and like, read something I was interested in reading. But I've bounced back the last several years.

• 2:00:38Bill Simmons?

  What was the Brian Curtis Book Club? What was your book of the year so far, 2026?

• 2:00:43Speaker 02

  Oh, regime change, probably. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Just in terms of like a pure page turner, like, oh, wow, I just want to read. And I want to read this right now. Remember books you just wanted to read right now?

• 2:00:54Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  That was a time.

• 2:00:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Maybe it'll come back. Maybe a lot of stuff will come back, including Charles Barkley. All right, Brian Curtis. The Press Box. Follow Brian Curtis, who knows? But there might be more stuff under his sleeve. You never know with this guy. What's your final Texas prediction, by the way, for the football season?

• 2:01:14Speaker 02

  I think 10 and 2 and in the playoff. And we'll see from there.

• 2:01:17Bill Simmons?

  10 and 2.

• 2:01:18Speaker 02

  Even that's, even that's pretty bold because, man, the SEC is, is loaded this year. It's going to be a tough schedule.

• 2:01:24Bill Simmons?

  All right. Great to see you as always. We'll see you in the office.

• 2:01:27Speaker 02

  Great to see you, Bill.

• 2:01:29Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Brian. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris from the Ringer side as well. I'm going to be back on Thursday with an action-packed football podcast, but probably a little baseball too. So stay tuned for that. See you in a couple of days.

• 2:02:04Bill Simmons?

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