A Rockets Gut Punch, Expectations for the Celtics and Pacers, and a Vegas Tourism Slump With Zach Lowe, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe to react to the Fred VanVleet injury and to discuss how it may have derailed the promising Rockets season (7:19). Then, Bill and Zach check in with the Celtics and the Pacers ahead of the season (01:12:11). Finally, Chris Ryan and Sean Fennessey join to talk about what’s going on in Vegas (01:26:05). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 0:57Speaker 01

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• 1:24Speaker 02

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• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Airplane, one of the funniest movies ever made, one of the most influential comedies ever made. Yeah, we talked about that and a whole bunch of other things with special guest Bill Hader, who absolutely loves this movie. And we dove into not just all the great things about this movie, but what it meant to multiple comedy generations and even little kids like me who saw it in the theater. So, Airplane, you can check that out. You can also check out the Prestige TV Podcast, where we're breaking down tasks every episode. We did the third one on Sunday night. Just for the record, we watched the episodes along with you.

• 2:15Bill Simmons?

  We only watched one, we do a podcast, then we watch the next one. Because I hate knowing, trying to do those pods and pretending to make predictions when you... Have already gone three episodes ahead. So we have a, we have a special email address that you can email us, mail back questions for, and a whole bunch of stuff. Task is, is great. A couple of other house cleaning things before we get to the podcast. So Ravens Lions last night was just an awesome game. And it's funny, I got killed gambling on Sunday and I really liked the Lions on the road. I liked the underdog parlay, just them to win the game with the over. I was probably going to do that on Monday night and I got shellacked on Sunday. I

• 2:57Bill Simmons?

  stayed away. And of course, the, the Lions win and the game goes over. I thought they looked, I just loved how they played. I loved how physical they were. I loved how over and over again, they went for it. And I think what I, I didn't do a great job with the preseason this year with some of, some of the takes. I had some good ones, some bad ones. I think what I really underestimated with the Lions was, I think they heard a lot of the stuff about, well, their coordinators left, they've lost some guys in the offensive line, this won't be as good of a team. They have a real fire in their belly. I really thought that was a fuck you performance by them in Baltimore. And even, you know, going for that fourth and two, and they hit Amon Ra

• 3:38Bill Simmons?

  Brown on that long pass, and then Montgomery for the exclamation point touchdown at the end. I thought golf was fantastic. And I thought they really, really bullied Baltimore in a way that was more shocking for wherever you feel about Baltimore, big picture. Now, it's a game where if Henry doesn't fumble, maybe this just goes back and forth and whoever has the ball last wins. But Sal and I talked on Sunday about who was like the eighth team. We always want to have the eight teams we think can, can win the Super Bowl. And we were debating is like Detroit even in there. Well, we learned on, we learned on Monday night that Detroit's definitely in there. And if anything, Baltimore probably has a shaker case to crack that top eight with the

• 4:19Bill Simmons?

  way they got ran on, some of the sloppiness they've had. Now Baltimore does this every year. They always start out a little shaky and then all of a sudden they went 10 straight. Not too worried, but seeing Lamar get sacked seven times and really frazzled a few times was, was surprising. I didn't know anyone could sack Lamar. That many times. I think another big takeaway is Josh Allen has just clearly cemented that he's the most important guy in the league right now. Now we have 14 weeks left for somebody to take it. But to me, he's, he's, I feel like he's just levitating slightly above Lamar Mahomes and Herbert, because I think Herbert is in that conversation too now, which we'll talk more about on Thursday. We're going to do a lot of football on Thursday's

• 5:04Bill Simmons?

  podcast. We are going to do on this podcast, Zach Lowe, he's coming on because Houston had a just unexpected terrible Fred Van Vliet injury that has completely changed. I have to look at them as a contender. We talked about a bunch of options with them. We talked about some of the other teams that we're not sure about as we head into the preseason here, Boston and Dallas. Very fun podcast. Picasso, the trade machine came out at one point, too. So we have that. And then Sean Fantasy and Chris Ryan and I, we did a rewatch of those yesterday. And then afterwards, we decided to do a segment about this story about Vegas and how Vegas is offering this big sale this week and tourism is way down

• 5:46Bill Simmons?

  for them. And it's a little bit of a panic time in Vegas. And the question is, why? What's going on with Las Vegas in 2025? So this might not be the only time I do this segment because it's just something I'm personally fascinated in. I've been going there for 30 years. I think I, this will be the 1.0 version of what's going on with Vegas. I want to do this again with Dave Chang. I want to do this again with Cousin Sal and Jimmy Kimmel at some point. But just like checking in every once in a while this year with Vegas and just what's going on with this city? What do they want to be? What's going wrong? What's going right? So anyway, we just talked about all those variables. So speaking of Jimmy Kimmel, good luck tonight. He's going to be back on the air. Can't wait to watch

• 6:30Bill Simmons?

  it. And I think since I did my thing on Thursday about the whole situation, I think

• 6:37Bill Simmons?

  I talked about leverage and power and the biggest thing that changed over the next couple of days was that Disney just took an absolute schlacking from everybody. And I think it hit the point where it made them look so bad to handle it the way they were handling it that they had to bring the show back. So we'll see how it goes. I haven't been this interested in a show that he's done. I don't think ever. So we'll see, we'll see what he has planned tonight and how he handles everything. And I am just glad that the show is still going to continue to exist. So good luck to him. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna do Pearl Jam and then come back with Zach Lowe and then after that, Sean Finacy and Chris Ryan.

• 7:18Bill Simmons?

  It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel and the NFL is back and thank God. FanDuel has everything. They got an awesome app. They have SGPs. They have great futures. They have good prop bets, live betting, your way bets, clean app. It's great to use. Been using it for a few years. Every time I go back to Boston or any place that has FanDuel and I get to use it, I'm always excited. I'm on an airplane runway. You done the airplane runway?

• 7:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:44Bill Simmons?

  Airplane runway?

• 7:45Speaker 04

  There should be a button, the runway.

• 7:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm on the airplane runway. I gotta get this in. Get your bets in, build something bold, make every game feel bigger. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com/BS to get started. The Ringer, committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Get in problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Paid endorsement.

• 8:49Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're recording this Tuesday morning. Got up early for this one. Zach Lowe is here. I've been on his podcast, but he hasn't been on mine since the finals. And it feels like a million things have changed since the finals. The biggest thing recently is Fred VanVleet goes down, torn ACL. Houston was a team I had been looking at as huh? How, how good could these guys be? And now they don't have a point guard. And this is, this is a weird one for me because I both felt like he was the biggest obstacle of them actually winning a title. But just not having him completely is even a bigger obstacle. What was your reaction when you heard it?

• 9:28Speaker 05

  My reaction was, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this injury by itself takes the Rockets from a team that could plausibly win the championship to a team that might not be able to win slash maybe can't win the championship. Like he's that important and they don't have, I mean, Amen Thompson's gonna get more reps. That's awesome. He's a completely different sort of player. Reed Shepard, like, is he ready? He barely played last year. I just think they have just nobody like Fred VanVleet and no sort of traditional point guard who can calm you down. They have Durant now, and I think one of the ripple effects of this is like the risk of overtaxing Durant in the first 40 games of the season, like run a bunch of pick and rolls, all that stuff.

• 10:08Speaker 05

  So I think it's like, I think it's a disaster for the Rockets. I think it's a break for like the Lakers, the Wolves, the next tier of teams in the West. Cause I had them, I had, you know, OKC, Denver, Houston as like a clear top three in the West.

• 10:22Bill Simmons?

  I agree with that. Yeah, I would have put, I had Houston as a 3A and Minnesota as a 3B. Cause I still feel like, I don't know why we're just discarding Minnesota and making them 20 to one to win the title, all that stuff. When they have a top seven guy and a pretty deep team.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  I can't wait to get into that.

• 10:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so you you run through the seven stages of grief with this injury. And at some point, and Hollinger wrote about a little bit for the Athletic today, like that, not to call it a silver lining, but it's like, okay, well, now they get to find out, what do they have with Reed Shepard? Could Amen Thompson actually, you know, run the offense through him more? Could you run the offense through Shangoon? All that stuff sounds great. There's a regular season version of this where it's like, yeah, okay, we'll find out some stuff. I'm just fast forward into the playoffs. I'm fast forwarding to that game that we went to, game four in Indiana, when Dort and Caruso were just like, you're not dribbling the ball over half court. They're not going to have anybody who can play in an actual playoff series,

• 11:22Bill Simmons?

  not just against OKC, but against Minnesota that I completely trust as a ball handler. And it's like, cool, we have Kevin Durant. Cool, we have Shangoon, we can run half court shit through them. I'm just talking about the 94 feet, the pressure. And one of the biggest revelations from last year was how important multiple guards were, ball handling, playmaking, having people be able to share the distribution of stuff. And this now puts all of the pressure on Reed Shepard, who didn't play last year.

• 11:52Speaker 05

  It's too much pressure on Reed Shepard. It's too much to expect from him to take a huge leap to being like, all of a sudden, what is he going to be a 30 minute a game point guard on this team? Like, I haven't read Hollinger's column yet, I missed it this morning. All that stuff, I think, was going to be discovered in the regular season anyway. One of the things that's great about Fred VanVleet is he doesn't have to be like a high volume, you got to run every play through him. He can be off the ball. This is why they got him. This is why they got him instead of James Harden. Ime Udoka has kind of said that on the record to me last year. We didn't want a guy who would siphon ball handling duty from like our main guys. And I think you would have found all that stuff out. He's a low mistake player and they just, they don't have anybody like him. And actually, it it made me think, like, they're built to win right now.

• 12:35Speaker 05

  Like, this is, this is a, you don't get Kevin Durant at age 37 and like, maybe be on the verge of extending him if you're not built to win this season immediately. So, regular season self-discovery is not even that big of a silver lining to me, because I think it would have happened anyway, and it's not what this season is about. And it's made me think. Like, will they actually start getting aggressive in trades for a guard? I think that's in play too. I haven't gone through the list of names who that would be yet, but I, I, I don't know who's going to be available. They, you know, they have some salaries they could trade, but it wouldn't surprise me if they just were like, we're not, no, we're not punting. We're not just doing this silver lining stuff. Like, let's go get somebody.

• 13:11Bill Simmons?

  So I've been up since like five o'clock in the morning. Don't ask. Sometimes you just, you get older, you just wake up sometimes. And, uh, that's probably why I probably have some eye bags under my thing. But yeah, I was going through all this stuff and that was, I landed there. Can we go there in 10 minutes?

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's your podcast. We can go anywhere you want.

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  No, but I landed there mentally by about 7:15 a.m. Pacific time where I was like-

• 13:33Speaker 05

  See, I went, I went immediately into the worst stage of grief. I didn't, there was no stages for me. It was like, oh my-

• 13:39Bill Simmons?

  I test drove the Reed Shepard 30 minutes a game. What if he's ready? He was the third pick in the draft, but by 7:15, I was like, you just traded all this stuff for Kevin Durant. You're in wind down mode. Every year that you have him, he's got only knows what he's going to look like two years from now. This is the moment right now. You can't go into the playoffs with the roster you have. So what's the move? Now, Reed Shepard, they picked third in the draft. Uh, our draft guys really liked him. A lot of people liked him. Um, he, you know, there were some Mark Price possibilities with him. I thought he was going to play more last year. He just kind of didn't fit in with their, uh, their timeline and having another undersized guard. I think they're

• 14:20Bill Simmons?

  trying all these different lineups. I do think he's talented. There's some shooting stuff that he brings to the table. Like I was looking at, um, their three point shooting was probably like their Achilles heel last year, where you have Shingun and Thompson, who just can't shoot from three at all. So 40% of your guys, not threats at all. Van Vliet was like around 35, 36%. Jalen Green was in the 33, 35 range. Brooks was their best three point shooter, which speaks for itself. So that was one of the things that I think they had to really think about. Their 21st three-point percentage, it felt worse when you watched them. And they were just a weird team in general, like they were first in rebounds. They're 28th in assists. They couldn't shoot threes.

• 15:05Bill Simmons?

  It was just this hodgepodge team that somehow kind of made sense when you watched it, but didn't really make sense. And then of losing to a pretty limited Warriors team in seven, right? I don't think that was a great series for the Rockets, which was one of the reasons they make the trade. So if you're going to reinvent them a little bit, you would reinvent them with three-point shooting, which opens the door for Reed Shepard, who they spent the third pick on. And if he's good, they kind of have to find out this season, even though he's like 21.

• 15:32Speaker 05

  I, I think they will. I mean, you don't invest the, like, I, I remember he was getting thrown into trades. It's just like when they were in the Durant sweepstakes. Like, oh, just like Reed Shepard and this, like, is the fifth thing in a trade. I'm like, you don't put the third pick in the draft with

• 15:46Bill Simmons?

  After a year.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  The comps that he had as a shooter and a guard, playmaker coming out of college after one year where he barely played. He's not a throw-in guy. I, but I, you know, I do think like

• 15:57Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna do this now, aren't we?

• 15:59Speaker 05

  Well, no, no, I just like, I just don't know what else to say. Like, it's, it's just, they were a team that could not afford an injury like this. If they want to compete against the heavyweights in the West in the playoffs, beat like two of those teams in the playoffs. Fred VanVleet was a perfect player for them. Low mistake, good shooter, good playmaker, calm under pressure, natural pick and roll partner for Durant and Shingun, can play off of Shingun. They just have no one, like, Amon Thompson's awesome. He made, I mean, we both put him on the freaking Dream Team in 2028. Like, he's on our Olympic roster, no brainer, locked in. We love Amon Thompson.

• 16:30Bill Simmons?

  Yes, we did.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  He did make progress kind of running some of the offense last year, but he was still mostly like a cutter, screener, secondary option. There's a gigantic leap from there to like, okay, here's 35 pick and rolls a game. Go ahead. Like, it's a huge change.

• 16:44Bill Simmons?

  So if you're going, let's go glass half full with the Rockets. Do you have any Eurobasket people in your life? I know you didn't care and I know I didn't really, I didn't really care at all. But did you have anybody who was like, I'm really into this, I'm watching these?

• 17:01Speaker 05

  Do NBA scouts who were in attendance count? Cause that's all that's all I had. Only, only those people who are like, hey, are you here? Are you coming? I can't believe you're not going for the final four. I'm like, sorry, I'm not, I'm not, it's not gonna happen.

• 17:12Bill Simmons?

  So there was like a Shingun summer kind of breakout thing happening. And it was a thing. It's, it's the deep recesses of this is you go on vacation. I'm in football. I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna watch Eurobasket. But people were really excited about Shingun. He's only 23. He was 19, 10 and 5 last year.

• 17:35Bill Simmons?

  And the, the word that was getting thrown around, including by somebody I trust.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 17:41Bill Simmons?

  Was like, he looked kinda Yokichi.

• 17:43Speaker 05

  I was gonna say, is it gonna start with a J? Is it gonna start with a J? I don't want, I just don't, don't put that on him. Don't put that on Al Horford.

• 17:51Bill Simmons?

  This is a tournament where Dennis Schroder not only was the MVP, but probably solidified his feeble Hall of Fame candidacy as one of the greatest international basketball players we've ever had.

• 18:02Bill Simmons?

  So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But could he make a leap up? What's he gonna look like with Durant? Are there big giant lineups they can play where they're just like, fuck it? We're gonna play Thompson at, at point forward. We're gonna have Durant out there with Easton, with Jabari Smith, with KD, with Shingun. Like, look at us, we're just gigantic. Good luck.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're gonna do that. They did that last year and nothing about, I mean, their identity last year was defense and beating the shit out of you on the glass. Including with the double center lineup that became such a delightful like plot twist in the season with Adams and Shingun. I do think, and nothing about how they changed their team, other than maybe playing Shepard a little bit more, chips away at any of that identity. Durant certainly doesn't. I do think Shingun will make a leap. I love Shingun. I'm all in on Shingun. He's awesome. He, I mean, it's, it's less about him and what's left over and then more about the void that Van Vliet leaves and how that void would manifest itself on the biggest stages in this conference against these teams. Like there's a competition in the West that the top is just so good.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  You have the best player in the world. You have the defending champs who won 68 games. You have all these teams below them that have interesting kind of upsides, including Minnesota. It's your margin for this kind of injury is like nothing in the West.

• 19:23Bill Simmons?

  So their odds dropped to 16 to one on FanDuel.

• 19:26Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  OKC is plus two 10. And I don't know if that's too high or too low. It like, to me, it's like, if you could take OKC or the field.

• 19:35Speaker 05

  This is to win the West or to win the championship?

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  This is to win the title. OKC is plus two 10.

• 19:40Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Cleveland's plus 650. And then Denver is plus 750. And I've been saying this for two months. I don't understand how Denver doesn't have the second best odds because I think. I personally think.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  But yes, you do. They're in the West. That's all. That's all. Like, it's like, by default, the East team will have the second best odds.

• 19:59Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I, I just think whoever wins, if I had to say, now granted, the September 23rd. Whoever wins that OKC Denver series to me is probably going to win the title.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  Well, I'm looking at it.

• 20:09Bill Simmons?

  Unless there's some weird injury.

• 20:11Speaker 05

  Why is Cleveland plus 650 and the Knicks are plus 1,000?

• 20:14Bill Simmons?

  That's another weird one. Why is Minnesota?

• 20:16Speaker 05

  I'm sidetracking. I'm sorry.

• 20:17Bill Simmons?

  But why is Minnesota 20 to one? How does Minnesota have worse odds than Houston?

• 20:22Speaker 05

  I have to click show more to get down to Minnesota, who has worse odds to win the NBA title than the Orlando Magic.

• 20:30Bill Simmons?

  And the Lakers, the Lakers are 14 to one. Now, granted, they, they jacked the Laker odds up because the dumbass Laker fans bet them every year. This is, they do this to the Red Sox. Well, they do this to the Red Sox fans, too. There's certain fanbases where you're like, we're just going to price this differently and these dumbasses will bet it. The Clippers are 18 to one. But so Minnesota has the ninth best odds? And I think this Houston situation has really opened the door for them because they have a chance to be a, a two seed, right?

• 21:01Speaker 05

  You are preaching.

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  It's Denver, Denver.

• 21:02Speaker 05

  You are preaching to the preacher. I have said on multiple podcasts, mostly when we talked about the Lakers, though I did a Minnesota one last week. That like, I, I feel like the Lakers being where they are in the odds is, I've used the phrase disrespectful to the Timberwolves, who have made the Western Conference Finals two years in a row. Yeah, they lost one key guy in Alexander Walker, but they've got some young guy. I mean, like, that's just part of being a team. You could, you should be able to afford losing your sixth best guy.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the most replaceable guy you can lose is a bench guy who's like a swingman perimeter guy. You can find those guys. You can find them at the trade deadline, whatever.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  They have Ant, who's just nothing but ascending superstar. They have a good defense. Just a good team. They're a really good team. They're tough to beat. They, you know, as, as long as they don't beat themselves with turnovers, they're really, really tough to beat. And like, they don't have a lot of weaknesses.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean. In the Lakers defense, they did handily beat Minnesota in the playoffs last year. Oh, no, that was the complete opposite. Minnesota killed them.

• 21:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, but LeBron was banged up. He won't get banged. He's, he's only 40, 41. He won't be banged up again.

• 22:04Bill Simmons?

  LeBron was banged up. He was banged up in the fifth game. All of a sudden, the banging up seemed more prominent.

• 22:11Bill Simmons?

  Back to Houston.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:15Bill Simmons?

  I gotta do it. Picasso, Picasso dusted it off. Started to go through the rosters, look for some people.

• 22:22Speaker 05

  This is why you were texting me. Now I know why you were texting me about the Rockets Nets trade, pick trade swap last year in connection with the McHale Bridges trade. Now I know why, because you're building Houston trades with all the assets they still have.

• 22:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, the interesting thing about the Rockets for this particular situation, if they decided there was some real urgency. And maybe they won't. There's Shingun's 23 and Thompson's 22, and those are the guys they care about the most. And maybe they're like, ah, let's not overreact. With that said, they don't have their first round pick this year. It doesn't matter because I don't think that would be a big draw anyway, even though it's a good draft. Next year, they can swap their first with Brooklyn, but they also have Phoenix's unprotected first. They have their own first for four straight years, five straight years.

• 23:04Speaker 05

  I think you should stop right there. That you could, if you're the Rockets, what you just said about 2027 is like, hey, guys, we could have two lottery picks in 2027. Like the Nets pick and the Suns picks.

• 23:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 05

  That's a big, big deal.

• 23:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So they have that. And they also have a, they have two and 29 of Dallas, Phoenix, Houston. They get the best two out of that.

• 23:30Bill Simmons?

  That Brooklyn trade. So we should talk, we should sidebar and talk about this Brooklyn trade really fast. So Brooklyn, and you were saying it was part of like, they're not doing the Bridges trade unless they can also get their 25 first back. They get their 25 first back from Houston because Houston had the swap rights on it. And they get a 26 first back from Houston. So Brooklyn gets control of their own picks in 25 and 26. In exchange. They gave Houston Phoenix's first in 2025. Phoenix's 27 first unprotected and the best two of Dallas, Phoenix, Houston in 29. The reason this is important because last year, Brooklyn ends up being better than they thought they were going to be. They get the eighth pick. The pick they gave up in the trade was the 10th pick.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  So they moved up two spots. So this comes down now really to the 2026 first for three first round picks, including Phoenix's 27 first, which I would love to have if I'm basically anybody. That trade's a disaster. Can you defend it or that like this is yet another terrible Sean Marks moment? I don't know what else he has to do to be looked at.

• 24:36Speaker 05

  It turned, it turned out to and to be an absolutely great bet by the Rockets. Betting specifically against the Suns. Betting that getting the Suns picks would help them get either Durant or Booker or both. And I believe they used one of those picks to get Durant, the number 10 pick in the draft.

• 24:52Bill Simmons?

  That number 10 pick they got back from Brooklyn was in the Durant trade.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  I, I thought the Rockets had slightly underrated the risk that that pick last year could turn into Cooper flag. But they actually properly weighted it. You know, the new lottery odds change all this and they just said, we're going to bet on a bounty of sun stuff over this one golden chip. Nets asset and it turned out to be a fantastic bet. The Nets kind of like self sabotage by being too good to get into the Cooper flag derby. And now they're just going to try to do it again and again and again going forward. But they can only do it again this one time because after that, the Rockets could swap their pick in 27. Like I thought that was a hugely underrated part of that whole series of transactions that the Rockets kept those swap rights with Brooklyn in 2027 because the message to them was you get two years to do this, two summers to do it.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  If you can't do it and you're still bad, like you're still fucked. We're still going to take your pick.

• 25:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I didn't love it for the Rockets because I thought Brooklyn had a chance to be the worst team in the league. And I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have done that Bridges trade at this trade. If they couldn't have gotten their pick back, I still think you have to do the Bridges trade because it was so many picks. How do they, how do they be like, ah, now we can't do it. We're just going to go 38 and 44. But I think it worked out unbelievably well for Houston.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  It could not have worked out better.

• 26:10Bill Simmons?

  Because part of that calculation was we think Phoenix in a couple of years could be really bad. I thought Phoenix was going to be good last year. I thought they were, I had them as like a top four seed. It cratered immediately and now that pick looks awesome. I mean, that, if we were drafting, if we did a draft back and forth on five first rounders you would want in 2027, Phoenix would be one of the five teams, correct? Who else, who else would you pick?

• 26:38Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, you got to pick all the also rans like Washington, Sacramento. You could always, it's always going to have a Kings pick, you know? And by the way, like, doesn't, uh, Utah, I believe owns, uh, they have some golden, I'm looking at the wrong thing. They have the Suns 2031 pick because remember the Suns, that thing where like, give us three picks now, we'll give you one pick out the door. Like they've traded a lot of potentially massively valuable, like individual picks.

• 27:05Bill Simmons?

  Utah got really hosed on their Lakers first round pick swap. They had to have been secretly the most upset about the, uh, the Luca trade. Cause they, they were just sitting there in pole position with, uh, with a Lakers team that God only knows what would happen to them. Let's take a break and, uh, Picasso is going to throw some names at you. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's one of the biggest weeks in sports. It really is lots of stuff to gamble on. FanDuel turning into a full on celebration. Introducing FanDuel Boost Fest where every day from September 25th to the 28th brings you a 50% profit boost on the biggest matchups in football, baseball. Golf and more. I mean, we got Ryder Cup.

• 27:47Bill Simmons?

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• 28:33Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket, my friend. NFL Sundays are back. You won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, another friend of mine, lets you catch every game every Sunday all in one place. And now get NFL Sunday Ticket month to month and cancel anytime. Head to youtube.com/BS and sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games and commercial use. If you cancel YouTube TV, you will lose access to NFL Sunday Ticket. Terms of bargains, device and content restrictions apply. Commercial use excluded. Renews every month during the 2025 regular season. Cancel anytime. All right. So I laid out the Houston draft picks that they could potentially get Frisky with.

• 29:15Bill Simmons?

  From a contract standpoint, they have, you know, they, the Reed Shepard's around 10. They could be cutthroat and put the Van Vliet contract in a trade as a salary. Who's 25 million this year, 25 million next year. So if you put him and Shepard together, that gets him in the 30s, which, which opens the door for the Trey Young type of guys. You could put your, well, I'm just, I'm not saying they should do that. I'm just saying Jabari and Shepard together puts them in the 20 range. Shepard by himself is around 10. And I think. It's they're probably looking at stopgap guys because you just you're thinking about OKC. We're a point guard short. We need somebody really good if we're actually going to win the title.

• 30:00Bill Simmons?

  So I'm going to give you five names in no particular order.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  By the way, I just jotted down as we were doing this, I went through the standings, just literally jotted down names. So I'm excited to see if just my instantaneous jot down matched any of yours.

• 30:14Bill Simmons?

  I have five names. Number one, well, do you I'll go from.

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

  I'll go in descending order from least likely to get an eye bulge. Kind of you don't breathe for a second to huge eye bulge.

• 30:28Speaker 05

  Can't wait.

• 30:29Bill Simmons?

  I had to soon move.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  Not on my list. Good name. Talked about his extension case yesterday on the Zach Lowe show. He's a good player.

• 30:37Bill Simmons?

  Seven million a year, stopgap. They could probably patch some stuff together, maybe even throw some of their lesser picks and just grab them, right? And if you're the Bulls, what do you care? You just want to go 40 and 42 again this year and not pay the luxury tax. That's your only goal year after year.

• 30:52Speaker 05

  Limited resume as a ball handler, OK shooter, very good defender, fits in that way. I don't I don't hate it. I don't think it really moves the like moves you back into the upper, upper stratosphere.

• 31:03Bill Simmons?

  It does not. It was just a name that jumped out. I would rather not do anything and hope Baron holidays have decent. Second name. Jose Alvarado.

• 31:14Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah, you're starting lower than me. I didn't have him on my list. I love. Look, I love Jose Alvarado.

• 31:19Bill Simmons?

  Makes four and a half million, could probably steal him. I don't think that swings an OKC series, but I think that would help them. Right? Don't have to give up a lot. Maybe you throw a first at them. Protected.

• 31:32Speaker 05

  I'd rather I'd rather get to soon new for the size. But Alvarado is a better playmaker, maybe a little bit better shooter and but trading with the Pelicans, you never know. You could get like an unprotected first or something for the Pelicans. You just never know what's on the table from them.

• 31:45Bill Simmons?

  Some sort of swap.

• 31:48Bill Simmons?

  All right, now we're getting serious. Scottie Pippen Jr.

• 31:51Speaker 05

  I like that. That's a good name.

• 31:53Bill Simmons?

  Cheap contract could get him easily. I don't know what Memphis's plan is for this season, but I assume they're not trying to win the title would be part of my guess, considering they traded Desmond Bain for a bunch of stuff and they waived Cole Anthony and Jaren Jackson was hurt and I don't know when he's going to start this season. And could you, could you actually turn Pippen into a real draft pick asset?

• 32:17Speaker 05

  Pippen is good. And one of the things I like about these names at the lower price point salary wise is they can be one for one or two for two deals. Like Houston is reaching the point without Van Vliet that like a two Rockets out, two Rockets rotation guys out for one back is like you're thinning your team out quite a bit.

• 32:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, I should have mentioned this earlier. So the, the starting lineup they have right now is Shengun Durant. I'm going to say Finney Smith, Thompson and Shepard. Let's say that's the five. Adams, Jabari, Eason, Clint Capella is just randomly this team. A Koji, Holiday. So to your point, they have, they have eight and a half plus Capua, plus a Koji, plus Holiday as stopgap guys.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  I'm just going to say that I like Jashon Tate.

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  All right, let's throw Tate in there too. All right. Here are my last two, unless you want to throw one at me. Actually.

• 33:13Speaker 05

  I mean, I have, I have bigger names.

• 33:15Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Well, I'm, I'm moving into my bigger category right now.

• 33:19Speaker 05

  All right. So some of this is like depending on how the first 20 games of the season goes. Like, is there a team that is way below expectations and suddenly pivots? Like, including perhaps your team, which we'll get to in a second. On a lower salary scale, Jaden Ivey?

• 33:36Bill Simmons?

  I don't think I'm beating OKC with Jaden Ivey as my ball handler.

• 33:40Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't mind it though.

• 33:45Speaker 05

  Do you throw a boatload of assets at the Celtics for Derrick White?

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

  Can we, can we put a pin on that for a second?

• 33:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:53Bill Simmons?

  I'll give you two lower level guys and then we'll talk to Eric White.

• 33:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:59Bill Simmons?

  Peyton Pritchard.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  You can throw any of the Celtics guards. I have Simons on my list. I don't think defensively he fits into their culture, but like any of the Celtics guards, like, why not throw him in? Peyton Pritchard would be fine.

• 34:12Bill Simmons?

  Peyton Pritchard is making, I don't know, nine million a year, 10 million a year, somewhere in that range. It weirdly lines up with Reed Shepard's salary?

• 34:23Bill Simmons?

  So part of the question for me is, what is like, if I'm doing a trade value list, where's Reed Shepard? He's certainly not in the top 50. Is his trade value higher than Peyton Pritchard? Is it lower? Is it the same? I have no idea. Do you have any, any take at all on that?

• 34:42Speaker 05

  I think, I'm trying to look at, I'm looking at Boston's.

• 34:47Bill Simmons?

  And if you're Boston, would you do that?

• 34:48Speaker 05

  I think they're, I think they're, I think they're probably about equal and Pritchard maybe edges him out by a nose because his contract is longer than I thought. He has three years left on his contract at a cheaper salary than Reed Shepard. Shepard's got the intrigue. Pritchard just won six man of the year. I would say Pritchard probably has a little bit more like next two years trade value. Yeah, that's an interesting one, though. Again, it depends. Like if Boston's season goes off the rails fast, who knows?

• 35:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, if they've made that, and we're going to talk about them in the next segment, but if they made the decision to, Tatum, no, we don't care how good you look, you're not coming back and they own their own draft pick. Part of maybe making yourself a little worse for this year would be turning Pritchard, a really good, you know, bench guy, borderline, decent starter into a project like Reed Shepard, but you'd have to really like Reed Shepard. I think that's the first one out of the names as I kind of escalate up the ladder where you go, yeah, that's a guy that could actually play in a series against OKC and Minnesota, right? That's, I don't know if you play crunch time, but you could get 20 to 25 really good minutes

• 35:54Bill Simmons?

  from him. And then the other one, ironically, another wet guy, TJ McConnell. And I would say his trade value is probably lower than Pritchard. But Indiana in the same boat as Boston, I don't know what their strategy is going to be for this year, but if you can turn TJ McConnell into Reed

• 36:14Bill Simmons?

  You gotta at least think about it because you're going nowhere this year anyway, right?

• 36:18Speaker 05

  I think for Houston, you need more than you need some, you need another asset.

• 36:23Bill Simmons?

  You almost. Two for one.

• 36:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, TJ McConnell is 33.

• 36:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  We both love TJ McConnell. Suddenly the greatest isolation scorer in the NBA out of nowhere. And.

• 36:35Bill Simmons?

  Single handedly with Canipal bringing back the up fakes around the basket.

• 36:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  I think I need a little more, but these are, these are good names. I, I was just doing, I was doing like, as you would say blink tests, just looking at the standings who pops into my mind and I went bigger names than this, but these are, these are good, a good range of names.

• 36:54Bill Simmons?

  These are the let's do something, but let's not do anything dramatic. Derrick White is the dramatic name.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  I mean.

• 37:03Bill Simmons?

  That's one where you, I need, give me some shit back for Derrick White. I need, you know, that Phoenix pick you have in 27, that's coming back. Like you're, you're giving me real stuff for that. And if you're Houston, I don't know what the price is. I think Shepard probably has to be in it too. But if you're Houston and you basically turn this Van Vliet disaster into Derrick White with some of your picks and you make a real run at this year, could you actually win the title with Derrick White? I think is a real question.

• 37:34Speaker 05

  You get four years of runway. Now that takes him through age 35. He's got four years left on his contract with a player option and in the fourth year. He's, I mean, Emei knows him already.

• 37:44Bill Simmons?

  He's a top 50 player. This is a different caliber of dude. You, you've actually going from Fred Van Vliet to Derrick White, you have upgraded.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  You made your team better. And he's a better player.

• 37:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:54Speaker 05

  I had a couple other.

• 37:55Bill Simmons?

  What's the price for him though, for you, in your opinion?

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Oh, for Boston, it's like three firsts, a young player. I mean, they would demand up a shitload for, justifiably like for him.

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  It's a tough phone call to Tatum.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  It is a tough phone call.

• 38:12Bill Simmons?

  Heard the rehab's gone great and to Jalen too. Heard the rehab's going great. We've traded Derrick White. It's a bunch of assets that won't help you guys until about three years from now.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  It's a tough phone call to Tatum. On the other hand, Tatum has won an NBA title, several first team, all NBA appearances and is slated to make $71.5 million in 2029, 2030. So I'm, I, I would hope that he would see the bigger picture.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  It's just these numbers starting with a seven for NBA players is really, really something. Who else did you have for the big names?

• 38:48Speaker 05

  I get, these are just names I randomly wrote down in a 45 second scan while you were talking on the podcast. So take them with a grain of salt. The recently injured Tyler Hero.

• 39:02Bill Simmons?

  So I, it would be hard to get there from a salary standpoint. What is, what's his salary? He's like at 30?

• 39:08Speaker 05

  31, 31. So you, Van Vliet's 27, you know, you've got some.

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  So Van Vliet has to be in that.

• 39:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  Man, that's pretty cutthroat, man, trading. I, I don't know if I'm doing that if, unless I can, I would put Van Vliet in a, in a Derrick White trade, but not a.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 39:23Bill Simmons?

  Am I winning the title with Tyler Hero in the Van Vliet spot? Probably not.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  The next ones are just wild. And again, I cannot emphasize enough how little thought I put into any of this.

• 39:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no, this is, this is, this is why we love podcasting.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  If you're willing to eat a lot of years, I don't, actually don't think this is possible. Emmanuel quickly just popped in my mind. I just think it's too much money, too many years. He's too unproven. I don't, I don't see it.

• 39:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no, he doesn't solve my, I want to make sure I have ball handling and leadership in the most tense possible moments in May and June. I'm not, I'm not feeling that with Emmanuel quickly.

• 39:56Speaker 05

  The last one requires like 17 different things that go wrong for one team. And just a lot of, a lot of bad vibes, a lot of like puzzle pieces have to shift.

• 40:09Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, I'm excited for this.

• 40:11Speaker 05

  There, like, what if, what if things just go very badly this season for Austin Reeves with the Lakers? What if it's like, you asked me to come off the bench, extension talks, you know, there were, they couldn't really get started because you couldn't offer me enough, but I'm not sure like, you know, do you really value me enough in a Luca world? LeBron is still here. Is he retiring? If he's retiring, is that good for my future in LA? Just, I'm just saying like, there's a world in which it goes, I don't think this is going to happen, but it's a name that popped into my head.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  So you're running some offense through him, not as a point guard, but as like a ball, almost like how you'd use Hero.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, he can do that.

• 40:52Bill Simmons?

  Feels like you have some, some thoughts on maybe Austin Reeves might be more available this season than.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  No, no, no, I'm not, no, no, I'm not saying that. The Lakers love Austin Reeves.

• 41:01Bill Simmons?

  The aggregators were like.

• 41:02Speaker 05

  No, the Lakers love Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves loves being a Laker. Austin Reeves' people are very close to the Ramby and Genie Bus. It's, they love it there. But I'm just saying, like, they're like, it's not, we've seen more hunky dory situations go awry before in big markets where like a lot of stuff happens. And, you know, who knows? I'm just, I don't think that'll happen. I don't think any of these names are like, I like your little names better. I just don't know that the little names do enough for me. I'm surprised.

• 41:34Bill Simmons?

  Derrick White does, though.

• 41:35Speaker 05

  Oh, Derrick White. I mean, look, but to your point, I think right now, I think right now, the Celtics are with you. I think right now, the Celtics are like, look, even if this becomes a gap year, we're bringing everybody back next year. We're going to try and like, go, go full bore again. Like, got these, the Jays in their prime, making a gazillion dollars. I don't, and Derrick White is just an A++ winning player. So I agree with you.

• 42:00Bill Simmons?

  You don't want to hop in the Trey Young trade car and just drive around the block?

• 42:07Speaker 05

  Drive it. Hop in. I'll, I'll ride shotgun. I'm on, I'm on record as saying, I said yesterday, that if I'm the Hawks, I'm going four years, 180 million for Trey Young right now. And if I'm offering a bit to him today, and if he doesn't take it, then I got to think, do I want to raise it up a little bit? But take the car out. You're the Rocket, you want to trade for Trey Young?

• 42:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, I really like my roster if I'm the Hawks. I don't want to be paralyzed by the Trey Young extension, where I basically limited myself to, it's going to be this year only. And then I'm going over the second apron from that point on with my roster, once we have to pay some of these other guys.

• 42:43Bill Simmons?

  Trae Young on Houston with Durant and with Shangoon.

• 42:49Bill Simmons?

  I'm just not going to be good enough defensively. I don't think.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  So that is a. It's a big ingredient to throw into your team. Two weeks before the season starts.

• 43:02Bill Simmons?

  To have him and Shangoon on the court together. I'm I'm not winning the title.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  Well, this is also a guy who is accustomed to running like literally 60 pick and rolls a game like the he is the entire offense and. Plopping him into one of the greatest scorers of all time and this young ascendant center. Who does a lot of stuff with the ball like it's it's tricky. That's tricky and it's a lot of money going out too. He's making $46 million.

• 43:29Bill Simmons?

  I really like Peyton Pritchard, but I also like that move for the Rockets. I actually think that's the answer in this because it's a little little lower risk. It makes sense for Boston because. Though you would only do it if you got a better asset than. Him as a player. And you have then you keep Simons for the year. And you have this asset that maybe you could flip back. The Derek White thing though. If I'm Houston, I'm calling about Derek White.

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  Like yo, had to make this call. What's going on? Would Boston trade with Houston is another interesting one.

• 44:03Speaker 05

  Because of.

• 44:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you know. Their coach used to coach the Celtics and.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  Can I give you one more name as I'm going through a random team that I just have to remind myself sometimes that they exist and we should talk about them.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Colin Sexton.

• 44:16Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. How did you know? That's the name.

• 44:19Bill Simmons?

  I looked at him too. Expiring contract, 19 million. Charlotte doesn't care. Could Charlotte get Reed Shepard for Colin Sexton? That would be crazy.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no.

• 44:31Speaker 05

  I think I think Colin Sexton is pretty good. I. I think that's actually a good name. I'd have to work out what the trade would be, but I think that's a good name.

• 44:38Bill Simmons?

  I I jettisoned him because he's at like 19 million.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  Great use of the word jettison. I don't know that if I've said that out loud in like five years, that word. That's a great word.

• 44:48Bill Simmons?

  I like to dust them off. They would have to put that would have to be their Van Vliet. And I don't think they're going to trade Van Vliet for Colin Sexton, just for a variety of reasons, but. Jabari would have to be, I don't know. I couldn't figure out how to make that one work.

• 45:02Speaker 05

  Can I ask you one more Rockets question?

• 45:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, I have another Rockets question for you too. What's yours?

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Are you, are you surprised at all that Tari Eason's extension has not like happened? And there hasn't been like a whiff of, of noise about it at all?

• 45:18Bill Simmons?

  What does that extension look like for you?

• 45:21Speaker 05

  Well, Jabari got what? Five of, of four, of four or five and like five, 120, I think it was something like that.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  You know, I think if I'm Eason, I've had some, some leg injuries that have kept me out for a while that have been recurring. You know, hopefully those are behind them, but you know,

• 45:39Speaker 05

  he's probably asking for 30, 20, 25 a year, four years, 100, something like that.

• 45:44Bill Simmons?

  Played 25 minutes a game last year.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 45:49Bill Simmons?

  12 points a game, six rebounds, 30 million?

• 45:53Speaker 05

  No, they're not. I wouldn't give him that. I'm saying is 25 too much? I mean, Giddy just got 25. Giddy is a more proven player, but also with a lot of question marks about.

• 46:01Bill Simmons?

  Stats. I mean, you and I both really like Tari Eason, but man, he's going to make more than 20 million a year?

• 46:08Speaker 05

  I, if there's an extension, I'll bet you it's over 20 million a year.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Really? Wow. I just didn't think they were giving those. I mean, you did the pod about it yesterday with this, with the aprons. It just feels like, uh, feels like that money isn't there in the same way. Like, do you think he has more contract value than Kaminga, who nobody even wanted to offer 20?

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  I personally like Tari Eason more, but.

• 46:36Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 46:36Bill Simmons?

  I'd say they're around the same vicinity.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're around the same vicinity, though the injuries would scare me. I mean, he did play 82 games as a rookie, 22 the second year is, is disturbing, 57 last year. Maybe, yeah, I, I still think these guys just get 20 million. That's, I don't.

• 46:55Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 46:55Speaker 05

  What was your Rockets question?

• 46:59Bill Simmons?

  Did Van Vliet going down make it more or less likely for them as a, for a Yanis trade?

• 47:06Speaker 05

  Oh my God. Okay. Now.

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 47:13Bill Simmons?

  Because if we were doing the Yanis trade possibility rankings, they were always in the top three and had a case for number one, right?

• 47:24Speaker 05

  Wouldn't, wouldn't you have to say more? Would you just have to like, but I don't think Yanis is getting traded this year. Do you?

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  Listen, it's the NBA.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  It's harder to do it during the year. It's harder to do it during the year. That's the only problem.

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  I'm just conditioned to weirdness and guys being available that we never thought would be available, but it would have to be.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  What would happen to Thanasis?

• 47:45Bill Simmons?

  I think he's in the trade.

• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 05

  Let's check in.

• 47:51Bill Simmons?

  It's, it would be Shingun and Jabari and all the picks. Right?

• 47:57Speaker 05

  To what end at that point?

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's, but it's, this is the question of like, we have our winner now at Durant and now we have Yanis and we can run the team through Yanis because Yanis can basically be point center and you could talk yourself into it.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  It's easy to talk yourself into it. I was talking to someone in the league yesterday about the Hawks and Yanis because I just have my radar up on the Hawks. They have those Milwaukee picks, pieces of the next two Milwaukee picks. They have Jalen Johnson, they have Reese Shaye, they have like all the ingredient. They almost hired, they, they interviewed Yanis' agent to be their GM. Like there's just a lot of, there's a lot of like just dots sitting out there. And, you know, we were pitching this, this guy and I were pitching trades. He's like, so what's the trade? I was like, well, it's like Jalen Johnson, Reese Shaye probably has to be in it, a bunch of picks and, you know, whatever else. And probably Dyson isn't in it. And he was like, oh, you do that for Yanis a hundred times out of a hundred. And I said, well, you know, someone made the point to, another person made the point

• 48:53Speaker 05

  to me like, we just saw Dame and Yanis not work well enough. Like it worked, but not well enough. Should, should the Hawks think that Trey and Yanis is going to work better than that?

• 49:05Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  And he was like, no, you just, you just do the Yanis deal. It's Yanis, you do it. I'm like, I feel like we always say that about, now he's, he's only 31, he's not old. He, he's not a shooter, which is a little worrisome for his aging curve, but we always say that about these like superstar trades. Like it's this person, you gotta do it. I'm like, do you like, do you, I, I don't know. Do you?

• 49:24Bill Simmons?

  I would zag and say, if you did it, Trey Young should be in the trade.

• 49:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, that could be, you could go that way.

• 49:29Bill Simmons?

  We've already seen this game with Yanis and Dame. I, you know, I think that's why the Rockets fit is weirdly interesting to me because I think Yanis really likes to have the ball all the time.

• 49:39Speaker 05

  But who's with me? It's so it's in your trade. It's me is me, Yanis Durant, Shangoon's out, Amen Thompson.

• 49:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm I just have.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  It's everybody else, but Amen Thompson and Durant is gone.

• 49:51Bill Simmons?

  Can I just end up with Yanis Durant Thompson, maybe Eason?

• 49:59Speaker 05

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 49:59Bill Simmons?

  And maybe I get I keep Reed Shepard and then you can have everything else in all my picks. Cause I think those picks that Phoenix 27 pick is a true trade ship. It's interesting because our guy Bobby Marks.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  You better fucking win. You better fucking win in the next two years.

• 50:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, our guy Bobby Marks did a piece on ESPN like five, six days ago, ranking the best draft assets everybody had. I think he had Houston fifth and I just can.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  They have good. They have great draft.

• 50:30Bill Simmons?

  I completely disagree. I would rather have Houston's picks than anyone else's picks. Cause you could make the OKC is a ton of picks. I don't really individually love any of the picks like their best pick is probably that top four protected Philly pick. Philly's not going to be bad this year. You know, the the edge come thing, I think, was a little bit of a game changer for their ceiling. They're I don't think they're.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  I heard your I heard you with I can't remember who it was, but you're you and House, I think you're you're intrigued. I'm going to say intrigued. You're.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm intrigued by Philly because I think.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  Skinny Embiid in particular has gotten your attention.

• 51:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, anytime somebody anytime a big man does the Tim Duncan, you have my interest like when skinny Tim Duncan is one of my favorite Tim Duncan.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  So you are all in on the 2025 26 Philadelphia 76ers.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't be less all in. I did. One of the things.

• 51:29Speaker 05

  I was trying to trick to trick the aggregators Simmons 50 wins coming.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  They can win the title. I sent you my top 100 list to look at that I was tinkering with. And and I had Embiid was one of those where I just, where does he go? I've no, does he go? Is he in the 60s? Should he be on the list at all? Should he be like in the top 30? I don't like it. Yeah, because I don't know how many games he's going to play. I don't. If I gave you an over under for Embiid for 40 games, would you go over or under?

• 51:59Speaker 05

  Under.

• 52:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So how can he be higher than?

• 52:04Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, 65?

• 52:06Speaker 05

  You have him 63rd, one spot behind Rudy Gobert, continuing just the train, the freight train of Rudy Gobert disrespect.

• 52:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, honestly, that was just shots at Rudy. There's really no other reason for that.

• 52:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so, uh, speaking of those finals odds that we mentioned earlier, do we agree Minnesota 20 to one is the, the most jarring value bet that doesn't make sense when you look at all the collection of the rest of the guys?

• 52:35Speaker 05

  Rest of the team? Yeah, cuz once you get, once you get Minnesota, and then Atlanta is next, and that's sort of, I mean Warriors plus 3,000 behind Atlanta and Detroit.

• 52:46Bill Simmons?

  Can you see that?

• 52:48Speaker 05

  I could see that, yeah.

• 52:50Bill Simmons?

  Those are the odds. And I left out a couple teams, but.

• 52:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, the Warriors aren't there. The Warriors are, uh.

• 52:56Bill Simmons?

  You know why the Warriors aren't there? Because I, I would urge everyone not to bet on the Warriors to win the 2026 NBA title.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  I'm just saying, I know they're in the West too, which influences all of these, but for them to be behind Detroit and Atlanta.

• 53:09Bill Simmons?

  Despite going. By the way, I didn't put Detroit on that list either I was looking at, cuz guess who's not winning the title this year? Detroit.

• 53:15Speaker 05

  Well, I'm just going on, I'm just looking at FanDuel. You edited FanDuel's list to fit your, your, your preferences. I just think Golden State plus, they were like 25 and 5 with Butler and Stephen. Good, pull a little, pull a little respect on Steph Curry's name. That's all I'm saying.

• 53:32Bill Simmons?

  Sure. I, listen, they, it took them seven games to beat that flawed Houston team last year, and I don't know what's gonna be different as everybody's a year older. Like they're gonna be healthier this year. That this is, we go, we went through this with LeBron for the entire 2020. It's like, old guys get banged up as the season goes on. This is how it goes. I'm betting on youth every time.

• 53:53Speaker 05

  Look, I have already said, the window is closed, in my opinion, on this iteration of the, the Steph Warriors winning the title. That's close. And I don't, and I don't see a roadmap for them to get back to prominence that does not include a lightning strike trade or free agency signing, which of course is possible, but I think they're in a more precarious position as a franchise than perhaps anyone but their diehardiest diehards realize right now.

• 54:20Bill Simmons?

  If I gave you Dallas 40 to one, Boston 50 to one, San Antonio 55 to one, and Milwaukee 55 to one, and I told you one of those teams was going to win the title with those odds, which one would you guess?

• 54:34Speaker 05

  Milwaukee.

• 54:35Bill Simmons?

  So I had that as well.

• 54:37Speaker 05

  And it's a simple equation, Giannis plus East.

• 54:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and he gets to the finals and then it just becomes a best guy in the series. Yeah, you probably need some injury luck during the finals than the other team. So when I did my Ringer 100 exercise, the sobering part was there were only two Bucks in the 100.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  I had Giannis and Myles Turner and nobody else on the Bucks. Not a good sign for the season. I want to talk about that. Let's take one more quick break and then we'll talk about that. It's football season and Uber Eats is delivering deals every single day. This week, buy a four piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. When your watch party gets hungry, order in and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four piece signature chicken from Popeyes. Get another one free. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score great deals on Uber Eats all season long because it's not football without food. It really isn't. Popeyes offer valid through November 1st. Add eligible menu item to order prior to checkout. Taxes, fees, and terms apply.

• 55:43Bill Simmons?

  Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetrades.

• 56:19Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're jumping into a special part of the show brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. You know how I feel. This is a must. If you like the NFL, you have to subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. Get every game every Sunday all in one place. Watch up to four games at once with Multi-View, my buddy, so you can never miss a key moment in the field. It's just incredible. And they made me the CMO. They crowned me their Chief Multi-View Officer. So it's my job to tell you which games are a must-watch this week. Remember, local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. A commercial use device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. This is a perfect day for us because we have an

• 57:03Bill Simmons?

  Ireland game, right? The Thursday game with the Ireland game. And then they actually staggered the early and the late games perfectly. So we only have seven early games. And here are the four that I would target for the Multi-View. Chargers-Giants, Chargers 3-0, Jackson Dart's first start, that's a must-watch. Philly-Tampa, awesome game. We saw in the playoffs last year. Two 3-0 teams. Gotta lock that one in. Cleveland-Detroit. So Detroit just looked awesome in Baltimore. And then Cleveland has the makings of, it's a top-three defense. We'll see if it travels on the road. I think that's the third one. And then, for me personally,

• 57:45Bill Simmons?

  I would have Pat's Panthers because I'm a Patriots fan. But I think the right choice is probably Washington-Atlanta. We'll see if Atlanta can bounce back from an embarrassing loss to Carolina. Washington on the road, indoors, that's just, that's a really good one. So, thanks again YouTube for crowning me their Chief Multi-View Officer. Remember, every game, every Sunday, at your fingertips, choosing the ones that deserve a spot on the Multi-View. I take it more seriously than just about anything. Never miss a moment of the action with NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. For a limited time only, get $36 off NFL Sunday Ticket using code BS36 at checkout. New users only while supplies last, ends

• 58:26Bill Simmons?

  9/22. Go to youtube.com/BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games, excludes digital-only games. A commercial use device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. So I mailed you my preliminary ring 100 and one of the things I did was I wrote down the teams with how many players they had and I did this last year and it really helped crystallize in my head. Oh, OKC should probably win the title if they can stay healthy because they and this year I have OKC with seven of the top 90 guys. SGA two, Jalen Williams 11, Chet 18, and then you still have Doric Caruso, Hartenstein and Wallace. It's interesting,

• 59:11Bill Simmons?

  the only other team that had more than five was Minnesota, who I had at five Anthony Edwards and then 47, 59, 62, 72, and 90. So that's six guys, including DiVincenzo, who I think is one of the best 100 players in the league. And nobody else had more than, more than five. Denver, I had five, Knicks, five, Houston, five. They had six before Van Vliet. And then after that, it's four or less. I think that matters. I think you have to think about the league that way. And if, if somebody has six of the top 90 guys, including a top seven guy, they should be one of the title favorites, in my opinion.

• 59:52Speaker 05

  Look, I mean, I think Minnesota is underrated. We, we agree. I don't have them in the same, I did not have them quite in the same, I had them knocking on the Houston Denver tier. I think Denver's better than, although again, I've, as I've said repeatedly, Minnesota fans, they now have a track record against Denver and against Jokic that could not be dismissed. It could not be ignored as a fluke. There's something there. I think you may have DiVincenzo a little bit overrated. Like, I would take a couple of guys and put them in the top 100 over him, but it's fine either way. Yeah, no, I think they're, they're tough as hell. Their defense is going to be solid. I, I think, you know, I said this last week with Mahoney, I just think there's something structurally.

• 1:00:35Speaker 05

  Just slightly askew with their team that manifests itself at the highest. Like, there always seem to be one playmaker short, like, half a playmaker short, half a shooter short, or one of each, just something, you know, and then figuring out the big man rotation among those three guys is always, is just something like, that just can't quite click into place with their rotation.

• 1:00:58Bill Simmons?

  But they're very, very good. If Dillingham was actually playable and impactful as a bench guy this year, does that change their ceiling for you?

• 1:01:07Speaker 05

  Sure, and I think Shannon is going to be playable a- as a bench guy as well. And Clark maybe too, Jalen Clark, and, you know, they tried him against Oklahoma City in the conference finals last year. He wasn't quite ready for it, but Shannon was ready.

• 1:01:22Speaker 05

  And again, it's Dillingham as the playmaker, the straight line drive guy like that, that's a missing piece for them, but they're just rock solid, rock fucking solid. It's just their biggest problem, I said this to Mahoney, their biggest problem is the same problem that everyone else in the West has. It's that the Thunder are just incredible and young and only going to be getting better.

• 1:01:41Bill Simmons?

  The Thunder who was hiding the Jalen Williams wrist injury that they never told us about, from the last basically three months of the season, including the playoffs. So just from that alone, they're probably going to be better. I think it's funny that these three teams are all in the same division. OKC, Denver, Minnesota, not that divisions matter, but I'm wondering, they changed, I always forget this, they changed the seeds a little bit, right? So you could, we could potentially have OKC and, I'm sorry, Denver and Minnesota as the two, three, or is that impossible?

• 1:02:12Speaker 05

  No, I think that's possible. I think division, they've, they've reduced it to like a tiebreaker thing in like very rare scenarios.

• 1:02:20Bill Simmons?

  So your Minnesota case that you made about how they, how well they've matched up with Denver over the years, that might be our two, three.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  Could be.

• 1:02:27Bill Simmons?

  Right? I assume OKC is gonna, gonna win it again. Yeah, so going through that, that top 100, which was just a fun exercise for my brain. I had Denver with number one, 40, 44, 66, and 74. And I would not, I didn't have Michael Porter on my list, so Cam Johnson is basically a free add for them. Not to mention that Bruce Brown, Hardaway, Valanciunas, whatever they can get from the young guys, Watson and Strother this year. I, I think they're the best. I think they're still the best bet for the odds right now at plus 750. Them or Minnesota? Because you're basically, if you're betting against OKC, those would be the two teams I would do with. Because I think the winner comes out of the West.

• 1:03:12Speaker 05

  They took Oklahoma City to seven games last year with Michael Porter Jr.'s playing with one arm and a pretty flawed and shallow roster to the point they're like, hey, Julian Strather, can you have like two straight miracle games for us after doing nothing the whole season? For us to survive in this series?

• 1:03:27Bill Simmons?

  What about, what about Russ who was just cast aside immediately after? Who actually had moments where he played real minutes in that series?

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  Unsigned.

• 1:03:37Bill Simmons?

  Unsigned. Well, well, we didn't talk about that. Is there Houston maybe on that?

• 1:03:45Speaker 05

  I, I mean, I wouldn't do it, but they've lived the experience already in a complete, what feels like a completely different league and a completely different universe. But.

• 1:03:55Bill Simmons?

  Do you think there were texts?

• 1:03:58Bill Simmons?

  Raphael Stone? And Doka and a couple of people, there was a Russell Westbrook. What are your thoughts?

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  I don't think we're on, I don't think so. I don't think so yet.

• 1:04:08Bill Simmons?

  Not even a text thread.

• 1:04:10Speaker 05

  Still too fresh.

• 1:04:11Bill Simmons?

  Any interesting on Russ? No? Okay.

• 1:04:13Speaker 05

  The thing with Denver that's worrisome is in your, in your rank, not worrisome, but like from your rankings perspective is one 40, number one. And then the second guy is 40. Like that's a, that's a lot on number one to do that. Like they need Jamal Murray to play himself back into like the killer playoff guy, Jamal Murray, who was closer to like 20 than 40.

• 1:04:35Bill Simmons?

  And I had Orlando and I probably had, I had Franz at, I think, 49, which is probably too high. I should, I should lower him into the lower 40s.

• 1:04:45Speaker 05

  That was one, that was one of, that was one of my notes. You have, you have Franz below three spots lower than his teammate, Jalen Suggs, which to me is.

• 1:04:52Bill Simmons?

  I gotta fix that. But regardless, they have four of the top 50 now with, with Bain included. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see if the supporting cast can come through. But as you looked at this preliminary list that I laid out.

• 1:05:08Bill Simmons?

  And there's.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  Wait, wait, wait, can we stop for a minute? You, four of the top 50?

• 1:05:12Bill Simmons?

  For Orlando, yeah.

• 1:05:14Speaker 05

  Franz, Palo, Bain?

• 1:05:16Bill Simmons?

  And Suggs.

• 1:05:18Speaker 05

  Suggs just no brainer, top 50 player for you.

• 1:05:20Bill Simmons?

  I love Suggs.

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  Now the Orlando fans are gonna be mad at you.

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  Well, that's fine. I mean, there's like 17 of them. They can only do so much damage. I mean, I just wanted.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  Their season fell apart when he got hurt last year.

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  No, no, no. Nobody. I love Jalen Suggs. He's great. Like, love everything about him. Love the way he plays. Don't love that he's a career 33% three-point shooter, but more than that, I don't love that he played 48 games, 53 games, 75 games, and 35 games. Can I get a little bit more availability before I just pencil you in as a top 50 player in the world's greatest basketball league? That's all.

• 1:05:55Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have him, LaMelo Ball, or Tyler Hero this season?

• 1:06:04Speaker 05

  You're gonna make me say it. You're gonna make me say it. You're going to make me say it. I'm going with LaMelo Ball. I'm going down with the ship. It's a fun ship to be on. It's neon green, highlighter yellow, whatever it is. Everyone's dressed funny. I'm going down with the LaMelo Ball ship.

• 1:06:20Bill Simmons?

  You know, I almost put Knippel in the top 100. I thought about it because I think he's gonna be immediately good.

• 1:06:26Speaker 05

  I looked for him in the top 20 and I was like, oh, I guess he's somewhere in 50s or 60s.

• 1:06:31Bill Simmons?

  But they do have four guys with a top 100 case now if Knippel's good, right? So there's at least the signs of something. Now, I have no idea who their center is gonna be. Like, no idea.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  Maybe Knippel, small ball five, just a jack of all trades.

• 1:06:46Bill Simmons?

  There's a Plumlee still on that team.

• 1:06:49Speaker 05

  There's only one Plumlee left.

• 1:06:51Bill Simmons?

  Saloon as an undersized center. Salon, whatever his name is. I like calling him Saloon.

• 1:06:57Speaker 05

  They like the Kalkbrenner kid that they drafted from Creighton, I believe. I think he was a Defensive Player of the Year like multiple times in whatever conference Creighton is in now. If he went to Creighton, I could be completely wrong. He did go to Creighton.

• 1:07:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So anyway, with this top 100, to me, Jokic, SGA, Giannis, Luka, and Edwards have to be the top five in that order. And then the question for me is, is it a top five or a top six? Do you have Wemby in that top tier yet? Or do you want to see him play a full season and be on a team that's above 500 before you give him top level status?

• 1:07:32Speaker 05

  Well, these are forward-looking rankings, right? Like, the idea is to project for the season.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  This season.

• 1:07:38Speaker 05

  I'm ready to put him in the in the top six tier. Uh, I, I just think if I'm projecting forward what he's going to be this year and what the Spurs can be this year. I'm just like, I'm going to put him in there. It's, it's, he's already going to be by some order of magnitude, the most destructive and defensive force in the NBA. And so that's like half of the game is played on that end of the floor and he's single handedly dominating it at all times. And so I think the offense will come up a tick and on every possible metric and in every possible skill. So I'm, I'm going, let's put him in the, the initial top six tier.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Cause I do feel like then you go into Mitchell and Brunson and Curry and Cade. And I just think Wemby's ceiling is just higher than those guys. Like he could be the destructive, kick ass force on, on a really great team. Um, the Dallas Mavericks.

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  So the three teams before we go, the three teams where I'm like, I don't know what to expect this year. Dallas, Boston, and Indiana. Where I, I think those are the teams with, with the most floors in the building between the, the basement and the, and this, and the top floor. And Dallas, if Kyrie can somehow come back and be pretty competent, March, April range. And if Flag is as good as I think he's going to be.

• 1:08:59Bill Simmons?

  I think Dallas is going to be really good. And I think they're kind of lurking as us going in March, like holy shit, Dallas is good now.

• 1:09:11Bill Simmons?

  So I, I just think it's notable that their odds were as bad as they were.

• 1:09:16Speaker 05

  I actually quite like their team.

• 1:09:19Speaker 05

  I agree with you that they're hard to project. I think they're more a 26, 27 team than a 25, 26 team. Cause you led it with Kyrie. I just, I, I gotta see that first because with D-Lo in his spot and the trickle down effect of that to the bench guards. Like I think they, they'll be solid and defensively pretty solid, assuming AD stays relatively healthy.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  I can't get further than that in the West. And also I just like, still think that, I still think that they're going to have to figure this out. It's like, is eight, eight, we really want to play AD at the four for like 75% of his minutes? Do we really think that's a good idea? Because I'm not sure that that's a good idea.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  So they play lively or Gafford with AD and Flag all together and they're just like, nobody's doing anything around 15 feet from the basket anymore.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  That's

• 1:10:09Bill Simmons?

  And we're getting all the rebounds.

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  That was the vision when they made the Luca trade, among many other visions that were

• 1:10:14Bill Simmons?

  It's so weird that I kinda like it.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  I don't, I don't mind it. I, I just think offensively, you gotta figure out what Anthony Davis is doing besides like spotting up for 18 foot jump shots that no one cares to really defend very hard.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Are we sure he's still on the team in February?

• 1:10:30Speaker 05

  Oh my God. Well, I do, you know, it's like, I mean, given what they did to get him, I think, I think it would be pretty catastrophic for him to not be on the team even optically.

• 1:10:41Bill Simmons?

  But they didn't know they're getting Cooper Flag when they made the trade.

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  They did not. What, what are you talking about? The vision? That was the vision. What did he say? Like the plan is coming to fruition now or some such thing?

• 1:10:50Bill Simmons?

  Apologies to Nico. Nico did have the vision.

• 1:10:52Speaker 05

  But I, I will say, like, I did this whole thing on veteran extensions yesterday.

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  And like how difficult it is to suffuse these out for guys who are making an enormous amount of money. AD is not eligible now. Next summer he is. And I think that becomes one of the most interesting extension cases in the NBA. How do you extend Anthony Davis at age 33 or 32, whatever he's going to be, coming off a $58.5 million contract? Like that's, or $54 million contract going into a $58 million contract? That's, that's hard, man. That's a big, that's a big, big decision.

• 1:11:25Bill Simmons?

  I'd be very nervous about that.

• 1:11:27Speaker 05

  For a team that didn't want to pay Luca the super max, right? Like that's one of the reasons they got out of the Luca business is like, it's just too much money. So what's AD's next contract gonna be?

• 1:11:35Bill Simmons?

  And now Luca's built like, uh, The Rock. He's fucking ripped.

• 1:11:41Speaker 05

  I mean, but this was all incredibly predictable, right? Like this is all we said. I didn't have a job when he got traded. I still said it anyway. Like this is, if this doesn't light a fire under his ass to get in better shape, to get in the best shape he's ever been in, like nothing will. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, here he is on the cover of freaking Men's Health. Men's Health breaking stories. I didn't see that coming.

• 1:12:03Bill Simmons?

  I loved it.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  It's a great PR strategy. Like, you know what? You know who we should go to? Men's Health.

• 1:12:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, who knew that he kind of revived him? I I'm very excited for the Luca MVP. I know we'll be talking about all season, but Luca never having won the MVP. And still being plus 380 on FanDuel when it feels like he's he would be the favorite for me. I just don't see a scenario where he's not fucking awesome this season.

• 1:12:33Speaker 05

  I keep hearing this on podcasts that shall not be named like I just my sneaky. This is a hot take. I think Luca is going to be at the center of the MVP discussion. Like you think you think so? He's going to be at the center of the MVP discussion? Yeah, yeah, obviously, like.

• 1:12:45Bill Simmons?

  Also, he'll have the best narrative. Giannis at 12 to one is not not intriguing because he could just single handedly drag Milwaukee to like 52 and 30 and have the greatest year he's ever had. And plus now with Thanasis at his side. You know, like a Bird McHale type thing.

• 1:13:02Speaker 05

  It's really interesting because if Luca puts up his normal numbers over, let's say, 75 games. I mean, those top four guys put up stats where it's like, I don't even know what like.

• 1:13:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're like brain breakers.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  If Jokic averages 30, 10 and 10 and breaks the efficiency records again, it's like you have to sort of come up with a case against him and Shay, to his credit, was so outrageously good last year and matched him in all the metrics that he did it. But it's just like when you're talking about, oh, you know, could Cinderella MVP candidate? It's like, could Donovan Mitchell play his window? It's like, I love Donovan Mitchell. Like, it's just a different stratosphere of.

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 05

  Of player.

• 1:13:40Bill Simmons?

  We saw the best possible MVP campaign from Mitchell last year and he had no chance. They went 64 games and he was the best guy in the team and he wasn't even like, I think like one person.

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  It's like Cade, you and I both love Cade. I've always loved Cade. It's like he's sneaky MVP candidate. I'm like, I don't think like I like Cade, but that's maybe sneaky fifth ballot spot candidate.

• 1:14:01Bill Simmons?

  Do you think there is there a Malik Beasley getting signed this year possibility where he just sneaks onto a really good team? As a wild card? Have you heard anything about that?

• 1:14:10Speaker 05

  I have not heard much, except that.

• 1:14:14Speaker 05

  I think that there's a lot of frustration from the players' union about how this all unfolded, the timing of it, how it was leaked, where it was leaked, and they're trying to figure out exactly what to do about it, but.

• 1:14:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because it unquestionably cost him $40 million.

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  And he's been cleared, but not really cleared, like according to the reporting, like he's still being, I don't remember what the terminology was, but they're still looking at him, but he's been, I don't know what it was. So I don't know if that haze is still too thick for teams to look at him. But yeah, I mean, look, it's.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  Before we go, what awkward priests, oh, we never talked about Boston, Indiana.

• 1:14:55Speaker 05

  Let's do it.

• 1:14:55Bill Simmons?

  Let's do it really quick.

• 1:14:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  We talked about Dallas, high ceiling, low floor. Boston, Indiana is weird because we have no idea if they're just going to toss away the season. Halliburton's definitely not coming back. Tatum, who knows? The Celtics are saying he's not coming back, but I don't know. You know, it's with, it'll be 10 months, like mid, right after the All-Star break, right around his birthday, which has been floated around in circles about, could he be back on his birthday on March 3rd? That's 10 months from the injury. We've talked in the past about he had the surgery within 10 hours in New York, never flew. This would be like the greatest test case for, could somebody actually come back? And he had the real surgery because there's two ways to do it,

• 1:15:43Bill Simmons?

  where like Dame had the other type of surgery where they do the, it's like a, almost like a patch and you can come back faster, but it's not 100%. I think Klay had that too. Tatum had that, we're fixing this. And if you're the Celtics, you can't not think like, well, what happens if he's 100% and scrimmaging in February? And like, what are we just going to do? Not play him? So I don't know the answer to that, and I don't think they do either.

• 1:16:08Speaker 05

  I just know I would be nervous.

• 1:16:14Speaker 05

  Bringing a guy off an Achilles tear back, let's say mid-March optimistically, right? Super optimistically. Be like, hey, we're fighting like hell to get into the play-in tournament or stay in the play-in tournament.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're an eight seed.

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  And if we do, if we do that, then we're gonna play New York in the first round of the playoffs. I, I just, that, that would make me, make me nervous. I, I'm, you know, I'm lower on Boston than, I don't know what their over-under is, but I just think their lack of depth has been, now, they'll turn Minot into something and Garza will get free reign to just chuck threes. I just think their, their depth, their depth chart is like a whole bunch of question marks after like the, the six best guys on the team who are good, who are good. One of whom is Anthony Simons. It's like, do the Celtics even want Anthony Simons? I'm not even sure about that.

• 1:17:04Bill Simmons?

  I did, uh, I flew back from Boston on Saturday night and I did my first wave of NBA research on the fight as I watched terrible movies on AMC, or terribly good movies, I should say, like Taken.

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  What'd you see? What'd you watch?

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  Movies I've seen a million times. Taken, um, what was the other one?

• 1:17:20Speaker 05

  Still never seen that.

• 1:17:21Bill Simmons?

  Uh, you've never seen Taken? You have a daughter. It's a must-watch if you have a daughter.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  Why?

• 1:17:26Bill Simmons?

  It's just a guy trying to save his daughter.

• 1:17:28Speaker 05

  But she gets kidnapped. It sounds horrible.

• 1:17:30Bill Simmons?

  Gets her back. He, in the end, he kills a thousand Albanians and gets her back. You gotta watch it. But yeah, so I, I laid out the starters and the bench, like the depth chart. And I don't think, I must've been in denial or, or lying to myself, but when I actually saw it laid out, I was like, oh my, like, I had Boucher and Hauser in the starting lineup.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, when you write it down, you're like, oh, this is what happens.

• 1:17:54Bill Simmons?

  Charman playing?

• 1:17:56Speaker 05

  One of your three, your best guy gets hurt and then we trade two of our other key guys to dump money. Like, yes, and Horford is like, playing for the Warriors apparently at some point. It's like, it's a lot of atrophy.

• 1:18:06Bill Simmons?

  Hugo Gonzalez might play? Like, you just, and then Tatum with three question marks. And it's just, it's pretty grim. The, the good thing for them is they have the infrastructure with the style they play and the coaching staff. They have multiple guards that are gonna be able to, you know, handle the ball, shoot. Jalen will take 25 shots a game.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  I was, that's what I want to ask you. What do you want to see from Jalen Brown this year? What's like the Bill Simmons, just, I, this was a lost season from a contention perspective, but we learned X, Y, and Z about Jalen Brown and I'm thrilled about that. What does that look like?

• 1:18:43Bill Simmons?

  Well,

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was interesting. I looked at the FanDuel points per game leader odds you can bet on. So like Shay is plus 165, Luca's 5 to 1. Just who's going to lead the league in points per game? And Jalen was 50 to 1?

• 1:19:03Bill Simmons?

  Is it, would it be, if I told you he was going to average 32 a game next season? What would be your reaction to that?

• 1:19:12Speaker 05

  I would say that that's, I mean, 32 is, what did Shay average? Shay was about there, but I would say that's

• 1:19:19Speaker 05

  a lot. I would say 29 would, would be a realistic high target. To go from 23 and 22 the last two years to 32 is even amid this new.

• 1:19:30Bill Simmons?

  What's the highest that he's gotten to?

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  26, 6, 2 years ago, 3 years ago.

• 1:19:35Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah. So 26, 6 in the 23 season, he took 20 shots a game. If you give him four more shots a game and he makes two of them, I'm now at 30.

• 1:19:47Speaker 05

  I mean, 50, 50, and you give him more free throws. Like he only got to the line five times a game that you're, that should be higher too. I mean, look, 50 to 1 is a great bet. 50 to 1 is a great bet.

• 1:19:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. From everything we know about Jalen Brown, whether he's right or wrong, he's definitely going into this season going, I've got this until JT comes back. And he's gonna, he's gonna, we've seen it. We saw it in the games when Tatum didn't play and, and Jalen Brown's like, finally. It's like the understudy in the Hamilton production, like finally I get to be the Lin-Manuel Miranda part. So, I don't know. I, I think they could hang around with three point shooting and I just, I've heard that they, oh, watch out, they're in a tank because they don't, they have their pick. I just don't think Missoula is capable of it. The man, the man is a maniac.

• 1:20:33Speaker 05

  My worry about the Jalen Brown scenario you outline is like the how does he get there? Is he getting there by just taking a shit ton of shots and he end up like he averaged 30 on 44% shooting and 31% from three and didn't, didn't evolve as a playmaker like that's, that's my worry about. That's not a big worry because.

• 1:20:50Bill Simmons?

  So you want to see him like the offense is running through him, but he's actually not like, I'm just going to shoot a shitload of shots. And I'm going to actually set up my guards. We're going to play off me. I'm going to find open shooters. I'm going to play really smart basketball.

• 1:21:04Speaker 05

  Like, I don't think he's going to turn into a 10 assists a game guy or even a seven or eight assists a game guy. But like jacket up a little bit and, and yeah, I don't want like, if he's just taking a bunch of tough mid-range shots the entire season, even more than he usually takes. Like, I'm not sure that that's what I want to see, although he's going to have to do more shooting, obviously.

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  The Celtics have Boucher and Garza right now is the center combo with some Kada. And, and the Boston, the people that cover the team think Kada is going to be the starter. I'll believe that when I see it. But if you compare them to Indiana, who lost Halliburton and Turner.

• 1:21:40Bill Simmons?

  I actually think Indiana is a more likely fuck it, let's suck this year candidate, right? I mean, Jaris Walker will play so that they could maybe, he'll fill minutes somewhere because they didn't have him in the playoffs. But other than that, what else do they do?

• 1:21:55Speaker 05

  Well, they have depth, right? Like they have, they, they were deep last year. So that definitely helped them now. You know, and they signed like, you know, Jay Huff could play 15 minutes a game. Isaiah Jackson's coming back. Like they have depth.

• 1:22:07Bill Simmons?

  Furphy. I love just saying furphy. I want furphy.

• 1:22:09Speaker 05

  Little furf.

• 1:22:10Bill Simmons?

  Furf, the furf man.

• 1:22:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  Furphy. And talk about a maniac coach who's going to just like scheme his way to 35 wins on a down year. Like Rick Carlisle, like to me, that's the, the down, like the almost boring Indiana prediction is I don't know what their over under is. I'd probably take the under because I just think that their entire identity is wrapped up in one guy who's not going to play. But I could see them being, having a down year and it being like 32 and 50 or something like that. I'm, I'm lower on them. I just think that, that what they lost is a lot. Who do you think has a higher over under? Boston or Indiana for the season?

• 1:22:48Speaker 05

  Boston.

• 1:22:49Bill Simmons?

  Yep. Boston's 41 and a half. Indiana is 37 and a half.

• 1:22:56Speaker 05

  That's, that seems right to me on both counts. I would probably take the under on, well, we're gonna, we're gonna do, we're gonna do this at some point.

• 1:23:04Bill Simmons?

  Indiana 37 and a half. And it could really end up being like 22 and 60 if they just said, fuck it.

• 1:23:11Speaker 05

  I don't think it can get to, they'd have to organizationally make a decision that Siakam has a fake sprained ankle and, you know, trade McConnell and do some stuff because I just think they're going to be tough and nasty and play smart. And like Nemhard and Siakam are good. Like those, that's not a terrible fallback. Like now we're a 22 win team.

• 1:23:32Bill Simmons?

  I mean, so they lose Hallburn, right? Obviously was the top 15 guy, but they are equipped to kind of patch together some of his stats. Cause Shepard, he'll play more Nemhard McConnell. Like they could kind of patch together some guard stats. The Turner thing, I don't know how they, I don't know how they've fixed that with Isaiah Jackson and whatever. The counter to that would be Turner was terrible in the finals and was pretty up and down in the playoffs, you know?

• 1:23:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. He's, he's generally an up and down player. I think he'll fit well with Yanis.

• 1:24:03Bill Simmons?

  Like Walker. Should I buy more Walker stock? I already have a bunch.

• 1:24:06Speaker 05

  I don't think you need to buy that much more. If you have a bunch, I would, I wouldn't go crazy.

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  I'll keep what I have. So you think I, you think Indiana more likely to be like, yeah, let's throw this year away and wait for our guy to come back?

• 1:24:18Speaker 05

  I don't think either. No, I would say they're less likely because I think they're deeper and their coach might be

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  Less likely.

• 1:24:24Speaker 05

  more of a maniac than even Missoula is about just scheming to win every single possession of every single game.

• 1:24:32Bill Simmons?

  What TV shows are you watching?

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  Other than the Mets disaster.

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  Hey, stop, stop now. We're, we're not out of it yet. Uh, what are we watching? We currently, you know, I gotta say.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't get their task?

• 1:24:48Speaker 05

  Not too violent for my wife. I would say a couple of things. Number one.

• 1:24:52Bill Simmons?

  Pacifist?

• 1:24:53Speaker 05

  She just doesn't like violence. It scares her. She's just out on all the violent shows.

• 1:24:58Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  Violence and unpleasant suspense. She's just like, I'm not spending my leisure time doing that.

• 1:25:03Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  Number one on the list right now is The Great British Bake Off. Huge fan. I've seen every season. I'm a big fan. If Great British Bake Off corner might replace Mets corner if the Mets don't make the playoffs. This hurts me a little bit to say, I don't know if you watched this show. It was right in our spousal Venn diagram. Only murders in the building charm is kind of wearing off on me.

• 1:25:28Bill Simmons?

  Never, it never got into it.

• 1:25:32Speaker 05

  That's, I think that's all we got going right now. Is there, am I forgetting?

• 1:25:35Bill Simmons?

  Are you a morning show family?

• 1:25:37Speaker 05

  No, no. I'm weirdly uninterested. Should I be interested? Is it preachy? It seems preachy to me. I don't like preachy.

• 1:25:44Bill Simmons?

  It is a self parody of a self parody of a self parody and a very enjoyable hour for my wife and I. Lots of jokes.

• 1:25:52Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:25:53Bill Simmons?

  That's probably our number one. Like just, we're making jokes the entire time we're watching that show.

• 1:25:57Speaker 05

  Oh, you're making jokes. The show is not making jokes.

• 1:26:00Bill Simmons?

  No, the show is very serious and they make decisions on the show that you just can't fathom.

• 1:26:05Speaker 05

  Speaking of funny, one of my, one of the things I just want a show to make me fucking laugh a lot and I'm, I'm missing that in my life. It's like, I want to laugh. I want a joke show and Joanna Robinson recommended, and we did a whole segment where I was like, here's what my wife's TV taste is. Here's what mine is. Here are a couple of shows we really love together. Recommend one for us. And her number one draft choice was Party Down. And we did Party Down. Party Down was just rock solid.

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  Season one's fantastic.

• 1:26:32Speaker 05

  The highs weren't that high, but the floor was high. It was pretty funny the whole time. Good recommendation, Joanna.

• 1:26:38Bill Simmons?

  The Porn Party episode is a personal all-timer for me. It's one of the funniest half-hours of the 2000s.

• 1:26:46Speaker 05

  That's a good one. That was a good one. Yeah, that was a good show. I mean, that's a short. There's like 20 episodes and they're all short, you know?

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  I would test drive Morning Show, season one with the wife, because it's also like, they're doing it during this like, COVID Me Too era, and it's very self-conscious about all the stuff's going, and they're just clumsily blowing through all these crazy storylines. It's about a morning show, but it's a couple of years behind where we are. So like right now, they're doing the 2024 Olympics for this, this season. And they're kind of also going back and commentating on, and it's just, it's a, it's a must-watch.

• 1:27:25Speaker 05

  I mean, it's, I see it come up. I see it come up on the TV is like recommended for you or this and that. And I'm always like, yeah, you know, it's could be.

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  It's a mess.

• 1:27:34Speaker 05

  Could be. Yeah, that's all I got going right now. You're not a Bake Off guy?

• 1:27:39Bill Simmons?

  My wife likes that show. I've never been like a cooking show person.

• 1:27:43Speaker 05

  It's like taken, neither have I, and I can't cook and I don't like cooking and I sure as hell don't bake. It's like, it's just like stepping into a warm bubble bath. It's so pleasant. Just everything about it is so pleasant. I, I love everybody on the show, even Paul Hollywood, who's sort of the villain of the show. I just, it's just wonderful. It's just a great time.

• 1:28:01Bill Simmons?

  I want to say Mina Kimes is on that show this year for an episode. I think that's the show she went on. She went on a Cook It. I think that was the show.

• 1:28:10Speaker 05

  There's an, there was an American, there was an American version, like an American knockoff, same franchise, like same people that maybe, maybe she, that would be very, if she suddenly appears on the actual Great British Baking Show filmed in a tent in England somewhere, I'm gonna go crazy.

• 1:28:26Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Zach Lowe, good to see you. We have your podcast. It's at least twice a week. Sometimes there'll be emergency episodes. If you're honest, get straight to the Rockets. You'll probably hear from Zach. You can find it on YouTube as well. Dropping that at the end of a podcast. Who knows if something crazy happens. Good to see you as always. Always fun, sir. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault. You're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today.

• 1:29:09Bill Simmons?

  Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid-teens in the social media era. And even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong. And that's why Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see. Contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time limits. And sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at

• 1:29:54Bill Simmons?

  instagram.com/teenaccounts. All right, I'm here with Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy. We just did a two-hour rewatchables that is running next Monday for Redford Month. Yeah, yeah. But there was a topic I want to talk to you guys about, about Las Vegas. When did you move here? 2012. When did you move here? 2012. So there was an article today about Las Vegas is doing this big five-day sale. They tweeted out from the, this is not sponsored by Las Vegas, by the way. Big sale, hotels, restaurants, everything off. And the reason they're doing it is because Las Vegas, the tourism has really declined. And I was on a couple of different text threads about this because we all thought it was really interesting. What's going on with Las Vegas?

• 1:30:37Bill Simmons?

  What has changed over the last 30 years? What are the reasons why tourism post COVID? Where all this other stuff booming? Movie theaters are doing great. People are back at sporting events. All normal life stuff feels like it's back? And Vegas is in bad shape. So why? What's your theory, CR?

• 1:30:56Speaker 06

  Gosh, I mean, where do you want to start? I think Vegas is pretty unique in that it's one of the only places you would go to lose more money. And so it's not just the price of the hotel and the price of the restaurants and the price of valet parking and the price of everything. Then you are also pricing in, I might get cleaned out and I might not be able to help myself. And if you can gamble on sports, at least pretty much anywhere. And there's obviously like friendly games everywhere you want to go. Making that trip and chalking up, you know, you can either lose the flight and the hotel or you can go somewhere nice and not have to lose thousands of dollars gambling. I think people are just making that choice, but there's also like a ton of other reasons I could think of.

• 1:31:41Bill Simmons?

  Sean, you still road trip down there to poker every so often?

• 1:31:44Speaker 06

  You know, like once a year?

• 1:31:45Speaker 07

  I do. For 10 years, I went every November to see friends because one of my best friends lives there. And this is kind of related to some of my thoughts about it. I still think it's fun to go there. I do think it is a little bit hard to gamble in the way that I like to gamble there. And obviously sports betting has changed a lot too. So the idea of it being a destination for sports betting has gotten complicated over the years. But the thing that struck me, I'm not saying this is the primary reason, but it is a reason. When the Golden Knights went there and it started to become a destination home for professional sports, it started to feel more like any other city. And when I was driving in a couple of years ago and I saw a legion on the way in,

• 1:32:27Speaker 07

  you know, right when you're coming in into, into the strip and a legion is on the left there. And it was a football stadium and it was like driving into Chicago or driving into Philly. And it lost the kind of Glamour, the kind of uniqueness that made Vegas Vegas, where Vegas was really only one thing. You didn't even really think about Vegas as a place where people lived. When you visited, you visited and you were like, everybody here is in a hotel and we're all gambling.

• 1:32:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember hearing somebody lived in Vegas and like, what?

• 1:32:55Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Bill Simmons?

  They live in Summerlin, what? It's like every day they're here, how do they survive?

• 1:33:00Speaker 07

  But when it's, when a, when a city has sports teams, it's a, it's a town.

• 1:33:04Bill Simmons?

  It's a city.

• 1:33:04Speaker 07

  It's a residential place, you know, it's a place where there is a fandom. There is like a, there's a community of people that live there. There's nothing wrong with it being coming a community, but it feels different. It gives it a different energy and it feels like a factor as to why it's not as unique or special to go there as maybe it was 10 or 50 years ago.

• 1:33:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I have so many, I, I think those are both really good reasons. I also feel like, cause I started going there in mid 90s, right? And it was, I'm not saying it was underground, but it was just, you went, you shared a hotel room with two people or four people. You didn't really care about where you ate at all. It's like, let's go get two slices of pizza. Let's go, the buffet is cheap.

• 1:33:44Speaker 07

  Even if you're treating yourself, you're going to get a steak.

• 1:33:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, for people in their twenties and their thirties, the, the ancillary stuff never mattered. It was like, where are we gambling? How much blackjack are we playing? Are we playing poker? Are we playing craps? All your money kind of went toward the gambling part, at least for my groups or everything I saw. And nobody was ever like, we gotta go to Rayo's tonight. I heard it's awesome. Like you didn't think that way. You didn't think like, we're in this three hour dinner from eight to 11.

• 1:34:11Speaker 07

  Dell, you know what I mean?

• 1:34:12Bill Simmons?

  Never, now granted, I am in a very small, like I, you know, it's like giant sports fan. Like we would go, we really want to just gamble, but we never cared about the other stuff. Like one, we would, you maybe ride the roller coaster once.

• 1:34:26Speaker 07

  I think people would go and they would want to go see Wayne Newton or like when we went.

• 1:34:29Bill Simmons?

  Older people, not the people in their twenties or thirties were going for specific things. It's like, I can gamble on sports here. I can play blackjack with my friends here. I can play poker, play craps.

• 1:34:40Speaker 07

  Well, the other thing I, I started noticing probably maybe 20 years ago is that the casinos were kind of turning into malls. And so there were really these big shopping centers that were coming in there. And a lot of those spaces are really nice, but it's like, why? Like I don't, I'm not going to go to the Prada store when I'm at a casino. I'm at a casino to play, to play cards. Like that's the only reason I'm there is to drink, see my friends, play cards, maybe swim in the pool and eat at the buffet. That's all I'm really going to do, even as not, forget about my twenties and my forties. That's all I care about. But it is more of a like. It's kind of like a glamour, high toned destination in a way, but it is still in the middle of the desert. So it doesn't really make sense as like, why would you go, wouldn't you go to Hawaii if you were trying to have a vacation like that, like a really expensive, nice vacation?

• 1:35:23Speaker 06

  But I think now it's like, if you want to party, people go to New Orleans, or Austin, or Nashville, or all sorts of places. Miami, kind of, you know, like, has had two or three peaks in, in the time that Vegas has become, was the destination of all bachelor parties, and going clubbing, and also gambling.

• 1:35:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, now it's like, there's the F1 weekend, there's the sports teams that are there, there's NBA Summer League, there's then NBA, the actual, like, the cup thing.

• 1:35:48Speaker 07

  Yep. And MLB is gonna be there, too.

• 1:35:50Bill Simmons?

  Big boxing, UFC, MLB's gonna be there, WNBA's there. So there's sports and big stuff happening constantly, which is better if you live there than if you're visiting. If I'm visiting, and I've always wondered this, like, you know, you go for NBA Cup, right?

• 1:36:05Speaker 07

  Or Summer League, yeah.

• 1:36:06Bill Simmons?

  Or Summer League, whatever. And we, we, like, we went there for 2018, 2019, and we did a dinner, right? I mean, you have this huge dinner, you're stuffed, it's not like the kind of mood, you're like, yeah, now let's go gamble. I just wonder, like, did something shift where the gambling became ancillary? And then the, the books and the, the places realized that. And that's when they started shifting the odds against Blackjack, six to five payouts for Blackjack. And I just feel like it's harder to win, as weird as that sounds. Like, I have much more fun gambling in New Orleans. New Orleans, I feel like I might actually win. In Vegas, I just, I feel like I'm this cog in the machine that's just gonna get crushed.

• 1:36:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm not really in, like, such an expert on all of the table games there, but, um, it does feel like, uh, it's easier to get crushed now than it did in the past.

• 1:36:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm telling you, I don't, I don't think luck turns that much over 30 years. Well, there is more fun, like, now it just seems like, they just want you to lose money and get you the fuck out of it.

• 1:37:09Speaker 06

  I don't know if this is like, I don't, we don't have to get into a huge discussion about like, how much private equity is bought into these places and what kind of returns they want on investment. But like, I do think in the last couple of years especially, like, since COVID, when everything went like, pretty much contactless with payments. I wonder if... They are pumping people more now because of like, just tap your card, just tap your card, just tap your card. You want to go do this, do this, just tap. And it, I used to be like, I remember the first time we went to Vegas together and I was like, I had money in an envelope and I was like, if I tear this envelope open, that's it. Like, that's not, that's all the cash I'm going to spend gambling tonight or something like that. And now we have kind of reached this sort of like, just, just forget about it until tomorrow.

• 1:37:52Speaker 06

  And maybe it's tomorrow for a lot of people and they're like, I can't fucking afford to go to Vegas. Because the, the big thing about all these events in this country now, like when you go, I went to the Dodgers this week. It was an awesome time. Went and saw Phillies Dodgers. I got fucking pumped, man. It's like 40 bucks for two beers. Another 35 for like hot dogs and peanuts. And then it's, that's not even like parking and everything else. And you're just like- That's Blu-ray money. Yeah, but you're also just like-

• 1:38:18Bill Simmons?

  It's like seven Blu-rays.

• 1:38:19Speaker 06

  Dude, that's several hundred dollars not counting the tickets. Like, that's crazy. It's baseball. Like, the game's not even that long anymore. It's a two and a half hour.

• 1:38:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's a good example of, I feel like Vegas was seen, especially if you've lived on the West Coast, as a cheap vacation, you know?

• 1:38:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:38:33Speaker 07

  And you might end up losing a lot of money.

• 1:38:35Speaker 06

  But you could drive there.

• 1:38:36Speaker 07

  But staying there and driving there and the accommodations. And now things are just very elevated. I mean, there's some amazing hotels and amazing restaurants in Vegas now. Like Vegas has gotten really, really tony and-

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I'd say it's one of the best restaurant locations in the world at this point.

• 1:38:51Speaker 06

  But wasn't the whole allure for a while there, like you go and if you're gambling, the drinks are comped. And if you stick around long enough, you'll get like a comp dinner or breakfast ticket, right? Like-

• 1:39:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was just way more underground. And like, the sportsbook piece can't be understated either because, I don't know, how many states have legalized gambling now where you can bet somewhere? And you know, when, when I was, the first time, I can't remember if it was 95 or 96, the first time we went, that was the number one reason I wanted to go. It was like, we're gonna go-

• 1:39:23Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 1:39:24Bill Simmons?

  And we're gonna put, and then we'll watch the game in the sportsbook and then we'll make the money and then we'll put that on something. And that was, all we wanted to do was stay in that sportsbook for two days and watch all the games. And now it's like, there's nothing special about that now.

• 1:39:37Speaker 06

  Or like the first weekend of NFL playoffs or whatever. And now it's like, guys sitting at a bar, like ambiently betting women's tennis. Like-

• 1:39:46Speaker 07

  Putting parlays on like 19 college football games on a random Saturday.

• 1:39:50Bill Simmons?

  I almost, when I did my second book, um, which ended up being about basketball, I almost did a Vegas book as my second book. And then I almost did it again as the book after. And I just, I felt like something shifted from the mid 2000s, even to the early 2010s where I'm like, this isn't as good of an idea for a book anymore. Vegas had like this, I used to write about it a lot. It was some of the, especially on my old website. That was like some of the pieces that really got the website kind of moving with audience. And then when I got to ESPN, same thing. Of like this whole scene in Vegas and just, just like, you know, basically two, you have two days. You have a certain amount of money.

• 1:40:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  There's, you have this anvil hanging over your head the whole time. You only want, you can only go to the ATM one time a day.

• 1:40:34Speaker 07

  The swingers thing where they embarrassed themselves.

• 1:40:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:37Speaker 07

  But that was aspirational to me.

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Speaker 07

  When I saw that, even though those guys were buffoons, I was like, this is so cool. They could just drive there. That's amazing. I was there in April, uh, for CinemaCon and we were, you know, at CinemaCon at night is so great for me because I can just like wander around, play cards.

• 1:40:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:53Speaker 07

  And we sat at the sportsbook, me and Craig and Amanda and Matt Bellamy. We sat at the sportsbook for like an hour and a half waiting to go see David Copperfield. So we're going to go see Copperfield. Never seen him before. And it was, it was dead. It was a Thursday night in April. So you've got NBA.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  Playoffs, yeah.

• 1:41:09Speaker 07

  MLC, MLB has just started and you've got college sports on and there were four people there.

• 1:41:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I remember when they built Mandalay and Mandalay seemed like the future. You know, had this huge sportsbook, big casino, just about very modern. And you could see like all of a sudden they were, you know, they, I can't remember when Paris went up, but the, the casinos just got way better. We stayed Treasure Island in the mid nineties and then gradually things got better. And then there was this moment when they started the whatever happens in Vegas ads. And enough people were talking about the culture of it that something really happened. I think it kind of peaks with The Hangover.

• 1:41:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  In 2009, then Vegas is such a big part of that movie and that's.

• 1:41:53Bill Simmons?

  Kind of the peak and now I don't, now if you did a movie in Vegas, I don't, I don't even think it would be important that it was in Vegas. Like, oh, there's Vegas.

• 1:42:01Speaker 06

  I wonder whether or not there is like, if you think of Vegas as like a musical artist or a band, right? And there's always the question that they face where it's like, do you want your audience to get older with you? Or do you want to leave them behind? And if you're talking about your guys specifically, because Vegas has just been, it's not been a huge part of my life, but for you guys, it's like, there, there was like the degenerate gambling part. Then there was the what happens in Vegas and it's fun to do a bachelor party there. And now it's almost like bring your whole family to Vegas.

• 1:42:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:30Speaker 06

  But you can't really do that. Like you, I mean, you wouldn't do that. You would take them to Disney World. You wouldn't want your little kid at the win, you know?

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  We did a, me and Sal and our, and our fams, we did a Vegas trip in oh, six. And it was this whole different side of Vegas where it's like, oh, they have stroller ramps and shit like that.

• 1:42:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:42:51Bill Simmons?

  And it was fun, but you know, I think it was probably more fun for Sal and I.

• 1:42:54Speaker 06

  Can also be stroller ramps.

• 1:42:55Bill Simmons?

  Right, right. But I think it was more fun for Sal and I, maybe not as much fun for the, for the wives, but I think Vegas is a little more built toward it now. There's another piece of this now about people in their twenties and thirties and what they're doing day to day and whether you need, need to go to a place like Vegas in the same way that you did when I was in my mid twenties in 1995, where it was like, we didn't have a shitload of options for things to do other than to just go out where you were. It's like, whoa, we're going to Vegas? Now it's like, I don't know. I, I just wondered, do people, do people in their twenties, do they want to go out and just gamble for 10 hours?

• 1:43:37Speaker 06

  I mean, I think even beyond the generalization of it, it's just way cheaper to go to New Orleans. If you were going to do a party trip of some kind.

• 1:43:44Bill Simmons?

  There's just more options now. Is there more stuff to do?

• 1:43:46Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Speaker 07

  I think Vegas has never actually had more that you can do in Vegas, but it does take a little bit of the spotlight off of the gaming. I remember very well in 2019, I had a meetup with a lot of friends in Vegas. It was basically like my high school reunion, me and like 10 guys and.

• 1:44:06Speaker 07

  I vividly remember it was like 8pm, we'd ate dinner, grabbed a drink and we were like, let's go gamble for a few hours before we do whatever happens after that. And six of us went to go play Pai Gow and we got absolutely skull fucked by a dealer.

• 1:44:19Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like an amazing day.

• 1:44:21Speaker 07

  We just got absolutely annihilated. And Pai Gow, the whole thing with Pai Gow was like, it's very communal, it's kind of low stakes. You should be able to sit at a Pai Gow table and play for like an hour, two hours if you want, and only lose like a hundred bucks or gain a hundred bucks or whatever. And we just got our guts ripped out. And I remember feeling like, maybe we shouldn't gamble for another 24 hours after that? After guys are dropping like $700 at a Pai Gow table? And it was deflating, it wasn't fun. You know, and then now, ever since then, all those guys had kids and now nobody goes to Vegas anymore. That's the other thing that happened. But if it's ever gonna make a comeback, it's not gonna be defined as like a gambling trip. I don't think. It's gonna be a different version. It's gonna be like, let's go eat at great restaurants and go to the pool with our kids.

• 1:45:04Speaker 06

  And go see like, this pop star has a residency.

• 1:45:06Speaker 07

  Exactly, go see Selena Gomez.

• 1:45:08Speaker 06

  I just think it has to decide, is it for degenerates or for everyone? You know, is it for, this is my secret shame? Or like, this is what I look forward to all year, it's like my weekend?

• 1:45:17Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, I think Vegas already decided. I think that's part of the problem. They want to be for everybody, they want to have the best restaurants and the best entertainers. The Sphere is a huge piece of this. Now you go to Vegas for the experience of the Sphere. Instead of 25 years ago, you went because it's like, I just want to play blackjack with my buddy Jim Grady for eight straight hours. And that's what, that's what we want to do. Now it's like, we're going to the Sphere because so and so's playing there. And then we're gonna go to, you know, the WrestleMania is two days later.

• 1:45:46Speaker 06

  Chang has a restaurant there, yeah.

• 1:45:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and it's just different.

• 1:45:49Speaker 07

  A friend of mine is pitching a project to the Sphere, um, right now. And he was telling me about it. And it sounds like a really cool thing, I hope it happens for him. But that becoming like a billion dollar industry too, it just takes all of the attention off of the other things that you think of as Vegas being Vegas. Like, the idea of going to Vegas to go watch a movie in a giant circle is crazy, but people are doing it.

• 1:46:12Speaker 06

  I wonder how many people who go to the Sphere or go, say, to a UFC fight, then also gamble. Like, I wonder how many, like, how it's reoriented.

• 1:46:21Bill Simmons?

  UFC is interesting because UFC ends around, um.

• 1:46:25Speaker 07

  It's like 11?

• 1:46:26Bill Simmons?

  Starts seven to 10. So you're basically, you're out of there. It's like 10:30 at night. So at that point, you're either doing late dinner or you're just going to gamble. But either way, like you're, it's just not that, not what it would have been 30 years ago. Same thing for the, when the NBA Cup was there.

• 1:46:41Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:42Speaker 07

  When, we need to get another Yu House, Sal and Chang session, though, at the tables. I do feel like that's some of the all time best B S pod.

• 1:46:49Bill Simmons?

  That was like some of the best content we've ever had, but I feel like that, like even that feels like it's from another era.

• 1:46:55Speaker 06

  Still feel like I was at the Blue Note watching, watching guys play, like when I watched him and Chang.

• 1:47:01Bill Simmons?

  I think Vegas would probably say, this is, this is what we wanted. Like, we have way nicer casinos. We have a million restaurants. We have all these different teams. And all these different places to see live events. Like, this is, we had to elevate everything we're doing. And at the same time, they're having a massive sale right now to get people to come because tourism's way down.

• 1:47:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:47:22Bill Simmons?

  So something got broken and I, I don't even really know what the answer is, but.

• 1:47:26Speaker 07

  There are other factors. I mean, there was a terrible shooting there that happened, you know, that chilled a lot for a little while. I don't know. It's like, I don't really believe in the younger people don't want community thing, though. I think it's kind of the opposite and gambling, like that's a fun road trip to take with your friends. To go for 48 hours and go six, eight people and go have fun. But it might just be too expensive is really what it might come down to.

• 1:47:51Speaker 06

  That's what I think it is.

• 1:47:52Speaker 07

  It might just be like, I can't afford to stay at these hotels.

• 1:47:55Speaker 06

  And it's hidden costs. It's like the things where you're just like, whoa, like $65 a day to valet park or whatever. I, I'm sure that there are like more affordable hotels that I'm thinking of that have better deals. I'm just saying.

• 1:48:06Bill Simmons?

  That's why I led with what it costs when we used to go and we would go four door room. I always used to, I've told the story before, I always used to share a bed with my buddy Bish because we had mastered how to like never have our bodies touch ever.

• 1:48:19Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 1:48:19Bill Simmons?

  I went one way, he went the other way, but we, you know.

• 1:48:22Speaker 07

  Sierra likes to go dick to dick.

• 1:48:24Bill Simmons?

  Sierra goes face to face. But you know, all we were thinking about with everything other than the gambling was how to save as much money as possible.

• 1:48:33Speaker 07

  Uh huh.

• 1:48:33Bill Simmons?

  Like, we never wanted to spend more than $10 on dinner. We're like, oh, that place has chicken, you know, it was all the money went toward not being there at one in the morning, out of money while our friends were still playing, being like, well, what the fuck am I gonna do now?

• 1:48:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:48:46Bill Simmons?

  Hit my limit.

• 1:48:47Speaker 07

  You, but you were in a strain of degenerate, where it was like, this is the most important thing in the world to me.

• 1:48:53Bill Simmons?

  But he really was.

• 1:48:53Speaker 06

  He built an oasis in the desert.

• 1:48:55Bill Simmons?

  I did.

• 1:48:56Speaker 06

  It became my oasis.

• 1:48:57Speaker 07

  You did. You were like Ace Rothstein in Casino.

• 1:49:00Bill Simmons?

  I, so you said, like, you wonder if young people, that they don't care about having the community in the same way.

• 1:49:07Speaker 07

  I think they do. No, I think they do.

• 1:49:08Bill Simmons?

  I think they do, but I think they can find it in better ways.

• 1:49:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:49:12Bill Simmons?

  You can find a community on fucking online with people you didn't even meet it. Like, us going to Vegas, all hanging out together, and then all the stories we would have from all the crazy, the dealers, when the crazy person that sat at a table, we would be talking about it for three weeks after. Now, I, I mean, there's so many dopamine fixes you can get 2025 online and however else. I don't think it's the same.

• 1:49:36Speaker 07

  I think you hit on something that is, how do I make this sound not like I've discovered gold or something, but when I was a teenager, and I'd never been to Vegas, we never took a family vacation to Vegas, I had an idea of what Vegas was like in my head, right? And it was, it probably was more like Casino, right? It was like, we're going to the flamingo.

• 1:49:54Speaker 06

  We're wearing suits.

• 1:49:55Speaker 07

  And Don Rickles is there, and he's performing.

• 1:49:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:58Speaker 07

  The Rat Pack is around. And then you get to Vegas, and it is not that, right? It's not glamorous in the 2000s and in the 2010s. Like, it is a little bit more broken down, and has a charm to it, that you can get really interested in. And you can like, discover where are the good places to eat, and where are the good places to go, where are the right, what are the right rooms for the games that you like to play? And then it did start to flip, I guess, right around the 2010s where it started to get more elevated. And you lost a little bit of that, like, um, social culture that was an interesting part of it. Conversely, if you're a kid now, you can see what everything is like online. Like even just Yelp alone reveals like what those hidden worlds.

• 1:50:39Speaker 07

  Like when we were in the 1990s, I had like Encarta and that's how I learned information on my computer. Like that was, there were no like photos or reviews, let alone YouTube and like tours and like the way that you can conquer like Disney World now on YouTube. And they just show you every single thing inside of it.

• 1:50:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a good point.

• 1:50:56Speaker 07

  When you went to Disney World when you were five, you were like, is this place actually magic?

• 1:51:00Speaker 06

  But crucially, like Disney now is like, don't worry about any of that stuff because if you pay enough, you can skip the line. And I think that that is like another thing where people are like, is there any limit to how much I'll get charged to do something that used to just be, you pay this thing to get in the gate and then everything inside is sort of like more or less set up fairly for you. I mean, things were always expensive, but I do think that there's something weird about like, when you look at your bill from like you stay at one of the hotels, you're just like, what the fuck are all these like towel fees and resort fees? And, you know, parking fees. And you're just like, I didn't use this parking. Like, why am I getting charged for this? Or something like that. There's just like a lot of crazy stuff there.

• 1:51:37Speaker 07

  Yeah. All the porn you ordered.

• 1:51:38Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:51:39Bill Simmons?

  See, I was like, and this is all part of my platform. Would I become the governor of Nevada?

• 1:51:43Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 1:51:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So I don't really, I wish I had a better answer for what Vegas should do. But I think they're so far down the road with what they became. I don't know if there's a way to unwind this.

• 1:51:53Speaker 06

  It should just all be the sphere, you know, they should just build the sphere on top of it.

• 1:51:56Bill Simmons?

  They might just have to triple down and like definitely get an NBA team and, and maybe it's like a, it's not a destination place as much as a place you actually live.

• 1:52:04Speaker 07

  Yeah. But then you're just, then it's just Houston, you know, like.

• 1:52:06Bill Simmons?

  But I think that's what's happening.

• 1:52:08Speaker 06

  Have you been to a Raiders game there?

• 1:52:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I've been, I've been there a bunch of times. I've seen WrestleMania there.

• 1:52:12Speaker 06

  Is there any vibe at the Raiders games? Is there any atmosphere?

• 1:52:16Bill Simmons?

  You know what? I've been to the Raiders Arena. I haven't been to a Raiders game. But I've been to WrestleMania there. I went to SummerSlam there.

• 1:52:22Speaker 07

  It looks like an awesome stadium. I'd love to go.

• 1:52:24Speaker 06

  I honestly, I think a fair amount of people moved there in the last five years. I think it'll continue to grow. I'm sure in 15 years, it might be, like you said, like a Houston kind of place. But it's in a weird moment of transition.

• 1:52:37Speaker 07

  It's so funny. My buddy Tony, who's lived there for years and years, and we went to high school together. And he's been a lawyer there for over a decade. He just got engaged. Shout out to Tony. Congratulations. He took away a long time.

• 1:52:49Bill Simmons?

  Love Tony. He did it.

• 1:52:50Speaker 07

  And him getting engaged is kind of like a little mini metaphor for Vegas. You know, it's like he finally settled down. I feel like the city has kind of settled down. It's kind of like we're done being the crazy uncle, you know, like we're ready to be

• 1:53:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:53:01Speaker 07

  A normal American city.

• 1:53:02Speaker 06

  We're the dead and company.

• 1:53:03Bill Simmons?

  Also, maybe in the 2020s, we didn't want a crazy uncle anymore. I wanted a crazy uncle, but maybe most people.

• 1:53:09Speaker 07

  What's the candidate for next great crazy uncle city? Like what could just go absolutely ape shit?

• 1:53:15Bill Simmons?

  Pieces of Vegas, but it'll never be like people that Nashville, I think, has gotten a lot of steam. I still, New Orleans is still awesome. That's the funny thing about New Orleans, like compared to Vegas. I feel like New Orleans is exactly the same from when I was there, like for the Pats Super Bowl, like it, it just like same kind of restaurants. The food's the same. The casino's in that one spot in the middle. And when I go, I almost feel like in a good way, I'm going back to like

• 1:53:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:53:41Bill Simmons?

  A time warp of like, oh, I fucking love New Orleans. When I go back to Vegas, I'm like, I'm always noticing stuff they added.

• 1:53:47Speaker 06

  You have sensory overload.

• 1:53:49Bill Simmons?

  How chaotic it was. And there's just the, every single chef has a restaurant there now, including our friend Chang as a couple. And they're just adding, adding, adding. They built a fucking F1 track. They're gonna have like, you know, this, this awesome basketball arena and on and on and on it goes. And I, so it's, to me, it's less of a destination and more like, ah, maybe you should just actually live there. If you live there, you're not going to gamble as much, which is why they're giving

• 1:54:14Speaker 06

  That's because you turn into a Martian because it's 115 degrees there. But yeah.

• 1:54:18Bill Simmons?

  I do, part of me.

• 1:54:19Speaker 07

  That's why I go in November, though. The weather is unbelievable in November.

• 1:54:23Bill Simmons?

  It's also just beautiful to be there.

• 1:54:24Speaker 06

  What's your maximum amount of time you can spend in Vegas in any one trip?

• 1:54:28Speaker 07

  I mean, when we went for CinemaCon, it was three and a half days. And I was like, this is a long trip. I gotta get out of here.

• 1:54:33Speaker 06

  30 hours, like 36 hours.

• 1:54:35Bill Simmons?

  I did, I think, six days once when my first year for Page Two. Red is my column was taking off. I convinced them to send me for the Rockman Lewis sequel fight. And it was 2001. I went early. I covered the fight. I'd always wanted to cover a fight like a real writer. And did the whole thing, went to the fight. But that weekend, my boys came and we had a Vegas weekend. And then I stayed.

• 1:55:01Speaker 06

  Did you charge Skipper for that?

• 1:55:03Bill Simmons?

  It was the first time I was like, oh, I can use.

• 1:55:05Speaker 07

  I got dinner.

• 1:55:06Bill Simmons?

  Use this Disney money. I can charge stuff.

• 1:55:08Speaker 06

  John Walsh is like, Bill, I have some questions.

• 1:55:10Bill Simmons?

  So by Sunday I had bronchitis.

• 1:55:12Speaker 07

  I'm seeing a Spearmint Rhino charge here.

• 1:55:14Bill Simmons?

  What is this? By Sunday I had bronchitis. The Pats played the Rams. It was the year the 2001 Pats won the Super Bowl. Played the Rams. We lost, but we kind of hung. And I watched in a sports book. I'm just coughing up oysters. And it was day five and I was like, I might like die. Like, because I had done Vegas the way you would do it if you're there for two days for five straight.

• 1:55:36Speaker 07

  Do you feel like if, one thing I have noticed is it does feel healthier in the casinos now than it did.

• 1:55:43Bill Simmons?

  Way less cigarette smoke.

• 1:55:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:55:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no question. Sorry, CR.

• 1:55:47Speaker 06

  No, it's all right. All the guys who go for Summer League who are like, I've been here for 13 days. They all turn into Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. They're all just like, day 10. I can't believe I'm still in the fucking Aria, you know, like.

• 1:56:01Speaker 07

  The horror, the horror.

• 1:56:02Bill Simmons?

  There is. I am really nostalgic for the old, even like in that scene in Swingers. It really, that really was what going to Vegas was like. You went in, it was super boring to get there. You got there. It was great. It was kind of. You know, kind of, kind of low scale discounty. Then there was like a couple aspirational casinos, like someday we'll gamble there. I don't know if that still exists.

• 1:56:27Speaker 06

  I think Sean drove me out there once. And I think in my mind, I still thought, cause it in swingers, it's like they leave and then yeah, there's like the like, we're not there yet scene, but it feels like it takes place in like an evening.

• 1:56:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:56:40Speaker 06

  And we drove out there and I, it was the drive back was even worse because you drive into the sun driving back.

• 1:56:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:56:46Speaker 06

  And we, we just listened to Rage Against the Machine and I was like, I'm never driving again. I'm flying next time.

• 1:56:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, I still like to drive.

• 1:56:53Speaker 06

  It's a long, it's like a sneaky long drive though.

• 1:56:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, it was, but not if you're Bill Simmons.

• 1:56:58Speaker 06

  No, that's true. We aren't you guys both like?

• 1:57:00Bill Simmons?

  Three twenty nine was my, was my record.

• 1:57:03Speaker 06

  What's your record?

• 1:57:05Bill Simmons?

  It's in that zone. It's in that, it's in that realm. You like that time?

• 1:57:08Speaker 06

  It's like I'm watching F1 right here.

• 1:57:09Bill Simmons?

  You get really lucky when it goes from three lanes to two.

• 1:57:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's also if you go at night, that's better, obviously. If you try to leave at nine AM on a Sunday, it's hell.

• 1:57:18Bill Simmons?

  No, you either have to leave from LA like nine, nine thirty AM.

• 1:57:24Bill Simmons?

  Or late.

• 1:57:24Speaker 06

  Eight PM, right? Nine PM.

• 1:57:26Bill Simmons?

  Cause if you, if you're hitting the traffic for rush hour either way at any point, but yeah, well, we'll see.

• 1:57:33Speaker 07

  I'm not, I'm not giving it up though.

• 1:57:35Bill Simmons?

  How about this Vegas, come invite us and let us, let us help you with some ideas.

• 1:57:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:57:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:57:39Bill Simmons?

  We're available.

• 1:57:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, I, uh,

• 1:57:43Speaker 07

  I'm, I'm willing to take a Dell spot.

• 1:57:44Bill Simmons?

  I think if I was like, if they hired us to be like, all right, give us your pitch. What are we doing wrong? What are we missing? Be like, you're, you're not giving stuff for the people in their twenties and thirties. Who don't have a shitload of money, who want to go for the weekend and don't want to get bankrupted because they can't afford to go to Rayo's.

• 1:58:02Speaker 06

  I bet that there is like a wellness bar and hot yoga and stuff like that, but people are like, I don't, I don't come to Vegas to get well, you know?

• 1:58:10Speaker 07

  You would help design the AI assisted virtual porn chambers though?

• 1:58:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, exactly. The sports books are not going to be the same.

• 1:58:20Speaker 07

  What can you do?

• 1:58:21Bill Simmons?

  That's, I mean, that's a loss.

• 1:58:22Speaker 07

  That's over.

• 1:58:23Bill Simmons?

  It's not, it'll just never be there.

• 1:58:25Speaker 07

  The Ringer 107 has replaced that, unfortunately.

• 1:58:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, unfortunately for the picks we've had too. Sean, Chris, great to see you.

• 1:58:31Speaker 07

  Thanks, Bill.

• 1:58:33Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach Lowe, thanks to Sean and Chris as well. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo. I'm going to be back on Thursday with, uh, with one more podcast. We'll do a lot of football and I got to dig myself out of a pretty, pretty, pretty brutal start to the gambling season. I'm not worried. I've been, we've been, we've had our backs to the wall before. We'll be fine, but I will see you on Thursday.

• 1:59:10Bill Simmons?

  Let's be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes?

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

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• 2:00:36Bill Simmons?

  who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.