A 2024 NBA Redraft, Plus 2020s Sliding Doors With Ryen Russillo

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bulls shocking the Lakers on Saturday night and reexamine the 2024 NBA draft class (4:01). Then they discuss the Cavaliers' four-game losing streak and wonder whether Donovan Mitchell could lose his first-team All-NBA spot to Anthony Edwards (35:43). Finally, they discuss their biggest NBA "sliding doors" moments of the 2020s (58:49). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat Order Michelob ULTRA today, available on Doordash! ENJOY RESPONSIBLY © 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA® LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. 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.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  You're listening to the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. FanDuel Sportsbook is the best place to bet on the NBA. We have these fun little Tuesday, Friday player performance stuff. We have same game parlays. We have picks for me sometimes and boosts and all kinds of fun things. Get ready in the playoffs. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. And by the way, The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit theringer.com/rg to learn more. Listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus, president of select states. Game in problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Celtic City on HBO and Max, 9:00 PM, Monday night. Larry Bird shows up. The early 80s begins and it's awesome. Please check it out.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply.

• 1:29Bill Simmons?

  Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I have new rewatchables coming up because it is still sports movie month. So we did Blue Chips. It was me and Van Lathan and Chris Ryan. And the reason we did it was because we did it like in 2017. We didn't even have the categories yet. So we decided March Madness. Let's just go, let's bring this baby back. So much fun to talk about. You can watch that as a video podcast on Spotify. You can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well, where we also put up a reaction on the Happy Gilmore 2 trailer that I actually pitched them my idea for the sports movie sequel I want to see the most. And it involves basketball. So you can go check that out on our YouTube channel.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  The Prestige TV Podcast, we're still covering White Lotus, episode six.

• 2:20Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night on HBO, right after it ends, you can go there and you can listen to me and Mallory and Joanna Breakdown, episode six, which was fantastic. I am going to Boston in a couple of days because we're doing a live rewatchables at House of Blue. We're doing Good Will Hunting for everybody coming to that, uh, to that live show. We did Good Will Hunting, I think in the first two years of the pod, but way more categories. Plus, we got Russillo this time, perfect movie to do in Boston. And then we're gonna have a Coolidge Corner Film Festival Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Check out the ringer.com/events. There's still some tickets left, I think, for some of the theater, for some of the movie stuff. Uh, me and Sean and Chris are gonna be

• 3:02Bill Simmons?

  there, probably talking after a couple of the movies. So, um, so there you go. Coolidge Corner all weekend. I don't think there's gonna be a live show with me and Russillo on Sunday night in Boston. Um, I think we're just gonna do the pod regularly. Um, we'll see though. You never know. Could there be a last second live show? Maybe. Anyway, we're also brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, where they have these player performance doubles, two-leg parlays made for you specifically. Take an NBA player prop, like Luca's gonna score 30, the Lakers are gonna win. And they have a Ringer Player Boost token on these, placed on any of the games. Um, and it's good if you hit

• 3:44Bill Simmons?

  them. And there's a lot of good games on Tuesday, including Dallas and the Knicks and Golden State, Miami. So stay tuned. I'm gonna tweet out my pick on Tuesday. Be sure to claim the Ringer PBT in the carousel on the FanDuel Sportsbook app this Tuesday. So coming up, the original plan for this podcast was we're gonna do two-thirds of a podcast and then, uh, put the topper after OKC Clippers tonight. So what happened? We started taping at, uh, 10:45 a.m. Pacific Time, and we just kept going for two hours. And we just had a full podcast. So we're just gonna put it up. So I hope nothing absolutely insane happens to OKC and, uh, and the Clippers in that game tonight, um, that we regret not talking about, but this is how we landed. It's

• 4:27Bill Simmons?

  a very good podcast. It's all coming up next for our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 4:52Bill Simmons?

  All right, we staggered this podcast. So this part of the pod, we are taping at 11 a.m. P T. We want to do some 2020 sliding doors. I also wanted to tell you about the Bulls Lakers game I went to last night. Did you happen to see any minutes of that game?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watched the entire second half.

• 5:10Bill Simmons?

  So the Bulls, first of all, are turning into a very belatedly fun end of the season league pass team because they kind of know who they are and they play really fast and they have two good guards that attack, attack, attack. And you could tell pretty early, this wasn't going to be the Lakers night with the way how hard the Bulls were playing and how much they're attacking the rim. They're outside of threes. It did make me wonder if there was a little bit of a blueprint in there to beat this Lakers team with go, go, go, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep attacking. They don't really have a rim protector. They don't really want to run up and down. They want to slow things down. And I was trying to think of anyone else in the West that could basically replicate that. And it's

• 5:52Bill Simmons?

  obviously OKC. And it may be last night, and I don't know if it's a very extra, but last night made me really think like, I think, I think they would be in a heap of trouble in an OKC series with the athletes and the speed. And I'm not positive they can match it.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Couple of things. The Bulls were incredible last night. All right. And the Lakers defense is terrible, but it's the first back or first came back with LeBron. Those games when he was out, you know, their net rating was negative. Their offense was 21st, their defense was 19th. They still went three and four, I believe is the record. But that was like an all time game. I mean, Bazellis is so much fun. That baseline movie he had on Luca was, was awesome. I'm Giddy was close to a quadruple double, the first one since David Robinson.

• 6:36Bill Simmons?

  They kept him in there. The end. We were driving home and they were like, they're keeping Giddy in in case he can get two more steals. So it's like, whoa. He would Giddy was incredible. And by the way, let's take a victory lap.

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  We were like the only two people in America who liked that trade for the Bulls last summer. So I'm victory lapping that. And by the way, I have the people scouting tracks for the Scoot victory lap near the end of the season. And improbable, I had given up, but we both never sold our stock. And now I'm ready to run around the track and wave to our fans.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I'm not ready for that one yet because I think we liked him so much. It was on the path to stardom, but yeah, it's pretty clear. He's not going to be the worst player that plays minutes in the NBA and he might stick around for a little while.

• 7:19Bill Simmons?

  That sounds like a victory lap for both of us anyway.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Man, watching the Lakers broadcast is really funny because you would have thought the Bulls like were the two seed in the East. And when Patrick Williams comes off a curl on the right side and hit that three of all people, you're like, okay. I mean, Chicago is just rolling. So back to your blueprint thing. You might be right. You might be right. I think when the Lakers went, what 18 and three? And their defense was like a top three or four defense in the NBA. I was like, are they really this good? And now that they're leaking a bit defensively, LeBron in and out of it, you know, like now that he's back, let's judge them based on this. I always find this time of year, these last 10 to 12 games, this closing stretch of the season. I don't want to say all of it is irrelevant, but I really feel like this is the time of the year where you can get tricked. And it can be really misleading and there can be just effort nights.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  You know, whether it was that San Antonio Knicks game a couple of nights ago where mom was insane. And the Knicks were trying, like you kept watching that game, being like, all right, enough of this. Like the Knicks are going to put together a run and then they're going to figure it out. You have Cleveland who's lost four in a row, which I don't know if we'll get to that with some of the Mitchell stuff. So

• 8:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, we will.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Continue on the, on the blueprint because I mean, is OKC the blueprint to the Lakers? Or are they just a lot better than the Lakers?

• 8:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the thing. But I do think there's people in the NBA, and I've certainly considered the case that if you're going to beat OKC, it would have to be with a pretty weird, different type of team that has a lot of, you know, guys who have been in big situations. And then a big physical, hard team to play with multiple scoring options would be the case for LA against OKC. OKC hasn't been there. LA is not going to be afraid to be on the road. What I saw last night, you can really use the defaults of, of Luca and 40-year-old LeBron against them. And LeBron actually was trying harder than Luca and he was trying to chase down blocks. Luca, he can get carried away with the refs.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  I thought LeBron looked great last night physically.

• 9:15Bill Simmons?

  He looked fast.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  There was that stretch before the two threes that made it a 23-point game when JJ just was like, all right, enough of this. There was a stretch where LeBron was actually like, I was watching for that to be like, if he's just gonna, hey, I'm gonna get some cardio in. There was a stretch where you could tell on that one drive before it got to 23 points. It's like, okay, he still thinks they have a chance in this thing. So I thought he looked great.

• 9:35Bill Simmons?

  And was playing hard. But yeah, they, I think if you keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, they're gonna start to bend a little bit because they don't want to play that way. And the other thing they did was they pressured Luka, which I don't understand why teams don't do this against the Lakers. I don't understand why they don't do it against Boston with Tatum. Anybody that has a non-point guard dribbling the ball up, I don't understand why it's not 80 feet of pressure. Giddy was in, was in and around Luka all night. Luka was just getting more and more pissed. Finally got a technical. He must have shoved him three or four times. They were talking shit during the free throws. And that's another way to get at this Lakers team is you can really fuck with Luka. He takes everything personally. You can, you could just be like,

• 10:19Bill Simmons?

  hey, like, think about OKC, like, hey, Lou Dort, just fuck with Luka this whole series. Just, just stand around him, stand next to him in timeouts. Luka's like a big, can I have my personal space guy? And Giddy was just not having it. So I, I thought, uh, you look, they played out of their minds. And as you said, they were making crazy threes. The Bazellus thing is, is a real wrinkle. I don't think that's an overreaction thing. But anyway, I was just thinking like blueprint wise, athletes wise, OKC, that's the game they're gonna watch. That's the game they're gonna show their guys. Like, watch this. Watch what speed and athleticism and pace can potentially do if we meet this Lakers team. All right. I want to do a special

• 11:01Bill Simmons?

  gimmick here, and it's gonna be brought to you by Workday. Are you a forward thinker? Then you need an HR and finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday, the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, and your entire industry into the future. I wish we could use it for the NBA draft in the best possible way because that's what we're about to talk about. Workday, moving business forward forever. All right. So this is a no prep segment. I did not do prep for it either. I just thought of it last night watching Bazellus, who I really, really, really like. And I was just like, instant right now blink test, redraft. Let's do a top eight. No prep whatsoever. Just top eight gut feeling. My one would still be Castle.

• 11:47Bill Simmons?

  Would your one still be Castle? Or is there anyone in this draft you like more than him?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm not ready to put Castle one. Even though I know he's rookie of the year and there's just a toughness and maturity to his game. It feels like a really good bet as far as the floor, but I like what I've seen from Reese Shays. So I still think he's number one.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. Okay. Would it make the case for Reese Shays? Cause he's stumbled a little and now it's, now it's coming back a lot, I think.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which I think is to be expected. There are just nights where I see him in his activity. Like I think what you always worry about with somebody who's just still an unknown is like, is he going to be overwhelmed by all this stuff? You know, physically, is he just going to sit in the corner? Cause I mean, look, even when you did the draft tape of him, there was plenty of games. You're like, is this guy just going to sit in the corner? Like what the hell's going on here? And it's not like I was watching 20 full games of him before the draft, but it was pretty clear early on that his, his comfort level was a little bit higher despite, you know, his physical disadvantages. And I just think at that size and that kind of shot making, there's a, that's the reason why that guy goes number one. And that's why even through a rookie season, there'd still be a lot of teams would be like, give me the ceiling of that guy.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Not just his spot up ability, but off the dribble at that size. And yeah, I mean, it's overused, but he appears to get it in a way that you hope when you're drafting somebody this high, like, okay. You know, there's certain guys that come in and immediately, you know, like, uh oh. And I don't have any of those concerns when I watch him. So I, I don't, like, even if Castle would probably be the popular pick and maybe everybody's right. Do you understand the ceiling part of it for his size and shooting?

• 13:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I had him.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Doesn't have, right.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  I had, I had him in the blink test, no prep. He, he was number two to me and I just like Castle a little more because I can see him as a top three guy on a contender down the road. Reese Shea probably, the hoops IQ is there. I like that he's always moving. He's not like, uh, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to stand over here like he moves. If there's, if they'll get, if they get a rebound, he'll take off. Like he'll try to get, he'll think like, uh, oh, maybe if I bust my ass on this, I'll get the ball and I'll be able to get a dunk. I don't think Trey, I think Trey's both fun to play with sometimes and then really not fun to play with other times. But, um, he seems like he's getting better. So I would have him, I'd have him second. And I, I think that's a pretty good pick for them.

• 14:15Bill Simmons?

  I, where, where this gets interesting is the third pick. Cause I think those are clearly one, two. I would have Castle first, you'd have Reese Shea first, but I think that's the one, too. But the third, from what you've seen, who would you take?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Whoa, uh, I think this is where it gets hard. Well, you were probably driving home thinking Bazellus last night, am I right?

• 14:35Bill Simmons?

  But I also saw Sar a week ago and I'm like, Jesus Christ, this guy's Serge Ibaka with three point range. Like this, this looks great, but, uh, I, look, I've watched Bazellus on TV a few times. Like really like watch, I actually like watching the Bulls, full confession. Uh, I was excited to see him in person last night and of course, just randomly saw the best game he could possibly have. I don't really know what he's missing from that position because he can shoot. I like his stroke. He goes to the basket. He's really athletic and there's a little bit of a fuck you to him that I really saw for four quarters last night. Like he's not afraid, he's, he's, it's a little feisty.

• 15:16Bill Simmons?

  Um, and I, I just could clearly see, I see what he is for the next 10 years. And I think they nailed that pick. So for me, it's either Sar or him for that third spot. And I'd probably lean toward Bazellus.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess that's the sorrow part of it is he's just getting so many more opportunities because they don't care. But through the last four months, he shot it really well from three and he takes those threes. I do worry a little bit at times when I've watched the Wizards where if it's a close game, you know, I don't know that they really care. And it's like, hey, Sar's gonna get into his bag and pull up.

• 15:51Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  But he also might think like, if I don't shoot it, Jordan Poole's just gonna shoot it. So I might as well do this. So, you know, I think always the fear is whenever you're drafting kind of these unknowns and even Reese Sheppard, when we were doing the draft, I was like, this is just crazy. When you think about this draft, like somebody like this is going number one overall. But then it was, you know, right back to the argument of Sar or Reed Shepard, who can't even get minutes with Houston right now, who I think if Reed were playing somewhere that didn't care, we would probably still be leaning Shepard third.

• 16:21Bill Simmons?

  Right. If he was like the Wizards point guard instead of Jordan Poole.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, whatever team like, Buselis is just not gonna have, Buselis is just not gonna have the opportunities that Sar has. And Sar's rebounding, three-point shooting, like I've talked about, he's really only had one bad month with, with all of this. You know, it wasn't a great start, but as you could say, the same thing for Reese Sheppard. I mean, Reese Sheppard's shot it really, really well now, the entire second half of the season. So I'll still go Sar third because just at that size and that shooting and how much I personally think that, like you're a completely different team when you have a five-out center, when you have somebody that can stretch the floor, you know, a couple of years down the road projecting what you can do in the playoffs. I think it just opens a lot of stuff up. Like as much as we all like what the Clippers have done, that win against the Cavs, like I

• 17:07Speaker 01

  kind of get back to, as great as Zoo is, and we all appreciate him, does it kind of limit your looks when you don't have a guy that can stretch at the five? And Sar is, that is the hope, is that they drafted somebody like that, that can play defense. He runs really well. I mean, he runs the floor all night long. And I think that was, that's why that guy went too, even if it was really choppy, watching him, he took the shots, which I guess is, is good. But now he's hitting them enough to justify like four to five attempts a game.

• 17:38Bill Simmons?

  You know, I trust Joe House on hoops if he's actually watching as much as anyone in my life.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  He's been really good. I want to back you up on that. Over the years, the text thread, when he has a very specific Wizards observation, it's usually always on.

• 17:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And this has been the case since the late 80s. And I think he was more afraid of the bust potential with Sar than anybody. And he's been saying all year, like he likes him. Doesn't, isn't positive what he is ultimately, but there's definitely some Ibaka stuff in there and he's not afraid to shoot. And his stroke's pretty good and you can kind of see what he is. Like he was drafted as a stretch five. If they were lucky enough to get flag in the draft, you put him like Sar would be the ideal guy to put flag next to, I would say, with those two together. So feels like they have something. All right. So you go Sar three, Buzelis four, and I would go Buzelis three, Sar four, it sounds like.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what it sounds like. I mean, at some point here, we have to mention Kalu Ware.

• 18:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, I thought the guy we haven't mentioned yet is McCain, who got hurt and was looking like the most ready rookie and is only, I don't even know if he's 20 yet. But I think from what we saw from McCain before he got hurt, I, I, I might take him above Reid. Because I know Reid's not playing and I know it's not his fault and I know it's probably not a great situation for him, but I still think it's weird that he's not playing. I thought, it's not like Houston doesn't need him and they had a stretch where Van Vliet was out for a few weeks and he still wasn't really playing. And I, maybe he's just a guy that needs big minutes and isn't capable of coming off the bench and playing 15, but

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  I promise you, they thought they were getting a little more from him this year than this with the shooting, you know?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  That's fine. And when he, when he finally got minutes that one game where he was really decisive and you could just see all the special stuff with him, that he is a really good athlete. And then when he was coming off the screen, it was actually a little bit like Bronny in that Bucks game where it's like, okay, well, if he's going to be decisive.

• 19:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Like I didn't, I didn't ever expect to see this and maybe it's being decisive. Like you can't just throw away all of Bronny's attempts and say, oh, they were down 30. Like who cares if he's decisive? Cause he was decisive earlier in the game. But Reed had that game where he went off and you could tell he was reading how they were playing him coming off the screen. Where I think when you're a young player, you're not getting any minutes, you're not even like looking at that stuff. You're just going, all right, you know, what's the read? And should I just get rid of this ball? He was really good with, with that. I also can see it as an Emei thing where young guard.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna beat you up here.

• 20:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're not playing defense nearly at the level I want to be at. So you're just not gonna play. Sorry.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're fighting for playoff seeding throughout all this. McCain is 21.

• 20:27Bill Simmons?

  And they're winning.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  21. Yeah, Reed's Reed's 21 this summer. So, you know, a lot of these guys, they come in a little bit older now, but yeah, I think I'd still go Shepard just because of the shot making. But McCain, you're right. I mean, it was the only good story of the Sixers all year long. Like, I guess I just don't feel like in March after the draft of saying the only guys that produced have to be ahead of all of the prospects that aren't even getting opportunities and just reshuffling it based on shot attempts.

• 20:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm saying it more from, I just loved what McCain was doing when he was playing. I, I see what he is. He's a combo guard.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  So you would take him fifth? You might be right, by the way. So I'm, this isn't like me pushing back.

• 21:08Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if either of us are necessarily even right, but I, I think I would take him right now over, over Reed. But I, I think it's close. And then after that, we move into this, you know, you got Bob Carrington, you got Jalen Wells, the kid on Memphis, Edie's still there, Ware's still around.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Eves Misi.

• 21:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Misi on, on New Orleans, Ron Holland, the fight starter. And then Klingon, I think would be the, kind of the next group. And then it becomes a question of what do you like?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Quentin Post.

• 21:43Bill Simmons?

  Quentin Post, Shannon's out there. It's a weird, fun draft, but I think if, if we're looking at who has the best chance to be really good coming out of this draft, I think we hit the top six, right? Is there anybody else?

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Well, I think what's really interesting is how early the Dalton Connect story was, are you kidding me?

• 22:02Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  They got this guy at 17. And the fact that they traded him that soon.

• 22:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Is alarming that they were like, we're good. Now, you could argue, hey, it was Mark Williams. Mark Williams version 2.0 has been better. We know the injury history with him.

• 22:19Bill Simmons?

  Argue they should have still made the trade.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And their need and thinking, okay, well, they've added Luca, like there's a glaring need. Can you really make it through the playoffs with Jackson Hayes? But Jackson's life is entirely better now because you're playing with somebody like Luca. And it's just like, look, just show defensively, attack at the rim, run the floor all night.

• 22:39Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't rebound though. You could see it last night, like he's, he's great at alley oops, kind of knows where to go and what to do. But

• 22:46Speaker 01

  The fact that he's turned into somebody who might be a backup for a long time though, it was a complete win. Considering how lost he had looked for multiple seasons. But I think back to the connect point is those first few months. And right, you know, he's a mess on defense and yes, he's older because of his, his college travels. But it's like, I can't believe this guy got him at 17. Are we sitting here at the end of the year thinking he actually probably went, based on the names you've already listed here? We hadn't even gotten to him, that he kind of went in the range that you would still put him in today?

• 23:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's definitely, I would say, uh, you know, like he's after where there was a three week stretch where it seemed idiotic that Miami didn't take connect and that they took where over him. And now I think, you know, it's, it's also not like Miami's playing well. The one that's I think the most polarizing with different people I've talked to is Klingon. Whether this is just kind of who he is, a guy who can box some shots, who's a little slow, doesn't really have any offense. Or whether this is somebody that could potentially be the anchor of a really good team. And I think the fact that he's getting actual minutes for them and they've been a good basketball team for, you know, two plus months here and really competitive. And I, I think he's a piece and feel the same way about Edie.

• 23:58Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if they're ever, uh, you know, one of the four best guys on an awesome team, probably not. But could they be in an eight man rotation on a really good team? I think they could.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  The Klingon thing feels a little tough, um, just because.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  When you look at Portland and the number of guys out there that want to shoot.

• 24:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  You know, Sharp should be shooting. You know, Simons is somebody that still bails him out of a lot of possessions. Denny's going to get his shots. You know, Scoot isn't shooting. Uh, you know, it's, nobody wants to be Chris Paul their second season of their career.

• 24:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's tough when you're playing with Denny and Denny all of a sudden turns into Larry Bird. In the last six weeks, when he looks like he's doing the 85 bird impersonation.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:45Bill Simmons?

  It's unbelievable how good he is. Even he's saying like, I've never played this well in my life. I don't know what's happening.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Banton had that stretch last year post-Boston was like, man, this guy can actually really score, you know?

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  He couldn't crack the rotation for Boston. Then you'll watch him where I don't think anybody gets happier when the game clock is with the shot clock off. Banton's like, awesome. Like now I don't have to pass this to anybody. So Klingon's in a really tough spot.

• 25:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  As far as like, you know, he might be the sixth best option when he's playing on the court.

• 25:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Offensively for them. So it, it, look, I think the, considering like it went from could he go number one to then he goes seven. You know, being stuck behind eight and Rob Williams update, he's got three to four weeks.

• 25:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just assume he's not playing.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 25:35Bill Simmons?

  If you see him, it's like a bonus. It's like, oh, there he is.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Why did Portland get this guy? I, I know what you're saying. Like you'd like to see some higher like ceiling moments from him offensively. But I, I don't know that it's entirely fair to like, oh, you know, this might, but maybe those guys are right because I, I hear it too. Like this is, you guys were nuts. He wasn't this good. This is why he went where he went. And, you know, he's a, he's a rotational big that they took this high. You know, like, man, that'll suck.

• 26:05Bill Simmons?

  And so really it's a six and then it's kind of a, let's see. Depends on who you like, but we should talk about Ron Holland for a split second. Who was the fifth pick in the draft.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  He is still 19 years old. He carries himself like he's 32.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  They throw him out there like he plays real minutes every game. Sometimes he's pretty good. Sometimes he'll make some shots. He's physical. Um, he's a little early era and I don't mean this in a melee standpoint, Ron Artest-ish. Like actually reminds me of Ron Artest. Hopefully he won't go charging into row three at some point in his career. But, um, they took him pretty high and I, you know, I'm not against it. They took him fifth overall. We don't have him in our top six, but I don't, wouldn't rule him out, would you? We'll see. He's 19.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  No, but unfortunately the scouting report tracks on him. You know, he had some okay months as far as shooting, but he's also shot at 11% from three. He shot at 15% from three. Yeah. And in March, March, he's at 7%. Now he's, he's, he's not really taking them as much anymore. I, I actually think that's like one of the funniest things about young perimeter players and they come in, they're like, hey, you can't shoot. And it's like, well, time to learn. NBA games and they just start taking threes because everybody just takes threes. And then you can see it get to some guys where you go, hey, maybe you shouldn't be taking even three a game. So the percentages are even worse now because he's taking even less of them. But I'm with you. I love the aggression and that's what

• 27:45Speaker 01

  you saw before the draft. There is a no nonsense part of him. Isaiah Stewart, I don't know if that's the best teammate for him to have or the worst teammate for him to have.

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  He's definitely going to be going in this, in, into the other bench for the bench clearing bra. He'll be the first guy behind him.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  But Detroit, you know, has spacing around Cade and that's what's opened up Cade. They defend, they shoot. So the Holland minutes, I'll admit, like I, I love the aggression that drives the body size of like mixing it up with guys and like, there's never a moment of him where he's like deferring at the rim, like he's trying to go for it. But, uh, you know, there's no way he's closing with the Pistons, I would imagine in a playoff game because he's just not going to provide any spacing. Like everybody, imagine in a playoff series, how he would be defended. Like it just means there's another guy in Cade.

• 28:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He'll, he'll, they'll throw him out for little five minute stretches. But yeah, I think the playoffs will be a little different. How many minutes do you think Ron Artest played as a rookie in the 2000 Bulls?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Like eight a game?

• 28:47Bill Simmons?

  Thirty one point one.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Wait, he did as a rookie?

• 28:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Oh, I was thinking Jimmy Butler. My bad.

• 28:53Bill Simmons?

  No, I would have said eight a game. Yeah, he was thirty one percent from three.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Cause I loved him so much at St. John's that.

• 29:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember playing that. But also, I didn't have league pass that year, so I can't say the 2000 Bulls were on my TV a lot that year. But yeah, he and he couldn't shoot either. There's same size. He reminds me of him a little bit. Any Bob Carrington thoughts before we move on?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like Bob a lot.

• 29:18Bill Simmons?

  Keyshawn, Kai, Kai Sean George?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Lot of size, lot of size for a perimeter guy.

• 29:25Bill Simmons?

  Quentin Post?

• 29:28Bill Simmons?

  Could have like a 12 year career.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, incredible, incredible scouting job. And now he's the.

• 29:35Bill Simmons?

  Fifty second pick. Collier?

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  Had a couple of moments on Utah. He like, he like, he was like averaging seven, eight assists a game for like a month.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think he has a really nice handle, drive, combination stuff with him, but, but Utah has all like, it's another group of guys that all just think.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  You know.

• 30:01Bill Simmons?

  It's just a pickup game that never ends with the Utah Jazz. Just.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  It's exactly.

• 30:05Bill Simmons?

  Guys not knowing if they're getting run. Who knows? We'll see how long Will Hardy enjoys that. And Dillingham just doesn't play. Shane Junior had some fun moments when people were out and then. Talk to me about your, your Charlotte guy that you loved.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Solon, it's just kind of a mess.

• 30:25Bill Simmons?

  But you were expecting that?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:27Bill Simmons?

  In retrospect, six might have been a whiff too high for him.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he just.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  You know when he's out there, so we'll, we'll at least give him that. But you know, it's just a lot of running around.

• 30:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, when he's out there is not a compliment.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I think it is.

• 30:50Bill Simmons?

  I, I think Bozella's falling to 11.

• 30:56Bill Simmons?

  Is probably like looking back at the draft, who knows with all these dudes, they're all like babies, basically, but

• 31:03Bill Simmons?

  that's the one that I think is going to seem weird down the road. McCain, whatever. We, we knew that McCain was falling too far as it was happening, but Bozella's like a team like Charlotte, that would have been a really nice pick for them.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Well, the knock was he couldn't shoot. He shot it better in the first half of the season as he's played more minutes, he shot it worse, but.

• 31:19Bill Simmons?

  Strokes there.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  But I would say he, yeah, I don't know. Look, you don't have to listen to me. You can listen to scouts because whenever you first started watching him. I mean, if there was an end one mixtape and that's all you were allowed to look at, he's the number one pick in the draft. Okay. So the more you watched him and then scouts are like, we've been waiting for this guy to shoot for years. And he's never really been able to shoot it. But it wasn't just the dunk that he had on the baseline Luka last night. There was another play later in the game where it was just really smart, like that secondary cut, which again, if you're playing with Giddy, like Giddy's one of those players. It's like, if you just stay active in the possession, if you just keep thinking that there's an option for you, you're going to be rewarded.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  And he had a cut off the left side on a Giddy drive on the right side where he was, he was rewarded for staying active. And at that point too, like the Lakers.

• 32:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that whole team moves though. It's really like that team is like, if I move, I might get the ball.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  God, you love the Bulls.

• 32:14Bill Simmons?

  I did. I really did. I thought, uh, look, it was the perfect opponent for them, but I've liked that. I mean, what have they won? Like seven of the last nine? They've been on my radar for a couple of weeks here because I've been trying to figure out playing stuff and I've been scouting some teams, watching Miami just on the cruise ship to hell and just thinking like, could any, watching Atlanta a little bit, could anybody, you know, emerge and be a possible seventh seed in a team that's playing the Celtics? And I think the, if the, the Bulls got the seventh seed and played the Celtics, the Celtics would beat them, but that's not a fun series. And those guys will be running gun, go, go, go the whole time. I don't love it.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  You're nuts.

• 32:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying it's not a fun series.

• 32:57Bill Simmons?

  Not saying the Celtics would lose. I just, I don't like playing teams with gimmicks that are really confident in their gimmick.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  They're 31 and 40.

• 33:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I know. What are they, like eight of their last 10, seven of their last nine, something like that?

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Seven of the last nine. Would you rather?

• 33:13Bill Simmons?

  They traded Levine. And they, they, they're playing better now.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:18Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, your guy, your guy, who you sold your stock on a couple of years ago, Red Velvet, called the broker and like, just unload it. Just get rid of it.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Did I?

• 33:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Just get rid of it. I don't want it.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  I thought we did a role play of that where I was like, we're still in.

• 33:35Bill Simmons?

  Maybe you're still in. I don't know. In my head, you had sold it.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I don't remember.

• 33:38Bill Simmons?

  Certainly I haven't heard you talking about him that much, but Red Velvet, uh, Red Velvet seemed a little back.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Our pod got a little too white. We had a stretch there where I was like, dude, can you, do you guys want Doug McDermott? And I was like, yeah, I love Doug McDermott. Let's have him on. And they're like, you got Herter?

• 33:54Bill Simmons?

  Six white guys started the game last night. Six of the 10. My wife just, cause I, I brought my wife and she's like, is this unusual? She was stunned. Um.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, man, things are changing.

• 34:07Bill Simmons?

  I've been, I've been telling Ben a lot, that he better, we're coming back, flag, we're coming back.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Best Buy ad with that rapper, that woman, the buster, and then they went to her.

• 34:18Bill Simmons?

  Thanks to Get into Workday for sponsoring that segment. I had a good time. Learn more at workday.com. We're going to take a break and come back with more basketball. Hey, let me tell you about one of my favorite bets that Fanduel has right now. Player performance doubles. We do them on Tuesdays. Two leg parlay is already made for you. Let's say you think Luca is going to score 30 and the Lakers are going to win in a game. Well, now you can bet on that because Fanduel will take a player prop, add it with that player's team to win. And then on top of it, Fanduel is giving all customers a profit boost token exclusively for those bets on Tuesday that you can use. Head to fanduel.com/BS and you can get your profit boost.

• 34:58Bill Simmons?

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• 35:43Bill Simmons?

  historical legacy stuff. It's my favorite. You've heard me talk about on the podcast many times. Speaking of finals, Michelob Ultra has given you the chance to win tickets to the NBA Finals, which I hope Boston is a part of. Not only do they make a superior beer, they're also helping fans like you get closer to the game. Michelob Ultra, superior is worth playing for. Check out michelobultra.com/nbafinals to enter for a chance to win tickets. Michelob Ultra Courtside NBA Finals Sweepstakes, no purchase necessary. Open to US residents, excluding Maryland residents. 21 and up. Ends on May 5th, 2025. See official rules

• 36:25Bill Simmons?

  at michelobultra.com/rules for price and detail. Message and data rates may apply, void where prohibited. Other topic before we do our sliding doors thing is, is the Cavs lose four in a row and Mitchell, I was saying last week on this podcast to you, first team All-NBA was in Penn. And the Mitchell, the second half of the year stats for him are bad. The Cavs tailing off a little bit where they're not going to be the best team in the league. Okay. So he's going to take that spot now. And is that Mitchell spot open for you for top five MVP and then first team All-NBA?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  All right, make your first all first team NBA case because I was I was a little thrown off by this last night because then I did the work this morning and I'm actually kind of fascinated to know what your your grouping is.

• 37:14Bill Simmons?

  So Mitchell on the best team in the East have a chance to win in the mid to high 60s. 24 points a game, four and five, 44% 37 from three. He's played 10 plus 10.9 net, only playing 31.4 minutes a game, which is not his fault. We always talk about it all NBA, you can't penalize team guys because their teams are kicking ass and they're not playing fourth quarters. But in the second half of the season, since the All-Star break, I think he's shooting 30% from three. I test wise hasn't looked as as a, oh, I can, when I want, I'll snap my fingers, I'll take this game over for you. That hasn't been happening the same way. And Edwards is playing really well and Edwards would be the guy if you're going to say who's

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  taking the spot.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  That was the only guy I could come up like you didn't tell me who you were suggesting as another alternative to Mitchell. And I was like, I'm at a loss because obviously it's not Brunson with the games thing. Luca clearly isn't even close in the games part of it. As much as we all love Steph, he's not first team this year. So Ant is the only one that I could come up.

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  It's the only one. Ant's up to 28 a game. He's shooting 40% from three, taking a ton of threes. He's got, he's going to lead the league in threes this year, which is unbelievable. Curry leading the league in threes is always the safest bet in the world. He's going to end up with over 300 threes and over 500 free throw attempts. They're plus 4.2 net when he plays. He plays, which I think is really important, doesn't miss games ever. And he is a excellent defensive player. And Minnesota is playing better. Minnesota, I think, has a chance to be in the 49 to 50 win range. Coming off a summer where they made, you know, a really, really impactful, huge trade, you know, that they that took a while for them to figure out what their team was.

• 39:02Bill Simmons?

  Then Randall got hurt, DiFenzenzo missed some time, Conley looked like he was dead the first six weeks of the season and they've rounded into a team that I think at least is in the conversation for, hey, if somebody could have a puncher's chance of beating OKC, who is it? So I think if the last 12 games, I guess the point would be Mitchell doesn't have this lockdown anymore and there's a world where Edwards could steal this from him.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Sometimes with these two, it's just you're so.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Determined to already go with it, that you have to be like talked out to an irrational sense of getting you to change your mind. When if you just break down the counting stats, it's very close. If you go to the metrics, they're pretty close. I mean, there's a couple of things that favor Mitchell.

• 39:47Bill Simmons?

  Net rating is the big one.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the one that would really still keep it with Mitchell is that, especially for the voters, is that it's the best team in the East and he's considered by most of the models, the most impactful single player on the expected points added stuff. So he's the most important guy on that team. Whereas Edwards is the most important guy in his team. But like, look, I'm again reminding everybody off of last week in the MVP conversation when I you guys you that I'm not always. Yeah, I use, I did it. I did. And I'm, you know, I'm not ashamed of him. Glad we kept it in and it out. But.

• 40:25Bill Simmons?

  That wasn't bad.

• 40:29Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing, the thing with Mitchell.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  I'm surprised that you're bringing it up considering I think it's going to factor in your SGA Jokic stuff.

• 40:36Bill Simmons?

  No, I would still have Mitchell first team. I was just surprised that we're not done yet. And I've said this in years past.

• 40:46Bill Simmons?

  I think the counting stats get tough sometimes when somebody is sacrificing to be at an awesome team. Mitchell could clearly score 28 a game if he wanted to.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:55Bill Simmons?

  And he, the stats are what they are because this is the best way for his team to win. He's also playing less minutes. I still feel like in the right game, in the right situation, he's toe to toe against anybody else you could throw out there. He's the least afraid guy. He's the guy they need the most. And that's why he still has the spot. But I do think Edwards is as, is at least in the ballpark now potentially stealing it. The, the thing I kept coming back to is if you just switch these guys this season.

• 41:25Bill Simmons?

  Is Cleveland better or worse? And I actually don't think they'd be better with a young Edwards still feeling himself out, trying to decide how good he is as a player. If you just threw him into what they have. I think he's still figuring out his individual stuff a little bit. And I think that would have probably hurt them a tiny bit. Whereas Mitchell knows who he is. He's been in the league long enough. He knows what his ceiling is as a player and he's able to sacrifice a little because he knows it's the best for the team. I'm not sure that's Edwards yet. But you could make a case if you flipped them the other way. Maybe Minnesota is not as good with Mitchell because you know, they lose the two way stuff with Ant and they lose some of the swagger and some of the other stuff he brings to the table. So it's a fun combo at least.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  We did a version of this with Saruni on my pod this week, when just like, who would you rather have? And it wasn't long term. It was just kind of like right now to close out the season, which is, you know, it's not the most original gimmick, but it's kind of interesting. But he went with, he'd rather have Mitchell now and through the rest of the season. I would, I would rather have Ant. I would rather have him because of the defense. But I think there's also a part of this where you could criticize Ant a little for like, does he bring it defensively every single night? His top version of his defense is better than the top version of Mitchell's defense. And that could be as simple as just being a size. I mean, is he as athletic as Mitchell is? I mean, it sounds crazy to suggest you prefer somebody else's athleticism over Donovan Mitchell, but Ant's that guy.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  I would put Ant for if he really cares for three minutes. He's way, way, way, way up there with like the best guys in the league. When he really cares. If it's like, Ant, we need you to shut this guy down. I would trust him.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  We've seen it.

• 43:09Bill Simmons?

  We've seen it.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:11Bill Simmons?

  And he loves it too. He really like gets a rush out of doing it. So that's the thing. It's just, he has such a responsibility on the other end. I think he's got to pick his spots.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I know what you're saying about like Ant and the maturing part of this. Has Mitchell gone through enough playoff seasoning that this is a better version of him of dialing him down a little bit? But I'd say even with the way Ant handled the Cat stuff.

• 43:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Handles the Rudy stuff, that he actually shows kind of a teammate maturity.

• 43:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  And as far as shot selection and some of that stuff, I think they've been so bad at times this year on offense. And you're right, they're rounding into form. And I know like, look, they lost to Zion because Zion went crazy. They lost to the Pacers in that weird game because Obi Toppin couldn't miss from three, hits that ridiculous three in the corner. Cause I was watching that game going.

• 43:59Bill Simmons?

  That was like a, that was like a mid eighties bird three when he would like fall into the stands. That was one of the worst threes I've seen anyone take this year and he fucking drained it.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Well, he had to.

• 44:08Bill Simmons?

  It was awesome.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, that was a really fun game. So you're like, oh, how do they lose to these guys? It's like, well, you know, lucky enough, like having Zion, like Zion's now appointment TV again because it's so much fun. So I was like, all right, I really want to kind of see this game. So I was, I was in whatever my mode of watching and picking who I wanted to watch. I watched those two games after Minnesota looked like they had figured some stuff out here.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And so I don't like, it's kind of, I want to get to the Cleveland losses in a second here too, because you could kind of go like, what the hell is going on with these teams? And in Minnesota, like at least that one's kind of explainable for those two losses. And I think some of the Ant stuff, at least, because the three point shooting has been incredible. It's 40% of the season, all season long. But you can tell how incredibly frustrated he has been at times facing all the double teams, trying to figure out like, who are the guys that I want to throw it to? Like, I know Randall's going to score. Nobody want to pass it to Rudy. Conley doesn't really shoot. DiVincenzo was a mess. Nas kind of hit or miss. I really like what Jaden has been for a long stretch here. I think he's just been a more assertive.

• 45:12Bill Simmons?

  Most aggressive, yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:13Bill Simmons?

  Super aggressive.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Feel like way more comfortable him having the ball now, probably at any point in his career. So even if there's some metrics that say like defensively, because I was looking at it this morning, like Mitchell and Ant are both kind of negatives on the box score defensively. That's. It's, you know, I don't know. Some of the defensive stats I kind of give up, but if something like, if there's a player who I don't like on defense and I see for seven straight years of his career, he's a net negative on defense and the team isn't always a disaster. That's usually pretty telling there. But I don't know where Ant was ever going to find his rest when he was sitting there trying to carry this team through all those dark days. So him not being locked in defensively like it actually makes a little bit more sense for him. But I would still have Mitchell first team, I think is how.

• 45:57Bill Simmons?

  I would too. Just three weeks left. It's, it's not open and shut yet. You mentioned one thing with Ant that I think is a really good point. When he would get frustrated with how teams were defending him, which I always thought was amusing. Where he's like, come on guys, just let's, let's play this. Let's just play this like men, you know, it's kind of his attitude. And you could see him get visibly pissed. So all the smart teams are like, if we do this, he's going to fucking melt down. He hates when teams do this. He's not at that point in his career yet where he's like, oh, they're gonna do this, then we'll do this. He's still taking it like personally that teams play him this way. That that's like, why can't, why can't, it's almost like a UFC fighter. Like, why can't we just stand in the middle of the ring and just throw punches? Why are you doing, why are

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  you doing this fucking ground game shit? Let's go, let's go in the middle of the ring. So, and whereas Mitchell knows who he is.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Mitchell also was passing to Garland or shooting options or Mobley or Allen, who are all nice. Like he has bigs he can pass the ball to.

• 46:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, Randall, depending on the night, you know, is, I'm trying to be nice here. Uh, you know, he's an option and his passing is really good, but there's also times too with Randall when it's bad. You just know what's going to happen. Like the possession is going to stop, everybody's going to watch, you're going to see what happens. And, um, you know, it's, that's not always a blast. So Mitchell, I would imagine would be just as frustrated as Ant was. But the Cleveland stretch for this thing, I know that you're not doing it because they've lost three in a row. Orlando coming back and winning that game.

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  Four in a row.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  But I, what did I just say? Three? Yeah, you're right.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, four in a row.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Orlando.

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, we came on after that Orlando game, we were upset.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Sacramento or Sacramento, Phoenix.

• 47:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we were upset that they, the streak was over because we had a whole bunch of Cleveland stuff we were going to do. And then Orlando played really well. And Cleveland just missed shots. They, they, and I was like, oh man, you have those games in the NBA where your shots don't go in. Then they go to the Clippers. And the Clippers just played awesome. Like if you, if you're ever going to talk yourself into the Clippers are a true contender for 25, that's the game to go and watch the tape of. Everybody looks good. Kawhi looks great.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  They were incredible in that game.

• 48:10Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi is the best guy on the floor. Like it was like, Jesus. And Mobley played really well in that game and it didn't really matter. It's like, all right, well, that's the best the Clips can do. Took them by surprise. Then they go to Sacramento and they lose that one too. And then the one, the next one was the Suns and the Suns are like, look, we, we keep waiting for you guys to bring Dr. Kevorkian in and put us down and nobody's put us down. So who knows? And then KD plays awesome in that game. So there are four losses that, um, I guess if you took them one at a time, that kind of made sense. But the points they gave up, they gave up one third to the Clippers, one 23 to the Kings and one 23 to the Suns. And that is not good, Russillo.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Nope. And the Suns, who we started last Sunday with, uh, after that Lakers loss, they smoked the Raptors, they beat your Bulls and of all the Cavs losses, that was the most alarming one. The Orlando one, again, still shocked that they came back in the fourth quarter. When you're looking at Orlando's offense, the Clippers game, the Clippers played so well that you just go, okay, you know,

• 49:20Bill Simmons?

  Throw it out. Sacramento's weird, like whatever.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Sacramento wasn't great. Like I know they didn't have Darius Garland in that game and they didn't have Mobley for the Orlando game. But Sacramento's down Sabonis, they're down Levine, which is, you know, kind of a hit or miss anyway. It's like, would you rather play them with Levine? So DeRozan was terrific at the end of that one. I thought the last Phoenix game was the one with Cleveland. We were like, what are you guys doing? Like you've just lost three in a row and the effort, especially in that third quarter, the rebounding stuff. Like if you go through it, like none of these stats mean anything because it's only four games, but the Cavs of all teams in this four game stretch, they're 27th on defense, not who they are, 13th on offense, whatever. They're 29th out of 30 teams in rebounding this week. The Cavs and granted Zoo had 20 and Mobley had three.

• 50:07Bill Simmons?

  Zoo demolished them.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Just killed him.

• 50:09Bill Simmons?

  Like that. And that's a guy that you would think the Cavs would be pretty well cooked to face. By the way, we should mention, we're recording all of this before they play Utah today and they might be able to get back on the horse. I was alarmed by a different thing of that Suns game that if you're just projecting, what does this streak mean? And then what does it mean going forward when they play Boston, whenever they play Boston? They couldn't stop Durant. They, they couldn't stop him. And if, as a Celtics fan, when I look at the Cavs and, and think of like how the matchups could favor the Cavs, how the matchups could favor Boston, ultimately it comes down to Tatum. Can they slow down Tatum? Can they stop him? A big 6'9" point forward who has the ball? And that's why they traded for Deandre Hunter.

• 50:53Bill Simmons?

  That's why they have to play a Coro, even though they probably don't love playing the minutes they have, but they, that's why Strus becomes an issue. When it's a, when it's a bigger team with wings like what Boston has. I watched that game. I'm like Durant, that was the, I thought that was the best game I've seen him play all year and he was really, really engaged. I think he took 29 shots. He was like 17 for 29. But if you're Boston, you watch that game and you're like, this is, this is the Tatum window in a series with these guys. Can they stop them? I don't know if they can.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  That was one of those games where I wasn't watching it live and I knew I wanted to go back to, especially once they had lost. So I was like, I want to watch this one tonight. And then it was like Durant had 19 in the third quarter. Like what happened? So then it's like, okay, we'll make sure we get all this. And that was the smoothest. Like you're counting it up. And then at one point, I think it's 11 or 12 and like, how is he going to get to 19? It's like, oh, he's just going to make everything else to close out this third quarter. I did hear some of the defensive player stuff about Mobley in that one. And, and you can get into the switching against DeRozan where he got him twice.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  And look, he got him once and then Mobley played the other one. And like, sometimes DeRozan is just going to make better shots than any kind of defense you can stretch in him. I am, I guess Udonis was knocking him a little bit on the defensive player of the year thing, which just makes me think that Udonis is up there making sure people talk about Bam.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  But Mobley, Durant did not get 19 on Mobley in that third quarter, which I think is important.

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  No. Well, the other thing is you, you can kind of find your matchup, the matchup that you want against them. You can do that against any team in the league and they do, you know, if they have those two guards out there, you're going to try to hunt one of them. Certain teams like hunting Allen and bringing them out.

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  And I think one of the issues I have with the Cavs, and I don't even know if it's an issue because it'll probably solve itself. But I still, I'm still not positive what their best five is, especially against different matchups. And it might not matter, but I think they need Hunter to be that fifth guy. And he just hasn't been in a lot of big games, you know, and we talked about this last week. He had that huge shot in the corner against Orlando and he hit the side of the backboard with it. You know, if you're guarding Kevin Durant or, or Jason Tatum and Hunter has to be the guy, he doesn't have a shitload of reps. I really like that trade for them, but um, I guess the good thing for them is the schedule is about to get easier. Utah, well, at Portland's not easy anymore. San Antonio home, at Detroit, and then they're mostly home the rest of the way.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  But look, they were 56 and 11 or 56 and 10 when this thing started. They're 56 and 14.

• 53:29Bill Simmons?

  With two giant win streaks.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Right. They were 18 and three against the West until this weird stretch. They go out West. It's almost April. Even without a deep playoff run with this group, this is not who, who they are. You know, I don't know that you can point to this week if they lose to Boston and be like, oh, see, we knew. And it, look, I'll even admit, yeah, I think against DeRozan and some of the minutes against Durant, like because I've talked about the Hunter trade too much, but I'll just say it one more time. At least there's an option for a big guy against the Jalen Brown, Tatum, even Derrick White. You know, Drew Holiday thing, because that was four guys that you always felt like, hey, they're going to find somebody against Garland here. Like no matter what you do, there's going to be a way to attack Garland.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  And then if you're helping over that, now you're leaving Derrick White or you're leaving Drew in the corner. Or now, you know, obviously Tatum kind of attacks Allen a lot in that last regular season game that they played against each other. So Hunter. At least provided some kind of option. So I think he has to be the fifth in that playoff series against Boston, and that's really the only one that matters. I think there's other games where maybe they'll want the spacing of Struce against a different team.

• 54:37Bill Simmons?

  Struce would be the other guy.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  May not matter. You know, I don't know how Ty Jerome fits in closing minutes of a playoff game next to Mitchell and Garland or are you out there? It seems a bit redundant. So you may not need it, but I could see Struce closing or even Dean Wade, who's so good defensively, man, like constantly watching him get hunted because he's a white guy.

• 54:54Bill Simmons?

  It's like the Hauser thing. He's got the Hauseritis.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Except he's even taller than Hauser is.

• 54:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, he's another guy that provides you some kind of spacing. So if it's a bigger unit. So like, look, we've been over all these different rotation combos. I've talked about it too many times, but I'll admit on this West Coast swing, as I'm excited about the Hunter option for the Cavs, I also see him getting a little too upright. I also look at him like defensively going, am I giving him the benefit of the doubt of some defensive option against?

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  Just because he's tall.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Just because he's, exactly. Just because he's tall, when in reality, like you can attack him too.

• 55:24Bill Simmons?

  Russell, this mattered. These, this four really good teams, I don't think lose four games in a row and they have real stakes and you could say.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  I don't think it matters at all. I don't think it matters at all.

• 55:34Bill Simmons?

  Can I make the case?

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's your, yeah, of course. No, you can't.

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the case. Cause you'd be like, oh, they have the one seed sewn up. No, they, they had a two game lead on OKC for home court in the finals and home court in the finals matters more than it ever has now because we went back to the 2-2, 1-1-1. So they had this in their grasp, but I also think one of the reasons I like them is they've been so consistent and so good. And after a while you go, look, man, the numbers are the numbers. This is the best three point shooting team in the league. They're awesome defensively. They're able to hold their own against all these good players and then they just get smoked in those last three, especially Orlando throwaway. That's a weird game. You know, they, you, you, you're on Sunday. It's early. You think you're going to extend the streak right before you go on the road, but the other ones,

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  they had real trouble against Kawhi and DeRozan and Durant in back to back to back. That's a real thing that I think is going to ultimately, if you're the Celtics and even if you're the Knicks, you're looking at that and you're like, hey, this is good for us.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  The Knicks? Come on.

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, if the Knicks beat, if the Knicks beat the Celtics, I'm sad. I didn't want to leave them out.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, the standard that you're holding Cleveland to and saying this could be something that's alarming, then you're ignoring all the Knicks stuff unless, you know, look, not having Brunson, clearly.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  Do I think the Knicks are gonna be in round three? No, I don't.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:56Bill Simmons?

  I think Boston's gonna beat them. I just didn't want to leave them out because we have New York listeners trying to cater.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  The Phoenix game was alarming. The Sacramento one, you're supposed to win that one after the two losses already, but it was actually a close game. Like it came down to the final few seconds in that one. So.

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  It was an old school DeRozan.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I don't, I think they've been too good. They put together that absurd streak. We know who the players are. It feels like this is their time. Not saying in their time because like some of the playoff seasoning shit annoys me where OKC, it's like, well, they haven't done it yet. Okay. Well, maybe for OKC, their seasoning was just that Dallas series last year.

• 57:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that that matters in that combo. They have done it yet because that was a, that was a really competitive, awesome series. So you can't say they've never been in a situation like that, you know?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Okay. So we.

• 57:41Bill Simmons?

  You at least have to point to that.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, you know, because I feel like we've always heard it over and over again. It's like, oh, the Pistons had to lose to the Celtics and the Bulls had to lose to the Pistons. And then it's just like on and on and on as if it never, like Golden State was rather new. Maybe their San Antonio series in 14 was enough seasoning for them to get through everything in 15 and the Cavs injuries. Um, but you know, did Toronto have seasoning? Or was it just a really good year and then they had their injury?

• 58:08Bill Simmons?

  You know who doesn't need seasoning? Shay. I think we're good. I don't think there's a playoff scenario where he can't get every fucking shot he wants in a series. And Chet is the one you would worry about in a series like this, but Chet got his ass kicked in that Dallas series. And if that didn't make him, he came back bigger, stronger. Hartenstein had a bunch of uh, playoff stuff like really the, the one that, the only one that worries me for real is Jalen Williams, just because he's going to have the ball a lot. And what did he learn from that Dallas series? Because it's going to happen again. They're going to just send the two guys at Shay. They're going to make Jalen Williams have the ball all the time. Or Isaiah Joe, or whoever it is, how are those guys going to function when they're just like,

• 58:49Bill Simmons?

  hey, look, Shay's not beating us in this game. We'll play four on three against you guys. Go ahead, knock yourselves out and who's going to step up? And that's it.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  I would expect to like, even when you watch OKC, if teams try to trap SGA and sometimes they'll save it, right?

• 59:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Whoever they play, especially early on, they'll probably just sell out and be like, let's kind of do this. I trust that there's enough playmakers, shotmakers and options off of that trap. That even if you're slowing SGA down, you're selling out and sacrificing something else that usually in NBA games, if you do it too long, like you can't ever go into a game, you're like, this is what we're going to do. Cause then it's like, all right, seriously.

• 59:29Bill Simmons?

  No, but you can mix it up.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Right. Cause now we're playing four on three.

• 59:32Bill Simmons?

  So good at the foul line in that four on three situation. It is like the all time, that signing was incredible. We got to take a break and then we're doing sliding doors. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a three, one series lead, but what if you went to Cancun with Expedia save up to 30% when you bundle and save, you can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness,

• 1:00:17Bill Simmons?

  though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun, one, two, three Cancun, or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. All right gimmick. We almost did last week and then we got so caught up with other stuff we forgot to do. Colin, 2020's sliding doors, the biggest what ifs of the half decade because it is the half decade now. We had a five years ago was COVID.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  It's been, it's been a good half decade, a rocky start, but.

• 1:00:47Bill Simmons?

  Rocky start doing better. And I asked you to write down the biggest what ifs for you from this decade. I wrote down my own list. I'm sure we have a lot of the same stuff. We are not doing this draft style. We're just doing like, we just go back and forth, the biggest things we've seen. What's, what's the biggest sliding door, what if for you in this first five years of this decade?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I have like 12 of them. You think we'll have time?

• 1:01:11Bill Simmons?

  I have, I have a.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  I'm just kidding.

• 1:01:13Bill Simmons?

  I have a bunch too. I'm ready. I'm ready for however you want to do this.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  No, I have three because I spent too much time on one, but I, I knew you'd probably have five. All right. So, um, Houston takes Mobley number two instead of Jalen Green in the 21 draft.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. That's a great one. Was that in the mix?

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Why not? I mean, I'm just saying like.

• 1:01:35Bill Simmons?

  But when that happened, I'm trying to remember when during that draft, were we wondering if? Yeah, you're right. We were wondering if they would go two or three with that. Oh, shit.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  I just blew your mind. Yeah, I think this is going to be your favorite one. I mean, I know you have ones that you've done.

• 1:01:48Bill Simmons?

  Let's go.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  You probably like to.

• 1:01:49Bill Simmons?

  Knock yourself out.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  So let's do it. So I ran through a couple of scenarios. There's plenty of, you know, as, as the ripples go through the lake off the pebbles. Velocity here. Uh, so that would mean no Jalen Green. So, you know, we wouldn't be kind of stuck in this. What is Jalen Green riddle? That's gone on for a really long time. And I think the nice way of talking about it is that I think he's still really important to their offense because he can, what he can get on his own. Like in today's NBA, him being able to get what he can on his own. I still feel like I fell in love with him on those non Shingun games at the end of the season last year. It was almost like exactly a year ago. I was like, this dude is figuring stuff out and it is a little weird and maybe worrisome about the Shingun part of it.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Remember Houston, so they take Mobley two. So now there's not the green part of it. They took Shingun 16 that year. So if they take Mobley two, they probably don't take Shingun. So he's not on the team. I don't like doing just whoever is good after the pick that you selected Shingun means you would have gotten this guy. But look, there's a Trey Murphy conversation who goes 17.

• 1:02:55Bill Simmons?

  On that pick though, they traded for the pick because that was an OKC pick, right? And OKC got out of 16, traded it to Houston and got these two like super conditional first round picks that I don't even think have really turned in anything. So they definitely traded up for Shengun. The question is, do you do that if you also have Mobley?

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  I don't think so. Even if we could talk about bad teams and not wanting to draft based on need. I have a hard time believing that a team would take Mobley, then take Shingun going, we're just going to roll into it. Although who knows, like maybe Mobley would be the best thing to play next to Shingun.

• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  That would have been an amazing combo. Alright, so you're saying if they draft Mobley, no Jalen Green and no Shingun already?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Right, because he was, it was a 22 first and a 23 first.

• 1:03:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I did all the legwork on this and those firsts were kind of the, those conditional rollover, rollover, rollover. And I don't think, it's one of the weird, weird, pressy moves where it's like, why don't you just take Shingun?

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  I gotta, I gotta tell you, I feel like I need to spend a weekend in a cabin somewhere and go back through all of the crazy like, here's four or five first rounders and just do a final tally. Maybe we need to do that on a slower day.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  It's like in August.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  I'll admit, there's just some, I go, you've completely lost like Marshawn Bochamp, like what? What happened there? And all, like, I'm sorry, like I know I'm supposed to know all of this stuff, but there's times.

• 1:04:22Bill Simmons?

  Basketball Reference will have that, it has that trade pocket at the bottom of the guy's pages and you read the trades and you're like.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Dude, it's my homepage. I'm on it all the time. But then there's just some of these deals that like, once all the picks are done through, I think we might even be a couple of years away from it all, but going through like what the cost, like two trades that felt like the exact same cost and the price that was paid are two entirely different worlds. Based on how the picks conveyed, didn't convey. Anyway, so staying with this theme here, so um, you know, who knows what happens with Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher, because those are later first rounders as well. But I think the other side of this is, okay, so Jalen Green, not part of the equation. No Shingun, maybe they take him, maybe they put him next to Mobley and it's terrific, who knows?

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  But then on the Cleveland side of it, does Cleveland sit there with Jalen Green going, we can't trade for Donovan Mitchell in 22?

• 1:05:15Bill Simmons?

  The answer is definitely yes, because part of the reason they did that Mitchell trade was they were like, we feel like we've hit a homerun with Evan Mobley. Now we're gonna get it. We've sped up our timeline now. Let's fucking go for this because we think Mobley's that good. You're not doing that if you have Jalen Green. I don't think. For what they gave up with Markkinen and five firsts and all the other shit and the Kessler, I mean, that trade was expansive. They did it because they love Mobley.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  I don't think it was that many firsts.

• 1:05:45Bill Simmons?

  It was three firsts and two swaps, right?

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Yeah, right, right.

• 1:05:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't think they do it. So now, now we've altered the destinies of Cleveland, Houston and Utah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the thing, right? So there's two swaps in there.

• 1:06:05Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I don't think, I don't think teams would take a Jalen Green and then go, let's do the Mitchell trade now too either. And they would have Darius Garland on the team already too.

• 1:06:20Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's a really good one. Great start. Here's my number one. It's an injury one, which I don't usually love for what ifs, but Murray tearing his ACL when he did. Like, to me, the ultimate what if sliding door thing is did titles shift? Right? This is one where he tears his ACL and it's right after the, the COVID when they started it. It's after the bubble, they start the season late, so he tears his ACL.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  When Murray was potentially the most annoying human being in the world during the bubble on the sideline.

• 1:06:54Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  That was a weird, that was a weird couple of weeks. I like that he's, he's no longer doing that.

• 1:07:01Bill Simmons?

  Murray tears his ACL on April 12th, 2021. Like, a little bit before the playoffs, so he misses the 21 and the 22 playoffs. The Suns end up making it in 2021 with a team that, looking back, is like, wow.

• 1:07:19Bill Simmons?

  That not only was that team pretty awesome, but that that team came really close to winning the finals. But now I look at that team and it's like, what would this team be at like a five seed in the West? And then Golden State makes it in 2022 because Murray doesn't come back in time. And that's the one where if you're Denver, you're, I mean, they had Denver ends up winning it in 23. I think Denver, if they have healthy Murray the whole time, I just would have them over that Golden State team. As great as Steph was, because you had Klay at a weird point in his career, Draymond was at a weird point in his career. I just think, I just think Denver would have been better.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  But you think they would have won back to backs?

• 1:07:55Bill Simmons?

  No, I think they would have won 22. And then I don't know what happens in 23.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  But is this a weird way of having the Celtics win it in 23?

• 1:08:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what, no, because they, Miami beat them in 23. They didn't even get to the finals. I don't know how it goes, no matter how you want to do it. But I just think they would have won the title sooner than that. And it's the only injury we'll talk about. I know the Nets sliding doors will probably come up during this, but this is the only one where I'm, I'm really confident that the 21 or 22 finals would have played out differently in some way. So I think this was the biggest injury. The Yanis sprained ankle in 2020, I think was a really underrated sprained injury when he got hurt in game four against Miami. And then Miami ends up going all the way through, through the bubble. I think you could argue that could have been Milwaukee that year. And then Kyrie and Harden going down in 21.

• 1:08:46Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think those are the three biggest injuries where you could say the title probably swung because this happened or, or almost probably swung. So I would have that.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  That's a good one because that Warriors team in 23, it was

• 1:09:03Bill Simmons?

  22.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  22, excuse me. That was, that was like this story, but as it was happening, it's still kind of like, I can't believe this team's going to win the whole thing.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Whole time. Even during that Memphis series, it was like,

• 1:09:19Bill Simmons?

  And then, and then the Celtics when they lost the first game.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  I don't know about that. They were up 3-1.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  No, but it's just.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  Memphis puts it on them.

• 1:09:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. It was like, wow, this, this is what we're, one of these teams is probably making the finals.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Does Memphis have?

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  It was a weird time for the season.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  How about this? Does Memphis have playoff seasoning?

• 1:09:38Bill Simmons?

  Because of that?

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  No, I, like, when you think about Memphis and who they've been, where they've been in the seeding, where they've been in some regular season moments, and it feels like they're on the cusp of like, are we getting a Western Conference Finals appearance out of this team? I think there's even the moments this year when you look at the standings, you're like, you know, if Ja is right, like, do you love their closing five? Like, what's gonna happen? By the way, nobody. I think people, obviously with Denver, which I think Denver's actually become a little overrated in this OKC conversation.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  More than a little.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Right. And I even guilty of it. Probably going back less than two months ago, I was like, hey, we still gotta include Denver in that one team. And then the more I just kept watching, I go, you know what? It needs to be the three teams and then it's Denver, maybe in their own group that Lakers push, maybe put Lakers with the Nuggets. Houston, I think we all look at the offense going, what is that going to look like in crunch times of playoff games? But now with the Clippers resurgence, with the Timberwolves prior to those two losses, like, there's a lot of stuff in there where you get through a ton of teams before you ever get to Memphis. And you could argue that they've had playoff seasoning, but you could also argue that they haven't really had any, whether it be injuries or getting blasted out so soon with this group, also because of injuries.

• 1:10:46Bill Simmons?

  I think if we were doing which best player in the playoffs, do you trust the least? Ja would be the number one pick in that draft. From, I just don't, what am I getting from him? How many, how many games is he gonna play? Is he gonna play seven games in a row? I just don't, I don't trust it because I haven't seen it.

• 1:11:03Bill Simmons?

  And I also don't think like.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  I don't think you're wrong on that.

• 1:11:05Bill Simmons?

  I think in a playoff series.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Over Harden? You would trust Harden more than Ja in the playoffs?

• 1:11:10Bill Simmons?

  At least I know Harden would play.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, is not knowing what you're getting an improvement over what Harden has been for his playoff career.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  James Harden is a new man in year 19, year 17. Now, you're right.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  He's honestly due. Cause even as I like, as I've talked up the Clippers a little bit, I purposely left out that part of it because I didn't want to be negative again. I do it far too often. I can't help myself. He is one of my sliding doors though. So I guess I'm not going to be able to help myself one more episode here, but honestly, like if everybody were healthy with the Clippers and flying around, it's like, so you know, it's kind of the thing I used to do to Van Pelt. Like he would go, we don't do this enough. We don't do this. I'd be like, oh really? Pick them, then pick them, pick them to win the series, pick them to win the West. And he was like, I bullied him into it one time. He picked the team and then they lost. And he's like, you asshole, you know? And I was like, well, you know, this, this concept of, and look, anybody that talks for a living, there's a lot of like transition into, hey, no one's really talking about this team.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  But watching the Clippers be this awesome version of themselves again, and that Cavs game and going through all the numbers and how everybody's making shots and Kawhi looking like Kawhi and Kawhi getting after Mitchell defensively in a couple of huge possessions. I was like, holy shit. And then I'm saying to myself, like, so you're going to pick them? You're going to pick Harden to get to the Western Conference Finals?

• 1:12:29Bill Simmons?

  Or you're going to pick Kawhi to play for six straight weeks?

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:32Bill Simmons?

  That's another one. So I think Jazz in that thing too.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  That's a good draft. You should do that with somebody like use that.

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  I'll do it with you next week.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  All right. Talk about a few games.

• 1:12:41Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to do a second sliding doors and then I'll throw it back to you because it's tied into the injury thing with, uh.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  But to finish the Denver thing, you think Murray healthy, they get the one in 22?

• 1:12:53Bill Simmons?

  I think they win in 22. Yeah. Cause Jokic was that good by then and I, their supporting cast was good. I think they would have been the best team. Which ties into the other one. It's kind of a one A, one B. The, uh, the what if the 2021 Nets don't break down is a great one. Because that they had that Celtic series where they looked like they might have a chance to be the greatest offensive team of all time. And they're actually playing well together. And then I think Kyrie got hurt. Kyrie sprained his ankle. Harden hurt his hamstring, tried to keep playing. Um, there's so many, and then they end up losing because KD steps on the line. But you know, Milwaukee barely beats them.

• 1:13:33Bill Simmons?

  Getting incredible injury luck and they still barely win. It takes them overtime game seven to beat them. So then you got all the, if those guys don't get hurt, does Giannis ever make a finals? Do the Nets actually win the title? How do we talk about Kevin Durant now? Are those guys all still together? Do we talk about Harden? We, like you just mentioned Harden five minutes ago. Well, what if they won the finals that year? How do we talk about him? How do we talk about Kyrie? Who gets traded? Does Kyrie even end up on Dallas? Does Harden end up on two more teams? Does KD end up on Phoenix? It's like, that is one of those, when you talk about sliding doors, there's an alternate universe and Zach Lowe, who's used to call them the greatest hypothetical

• 1:14:16Bill Simmons?

  team. There's an alternate universe where we talk about that team like they're the 99 Rams. We're like, oh my God, remember that? Those guys? And then they scored 130 a game and went 14 and 16 and two in the playoffs? Jesus Christ. But didn't happen.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  There's, you could do an entire, like this Celtics doc, you could do maybe a 20 parter on all the what ifs with the Nets over this. Cause I went deep into the Harden contract stuff this morning and I did it last week and I was double checking with somebody on all the numbers of the extensions that he was turning down.

• 1:14:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  I, I like staying, let's stay on, on this side of it. Which ring do you think is more important? Giannis getting that one or Jokic getting his in 23?

• 1:15:04Bill Simmons?

  I honestly Giannis, cause I don't think there's a path for him otherwise. I think that was their one best chance to win. And if he doesn't win there, he starts to move into that Barkley area.

• 1:15:19Bill Simmons?

  And it, it becomes the dominant theme with him for the last couple of years, even before the Dame trade. We're like, whoa, is Giannis ever, is he ever gonna make the finals? How good can he be? We're just doing that for three years and not like he'd give a shit. He's not even from America. He doesn't understand how stupid half the shit is that we obsess over. But I just think that, I think he would have been the guy for this decade though. I don't know. How good is he? Giannis and Jokic both took that off the table. Luca at least made the finals last year, but Luca, you know, if it doesn't happen for the Lakers for a couple of years, we'll be doing with him. But this is what we do.

• 1:15:54Bill Simmons?

  It's a you guys. It's a you, it's a you guys. I don't feel like we're in the you guys on this as much, but.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  No, it is though. I, I think it is, but I'm not, I'm not lumping you in with everybody else. Cause my first thought was it was Jokic because we were talking about Jokic with all these MVPs and back in the conversation and Giannis, you know, unfortunately it feels like no matter what he does, he's just not as much of the conversation. Um, I think one year I, I was looking back to like my MVP voting because I was looking at some other voters who I'm just, you want to talk agendas? Like this is such a joke. Um, and I, you know, I don't know if I'll have a vote again this year, but.

• 1:16:31Bill Simmons?

  I hope you have a vote. You put in the work, you watch the games, you should get a vote.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate you saying that, but I look at it as, as something when you get done with it. I don't, I don't know how you could ever be like, yeah, nailed it because whenever you try to slot in Giannis, like I bet you, if you averaged out my MVP voting years, I would have Giannis higher than whatever, you know, his average finish would be. And yet with Jokic, I think it's a different tier that he's chasing.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  And I think he would get more shit without a ring than Giannis would. I think for Giannis, it would be.

• 1:17:08Bill Simmons?

  Because you think Jokic has the chance to be one of the 10 best players of all time, or is Giannis is in that 10 to 20 range probably?

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  It's a pretty simple formula. If we have these conversations about you, the same thing with the quarterbacks where it's like, okay, this guy is one of the four or five best quarterbacks with all these different things. When you lose in the playoffs, it's way worse than the 10th or 12th guy. And for Jokic, we're talking about like chasing top 10 in history. I don't think we're talking about that anymore with Giannis. We probably were during that final stretch, right? I also think there'd be a part of this with Giannis where it would become, can you win with this approach? When it's like, well, dude, I'm so glad that he won because I see somebody that reads defenses really well. He stopped taking threes. I think he's a more efficient person.

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  Plays his fucking ass off.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  Right. He wants to kill everyone in the other uniform.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  The entire time he is out there and it just, it's a bit like the Garnett thing because he keeps losing in the playoffs. You have to start questioning him. And I think the only thing that was fair about Garnett.

• 1:18:04Bill Simmons?

  Two bad luck injuries with him too, in the playoffs, like at the wrong times.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  If you were doing the full scope of it, it's like, look, as great as Garnett was, he probably couldn't have always been the number one scoring option to close out a tied playoff game. Because he was always probably a little bit more apprehensive offensively than I wish that he was.

• 1:18:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  But to suggest that he was a loser because he was losing all the time was wrong.

• 1:18:29Bill Simmons?

  Were people actually doing that? Cause I remember him just being this incredibly sympathetic figure, basically. You know, cause Glenn Taylor, he lost all those picks and the Joe Smith thing, Marbury left. And then it was just like, his supporting cast was so bad. At least the stuff I was writing back then was like, we gotta rescue this guy from Minnesota almost became the narrative. Giannis, I think has had more help than KG did.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I mean, those, those teams, you just go through it and you see who's like, I always like looking up like who took the third most shots for this team. You're like Trent and Hassle.

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  Right. They, they got one really good Cassell here and it felt like a miracle. It's like, oh my God, their point guard's averaging 17 and eight.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  But I want to finish the point though, only because it would, it would crush me as a basketball fan to watch the way Giannis plays and with all of the great things that we just talked about, right? All of the great things. That it would then lead to, there's something wrong with him if he didn't have the ring. So I, I think you could make a really good argument for which guy would take more shit sans a ring here. Because Jokic is like touching a totally different historic tier, I think, than Giannis is. When it's all said and done, like what is this guy going to be? Because the standard for him would be higher because of the way we're talking about him. Again, it feels a little dismissive of Giannis, but we're talking about like,

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  hey, top 10 of all time in this sport versus Giannis who probably lands in the top 20. You know, I don't know. I mean, you know, this stuff better than I do.

• 1:19:59Bill Simmons?

  No, I can tell you, Giannis is, we're talking about the Hakeem, Shaq, Moses kind of area.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Right. And where do you think Jokic, what's possible?

• 1:20:07Bill Simmons?

  Jokic is on like the Bird and Magic suite, like knocking on the door now. Like I am the natural legacy to you guys.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  They would get, it would be a good segment to do that, too. Like, we're just rank, we're just producing shows here right now is who are the most like go last 20 years, most important rings, like how important is Steph's fourth ring? You know?

• 1:20:28Bill Simmons?

  I think I would have Steph's fourth ring over all of them. I think it vaulted him into a completely different area.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  No kidding? So you think Steph's fourth is more important than Jokic or Giannis's first or only?

• 1:20:41Bill Simmons?

  I do, because those guys still have a chance to win another one and Steph didn't. And Steph, there always would have been a little asterisk next to him. And all it did was put him right with Kobe and West and, you know, right in that group. And he's probably leading the way in that group. He'd be, I mean, you can never say, oh, you, the first one, LeBron got, all his teammates got hurt in 15. And then the next two, you had Durant, that's why you won. He, there was always a yeah, but with him and the yeah, buts were gone. We talked about it when it happened. Giannis MVP voting since 19, 1, 1, 4, 3, 3, 4. And he's going to be three or four this year, probably four. So seven straight years in the top four.

• 1:21:24Speaker 01

  I voted him second last year.

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you were, I enjoyed it. I did not, but I liked your reasoning.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I know that I went back and looked at it a bunch of times and I was like, you consistently have him higher than other people do. And, and look, on some stuff, I'm impossibly stubborn. I will not change my mind. I don't care what you have to say. On this, I'm not stubborn. Like, I, I might be wrong, but I just felt like, I don't, I don't know if the list is very long of dudes that are more impactful this season again than that guy. So, you know, we'll see what happens this year.

• 1:22:01Bill Simmons?

  I think I still, if I had to do MVP right now, I would still put Tatum three and Giannis four, because I just think what Tatum has done this year has been incredible. Being point forward, guarding five positions, being the best rebounder in the team and having more team success. I don't, I don't know what else you would want, you know? And Giannis is having the same 30, 12 and six that he has every year. And, you know, it's some of the same stuff with him down the stretch of games, the way teams play him. I, I think he's, I don't want to say hard to play with, but you kind of have to tailor the team to what he can and can't do. You know, and he's, he's really a center. And if you just think of him as a perimeter center,

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  it probably makes more sense, but I just think Tatum's been slightly better this year.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  I still think it has to be one of the three most horrifying things in basketball. When Giannis has decided he's gonna go to the.

• 1:22:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, and that thing with the playoffs here.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  I was talking to a Knicks fan yesterday. Who do you not want to see in the three spot if it's between Detroit, Milwaukee, Indiana? Who's the not, I don't want to see that team. And the case for Milwaukee is I just don't want to see Giannis for two weeks.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  How was that even a conversation?

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, because those are the three choices. Obviously Detroit, you'd want to see the most because it's K8 and a bunch of guys that have been there. But Indiana is a team that plays really well against them, that pressures that they have those guards that just pressure full time. They have a ton of confidence against them. They're deep. And Milwaukee's kind of a messed up team. Like they're not that good. You know, they're, they're just not.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  I still would rather play, you know, there's an argument to be made because the Pacers are like a mirror version of you as the Knicks. It's like, who knows what happens in that free for all.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't want to play the Pacers. Pacers are number one for me. I'd rather, I'd rather take my chances with this Bucks team and Kuzma and some of the bench dudes. And I, you know what? Let's give Giannis his 30 and 12 every night. We're still beating these guys.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. I just feel crazy picking the Pacers. I'd rather play Giannis than the Pacers. But I understand the part of it and especially knowing the Knicks and who they are. And going, hey, the Pacers are just going to run and not defend with us for seven games too. And then who knows what happens?

• 1:24:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, and they're also gonna, they're gonna really pressure Brunson, who's coming off an injury. They're gonna make him dribble for 90 feet every time.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Neesmith is gonna foul him 30 times a game.

• 1:24:26Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna hack them. We're gonna talk shit. I would not want to see them. Let's take a, let's take a break and then we'll finish sliding doors. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off Plus as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with the experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now. For a chance to win at Michelob Ultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Opening US residents 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at Michelob Ultra.com/courtside for free entry.

• 1:25:10Bill Simmons?

  Entry deadlines, prizes and details. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you are live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. All right, what do you have for your next sliding doors?

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  I'll just keep it with this off of the Nets thing because I think it's a really good point, especially when those guys were playing and you were sorting the stats going to people. Cause like, I think a little bit gets overstated in each season. We're like, hey, do you realize that this team is now on pace to be the greatest offense of all time? Like Dallas had it a couple of years ago for this stretch. It's like, okay, but at no point do I look at this team. It's the rising tides thing as offenses get better and better every single year. But there was some net stuff that was happening with that group and they were winning all of those games in the rare occasions that those dudes are playing. So I love that one. All right, so Harden, we know turned down an extension with Houston. That was like 100 million on top of the 100 that he was owed. He turned that one down before the 21 season started. Remember there's that deadline before the season gets going where he can sign an extension.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  He was offered three years and 160 million. That would have been on top of a player option of 47.4 million. He turned that one down because he was actually eligible for an extension for 225 million for four more years. So of all of these scenarios, he ended up demanding a trade after he had called Brooklyn home. Right? Said, we're all on the same page. But again, I'm sympathetic to Harden a couple of different times in the Harden timeline. And in the case of him being frustrated with the Nets and going like, what the hell's going on over here? You know, the Kyrie stuff, he didn't want to be there anymore. I don't like the way he handled it, but that's what he ends up doing. He moves on. All right.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  So instead of hitting free agency and signing any of these things that he's already been offered.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  He goes to Philly and does a two-year deal for 68 million with the player option for the next year at 35.7.

• 1:27:22Bill Simmons?

  To allegedly give them a chance to get more guys because he took a lesser deal.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  They do get more guys.

• 1:27:29Bill Simmons?

  But the real thing was like, we'll take care of you in two years if you do this.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  But yeah, and that's why I've always kind of taken Harden size that if he has already turned down $100 million extension from Houston that was going to make him the highest paid player in the NBA, there's $161 million extension. That's all the Nets could offer him before the season. But he was like, look, I'm going to turn it down. I'm going to go to free agency. I'm going to sign the extension with you here. And at one point, I think in the 2627 season, he was going to be the first $60 million player a year on the books. And so that's 2627. We're still two years away from that season that was supposed to be on the books for some of these extensions. So he's turning all that stuff down. Granted, he then gets frustrated with the Nets and wants out. But these are the numbers that he's expecting that he's in line for. And then he signs for two years with 68. And all of us are like, what the fuck? Right?

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  He has a player option for the second year. And remember, the player option of like, wow, he's just going to opt out. And then he's going to go back and get his four years $200 million. No, he's not. Because now he's not getting the extension. Now he's pissed. He opts in to control the trade market with this. He opts in. So that means he makes 68.6 million with the Sixers. He signs the two-year $70 million deal, his past free agency with the Clippers. So instead of those four years where he makes 138, he basically made about 70 million less over those four years.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  What if, what if the Sixers had just signed him?

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  Can we go backwards? Because there's you had so many what ifs in there. What if he just signs with Houston and stays there? And then they kind of keep that going for another year before they realize they can't win a title instead of just blowing it up? I still don't love the trade they made, but it did blow them up. It allowed them to reset. It allowed them to be in the mobile green draft. If I remember they got picks out of it. They got cap space, all that stuff. But then you go to the Nets.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Honestly, I, I think it ended up being a blessing for Houston because it allowed them to reset it sooner and now they're where they're at now.

• 1:29:30Bill Simmons?

  Houston's in better shape.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  Right. Houston, Houston's totally fine with every way this has gone.

• 1:29:36Bill Simmons?

  Works out for Houston. Goes to the Nets. Nets give up all that stuff for them. It's still haunting them to the point that they then just did that thing where they traded the Phoenix stuff to get back their own pick. Yet they, they.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Which is its own conversation, which may have like, we'll see what happens there because those Phoenix picks. Like, who knows?

• 1:29:55Bill Simmons?

  Who knows?

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:55Bill Simmons?

  But the other piece of that was when they finally have to get off Harden and they trade for Ben Simmons. Which turns out to be a catastrophe and they take Ben Simmons off Philly's hands.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  They, they, they give them James Harden for Ben Simmons.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  And like two first round picks that mean nothing.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  And as much as you, you can, you can dislike Harden more than I dislike his playoff performances. But at that point, like Daryl, like where's the out? Where's the out? Like, how are you going to figure out like?

• 1:30:27Bill Simmons?

  But here's the thing, we both like the trade.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:30:31Bill Simmons?

  No, because at that point we're like, hey, they can rejuvenate Ben Simmons. It turns out to be a de-juvenation. It just gets, it gets even worse. So then, and then with Philly, he screwed, he screws them up where they finally have to get rid of them. And then they have, you know, whatever happened to them last season, but then he goes to the Clippers. And he allows them to get off the Paul George thing, which then retroactively kills Philly. So he kills Philly and Brooklyn.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  He did Houston a favor. So let's, let's be fair about Harden on that one.

• 1:31:04Bill Simmons?

  One out of three.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  Right. Now he wanted out, but it ended up being the best thing that could have happened for them because they get to reset the clock. They get the picks and now, you know, you were doing a future roster draft. Houston's at least a top five pick, even with the question marks we have.

• 1:31:18Bill Simmons?

  Right. But he helps the Clippers because they get out of Paul George. They get Harden on a much better deal. The Paul George stuff allows them to kind of reset all their apron shit.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  Maybe Houston's a top seven future roster pick because I'm kind of doing it in my head real quick.

• 1:31:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're top five, especially the picks they have with the Phoenix picks.

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  It's why when you're like, okay, I'm in line for like 225 million. In the summer of 22.

• 1:31:44Bill Simmons?

  Again, just take it and figure it out later.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  The numbers are are interesting, but if if Philly had just after he had done the first year at the discount and then they saw him play and then imagine like ownership's going, what what was, you know, they can argue it's been investigated. I'll still never believe that Harden just decided to do a two, a one plus one with a massive haircut, knowing it had already turned down 161 million, thinking he was in line for four years and 225 million. It's like, no, I'll do two for 68, but I'll opt out next year. I just don't understand how a player or his reps would be like, we will do this and just see what happens. And then he doesn't play well in that Celtic series. I know he was great in the beginning of the Celtic series, but it was just overall at that point, you're watching another year of Harden where you're going, who would want

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  to give him four years in the 200 million now? And guess what?

• 1:32:34Bill Simmons?

  It's a key point because he was so bad in six and seven, but there's another what if that ties to this.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Because he was awesome in earlier in the series to again, to be totally.

• 1:32:42Bill Simmons?

  And then dies.

• 1:32:43Speaker 01

  Right, right. Go ahead.

• 1:32:45Bill Simmons?

  But the other what if to this is they don't treat Harden well in this whole extension thing and it becomes a he said, she said thing. Not great for Daryl, not great for the Sixers. So they zag the other way with Embiid. You know what? We're going to double down on Joel Embiid and show how much we love this guy with this massive extension on top of the two years we already owe him because we got to show that we love our players and that turns out to be a mistake. James Harden, a lot of sliding doors, right? And it could end up with the Clippers making the Western Finals. So it could be a sliding door number seven.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Right, because you'd imagine if Harden stays, there's a couple of other things here, too. It doesn't mean anything for Embiid and his health, but they're better this year and that pick is definitely gone to OKC. But it's still not like an awful pick. And by the way, they have the sixth worst record, it's top six. If there's one upset, Philly's still losing that pick.

• 1:33:40Bill Simmons?

  Okay. It's like, it's basically 50 50 or 60 40, depending on where they are. Even if they get to the five spot, it's still like 60 40 that they keep it. So it's not even like, oh, we got the five spot, we're keeping the pick. No, they changed the odds. You're not keeping it, definitely.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Or because Harden isn't there to probably have them. Set up for a much better regular season because if he's playing, he's putting up numbers.

• 1:34:04Bill Simmons?

  Right. They keep, then maybe they get the third pick.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  Right. So maybe the, the best part of this, maybe it's Paul George staying with the Clippers because they don't have the Harden option. Would the Clippers be better or worse? Um, you know, depending on George's availability, I don't know that there's much of an argument you can make in it. Anyway. That one's endless. It just is a cycle. It's a fever dream.

• 1:34:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have another one that's endless. Ready? What if Dallas just gives Jalen Brunson a four year 55 extension during the summer of 2021? Or even during the 21 22 season? It leads to no Jalen Brunson in New York, no Kyrie to Dallas. Maybe Luca stays because him and Jalen Brunson are so awesome together. New York ends up trading everything for Donovan Mitchell. Who wanted to play in New York for a couple of years there before realizing those doors were closed. So now we don't have the Cleveland thing either because the Knicks have traded. Seven first round picks and God only knows what else to get Mitchell. Bridges does, Bridges doesn't go to the Knicks. Maybe he goes somewhere else, whatever. The 2025 Cavs don't happen.

• 1:35:09Bill Simmons?

  It's got 19 different things, but then also at least the sliding door to be. Does Dallas even trade Luca at that point?

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  And then the second part of this is what if Dallas just leaks in mid-January that they're thinking about trading Luca? How do the next two weeks play out? Shams. Reports. I'm hearing the Dallas approach Minnesota about Anthony Edwards to see if, but, and, and it's just, and then the Dallas fan base reacts. And we're off and I don't think there's any way he gets traded, but if he does get traded, it's for a way crazier price than what they got. So I think those two are tied together because neither of them are now in the Dallas Mavericks.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Is there a discussion about who would you rather have if you were the Knicks, Mitchell or Brunson?

• 1:36:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, the answer is Brunson because the price they gave up for Brunson versus the price they would have had to give up for Mitchell, it's no contest. If you're saying just fundamentally, who would you rather have?

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's not talk in the fact that Brunson gave him a massive discount, which again is another one of those. So I'm like.

• 1:36:17Bill Simmons?

  I'd personally, I'd like slight lean toward Brunson for me. But I also think Tibbs is running Brunson into the ground in a real way. And there's a chance maybe Mitchell would have been better off playing for Tibbs than Brunson. I think what they're doing to Brunson is nuts. I've been pretty consistent with it. He finally got hurt. Was it, you know, he stepped on somebody's ankle. It wasn't Tibbs' fault. But I just think running small guys into the ground like that, there's no recipe in the history of the league that that's a good idea.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  It almost feels like Brunson, you know, it's like recasting a movie. It's like trying to sit, take like, hey, could you have done Dumb and Dumber with Jeff Daniels and Paul Rudd? Well, no, I can't unsee Jim Carrey being perfect. Like there's, there's no way. So undoing what we've seen with Brunson and what he's meant to Knicks fans. Cause I imagine as I ask that question, Knicks fans are listening to be like, are you out of your mind? Like Brunson's and I'm not telling you, you're wrong. I probably lean a little slight Mitchell, but I don't think many people would agree with me just because you've seen how special this Brunson Knicks thing has been, how many huge shots he's been involved in, you know.

• 1:37:34Bill Simmons?

  His network of people that want to play for him. I was, I went to Laker game with a Nick fan last night and we were both looking around at all the jerseys, right? And the amount of Kobe jerseys that are still at Lakers games. Now all the little kids have Luca jerseys and there's LeBron jerseys and you'll see some Shacks and you'll see some old school Jerry West. Like it's, it's all.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Inland California guys with Reeves jerseys on.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  There are a couple of Reeves jerseys for Orange County. But I asked my Knicks fan friends, I asked my Knicks fans friend, what are the jerseys like at Knicks games? And he's like Brunson. It's just people fucking love Brunson.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of the point is.

• 1:38:14Bill Simmons?

  Then he was like, there's a couple towns, but it's kind of the zag. You know, it's like when, when the 2002, that when there was like a lot of Pierce jerseys and then somebody would zag with the Antoine jersey.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  But I understood the Antoine jersey because he was there before and he was the higher pick and it was like, okay, this guy can do a little everything. Jordan's talking him up.

• 1:38:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. But yeah, he said, there's a whiff of towns, but it's mostly Brunson. I just think New York just loves Brunson. So anyway, that, uh, the Dallas thing, the Brunson piece of it, when it was so obvious, like that just wasn't a lot of money and they should have done it. And then they almost did it again during the season and both times backed off. I think you look at Cuban the last couple of years. And I'm not saying it undid the 2011 title because that was amazing, but his decade.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  That's, that's a little too harsh.

• 1:39:04Bill Simmons?

  His decade is fucking brutal. Like not doing the Brunson thing, selling the team to these schmucks that trade Luca within a year and then not getting nearly enough for the team. Not to mention all the behind the shit stuff, behind the scenes shit that was going on with that organization. Rough decade for our guy Cubes. Just, and now he's trying to distance himself desperately from the Luca trade. And he'll do any interview and talk about how he can't believe and oh my God, I had no idea. It's like, you did sell the team to these dudes. This is your fault. Just like it was Howard Schultz's fault. When he sold the Sonics to these fucking dudes from Oklahoma City who were clearly going to move them.

• 1:39:45Bill Simmons?

  Cubans sold the Mavericks to these guys and they obviously don't know what they're doing and they traded Luka Doncic, which is the most insane thing that's happened in the NBA this century. Other than maybe the Artest melee.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Hey, just full transparency. Have you tried to get him on?

• 1:40:00Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I had him on a couple of years ago.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  You haven't requested him on recently?

• 1:40:06Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Last year?

• 1:40:07Bill Simmons?

  Why?

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  Well, I thought maybe with the Celtics in the finals.

• 1:40:11Bill Simmons?

  I honestly, I don't want to, I, I'm not that interested in somebody giving interviews about how they wouldn't have traded Luka Doncic if they still on the team. It's like, well, you sold the team.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  I want to stay on this.

• 1:40:21Bill Simmons?

  Why'd you sell the team?

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  I know we're doing sliding doors, but we need to stay on this because there's a bunch of things that you said that I totally agree with, but I've also noticed the podcast that he's going on, is he going on with podcasts knowing that sports guys that know the story a little bit better?

• 1:40:36Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't hammer him on it.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  Cause it's like, hey, when you sold the team, again, if the Mavs go for $4 billion in Dallas.

• 1:40:44Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't $4 billion, it was three and a half. It was like, it might've been less.

• 1:40:49Speaker 01

  But if the Celtics go for 6.1, the Mavs should have gone for higher.

• 1:40:53Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  It's my point.

• 1:40:54Bill Simmons?

  They own their arena.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  They own their arena.

• 1:40:56Bill Simmons?

  It's a top eight or nine market in the league.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:59Bill Simmons?

  And they had Luka Doncic, who's worth a billion dollars by himself for value, no question.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Right. And then, which so many NBA teams, and I just heard McMahon on with Windhorse and Bon Tims on this, and he was talking about just the wording of the transition of the front office of like, okay, this group is buying it, but I am going to run this team. And there's all these very specific quotes about how Cuban's going to keep running it. I don't know, was that to appease the fanbase?

• 1:41:30Bill Simmons?

  Nobody believed it.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  There were other teams to your point.

• 1:41:32Bill Simmons?

  Nobody who actually was in basketball circles believed that that's how it was going to be played out. And by the way, we're going through the same thing now with, with Wick and the new owner. Unless that's in writing, that he is going to be the governor for the next three years and that's part of the sale, I don't know if he's going to last two years, one year. I have, we have no idea.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  But see, that's, I want to stay on that because this is exactly where I wanted to go because McMahon was using like quotes and they were all like, they all sound ridiculous listening a year later of Cuban go, okay, this is how it's going to be handled. And then, you know, I'm going to run all these different things. And as I joke.

• 1:42:05Bill Simmons?

  We made fun of it in the moment on this podcast.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  And there were so many people around the NBA being like, why does he keep saying this? Like this is definitely not going to happen. And it's exactly how it played out. So when the Celtics sale was announced, which I want to ask you more about, the first thing I thought about in that press release was, I wonder what isn't true in this. Now, maybe they're telling the truth, maybe. And I still think despite some of the blips that you're, you're hammering Cuban here for, I think it's a, it's a much better track record than a lot of the other options that you've had. But you'd look at long-term ownership. There's no way you're giving Cuban a failing grade at owning the Mavs.

• 1:42:41Bill Simmons?

  No, he's unbelievable. I think he's one of the most important NBA owners of the 21st century. He's in the top three.

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:48Bill Simmons?

  And he had a great, great first two decades. I'm just saying the, the, the stretch here, starting with Brunson to the end. It's really bad for him. It gets mentioned in the first paragraph of everything about this and he has to get blamed.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Jalen Brunson signing with the Knicks is not in the first paragraph for whatever Cuban's like.

• 1:43:05Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying what happened to the Mavs over the course to where they are now, where their fan base is in a full revolt with the team? I don't know. He, he's got to get some blame for that. He does.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 1:43:17Bill Simmons?

  Don't sell the team to these people who obviously didn't know what they were doing. If, you know, and then be like, ah, I never would have traded him. Like, I thought you loved the Mavericks. I thought you loved their fans. I thought you loved Luca. Like, that's crazy. That's crazy to say that after the fact. You have to take some blame. I should have vetted these guys better. I wish I hadn't sold the team. He didn't do any of it. He's just been like, I never would have done it. Cool. Guess what? You don't have Luka Doncic anymore.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Or the Mavs. There are some memes going around that are like a reminder of Mike Tirico's greatest lesson that he ever shared with me was the points you don't make, make the points you do make that much stronger, which is still something I struggle with, but it's really good. Like if you have one, one point, like sell it, but don't sell it with point five, six, seven that aren't really as strong and almost hurt the strength of one, two, three, and four to hammer home your point. So, hey, Luca's gone. So it was like the Mavs fumble. Have you seen this meme? And so it's Luca and then it's Brunson and then it's Grimes who

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  single-handedly is like screwing up some of these lottery odds for the Sixers. But then it's Porzingis, who by the way, they couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. All right.

• 1:44:34Bill Simmons?

  Do you do that trade again?

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  Derek Jones Jr. Was over there and you're like, okay, well, I mean, you know, he's a nice player, but there's just some dudes in that picture where I'm like, actually, you're, you're kind of ruining the point, but you just thought it would look better with seven players instead of just three. Uh, do you, do you believe the transition plan for the Celtics and Wick? Cause I could see where a group comes in and goes, Wick has been, again, I think with, on that shortlist, we know that he's cared. We know that I think he gets it in the way that fans would want your owner to get it. They have always spent money when they've had to spend money. They're staring down the barrel of this massive tax bill, which I think would be sort of weird for Wick to go like, hey, now that you have to pay this bill, I would recommend not trading any of these players and keeping this window

• 1:45:20Bill Simmons?

  Let's give Kate a 10 million a year. No, here's what I believe. I think it's very possible, and I don't know for sure, that part of the conditions when they got to the final four were like, we're going to consider the bids or favor the bids that Wick is in there for three years as right as the governor and the transition. And if you can get to like six billion and you have that in there, you're going to have a better chance. And there might have been some of the other bids that were like, all right, our offer is five, eight, and we take over the team immediately. Um, I just don't know if that's in there or not. And I don't know if this is Cuban 2.0 or like, no, no, he's going to run the team. And then

• 1:45:58Bill Simmons?

  nine months from now, the new guy's like, hey, Wick, um, I, I took your courtside seats, so I moved you over. You're going to be in a suite from now on. And all this stuff that happened to Cuban, we knew the Cuban thing was done. And I, I can't remember if we talked about it or not, when he wasn't involved with the Western Conference Trophy presentation and all that stuff. And then there was stuff that you were hearing during the finals about they wouldn't let him sit, you know, they wouldn't give him the courtsides. He was scrambling to sit courtside and the team only gets two. And there was just a lot of buzz that, oh, he didn't play this one correctly. Um, I don't know what the

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Or it was, or it was played the way it's supposed to be played. Is it when somebody writes you a check for billions that

• 1:46:42Bill Simmons?

  Guess what? They want to own the team. That's why I have no idea what, what, uh, where we're going with the Celtics. Um, what was your last sliding door? Cause we're almost done with this segment.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  If Luca is drafted by Atlanta and he stays with the Hawks, does that mean no Dyson Daniels?

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  I didn't know you had a Luca one, so I had another Luca one with Atlanta. I don't know how different it really is. He's probably still on Atlanta. Trey is with Dallas. They likely don't have a finals run in 24. But I don't know. Uh, that one's not nearly as exciting as the Luca one that you did with everything else. So why don't you just share your last one that you think is great?

• 1:47:20Bill Simmons?

  I'll just rip through really quick. The what if Dame goes to Miami is fun because it has

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  I love this one.

• 1:47:27Bill Simmons?

  It has a whole bunch of ramifications. Miami, Alfred, Hero, Lowry, and 28 and 31st.

• 1:47:34Bill Simmons?

  Phoenix, if this all happens, Phoenix, the, the Deandre Ayton and Kamara for, uh, Nurkic and Allen, that trade doesn't happen?

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  Ayton trade probably happens though.

• 1:47:47Bill Simmons?

  Rip, but I'm not positive Grayson Allen's in it because that was part of like, you know, trying to get Dame. They had to move money off and put Grayson Allen somewhere. Who knows? The Bucks don't lose Drew.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  To the Celtics.

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  They get, uh, a 29 first and swaps in 28 and 30.

• 1:48:10Bill Simmons?

  Portland. Portland ends up getting, they trade Drew to Boston for Brogdon Williams, a 24 Golden State first and a 29 Boston first. Basically what I wrote down is every team is worse off except Portland and Boston. The Bucks are worse off with what, with Dame and the fact that it didn't elevate them the way they thought, even though Dame's been, I think, good this year.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Dame's been better offensively this year. Uh, there's no really no comparison.

• 1:48:37Bill Simmons?

  I test wise, he's looked really good. Uh, stats are good. Heat are way worse off. Phoenix is worse off.

• 1:48:47Bill Simmons?

  So yeah, it's, it's just a weird one. I think it helped the Celtics win the title is the biggest sliding door from that.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, let's stay, what if? They do the Miami deal? Does that mean Butler gets extended? Does it mean that Miami's still in the mix? Does it mean that Butler's happy? Does it mean that Golden State has no other option?

• 1:49:06Bill Simmons?

  I think if you do that Dame trade, you then have to do the extension with Jimmy. Cause you can't do all of that and then not have a Jimmy relationship.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  You don't think Miami wouldn't just?

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Like, hey, we'll just run it to free agency, see what's out there for you.

• 1:49:21Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I don't think you can, you can't give up all that for Dame and be like, we're trying to win right now. Also, I didn't factor in whatever happened to Bam Adebayo in the last year. What happened?

• 1:49:34Bill Simmons?

  Why isn't he an impactful top 20 guy anymore? Does, if Dame's on that team, is he?

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  Well, having another like all NBA, not that Dame's making all NBA this year, but

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  having somebody like his, his shot making would certainly make it a lot easier. I mean, they're a mess right now.

• 1:49:53Bill Simmons?

  Makes Bam better. It makes Butler, if he's happy and they took care of him in an extension and they might be a contender. So that's a good one.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's some assumptions in that though. Like what if Dame comes in, gets his 30, isn't playing defense and

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  It becomes a Suns situation?

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  It's not, yeah, it's not really like, like you just assumed a lot about what they would be doing in the East.

• 1:50:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, well, I think they would have, I think they would have taken care of Butler in that scenario. So I feel like it's two guys now.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  All right, fine. Then let's say it's, it's Butler and Dame.

• 1:50:28Bill Simmons?

  With Bam, no hero.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Is that a top six team in the East right now?

• 1:50:38Bill Simmons?

  I think they might've thought it was, but you're right. It might've been a Suns situation where the league got way deeper and this recipe you had for a big three didn't make as much sense in 25 as it did now. I think it would have helped them more last year.

• 1:50:54Bill Simmons?

  Also might've helped them get some, some, some buyout dudes and who knows?

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Buyout guys are so overrated.

• 1:51:00Bill Simmons?

  I think that would add struggle, trouble against Boston. A couple more quick ones. What if Fishby doesn't have new owner syndrome?

• 1:51:09Bill Simmons?

  Because he did that KD for Bridges, Cam, Crowder, four firsts and a swap. It also led to the second Beal trade, which saved, he basically saved Washington and saved Brooklyn with those two trades. So that's gotta be thrown in there. What if the Udoka scandal never happens?

• 1:51:27Bill Simmons?

  Do the Celtics win in 23? What happens to the Rockets? Does any of this even matter? Did it all play out exactly the way it should have played out?

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  Is he still second row Joe to you guys?

• 1:51:38Bill Simmons?

  He might be third row Joe.

• 1:51:41Bill Simmons?

  What if Danny just doesn't blow up the Jazz in 22, coming off a 49-33 season? When they lost to Dallas because Luca was hurt half the series, but Brunson went nuts? And it seemed like, what is this? This team's broken. Jalen Brunson just lit them up. But nobody knew he was Jalen Brunson yet. And then they end up making those two massive trades to Cleveland and to Minnesota and basically create these new, you know, real contenders.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:52:07Bill Simmons?

  For two other teams.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  I imagine Mitchell, Mitchell would have started getting loud, I think, at some point.

• 1:52:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  I don't think that was going to be up to just Utah.

• 1:52:15Bill Simmons?

  What if Golden State takes LaMelo and Franz in those two drafts? Again, stupid.

• 1:52:21Speaker 01

  No, it isn't stupid because I wrote it down.

• 1:52:23Bill Simmons?

  But I mean, it's like, this is like in a draft, you could do this all the time, but it is, there is this alternate universe where they take LaMelo and they take Franz. Did they win the 22 title at that point? Maybe they don't. Are they better now? Maybe they are. I don't know. It's just.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  Just step retire.

• 1:52:38Bill Simmons?

  Steps like I'm done, I'm out.

• 1:52:41Bill Simmons?

  Does LaMelo fit in their system? Do they trade him within a year?

• 1:52:44Speaker 01

  Does LaMelo, does LaMelo, does he actually look like a future Hall of Famer? 16, 17 a game, wide open threes all the time.

• 1:52:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  Passing over the top, like, could LaMelo actually? I know he's a stat filling guy, but would he look like a really nice,

• 1:52:58Bill Simmons?

  winning guy.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  Complimentary, fun, winning player?

• 1:53:02Bill Simmons?

  I will say, Kaminga over Franz, which I think was argued really extensively in Golden State's side. And the whole case for Franz was he's an IQ guy, his movement, he could fit into what we do. That, that just would have been a better pick for them.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  I had Bob Myers on and talked about that pick after.

• 1:53:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  And then was like, who would you have taken then? Cause I was like, it's just Kaminga felt like the competition he was going up against.

• 1:53:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  He was like, well, who would you have taken? I go, it's totally unfair unfair for me to say like after Franz has had to start to his career that oh, you should have taken Franz. So we came to some kind of agreement with that, but I, I think it's a, a lot like these conversations that guys will have and they go, okay, but if it's a lot like the Jalen Brown thing with H. If with this body type and this kind of athleticism, is there enough there that we see that we can build on? But this could be like a really special perimeter player where you're taking him. That's what I think breaks a lot of ties in these war rooms. And then we look back being like, how do those guys fuck that one up?

• 1:54:01Bill Simmons?

  I think they finally realized that the, that they, as long as Steph and Draymond were on the team, hoops IQ had to be the number one thing.

• 1:54:10Bill Simmons?

  Maybe they struggled with that for a couple of years. Uh, two more quick ones. This is just a funny one.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  What are you saying about Wiseman and Kaminga?

• 1:54:16Bill Simmons?

  What if COVID never happened? And I went back and I looked at the standings and I remembered and actually listened to like 10 minutes of a pod we did that Sunday before COVID of like the Lakers finally beat the Clippers. And we did a pod about what does this mean to the Lakers and say like, but the Clippers had already beaten them twice. But the Lakers, when COVID happens, the Lakers are 49 and 14. They're number one in the West. The Clippers are 44 and 20 and the Nuggets are 43 and 22. So the, and those are going to be our three teams, basically. Milwaukee was 53 and 12 and Giannis was about to win his second MVP.

• 1:54:56Bill Simmons?

  And Milwaukee, I, I just forgot this. Milwaukee was like, that was the big obstacle. That was the one. And then it was like LA versus LA. And then here's Giannis over here and what, how is this going to play out? And COVID happens, they come back and Giannis gets hurt in the first round and that's how Miami jumps in. The Clippers completely fall apart in the bubble. So COVID never happens. I don't know what happens that season, but it's probably Milwaukee or the two LA teams. I think the title comes from one of those three. I think it would have been way better for the Clippers.

• 1:55:29Bill Simmons?

  Here's my last one. This is just for you because I, this, you, this is like the ultimate dumb slide indoor thing. What if Philly doesn't bail on Al Horford after one year?

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  It was such a bad fit though with Embiid. It just, it just didn't work. So.

• 1:55:45Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you the trades?

• 1:55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they had to get, well, this pick, by the way, that we talked about before.

• 1:55:50Bill Simmons?

  November, November 2020, coming out of the bubble season, heading to the next season. Daryl has just taken over and Horford's got three years left on his deal. They trade him with Maladon, Mičić and a 25 first for Danny Green. That was the trade. They put OKC, they put, OKC puts Horford on ice for a year.

• 1:56:17Bill Simmons?

  They trade him to the Celtics for Kemba and the 16th pick.

• 1:56:22Bill Simmons?

  What happens to the 16th pick? They pass on Shengun and Trey Murphy with the pick they get from Horford and trade it to Houston for two heavily protected Detroit, Washington picks. That was kind of a bad trade, but they just could have taken Shengun or Trey Murphy. Celtics make the 22 finals with Horford. They win the 24 title with Horford. And Philly is now tanking in 25 to keep this pick that they gave up because they decided Al Horford was a bad fit with Joel Embiid, who doesn't fucking play. Guess who you needed a backup center for? Joel Embiid.

• 1:56:59Bill Simmons?

  Tough one.

• 1:57:01Speaker 01

  Tough one, but it was ugly and you felt like at the time it was worth moving.

• 1:57:04Bill Simmons?

  They had to do something.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it was.

• 1:57:06Bill Simmons?

  What's crazy is that Al Horford had negative value. They're like, you gotta take, if you take Al Horford, I need, I need, I, you also have to throw in a pick.

• 1:57:18Bill Simmons?

  You gotta take this guy back. That's how bad it was. And now he's like one of the most beloved Celtic teammates probably ever.

• 1:57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Cause it's two transactions there where it's a negative. Because you're getting off of Kemba's disastrous thing, but you're including the pick to take him back. I'm just so glad that Al got that second act in Boston because it was this. Deal where, you know, he's just not going to be appreciated the right way when he signed at a max contract where it's so hard to sign any free agents. Like you should be thrilled, especially at the time and age that Horford was at. It's like you can get this guy like, I hope he says yes to our max offer. And then, now look, the counting stats aren't going to be good enough for a lot of fans when it's Al Horford. And then for him to extend it this far, like even a couple of years ago, I was like, when is this thing going to be over? Like,

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  can you really ask to run him this way? And I mean, thank God for Horford because without him, I really wonder what they would look like to, you know, have that kind of insurance against Porzingis where you need, you need somebody who's really good to play all those games that, you know, Porzingis is going to miss.

• 1:58:22Bill Simmons?

  You know, it would have been a fun, I mentioned, forgot to mention one other what if with this. The Horford trade doesn't exist for the Celtics. They're stuck with Kemba for one more year. But they take Trey Murphy with the 16th pick.

• 1:58:36Bill Simmons?

  Who's kind of like the perfect interchangeable swing to come in like that. That's another one. But what ifs? Those are our favorite ones. Somehow we went for almost two hours. So we don't have to do the thing at the top of the podcast. I think we're good with the pod. March Madness. I'm sure you're enjoying it.

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  Um, not really.

• 1:58:55Bill Simmons?

  Not really?

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  No, not with St. John's. Most anticipation I've had for St. John's in 25 years. Already told that story about St. John's last Sunday. I did not leave my apartment and leave guests behind this time around. I knew that shooting thing was probably going to really hurt him. I didn't expect that it was going to happen in the second game against Arkansas, but Lewis was just really bad. And you could even see at some point, Edgeworth grab him and be like, you need to wake up. You need to wake up. So I think on the whole, you need to look at it this way. If you're a St. John's fan, you've had nothing to be this excited about for a core century. Patino is everything and that as advertised, considering he's won everywhere he's gone. So it's disappointing, but they won the Big East. They beat UConn twice. They're back on the map.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  They're likely only only going to get better until Patino probably gets back into like, you know, who knows what job is open to him. You never know because Patino will just take him. But if he's content and wants to stay in St. John's, I think that they'll be even better. So it was a really fun season for a program that, you know, at some point during every year when I would watch him, and I wouldn't really talk about it all that much. I just wanted to enjoy it as a fan because there's very few things that I still have in my life that are just about, hey, this is going to be a fan experience. I don't really have to talk about it. I'm not breaking down St. John's after a bunch of those games. It brought me so much joy this year to feel like you were a part of it again, the way I did when I was a kid, the way I was in college, the way I was in my twenties. That there's just too many positives for me to be too upset about losing to Arkansas.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  Because they also can't shoot. They were like 340s out of 364 teams. So you knew this game was coming. Again, I didn't think it'd be after one round, but.

• 2:00:31Bill Simmons?

  Do you think he should have done the press conference after and done the, Chris Mullin's not walking through that door, St. John's fans. Bill Williams is not walking through that door. Walter Peters not walking through that door. And if he did, he'd be old and gray.

• 2:00:45Speaker 01

  I would imagine a lot of guys are going to be walking through that door, though. And if they had had, if they had one, even a bench guy who was a five, who could stretch the floor a little bit.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  You know, I know Florida just escaped UConn today.

• 2:00:58Bill Simmons?

  Could have been my guy Brady Dunlap.

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:01:01Bill Simmons?

  He got hurt.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  Too bad. Yeah.

• 2:01:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're missing. I'm sure he'll just recruit two shooters now. I think he should stay for a little while, because I think it became a real thing in New York. And I think he's smart enough to realize at the point of his career that he's been in, where he's basically done everything and he's made a shitload of money. Like, why not try to be the king of New York for one more year?

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Because I think he's one of the most crazy competitive people ever. I think he, there's another level to him that's even beyond like the most competitive people that you know.

• 2:01:29Bill Simmons?

  I mean, nobody's ever resigned from as much money as he had at stake with the Celtics, where he's just like, I resign. You can have the money back. That never happens, ever. It's like, let's negotiate a buyout for three weeks. He's like, I'm out. Here's my facts.

• 2:01:44Speaker 01

  But I don't know, man. I've just seen it too many times. I've seen it too many times with him where he's just like, okay, what's the next challenge? And I think that's just kind of the way he's wired. It doesn't even matter how old he is because the guy is, you know, arguably the greatest college basketball coach of his era. You know, I know there can be arguments made for other people, but I mean, this guy went to Greece after Louisville and you were like, okay, we're never going to hear from this guy again. And then he shows up because I own is like, we'll do it.

• 2:02:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  And then he wins.

• 2:02:10Bill Simmons?

  It should have been really close.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  In two years, he has St. John's as a two seed and winning the Big East. So

• 2:02:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:16Speaker 01

  Look, man, I would think there'd be a lot of people that would want to go there. The New York thing for St. John's has always been a little difficult because you'd always think this is automatic. But then for the longest time, the New York kids actually didn't want to go there. They wanted to go somewhere else. The setup wasn't necessarily that great. The NIL part of it, you know, you can get into the USC thing, like, why wouldn't?

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  Why wouldn't must be able to just get whoever he wanted to in LA and the marketability of LA and SC and all that stuff. And it's like, man, I actually think it's a little bit more complicated. I'd also argue the SC campus situation is is better than maybe St. John's over the years. But I don't care. Like, I'm not, I was bummed out they lost, but I was so happy about this year that I'm going to let that part of it. I think there could be some kind of memo to Spike Lee, though, like, we're good.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  We don't need you decked out in St. John's gear.

• 2:03:06Bill Simmons?

  Spike, can we talk?

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:09Bill Simmons?

  Lay back.

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  You don't get, you don't get enough attention, you know?

• 2:03:14Bill Simmons?

  The Knicks thing has been great for Spike.

• 2:03:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he didn't need another team. He didn't need to add a second one.

• 2:03:22Speaker 01

  There's no way he was rooting for St. John's to play in Georgetown, is my guess.

• 2:03:28Bill Simmons?

  Very possible.

• 2:03:31Bill Simmons?

  Russillo, back on your pod on Tuesday?

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we're doing, I don't know what we're doing.

• 2:03:39Bill Simmons?

  All right, well, I'll see you in Boston, Massachusetts.

• 2:03:45Bill Simmons?

  This week, because we are doing a live rewatchable show.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Which one am I doing? What time?

• 2:03:51Bill Simmons?

  We're doing Good Will Hunting, Thursday.

• 2:03:54Speaker 01

  Thursday, what time is the theater open?

• 2:03:56Bill Simmons?

  Thursday at, uh, at night. It's sold out. It's at, uh, it's at House of Blues. We're doing that. And then I'm making you come to at least a couple Coolidge Corner Theater.

• 2:04:07Bill Simmons?

  You gotta come to, you gotta come see like Heat or Goodfellas or one of those movies, The Town. You gotta go see one of them in a theater with us.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  I got so nervous when somebody sent me the itinerary and they're like, they want me to do The Town again. I go, I'm not doing that. I'm never doing The Town again.

• 2:04:23Bill Simmons?

  We're doing Good Will Hunting on Thursday.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  I was on the rewatchables this week. So I got that coming up in the schedule.

• 2:04:30Bill Simmons?

  We had a category in the rewatchables called Blind Call to Russillo. And every time we called, you didn't answer because you never answer your phone. And then this time I did the call and Van goes, call back, call second time. Or Craig said that. Maybe hit his second time, maybe to go through, called, you answered and you did, uh, you did about a minute on Blue Chips. It was great.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  I was in the car too.

• 2:04:53Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'll see you in Boston.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  See you.

• 2:04:56Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Russillo. Thanks to Sarudy and Gahow and Kyle. As always, don't forget about Prestige TV tonight. Doing a podcast episode on White Lotus, episode six. New rewatchables coming on Monday. We did Blue Chips, Celtic City on HBO and on Max, 9:00 PM, Monday night. The first bird episode. We're going into the eighties. As you can tell, I enjoyed it. And then on this podcast, I'm definitely going to be having a podcast on Tuesday. Not sure about Thursday yet. So at least Tuesday, you're going to have me. I will see you on Tuesday.

• 2:05:57Bill Simmons?

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• 2:06:38Bill Simmons?

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• 2:07:17Speaker 02

  I don't know what I'm doing. Need a break. Forget it, I quit. Escape to Pluto TV.

• 2:07:22Speaker 03

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 2:07:24Speaker 02

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Swing! Even our news is uplifting.

• 2:07:30Bill Simmons?

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 2:07:32Speaker 02

  Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 2:07:37Speaker 03

  We're not worthy!

• 2:07:39Speaker 02

  The best things on TV really are free.

• 2:07:42Bill Simmons?

  You just have to know where to look.

• 2:07:43Speaker 02

  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.