The Memphis Lowdown, and Forgotten NBA Playoff Teams With Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon to discuss the Grizzlies firing head coach Taylor Jenkins in the final stretch of the regular season (3:05), and Western Conference contenders (41:20). Then, Bill and Ryen wonder if they should be taking the Pistons seriously; the Pacers as a playoff threat, Bucks postseason concerns (0:00), a March Madness check-in (01:09:43), and more. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon 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 has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates, follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch, no login required. Just head to your My Bets page to turn it on. If you don't already have it, download the Fanduel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

• 0:43Bill Simmons?

  The Prestige TV Podcast, we broke down episode seven, the second to last episode of White Lotus, season three, me, Mallory, Joanna. You could check that out on Spotify on video. 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.

• 1:24Bill Simmons?

  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. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. If you missed our Prestige TV Podcast about White Lotus, episode seven, go check that out. Rewatchables is coming Monday night. It's going to be the live show that we did in Boston at House of Blues. Me, Russillo, Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy. A great time was had by all. I had a ball. It was awesome. It was great to finally do one in Boston.

• 2:07Bill Simmons?

  So that is coming and you'll be able to watch that on The Ringer Moves YouTube channel, or you can watch it as a video on Spotify. We have a big announcement. So, once upon a time at Grantland, I used to work with a guy named Zach Lowe. We hired him from Sports Illustrated and he became an awesome, awesome basketball writer and podcast for us over the next few years. I left Grantland. We have not worked together for 10 years and now we're going to be working together again because Zach Lowe is coming to The Ringer and he's coming to Spotify and he's going to have his podcast and we are going to launch it next week. Zach is going to be on my podcast on Tuesday. We're going to catch up on basketball and a whole bunch of things, but get ready. We have a trailer coming. We have the

• 2:52Bill Simmons?

  podcast name. I think he might even, I don't even know if Zach knows this, but there might be a TikTok. So lots of good stuff coming, but obviously Zach's one of the best people I've ever worked with and was really hoping at some point in life, we would get to work together again. So it's happening and it's going to be in time for the end of the NBA season. We're going to get his awards, which I always loved reading and then we'll get him for the playoffs and beyond. So Zach Lowe, welcome aboard. Couldn't be happier about it. Coming up, I'm going to talk to Ryan Marzillo and Chris Vernon at the very top because we got to find out what's happening in Memphis. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  All right, recording just after 6pm. Marzillo is here as always on Sunday nights. Chris Vernon joining us from Memphis. Memphis was in the news this week. They fired their coach. It was shocking. I guess it wasn't that shocking if you looked at their record, last 25 games. But Vernon, before we, we find out from you what happened, Marzillo, give us your 30 second reaction to finding out Memphis had fired their coach with three weeks left in the season when they were a top five seed.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  It made all the offseason stuff make sense. When you blast out a guy's entire assistant staff and don't really consult him to bring in the new assistants and then run an offense that I don't think he wanted to run, that they won too many games for them to do something ultimately that they really wanted to do. And for them to do this when everybody thinks he's a pretty good coach and considering the injuries for them to do this, this means they've wanted to fire him for over a year is my outside take.

• 4:47Bill Simmons?

  All right. Now, Verno's inside take. Verno, you're in Memphis. You also host the mismatch for us, but you're in Memphis, you're doing the, all the, all the pregame shows, you have the, you have the, the radio show, this is your city. Were you surprised?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely stunned. Stunned.

• 5:06Bill Simmons?

  Stunned, okay.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yes. Absolutely stunned. Not that nobody fires their coach with nine games to go. Like, I think we were all of the opinion, I agree with Ryan, right? Like, okay, this has gone the wrong way, but teams go the wrong way a lot during NBA seasons. We've seen it over and over again where you're just not playing, you're not playing anywhere near your best basketball at the end of the year. And sometimes the coach can be, but you're deciding on a pie chart how much the coach is to blame. But one of the things that is common is that you play it out and then in the offseason, something takes place. Cause you're that far down the line. Cause you, how many, how

• 5:51Speaker 02

  many big changes can happen with nine games left to go? And the answer, I guess, is still to be found out because what they're attempting to do is throw on the emergency break here at the end and say, look, you got nine games left. You don't want to be, or I guess eight games now after last night against the Lakers, but you don't want to be in a play in situation. You're probably going to have to get to at least, say, 48 wins in order to not be in a play in situation. So that means you got to play 500 and you haven't played 500 in a long time. You haven't beaten a team

• 6:31Speaker 02

  over 500 since February 2nd. And so it's like, yeah, this is way late in the season, but it's kind of nut cutting time. Like if you're, if you're gonna not be in the play in and if- Unfortunately for them, in the playoffs, you have to play a good team.

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  Every round.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  To be able to beat a good team, like then you want to try something different, even if it is this late. But it's the, I think I, I think I fall in line with everybody. It's not that they did it, it's when they did it. The timing of this, usually you don't get this late in the season before a guy is let go.

• 7:08Bill Simmons?

  So last 25 games, they were 11 and 14, 15th net rating. As you mentioned, and I didn't even realize that they hadn't had a good win in that long until you texted us that. And I went back and looked at the schedule and I was like, oh my, my God. I, I guess for Silva, the thing that with, when you do something like this, it makes me think that they think they still have a chance to make the Western Finals. And it wasn't going to happen with the current situation. But if they can change the coaching, maybe they have a chance to make the Western Finals. And I think I disagree, but on the other hand, like this was the team everyone wanted to play in the West.

• 7:49Bill Simmons?

  You know, like if you were, if you were in the six, seven, eight range, you were like, man, it would be really cool if we could play Memphis. So I think that's why you make the change, but I don't think they have enough talent to be dangerous in the West, do you?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  No, they're like, I don't know if I should say my least favorite team, but I have to get all the way to Dallas before I'm as not as excited about another team. And depending on how the

• 8:13Bill Simmons?

  In the West, you mean?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you look at the West and you say, you know, what, what's the best case scenario? Cause it's just crazy that it feels like not that long ago. You know, this is a team that was a two seed back to back seasons and you're like, man, like what, what could this team do? And this makes sense. And we're all excited about Ja and they've got all these nice young players. And you're like, okay, well these playoff losses, these are their, you know, we've talked about this a lot the last couple of weeks. These are their seasoning seasons and then they have their injury issues. And then when you watch them this year. You know, they, they still had a decent enough record, even 11 and 14 isn't really that bad. But when you look at, as Verno says, the record against any of the good teams, if you look at where they stand in the West and the expanded standings, they're 11 and 21

• 8:57Speaker 01

  against teams that are 500 or better. You know, Golden State's 500, Minnesota's 14 and 20. So it's still marginally better. The Clippers with their stuff are 14 and 22. You gotta get to Sacramento, who's the 10 seed right now to have something that resembles how bad Memphis' record is against those teams. So, you know, look, is it Jenkins? No. You know, Ja supposedly in that piece from the Athletic talked about how he didn't like the offense. I mean, the irony of this is that the Finnish guy now that's the new head coach, like this was part of the offense that he brought from Europe. And I know when the NBA thinks, where do we go for head coaching? It's like, let's start in Finland. But I, I think LaRoche, the other guy who was let go with Jenkins, like he was big on this offense too. Here's what I know. You can run

• 9:39Speaker 01

  whatever fucking offense you want with this team. I know exactly what it's going to look like in the last couple of minutes. And I'll be honest, this is like the first season with Ja where I go, I think I'm out. I'm not all the way out right now. I don't want to make that official statement because he's still young enough. But when he's the face of your franchise and leader, like, look, man, I text, Verno texted me a single tear emoji on a face after I did an open a couple of years ago. It's the whoop that trick game where they beat the Golden State Warriors. They're down 3-1. They won by 39 points. I think recency bill had a take that you can't win an NBA championship having that kind of loss in the playoffs.

• 10:13Bill Simmons?

  Recency Bill was, came out big that day.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Right, right. And I know it was fun and it's, it's probably a memory a lot of Memphis fans will have because that was a lot of fun for everybody that night. Ja, by the way, didn't play in that game, if anybody needs that reminder. And look, it's going to be a little mean, but my initial thought watching that game was, these guys are losers.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Okay, and I wanted them to get their asses handed to them in game six and they did.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  So wait, so are you the one that called Dillon Brooks and told him to shoot it 30 times?

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot, Ryan. In retrospect, now I find out who told you, who told him to?

• 10:54Speaker 01

  You know what? Perfect transition because then in the next year, they lose to the Lakers. They, they lose in six. They what? They lose by 40 points in game six.

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  And everyone blames Dillon Brooks.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Right. Well, Dillon Brooks brought it on himself a lot too. Like that was this, that was the off season of where it was like, get ready to learn China, buddy. And it was like, you know, I'm saying that wrong on purpose, but you know, he was like, I'm going to be the bully with LeBron and then he.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  No, no, he said, I poke bears.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Right. But I'm just saying, he wanted to be the bully in the series against LeBron and then he didn't want to do immediate availability, what, twice after like two of the losses?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  So the, the.

• 11:33Bill Simmons?

  Verno drove him to the airport. He just wanted to make sure he got on the plane.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Hey, look, and Brooks has proven he was worth the contract. So like my, my overall thing with this team, Verno, is that it went from this like, really likeable underdog. We don't give a shit. This is who we are. You know the Grizzlies identity to, you guys haven't done shit in like four years and I know injuries are part of the story. And it's like, I'll watch some of these games. It's like, dude, you guys carry yourselves like you've done something in this league.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  They do not. They do not carry themselves like that anymore.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Right now, Chris, he's insufferable to watch right now.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  They don't carry themselves like, I mean, when is that? Look, that's part of the problem is the, that whole edge, that whole fun, that all that stuff that basically Oklahoma City has completely stolen from the Grizzlies, but you guys all, you know, ejaculate over it.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Why? You know why? Cause they're good.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Because, yeah, right. Well, the Grizzlies were good, right? Like, and then what happens is you are the good young team. You're the new kid on the block and then you get beat and then everybody loves to, to say that your chest was out too much and you want to be pushed down. Peg, right? Um, here's the deal. They have over the course of the last, last year was a completely lost season.

• 12:54Bill Simmons?

  Absolutely.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  And this season, Morant, I think Morant wanted to have the like revenge season, right? And I think he wanted to come back and prove to everybody.

• 13:04Bill Simmons?

  So you were telling us what was gonna happen. You were texting me in house. You were telling us revenge season.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  That he's way down the list on all of these like best players in the league and all that kind of stuff. And everybody's just forgotten about him, right? He got into trouble, then last year he lost the season. So he comes back this year and next thing you know, and I know you say it doesn't matter what kind of offense they run. I don't agree because I was in, unfortunately, with my mismatched brethren, Jacoby, in New York City. And I was there watching the Knicks beat the Grizzlies by a thousand. And what happened is you, you started running an offense that famously, you can go find every article, doesn't run ball screens. They run less ball screens than any team in the entire NBA. So guess what happened this year?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  What happens is team comes out and they say, all right, we're going to guard you with Mikal Bridges, who's six foot nine and has a seven, 10 wingspan, and he's going to be guarding you the entire time. And guess who you're never going to get off of you because your team doesn't use ball screens. And so next thing you know, John Morant's standing in the corner playing thumb wars with Mikal Bridges. And the whole world is like, what is going on? This guy's one of the best players in the world. So then they tried to save it this year. And well, I mean, in March.

• 14:25Bill Simmons?

  Hold, hold that point.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  In, in March, he's, he's averaged what? Uh, 38 and five while shooting 50% from the field in the games that he's played, right? Like, and they, because they, but if you go back and watch, they've started running all these high ball screens again. They've started getting, they, they've moved it back because it got to such a breaking point. And it's like, hold on now, we've got an offense that is good for.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Players six through 10, maybe players four through 10. But is it?

• 15:00Bill Simmons?

  But not one through three.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  But is it the best thing for your best player? Right? And and it obviously and it hasn't been the best for Desmond Bain either. Right? Like, so there's been a push and pull to this. And obviously, when they play against good teams, it's been all year. They haven't been able to beat good teams. Their their record is based upon them beating up bad teams.

• 15:21Bill Simmons?

  Enough foreplay. This to me is a whole Joss situation. And Joss doesn't play enough and Joss not reliable enough. And I wrote down, can you actually compete for a title? If you can't count on your best guy emotionally or physically? Now, think about like, Embiid is in that class, right? Kawhi and the Clippers. Not Kawhi before the Clippers, but Kawhi during the Clippers. Is he going to be out there? What am I getting? Is he going to be out there in April? I have no idea. C. Webb on the Kings after the 01 playoffs. Is he playing? Is he not playing? I don't know. Vince Carter, Allen Iverson. Kyrie before Dallas. Zion right now. If you don't have that reliability with your best guy, can you even have a chance to win a title?

• 16:06Bill Simmons?

  And I think the answer is no. He's 25 now. He made he made all NBA second team three years ago. And this year he's missed 30 games already. And it's not even like a Brunson thing where he got hurt. And he's out for six weeks. Like, he just he'll miss eight games, so I miss six games, so I miss three games. When you go to work, do you even know if Joss is playing? That's the season he's had.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, that and that has been frustrating across the board. Right? Because he had this, he started off well and then he got hurt and he got clipped out of the air by Christian Koloko. Then he came back, then he was playing in a game in New Orleans and he ran into a Daniel Theis screen and his shoulder got screwed up again. And then he's, I mean, it's just been one thing after another.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  But is that his going to be his career? I guess is my question because he just seems like a nagging injury guy to me.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  And maybe maybe it will be, but I will say, I I have always stood tall on this that over the years, there is a reason. And you're the guy that wrote the book of basketball. There's a reason these guys, no matter how great they are, no matter what level you think they're at. I don't know why it's the number, but they're 27 years old. They are 20.

• 17:20Bill Simmons?

  The top year, yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Is that what he's going to learn to shoot?

• 17:23Speaker 02

  I don't know. Did Jalen Brown learn how to shoot? Cause I heard you guys shit on him for eight straight years and then he won finals MVP last year. So I, it can happen.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  He shot over 31% one time out of the last five years. I mean, you really want to compare him to Jalen Brown, like you think you're hurting my feelings, but you're not.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's it. That wasn't the way to go at Russillo. I would have, I would have attacked Blake Lively in the town before.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Jalen was 31, 40% in his second year from three. I mean, look, what I would say is if you're this high.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  The point is at 27 guys change. It has happened over and over again.

• 18:01Bill Simmons?

  But will this change? When I watch Memphis, especially in the last four minutes.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  It's my only hope, Bill. My only hope is that it changes.

• 18:09Bill Simmons?

  He's just going to the basket, right? And he's probably, if he's not the most electric guy in the league, going to the basket with the game on the line. He's in the top three and that's what you're doing over and over again. I always say this with, with other guys too, in the playoff series. I kind of feel like I know what Memphis is doing in the last three minutes. And guess what? They're going to give Ja the ball and he's going to go to the basket. And over the course of four rounds, either I'm stopping it or he's getting hurt. And I think that's the point in their career that he's at. And that's why, you know.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  But this is a, this is a little recency bias because.

• 18:40Bill Simmons?

  He's, Verno, he's played 301 games in six years.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  I got it.

• 18:44Bill Simmons?

  301 total.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  I was listening to this pod a month ago and you guys were going bonkers over how great Jaren Jackson has become.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  So there is a difference now. There is a difference now, right? Between, between Ja, Jaren Jackson's closed a lot of games for the Grizzlies this year. Jaren Jackson's had a lot of big fourth quarters for the Grizzlies this year. And obviously they've got to figure out a way. Look, last night they, Ja was not very good, but they all had 20 plus in the game, but. They can't give up 135 points like you're not winning any games if you give up 135 points. But the trick is, can you get all three of those guys playing great simultaneously? If you can, then you've got a chance to be a really good team.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  What do you, what do you mean by really good? Like, give us, give us what you think the ceiling version of this group is.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  This group, this group, I would say, winning a first round series, it would be the ceiling. I do not think they can get back.

• 19:47Bill Simmons?

  That's really good. Wow, that got dark.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, that's one of your, there's only four teams remaining. Do I think they're one of the best four teams in the Western Conference? No.

• 19:58Bill Simmons?

  We were doing, are the Grizzlies the stealth title contender in the league before the season? Now, now I'm going to do a celebration if they win one round?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, hold on now. You're asking me what I do. Okay, well, if you win a second round series, you're in the Western Conference Finals.

• 20:15Bill Simmons?

  True. Okay.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  So now, I do, I think.

• 20:18Bill Simmons?

  I have a question for Russillo and then.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Do I think they'll be in the West final? Like, I mean, I think if they won a first, at this point, if they won a first round series, I'd be happy.

• 20:28Bill Simmons?

  Russillo, is job better in any way from three years ago?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  In you, from what you've seen. It's worse, you think it's worse?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  I've been a little harsh here, but like every now and then I have to be honest with the thoughts I have from five months on the couch. And if I look at the job part of it, his third year in, he's seventh in MVP, he's 22 years old. It's the only year he shot it well from three. He was 34% his rookie year, he was 30% his second year, then he was 34%. And from three since then, 31, granted, you could throw away 23, 24, he played nine games, so he was under 30%. But this year, 44 games, he's, he's 29% again from three. And he's never played more than 67 games in a series. That was his rookie year, it's 63, 57. Yeah, well, in a, in a season, you're right. And then this year, it's, it's 44. My, my issue is this, it's a couple, it's a couple of things and I'll make them quick.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  When he got into trouble, and this is again, me only reading everything else everybody else read, so it's not like anybody. Talked to me about it. So maybe the NBA had more information. I thought it was an excessive punishment. Okay. As dumb as it was with it. He did.

• 21:33Bill Simmons?

  I did too.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  I was saying at the time, I actually think this is pretty excessive and the NBA is like trying to set an example here. So you have this shoe deal. You have the max contract. I mean, he's getting paid major guaranteed money the rest of the way. Like this guy is about to be, he's on the cusp of like being one of the faces of the franchise. And I think everybody felt really good about it because he was so goddamn fun to watch. And when he did the interview with Jalen Rose, I was like, uh oh.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  That scared me, man. It scared me because there was like, oh, you actually think everybody else is the stupid one here? And so as I continue to watch which direction it's gone, four straight years of the advanced stuff going in the wrong direction. And when I've watched them this year, and maybe, look, you know, this team 100 times better than I do. And the frustrations with the offense, but I also felt like his play led to more frustration where it was just this high barreling like, let me in the half court, them trying to figure out a way to get him free led to him just being like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna barrel into dudes and then I'm gonna bitch and I'm not gonna get back in the defense. When you start doing that kind of stuff and you're distracted with the game, even though I know a lot of guys complain,

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I just found it like unlikable. And I'm sitting there thinking, if this is the face of your franchise now at 25, I do think you have major problems in a way that I was hopeful for him three years ago. I am not today.

• 22:54Bill Simmons?

  You don't think you can grow, you don't think he can grow up? Well, there's, there's two questions, right? Can, can he grow up immature? We've seen guys do it, especially as they hit their mid twenties. The other problem is the durability thing. Like I was shocked. I was looking at this basketball reference. I thought there was one season when he played. He hasn't played more than 2100 minutes in a season ever. I look at something like that and then you look at like the three point shooting is not better. The free throw attempts are going down from where they were a couple of years ago.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  I just, all that stuff worries me. The team's getting worse. This coach just got fired and it seems like, you know, I don't know if this is, I was asking around trying to get, trying to get basically gossip about this situation from people. What do you think happened? And the consensus, which may or may not be true, is that the organization and the GM was higher on Ja as the face of a franchise than the coach was, and that became a real issue between the two sides. I don't know if that's true.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  I don't think that's true at all.

• 23:56Bill Simmons?

  You don't think that's true?

• 23:57Speaker 02

  No, Taylor loved Ja, loved him.

• 24:00Bill Simmons?

  Do you think Taylor felt like he could succeed with Ja long-term?

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Yes, I think Ja was probably the least of the issues. Ja's availability is a serious issue, right?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  So what are the issues then? Like, what can you tell us?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Ja's availability would be the issue.

• 24:18Bill Simmons?

  But that is an issue, though. That's part of the Ja thing, that you're building a franchise around a guy who you don't know if he's gonna be out there or not. That's a real thing.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  I think my opinion would be that Taylor probably changed this year in some ways because the staff got gutted, right?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Right. Who's gonna be happy about that?

• 24:36Speaker 02

  And here's the other thing, and this is something that I've been very critical of them about. They have got to have veterans in the locker room. So they tried it last year, but then the season went to hell, so it didn't matter. And that was Marcus Smart, and that was Derrick Rose.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Great veteran leadership.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  No, but they did, they did have an impact on Morant, right? You hadn't heard one bad thing about Morant in a year and a half, like, he has not been.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  No, but I'm just saying, like, if you're going to Marcus Smart to solve your locker room problems, you made a mistake. But Derrick Rose is a different conversation, because I think people love Derrick Rose, and I think Derrick is, like, awesome, and everybody loves that dude.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  The idea is a guy that's been through a lot of games, a guy's been through a lot of seasons, a guy that's played a lot of NBA minutes and playoff minutes.

• 25:21Bill Simmons?

  What the Pistons did this year, when they got some of their old guys.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, just somebody to turn to, right? And then, again, it was another double down on youth. That's where it went wrong two years ago with the team that Russillo ended up hating, right? Like, the team that they loved had Tyus Jones, and it had D'Anthony Melton, and it had Kyle Anderson. And before that, they had Jay Crowder, and they had Solomon Hill, and they had these guys, right? Like, there's no vets. There's nobody on the team over 30.

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, is that true?

• 25:53Speaker 02

  There's nobody on the team that's 30 years old.

• 25:56Bill Simmons?

  The other thing I wrote down.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Conchar 29?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And so.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  But they, Vernon, they violated my too many guys theory too. Every, how many guys in that roster like, I could be playing 35 minutes right now. You, you can't have more than like 11 of those. Like I saw Gigi Jackson was, got sent to the G League, right?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  I mean, one, and also one of the-

• 26:16Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he's good.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  I know, but one of the big problems is they play 11 guys-

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Too many minutes, right?

• 26:22Bill Simmons?

  Right, well, yeah, you're in that middle ground.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  It's a yin and the yang. They play too many guys, you know, uh, uh, they play 11 guys too many minutes in the games. But I would say that you've gotta have veterans in that locker room. And I think that because we can always, like, the coach is the guy that's gonna fall on the sword when things go wrong, right? But locker rooms are about those players. And I do think that in the absence of a veteran and in the absence of your best player, like, it's hard to be the guy and a voice when you're not available. So Baines kinda walked into that role for the team. And I, I think that there, so I think there was a couple of things at play here. I think you had, you know, a guy who probably changed up a little bit because he's, it's a new offense

• 27:09Speaker 02

  and now he's got a frustrated star, whatever. And there's really, there's no guy in the locker room to be like, hey, this is okay. Everything's gonna be fine. Or guy in the locker room, like, who's throwing a chair? Who's making sure that this thing gets turned around because-

• 27:24Bill Simmons?

  Who's shoving Al Dama under the bench?

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's Desmond Bane.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  It's Desmond Bane. That did happen. And so they were like melting down amongst themselves. But as you said, I mean, they're nine and 14 in their last 23 games. Five of those wins are against Phoenix and Utah.

• 27:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  So they haven't beaten anybody.

• 27:44Bill Simmons?

  I have a question, Berber Silla. And Vernon, you're not allowed to answer because you're gonna be too positive on it.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  All right.

• 27:52Bill Simmons?

  If I have Ja and Bain and Triple J for the next five years, is that enough? Is that, could that be my version of a big three? Or do I need to start thinking, where am I going to be two years from now? And do I need to trade Bain or, or Ja? Can I build around those three guys and build an actual title team around those three guys?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Uh, no, you can't. That's not a title team because here's the problem. And it's interesting that you talked about Taylor's relationship with Ja. Again, Verno knows this stuff way better than you or I do. So I'm deferring to you on this.

• 28:26Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  But like knowing how Zach is and how, by the way, he's been awesome. Like if you just go through all the transactions, like he's generally been really good. He's kind of ahead of people on some stuff. There's so many players on this roster that I do like. Like I like Aldama this year. I always liked Bain. I fell in love with Triple J this year just because I feel like he took it to another level of just all of his offensive stuff. I think the ED thing's pretty much the way I thought it would go. And you know, there's been some nice players here or there, you know, Vince has been her and Gigi's been her. Shot selection is an issue with those dudes, but there might be something like if I go through the roster, there's a lot of stuff that I like that the front office has done. But if they're as analytical about it as people suggest, then how is Ja as a high usage, no defense, hurt a lot? Can't make threes for four years. How is that even?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  It's, it's like when Daryl was running Houston and he traded for Russell Westbrook. And you go, the only reason he did this is because of Harden. Cause there's no way ever, there's never been a day in Daryl Morey's life where he looked at the Russell Westbrook profile and was like, I want to sign up for some of that. So I think Ja, Verno, maybe I'm wrong, but I, I feel like it's a little bit, look, I'm not comparing him to LaMelo. I'm not comparing him to Trey because Ja at his best was in the conversation for one of the, you know, most impactful players. Like kind of, you know, again, that third season, what we thought he could do, even though Trey's put up the numbers. But I, I would be worried that the decision about Ja would be about what a huge star he is in your hometown.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  And how important that is that, all right, maybe if we're not winning the West, at least we have something that everybody's excited about. And everybody's buying the jerseys because I think he falls into that category.

• 30:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, that's not a Memphis thing. Okay. Nobody, nobody is promoted more by Nike than this guy too. All right. So it's not just like, I mean, there's, there's part of it.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Right. There's a lot of people that have, uh, that stock in it. I am, and again, I am of the opinion, it's still in there. I mean, I've literally watched it this month. I watched him be the best player on the floor against the best team in the NBA when Cleveland came to town. He had like 44, eight and six. I mean, he was dominant. He's still got that in him. No, he's still got that in him. I mean, look, it's every time they play a good team, they lose, but.

• 30:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the thing. This is, to me, this is the crux of the issue.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  They only lost by, they only lost by nine, but they got in it. They got it back in it in the fourth quarter.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  They were down 25.

• 30:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they were down big.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  He was awesome though.

• 30:56Bill Simmons?

  He was awesome. And then they just gave up layups on the other end. Um, this is the NBA that I, you know, in, in the nineties, this was the NBA that was kind of so fascinating and so depressing. At the same time, we had all these awesome players and teams just giving up on them or wondering if they should give up on them or I don't want to trade this guy because they might blossom. And they, they went everywhere from Kenny Anderson, Leitner, Derrick Coleman, but then there would be the C-Web trade where Washington's like, ah, I don't know. We know the talent's in there, but fine. We, we just got to bring a vet. Let's get Mitch Richmond. Then C-Web goes to the Kings and he's awesome. And I think that's the fear when you have one of these guys, you're not winning with

• 31:39Bill Simmons?

  them. I mean, they're winning, but they're not going to actually like win the title with Ja right now. But you don't want to trade them either because you don't want to trade them. And then two years from now, you look like a complete shithead because he's in the Western finals, averaging 32 a game. So you're kind of stuck.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  I know I'm in a bad spot because they just fired their coach, Nagas, but like they're still right in the playoff mix. And as Ryan said, like last season was a thrown away season. Okay. Like the whole team got injured. They played more players than ever.

• 32:08Bill Simmons?

  And, and, and what happened to Ja?

• 32:10Speaker 02

  No, hold on. The two seasons before that, they were the two seed. Both seasons. Okay.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  This season. It's kind of crazy because it's really only one bad year.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  So this season, this season before this nine and 14 stretch, they were the two seed.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  They were on their track to being the two seed in a bitch of a Western Conference. Three out of the last four years. If before this thing went to hell. So I mean, I could just pause on the whole like, eh, where's this thing going? What are we going from here? I mean, they were about to be the two seed again for three out of four seasons. That's pretty damn good. And that's a pretty good reflection on your best player.

• 32:56Bill Simmons?

  Can you walk us through how much he means to Memphis? Cause that's the part where Silla and I are gonna get like, what, like, how popular is he on a scale of one to 10? What does he mean, big picture?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  I mean, I would say, yeah, I mean, he's for sure the biggest athlete we've ever had here. It's not even close. Yeah, it's not even close. It's not even close. I mean, Penny in college, but I mean, that was a local thing, right? But I mean, Ja is a worldwide thing. And I would say, I mean, like, let's just say, I would tell you this. There's probably, if I went, if I drop my kid off at school tomorrow, I would say.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  I'd say 60% of that class, boys and girls, have had a pair of Jaws. I'd say at least, at least 60%, at least. And I would say most, and most have the jersey. Most.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  None of this surprises me. He's that much fun. I mean, when he is right, it's, it's one of the most fun things in the NBA. But I, I can only share like personally, like how I felt watching and I, over the course of this season, I went from hopeful to I kinda couldn't stand it anymore.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  And I, I totally get that because look, he has frustrated me too. I'll say this, what was crazy is when I say people change. I was at the game last night watching Memphis play against the Lakers. And last year I did this whole bit about how I can't take this Luca thing anymore. I don't care that they're winning. He is perpetually aggrieved. Do you remember I texted you this, Ryan? When I was talking about Ja earlier this year, like everything is, I'm just pissy about everything. Like, and I see it in your body language. I saw Luca's teeth more last night playing for the Lakers. Then I've seen in all those, I mean, he's like happy. He's like, he was jovial with the refs last night, like.

• 34:48Bill Simmons?

  That don't trust me. That's not every night. He caught about a good night.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Maybe I just caught him on a good night.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  You did because he's, he's been back to pretty much normal.

• 34:57Bill Simmons?

  Now he's all over the place.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Once he got back in his shape, he was more that was, that was the funniest thing about him when he came back with the Lakers. He was just so exhausted. He didn't have time to complain about anything.

• 35:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I went to the Chicago game a week ago. He was fighting with literally every ref. He was arguing with the players of the other team.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  So you understand and the listeners understand this isn't about me talking about like off the court stuff. I don't, I mean, I'm sorry, but I, I think there's a lot of guys that are probably.

• 35:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't care.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  That we never hear anything about, and they're some of our favorite basketball players. So I'm not even really putting this into it. What I'm saying is I think there's, again, because of what he was in that third season. I understand how he sees himself, right? He should. I'd rather have a guy who's confident out there than second guessing him still. But the more I've watched this year, when I think about like, hey, it's another year where he can't hit any shots. It's another year when it's the wrong night. He's just flailing into the paint, hoping somebody fixes it for him. And there's just a lot of possessions that I don't love. I go, all right, well, if this team's in the playoffs, like I'll tell you right now, I don't care which year you pick them to be the two seed.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I, I bet you if, if you went through it, like I think all seven other teams, one through eight would want to play Memphis in the first round this year. At least this year's team. I don't know that anybody's ever been scared of them. Maybe you take offense to that in 22, you might be right because that was a pretty good team. But it's just going in the, for this young group that is right now supposed to be scaring some teams. It is going in a direction I did not think it was going to go to when 22 finished out.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Here's the only thing I'll say, and maybe we will see the rest of the way. Look, this is going to be a very telling week. They play Boston on Monday night. They play Golden State on Tuesday night. There's no, there's nowhere to run, right? You're having to play two of those teams that you would have to see. These are playoff caliber teams. These are two of the best teams, certainly the best teams in the last like month and a half of the season. Okay. So you're gonna see that. I will also say that they played what 73 games so far, and this is a demerit on Morant and but this season they have had. So whenever you're making your predictions on what you think's gonna happen, they have had Ja Morant,

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Desmond Bain, and Jaren Jackson Jr. In the lineup together, 31 of those 73 games.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  31. That is a very, very low number. So there is a small sample size of what their true ceiling could be. And by the way, with those three guys on the court, they have been fantastic as they have three of the last four years when they've been on the court. And I, look, they're, they got rid of the coach. So I mean, who knows what's gonna happen going forward? And who knows what's gonna happen with Morant? And who knows if those three guys are gonna be able to get to the playoffs healthy? But

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Who's guarding Jokic?

• 38:01Speaker 02

  I will say, I mean, I think the same guy that guards him for every team.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  Every, yeah, every, everybody has

• 38:06Speaker 02

  I mean, who has a good option? You got a good one?

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  Minnesota, that's about it.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  I, I think we all like Sharon.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  No, they, they ended up guarding with Towns and he's in New York.

• 38:16Bill Simmons?

  No, they, they throw that Nas Reed, Gobert, they throw all those dudes in them. Wait, can I redo this FanDuel bet?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  I just don't want Jaren to foul out in the first half.

• 38:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's, that's a problem.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  That's my issue.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  You and me too. Zach Eadie, you don't want Zach Eadie.

• 38:30Bill Simmons?

  FanDuel, FanDuel has a team to advance bet?

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Oh, great.

• 38:36Bill Simmons?

  We can go through and be like, hey, will this team make round two? They have odds for shit like that. Memphis to make round two, yes, is plus 210.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 38:45Bill Simmons?

  No, is minus 270. And then if you wanna bet Memphis, hey, they're gonna turn this around West finals. Memphis to make the West finals. What do you think the odds are, Russillo?

• 38:58Speaker 02

  A billion to one.

• 38:59Bill Simmons?

  To make the West finals.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  It's gotta be.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  They don't want to go crazy. I'll say it's plus 850.

• 39:07Bill Simmons?

  See, Russell's getting good at this. 10 to 1.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 39:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 10 to 1.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  So you're saying there's a chance? No, come on.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  But it's interesting because like the Clippers are plus 150 to make round two. And then the Clippers.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Round two. I know, Verno's face. I was with you. I'm like plus 150 to make the Western Conference Finals.

• 39:25Bill Simmons?

  No, but then they're plus 520 to make the West Finals, the Clippers. So the odds are actually low. Memphis is like the kind of the, the one to jump on if you're looking at odds.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Look, no, I don't even want to say it because it'd be, it'd be, it'd be famous last word. Look, the one.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 39:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just blurt it out. Blurt it out so we could cut it and then like two months later, just send it back to you and try to make you feel bad about it. Go ahead, say it.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Houston was the only one that we have looked at and been like, okay, maybe.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Well, even when things have been going terribly, just because they have no playoff scars, it's going to be their first run through. And we have played absolute wars with them this year. They have clearly been much, much better than Memphis over the course of the last month. But if there was a team that like, and Minnesota too, they've played well against Minnesota. But like those older like vet teams, the Warriors, the Clippers, the Lakers, obviously Oklahoma City's beat the shit out of them every time they play like, yeah. Like that's part of this and part of the reason that we didn't, nobody in Memphis was like, oh my God, we just fired the coach. Because we've been sitting there for two weeks going, there's nobody we want to play in the playoffs.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Like, like we're not beating the Lakers. We're not beating the Warriors. We're not beating the, like, the only teams you would have a crack against are teams that have young stars as well. Minus Oklahoma City, who you have no chance against, right?

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  Verno, we have to take a break. Do you want to stay with us and talk basketball for 20 more minutes or do you have to go to bed?

• 41:01Speaker 02

  I don't have to go to bed. I'll stick around. Won't be too.

• 41:04Bill Simmons?

  You got like seven kids. All right, we'll take a break. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We are getting close to the NBA playoffs, which means we are getting close to the NBA finals, one of my favorite sporting events. Not just because it's really fun basketball at the highest possible level, but all the 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/nba

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  finals 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 at michelobultra.com/rules for price and detail. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. So, one thing I love about hearing Verno talk about basketball is he's actually in the arena or near the arena around these teams going to these games and picking up shit. So, what if you picked up the last like six, seven weeks, especially when these teams are passing through?

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  Like recently you had the Lakers in this weekend. What were the, what were the things you noticed that you would have noticed just from a television?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  The Laker thing, the vibe was like, great. Usually when you're around like the, and I'm talking about like the traveling party. Everybody's kind of like bouncing around like, you know what I mean? Like it's like, and then you watch Luca go out there and you're like, this is, this is stupid. Like you see, that last night was the first time I've saw, seen it in person. You guys have been in person in LA. But I mean, the first time you see it like right in front of your eyes, it's different when it's on TV. You see it in front of your face. You're like, good grief. I mean, I really felt like LeBron last night. It was one of those where it's like, I think what we're gonna see with LeBron, he is gonna expend the minimum amount of energy until he has to.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  And this enables him to do that. He had to try a lot when it was just him and Anthony Davis. Like there's all kinds of time that he doesn't even have to do anything with that team. So I, but I also think they...

• 43:31Speaker 02

  I think they're gonna regret calling off the Mark Williams thing. Not that he's like friggin' Bill Russell, but my God, they have nothing at the rim. Nothing. I think Memphis had damn near 70 points in the paint last night. I mean, there's just, once you drive past them, you know, and Reeves you can drive past and you know LeBron, you know, is not the defensive stalwart that he once was. Maybe that'll change in the playoffs. Luka, obviously. You know, you just throw these guys at a bunch of different actions and then you can get to the basket and there's nobody really there to dissuade you. They've got, you know, they'll play Jackson Hayes, they'll play Vando, they'll play whoever. So, somebody that could get to the basket a lot, gonna give them

• 44:12Speaker 02

  problems. Uh, but man, I mean, Reeves was the best player on the floor last night by a wide margin when I saw him. So that was, that was super interesting for me to have caught a game where Reeves was that just dynamic offensively because you wondered, how does he fit in with the other two? He was the best of the three. Uh, in the

• 44:33Bill Simmons?

  Did you see the quotes from JJ after that game where he, he met with them before the game and was trying to figure out how the three of them could be more aggressive, working off each other?

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Russillo, it'd be crazy if I put Reeves first team All-NBA. That's too high, right? Second team, maybe the max for him.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Closes.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  All right. Nine games left? I don't know. There's, Brunson's not gonna hit 65 games. There's a spot now at 13 All-NBA and it's, it's basically for sale now on eBay. I don't know who's grabbing it.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think you would be unsurprised when you asked me about the teams that I've seen in person. Like, the good teams are the ones that for sure stand out. And there's honestly, there's not that many of them. So when you see Cleveland, it stands out. When you see Oklahoma City, it stands out. Maybe we'll see when I see Boston tomorrow night, it'll stand out. But like, generally, you find like, throughout the league, there's a lot of teams that don't know what to think about their team outside of the extremely good ones, right?

• 45:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  You're even, you even see the Knicks and they're like, I don't know, we never beat anybody either. And you know, like, and that's, that's the three seed, right? So I mean, there's really just Cleveland, Oklahoma City, uh,

• 45:46Bill Simmons?

  And Boston.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Boston. I would say that's about the list of teams that like,

• 45:55Speaker 02

  They have like, as they said, aura about them and like they, they're completely confident in what's going on with their season and what they are and what their capabilities are. And I think everybody else has no idea how it's going to go from the rest of the way. That's what I, that's what I guess. Some teams are more down than others about their chances, obviously, but I don't think anybody has some kind of, I think it's going to be very matchup and health dependent. I think most people feel that way.

• 46:26Bill Simmons?

  You agree with that, Ramona?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I think, you know, depending on the week, like you look at this Houston run and you go, okay, you know, we're back to being excited about Houston, but if you go through it, what's the best win in those 11 of those 12 games? I mean, there's an argument in Chicago,

• 46:43Speaker 01

  which no one would be looking at as being like, hey, we beat Chicago, but Chicago's played better as a play. And I still like, there's things about Houston that I really like. This double big thing that they were trying in the beginning with Steven Adams, I was just, I didn't really understand it. You know, he's a big that you can completely ignore offensively. And if he's catching it outside of the paint, that it just means the paint in the driving lanes are packed because nobody's paying any attention to him. They don't want him to shoot. And now, when you look at his net rating over the course of these 12 games, it's one of the best. So I think there are coaches that do a really good job in season developing options. Clearly Oklahoma City's tried to experiment and they still kill everybody, which is like the scariest part of what they're doing.

• 47:24Bill Simmons?

  Celtics lately too. The Celtics are beating everybody and they're resting two, they're, they're leaving, they're resting two guys a game and it doesn't seem to matter. They're 14 and one of the last 15.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Well, that's a weird thing.

• 47:35Bill Simmons?

  It doesn't seem like they're trying.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  And, and you've got, well, like in the East, there's, there's Cleveland, New York, Boston and Indiana now, especially with the Dame thing, right? And I think we'd be surprised. But if I just pushed it to you guys and said, okay, let's set Oklahoma City aside. Like you asked the whole, like make the second round. Who has the second best odds to make the second round? That thing that you pulled up, Denver?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Like it's going to be Denver or LA. I think it's.

• 48:01Bill Simmons?

  No, it's, I think it's the Lakers. The, um, no, the Lakers. No, no. All right, hold on.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  If you were gonna bank on somebody, if I just said you've got to put it down, they're gonna be in the second round in the West that's not named Oklahoma City.

• 48:16Bill Simmons?

  So Denver has the best odds minus 184.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 48:20Bill Simmons?

  To make round two. Lakers are minus 160. And OKC is minus 1300.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  I mean, if Denver draws Golden State or the Clippers, that is no picnic.

• 48:32Bill Simmons?

  I want to talk about this because I was doing, I was doing all the matchups today after some, and Minnesota just won. But it looks like it's OKC against Minnesota or the Clippers.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Is everyone alive? What's that injury report post that game against Detroit?

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, Minnesota won. Yeah, we don't know about suspensions. Lakers Memphis right now, but it does seem like with the next two Memphis games, maybe they drop down. But the other two are Denver, Golden State, and Houston Clippers. And I was looking at the, uh, the conference finals odds.

• 49:03Bill Simmons?

  The Fandel does not believe in Houston. Houston was plus 790 to make the West Finals. Right now, if you look at it, they're definitely the two seeds. They're gonna have home court in the first two rounds and they're plus, they're almost eight to one odds to win two rounds when they have home court, which speaks to Vernos point, nobody trusts Houston.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Well, I've lived this life.

• 49:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  The two, the two seed life, as you guys know, one year you drew the, one year you drew the Warriors, if you're Memphis, and then one year you drew the Lakers. Like, you're gonna have to face one, some kind of veteran, you know, hardened team.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Well, right now, I mean, that group, that group for the two seed is Golden State, Minnesota, and the Clippers. Nobody's gonna pick Houston against them, except people from Houston.

• 49:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think, I think Houston will be underdogs against all three teams if, if Kawhi is playing.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  If Kawhi's healthy.

• 49:51Bill Simmons?

  I'll wait to see if Kawhi's playing.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  There's an argument if Kawhi's healthy that they should be, they should have the second shortest odds of any team in the West to make the Western Conference Finals.

• 50:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  I think, I think it's totally fair. That game against Cleveland he had last week, I mean, that was cra- I mean,

• 50:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, they must be, they must be Cleveland today without Kawhi.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  But I was like, is this what it's gonna be like? Cause he looked like friggin San Antonio Kawhi. He was unbelievable.

• 50:17Bill Simmons?

  He looked awesome. I, I saw him in person on Sunday night against OKC. And it just seems like he has his bounce. I don't know how long it's gonna last, but he had the same bounce that he had like five, six years ago and he's so big. It was, now they didn't have Jalen Williams in that game. But OKC, other than Jalen Williams, doesn't even have somebody, even Dort. I mean Dort's, who I think has a chance to be Defensive Player of the Year, as crazy as that sounds. Dort's like 6'2". You know, and he's guarding Kawhi. Kawhi's got a legitimate six inches on him.

• 50:47Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk about Houston for a second? They're 14 and 6 in their last 20.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Uh, Dort's not 6'2", by the way.

• 50:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I think he's 6'2". How tall do you think he is?

• 50:58Speaker 02

  No, he's like, no, he's a big wing.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  He's listed at 6'4", so 6'2" short, dude.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm telling you, I was watching him in the game and I was sitting next to Mike Tolan, who I shared the seats with, and we were trying to figure out how tall he was as he stood next to other players. We were like, that dude looks 6'2".

• 51:14Speaker 01

  But Jack guys, Jack guys always look shorter.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  He was shorter, he was shorter than SGA.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Bane's like 6'7".

• 51:24Speaker 02

  I've been saying it my whole life too, Ryan.

• 51:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the thing with Houston though, 7-2 against the Cavs, so it's the Clippers. OKC seems to be the only team that has their number, but, the Jalen ground, is he, Jalen Green, has he sucked you in post All-Star break, Russillo? 22, 6 and 5. They're talking about how the assist numbers are up. He's creating for other guys. Are, are you, are you buying in yet or no?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  You're gonna need him to close some playoff games. So, you know, this is your guy and you're gonna have to, let him make his mistakes and then also the nights where no one can stay in front of him and you just hope that there's enough spacing around it. And that's where Ime is gonna have the shingun situation. He's probably not gonna wanna close double big and clog up some of that stuff, cause that's all anybody's gonna run. They're gonna run some pick and roll for Green. And you know, last year, you're right. I mean, to remind everybody, when Shingun was out and hurt, that's when I felt like the light bulb went off for Jalen Green because it wasn't just the scoring, the efficiency, it was the playmaking, it was understanding the help and all that stuff. And now this year, you know, it's been kind of up and down. It's been better lately. I think the key for them is that even with Van Vliet in the numbers where, you know, they had some,

• 52:31Speaker 01

  there's some numbers out there that are strange with clutch. I haven't looked at it in a couple of weeks, but Oklahoma City had one of the worst clutch defensive numbers in the league. And then you go, okay, what does that mean? Do they get tight defensively like they said they, they're just not good enough. They're not old enough to play good defense. It probably just means that that's what the numbers are. It doesn't mean anything. And the same could be said for Houston's offense where when you looked at their clutch closing numbers, you just went, oh, well, this actually, this is what it looks like, except they had a really good record. Like when you watch them in some of those moments against a good team, you're like, what is it here that I like? Is it a Van Vliet hail Mary?

• 53:04Bill Simmons?

  The Van Vliet step back with two seconds left of the shot clock?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or, you know, do I want Jalen Green going, I'm going to take off and I have no idea what's going to happen on the way there. But look, with Van Vliet, they're 38 and 17. And so part of it, believe it or not, thinking because of his stature, he's going to get targeted, the deflections and all the stuff that he's always done going back to Toronto, he's just better. He impacts them in those moments because he's just somebody who's a lot more trusted, who's played a lot longer. So I love watching Houston. It's just going to be hard for me to pick them against one of those veteran teams because Golden State feels like a new version of it. With Kawhi, it's a new version of it. Although as soon as you want to throw at me Harden being like, wait, Rasul, you're picking Harden to, to make sure like that's this team gets to the West. Well, it would be Zoo, it'd be Norman Powell,

• 53:51Speaker 01

  who was terrific again today. And again, it's, it's healthy Kawhi with all that stuff. And then on top of that, Minnesota, like Minnesota just feels better now.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Even, even with those Pacers losses that were kind of crazy because Obi Toppin didn't miss any shots against them for a little while.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, hold Minnesota for a second. One other thing happened with Houston, your guy, Eason.

• 54:15Bill Simmons?

  Has started to come on for them. I don't, I, to me, I think there's a couple of teams, Verno, that I just can't figure out what the ceiling basement situation is. And now, and it sounds like a cop out to be like, yeah, I don't know. But Minnesota's like that for me and Houston's like that for me. I could actually see with the, the amount of athletes and the defense that Houston has. I could actually see them just destroying somebody in round one. And we're like, oh my God, the Rockets are here. And I could also see them shooting 22% from three during the entire series and getting blown out. Same thing for Minnesota where you see them on the right night and you're like, shit. They're fucking loaded and they look like they like playing with each other. And then you catch them another night. It's not there.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  Those are my two teams where I just, I, I don't know what to think.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Totally fair. And what I would say is one of the things, and this is part of well, why the young teams have to get their playoff scars is because when you get to the playoffs, you're going to be, these teams are going to be able to game plan against one team. And now they are directing those shots to who they want those shots to go to. Right?

• 55:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  So you inevitably have to have guys step up. Last year, the reason we've got Dallas in the Western Conference Finals is because Oklahoma City says, you know what? If we lose to frigging Derek Jones, Jr., and if we lose to PJ Washington, so be it. And then they did, and then they did, right? That's the trick. It's like, bro, are you going to count on Julius Randall? Because Anthony Edwards doesn't get to have 45, right? We're selling out against Anthony Edwards.

• 55:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  We're selling out against, right? Jalen Green or whoever, or Shen, whoever the case may be in Houston. And that's the part of going through those reps. Last year, Oklahoma City will go through it again, and maybe they will be much better served for last year. But you remember it's, you're going to get to a point where a team just says, you know what, man? If Kason Wallace and Lou Dort and Jalen Wood, those guys do it. But let me tell you who's not going to have 45 in this game. Shay Gildes Alexander, right?

• 56:19Bill Simmons?

  That's what the Celtics did, Celtics did in Boston.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  And we're just going to sell out on him.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  That got him.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  That's right. I know it's been Aaron Wiggins in some cases, right? They've got a bunch of different guys, but the lights get a little bit brighter. And now it's a little bit harder for, for those guys. And I think there's, once you get to, you guys should do this one week, like. And that's why I like what Ryan said about the Clippers when he brought up the Harden thing. Cause he said, bro, cause you might, cause Norm Powell may get you, Zubac may get you. Like the level of importance that Harden has is not the same as it is in all those other Harden teams. Because they've got other guys that could do it. But like, how many of these teams, even if you want to start with Oklahoma City?

• 57:07Speaker 02

  Like the second guy, the second guy, how much do you trust whoever the second best player on that team is?

• 57:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, so it's that and then it's the

• 57:17Speaker 02

  That's gonna matter a great deal, right?

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, so you have the second guy and then you have the knock yourself out guy. And, Russillo, we haven't talked about this. Somebody is having a, hey, if he's gonna make it, knock yourself out. Uh, somebody is now, if we did the all NBA team for that, Kyle Kuzma has my first team vote right now. Cause teams are playing Milwaukee and they're just like,

• 57:40Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 57:41Bill Simmons?

  Yo, Kuz.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 57:43Bill Simmons?

  Feel free. You, no, take it. Please.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Here's, here's what I'd say though, guys. I'd say that those, the argument I make there, it's the best argument for the, for the Lakers or the Warriors.

• 57:56Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  It's the best argument.

• 57:58Bill Simmons?

  Cause there's like, oh shit, Reeves is in the corner. Oh shit. Oh God. Oh, I forgot to guard Luca for a second.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause you're going down the list and you're going, okay, well, so their second best guy is Jalen Williams and their second best guy is Jamal Murray. Their second best guy is Alpern Shengun or Jalen Green, whichever we want to choose. Their second best guy is Jared Jackson Jr. Their second best guy is Luca or LeBron. Their second best guy is Butler, right? Like, I mean, it's, it's a real thing that happens every year in the playoffs.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  The, the Minnesota part, which makes me like, they're 11 and three in their last 14. If you go through the March numbers, Di Vincenzo's, it's a real thing now. He's hitting threes. Um, this is the best I've probably felt about Jaden McDaniels offensively. Because it's not just the shooting, which has been great in March, but there's a lot of times with him, I was like, I have no idea. If you get zero or 18, totally like the, the odds would be even on both of them.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  And A lot of series too, if like you want to do this, because I know we were probably going to do this with the Pacers, so I don't know if we're doing it now, but if you're looking at series and being like, how often will this team have the best player? And there's some series and there's some matchups where it feels like Minnesota's going to have the best player. And that Denver game, it was before taping, I was super fired up, I was going to open my show with it because I felt like, all right, let's see what Minnesota has there. And there's certainly fluky results, you're like, what happened there? That game felt like this is going to matter tonight. And for Minnesota to beat them by 20 in the way that they did, it has me where we've all just assumed like, hey, it's the three teams with OKC, Cleveland, Boston, and then Denver has to get the benefit of the doubt because they have the best player with Jokic, which is where I've been for most of the

• 59:35Speaker 01

  season. I'm really worried about Christian Brown fighting against SGA and fighting against Ant and being the primary guy. Like, maybe they'll throw Peyton Watson at them as some size thing, but like Peyton Watson's best defensive stuff to me is like at the rim, helping. I don't really like, look, if he was that great on the ball, then they wouldn't be playing Christian Brown so many minutes against these dudes as the primary defender. And, you know, nothing against him, but like, he's fighting for his life against these dudes. And that's Denver's, that's the thing that I've seen from him in some of these more high-profile matchups. So, sure, there's some weird results we have every night throughout an NBA season, but that game in particular felt like something and a bit of a reminder. And now the fact that they have all of this outside shooting

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  working for them. Minnesota is, and it's not that they were bad, it was that we went into this year thinking, can this team win a title? And it hadn't looked like they had any chance for months and months. And I'm not necessarily putting them in that group, but it's now the best that I've felt about them.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Do you trust Randall?

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  No, no. But I think, I think Finch will look at it. No, but there's, there's certain coaches, like we were talking about Ime there a bit. You know what he's going to do? He's going to look at how the last five minutes are going in a playoff game, and he's not going to give a shit about anybody's feelings. And if it's Amen Thompson out there instead of Jalen Green because he likes it, then fine. If it means benching Shingun, fine, help do it. And I think Finch will do some stuff here, too. Whether it's a weird go bear night or a Randall night where it's not working out where they can, you know, it feels like Minnesota.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  Or McDaniels is one for 10.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Hey, yeah, you're right. He's got big balls. Finch does because you remember early in the year, that game where they had the torrid comeback against Oklahoma City.

• 1:01:21Bill Simmons?

  He sat in.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  Their best win of the year and he just didn't put him back in. And I was like, bro, this takes, this takes guts. This takes guts.

• 1:01:30Bill Simmons?

  On Minnesota, there's some good advanced metrics for them too. Like their last 25 games, their sixth net, last 15, their fourth net. All the three point shooting has been really good for them. Edwards has been better the last two months.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  They got a really good coach too. They got a good coach.

• 1:01:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm trying not to get sucked in with them, but you conversely, the Nuggets, who I think, Russillo, I think we, we haven't really talked about it, but I think we have equal concern with our guy Joker. I just feel like their best, when they play the really good teams, it just doesn't seem like they have enough. Like they're 0-7 against Boston, Cleveland and Minnesota. In their last 15, their 20th net and their negative net. And it just feels like there's certain nights where if Jokic isn't awesome, they're going to almost get blown out. You know, I'm, I'm really worried about them in the playoffs because I, I don't want, that's a team, like if you were going to say, what team is going to get swept in round one? You'd be, it would be, everybody would be shocked. That would be one of my candidates.

• 1:02:30Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, I would also wouldn't be surprised if they made the Western finals. That's why the West is so fucking hard to figure out.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, I am much more concerned about young teams being bad at the end of the year than I am vet teams.

• 1:02:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  I think we get to this time and vet teams are like, dude, we don't care who we play against. We gotta beat somebody to good to get there. And so the idea that they're not locked in, you know, for 82 games.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Does, does anyone have more knock yourself out guys than Denver though?

• 1:02:59Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Denver has ha- half of their start, half of their 10 bid rotation is.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Hey, the Lakers, the Lakers that night where they beat them, where they just packed the paint and they were like, let's have guys keep one foot in the paint. It when it was like weak side going, if there's two over there, we don't care. And even if Aaron Gordon's shooting 40%, we don't care. We're ignoring him. We're ignoring Westbrook. We're ignoring Watson. We're ignoring, certainly Brown, even though like, you know, there's some nice numbers there from Brown, who I think a lot of it can be influenced by Jokic. And so if you're running that two man thing and you don't really care, like I'll never forget watching that Golden State series against Houston in 18.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  And you're like, wait, Houston, like, could they win this? And I loved it. They were so aggressive in that they just said, we're guarding three people. And we do not give a shit about the other two. We're guarding three with five. And that's the best part about the playoffs. And honestly, to your point, Bill, like when you watch Houston or you watch Minnesota, all these different things, I wouldn't trust anybody that tells me they know what's going to happen. And they know definitively like this is what Houston can do or what they're not what they could do, but what they're going to do. Because there have been, we thought we knew it. Of course, we're surprised by sports all the time, but we thought like it was a, it felt pretty clear. Going into this season of like, this is kind of how deep the West is. And instead it's just OKC with these coin toss teams depending on the week.

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. You know, I will say this, if you, Verno, please tell your new coach, the Finnish guy, what's his name? What's Finnish guy's name?

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Tummas Isola.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  I love the Finns.

• 1:04:42Bill Simmons?

  Frank Isola's brother.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. They call him Coach T I.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  Coach T I. Listen, if you play the Lakers and this to me is a, this is coaching malpractice. If anyone doesn't do this in the playoffs. You gotta pressure those fucking guys 94 feet. Luca and LeBron being the ball up. Neither of them want anybody to bug them until they get to midcourt. Luca gets actually, actually mad. The guy, he almost punched Josh Giddy in the game I went to last week. LeBron will just pass it immediately. And you just gotta like, you gotta wear those guys down. It's almost like a football game where you're just like running up the middle, trying to make the defensive line tired.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Good luck. By the way, though, good luck getting a starter, like a starting five NBA guy. Be like, hey, you're picking up 94 tonight.

• 1:05:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, but I think you're gonna have to like if OKC plays.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  The playoffs, sure, but in regular season.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  Right. In the playoffs, though, if I'm like, like if they play Memphis or Houston or whoever, that's, those are the perfect teams to play. Hey, Tyrese and 94 feet with these guys when you're in the game. You gotta do it. Cause I do think you can wear them down. Those guys have a big responsibility and they can't guard anybody.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  Well, and it was crazy because Memphis, of course, had fired their coach. It's all the things. So you got this weird feeling walking into the arena. Now you're facing LeBron and you're facing Luca and you're facing the Lakers. And of course, all these Laker fans have got their jerseys on. They showed up to the game. Then you start the game and you got whatever game plan you had to deal with those guys. And Gabe Vincent turned into like Klay Thompson and made everything. It's like, okay. Like seriously, like this is the, this is the plight. Like

• 1:06:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they do have some wild card guys.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  Somebody's gotta take the open shots. Like they, you know, Rui Hachimura is always the guy, obviously like, and that's the thing. Look how much, man.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  And they got to play small against you guys too. That's the other thing. Like they love being like, seriously? We playing Jackson 15 minutes tonight? We can go with Rui? Like, I think that's their preference and that will be when we see these matchups, once the season's over, you know, we get to the play and stuff. That's going to be a huge part of like the Lakers path for me to be like, how long can they go small?

• 1:06:48Bill Simmons?

  Right. And who's gonna push them hard?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I think they'll go small against Denver too. I think it's going to be on Rui. Uh, just to be like, look, we know you're nobody's stopping him, but you're just going to stay in front of him. And he's going to get his numbers, but at least he's, look, I don't want to say contain, but I thought Rui fought really hard in that game against them when they were matched up. So credit to Rui Hachimura.

• 1:07:08Bill Simmons?

  This year. Yeah.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  Credit to Rui Hachimura.

• 1:07:11Bill Simmons?

  Verno, we're gonna let you go. Alright, everybody in Memphis. Say hi to my favorite team tomorrow. I hope they do well against you. Good to see you.

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  Uh, there's no excuses, right? Like there's no like, cause I remember earlier this year when Ja Morant had like a triple double at halftime. And he was the best player on the floor in Boston.

• 1:07:28Bill Simmons?

  Fifth game in seven nights, something like that?

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  I remember.

• 1:07:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember that one. Okay. Tired legs.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  We're fine for tomorrow night.

• 1:07:36Bill Simmons?

  No excuses.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  Please don't beat us by 40. We just fired our coach. We don't, we don't.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Oh, you know what's happening.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  We don't, we don't need anything else bad to happen.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Tell you right now, you guys are gonna win.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  No, this pod will come out, you'll win, Ja's gonna have a great night and there's gonna be like an immediate, like in the moment, like, oh my God. And then he'll get traded to Atlanta in two years and you guys will be like, Russillo was right.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  How dare you? How dare you?

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  Bye, Verna. Thanks for coming on. We're gonna take one more break. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FDIC.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  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 your 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. And now for a special part of the show 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. Workday, moving business forever forward. Russillo, we've watched two weeks

• 1:09:31Bill Simmons?

  of March Madness. Your single favorite non-Cooper flag prospect that you've seen, the one that just puts a hop in your step.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Clayton Jr. Florida, the shot that he hit the three where he ended up taking it out from the paint, sprinted to the three point line and then turned around, won, not only had the stones take it, but make it. Look, I'm late to college basketball because of St. John's. I was watching more this year. Free time, I'm not going to be watching it instead of NBA. We already know my deal, but I really got into all the conference championship stuff when they played against Tennessee in the SEC tournament. I texted the team and I said, hey, I just looked at ESPN.com and like, I understand Clayton Jr. The argument against him, but he's not even a second round pick. And they were like, no, he's a pro. He's a pro. He is an absolute beast of a player as far as just the confidence. So

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Walter Clayton Jr. Was at Iona, goes home to Florida, and now the Gators are in the Final Four. That shot that he hit in that game and that comeback against Tech, that was, that was big time stuff. And look, he had a couple of the shots earlier. How had some big threes as well. So I think that comeback, when it looked like it was over with only a couple of minutes to go. I've loved watching this tournament. I know, you know, look, the next three games in the lead eight weren't really exciting, but this has been, I've, I've watched a ton of this tournament.

• 1:10:57Bill Simmons?

  Clayton jumped out to me as well, and I looked at our draft guide to see if he was in the top 14 and he wasn't. And I don't think he's even a first round pick right now, right? But I don't know. I thought the same thing you did. He seemed completely unafraid. Guys have fooled us of March Madness though, where they look awesome and they make big shots and we go, oh, but that guy, those were some big ass shots because it wasn't just that last one you mentioned.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  He's older, he's been around, so that doesn't help. He's 6'3" as a guard. He's not necessarily the most athletic dude, but he just, I love the way that guy plays basketball and it's not just that shot.

• 1:11:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, thanks again to Workday for sponsoring this segment. Learn more at workday.com. So we're going to do a gimmick called the NBA Forgotten. Teams that just don't get talked about enough on shows like this. And we did a couple of them, actually. We did Minnesota, did the Rockets, talked some Clippers. There is this Detroit, Indiana, Milwaukee trifecta, and it looks like where we're landing now, Detroit.

• 1:11:58Bill Simmons?

  Is not going to play the Knicks, which is a huge bummer and we're because I was really excited for that series. We, before we started recording today, Detroit gets into another altercation in Minnesota that we probably could have predicted. I wish there was a way to bet on a

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  You want a, you want a little timeline of it? So, DiVincenzo pushes Stewart on a rebound. Go to a dead ball. Stewart walks directly at him, bumps DiVincenzo and you're like, that seems a bit excessive.

• 1:12:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Then, DiVincenzo, moments later, when we get back to action, off a miss, barrels in to Fontecchio and Stewart doesn't like it, stands over, DiVincenzo grabs the ball away from him and DiVincenzo probably said something, but he was sitting on the ground. As soon as he goes to get up, he shoves DiVincenzo, right?

• 1:12:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Gets the technical. So now we're hot.

• 1:12:50Bill Simmons?

  Did Stewart lead the league in stand over a guy moments this year? Is he our number one stand over a guy guy?

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. He's third in texts though. I was surprised.

• 1:13:00Bill Simmons?

  That seems low.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ant's number one, actually. So then we have Ron Holland, who is just a young apprentice Jedi to Isaiah Stewart, but if you've watched enough.

• 1:13:10Bill Simmons?

  I compared him to Ron Artest, maybe with you on this podcast a week ago. I said there was Ron Artest-y vibes.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  I don't know that anybody said it before you of like, look, local people that are on the Pistons are all over it, but Holland has a switch. And so he got knocked down on a screen again, which was that whole Bickerstaff game when he freaked out and said, we're not going to be disrespected. I think he is a bit of like the head of the snake thing where it's, he's so hot the entire game that some of the other guys pick up on that. So Holland gets knocked down. Then the next time he has the ball, he drives it, Nas Reed and hits a really nice floater baseline over him. Okay. So then they come down the other way. Nas wants to take it. Holland. And I was like, man, this is fun. That was a fun fucking Sunday afternoon game for us out west here. And Nas totally overreacted to the Holland part of it. So then he starts going at it.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  DiVincenzo, third man into the ring. Holland pushes him off. DiVincenzo goes for the massive like neck push down and all I'm watching is there's a scrum right in the baseline courtside seats, Bill. All I'm waiting for is who's going to punch Gobert because it's this extra target. It's like, there's a skyline and then there's Gobert.

• 1:14:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Who built that? Like, oh, this Japanese guy. And so.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  See, they beef stew is just going to randomly come in and throw the quick punch as he's going to break it up.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  But the problem was the stew was already like, I still need to mess up DiVincenzo, but Sasser was trying to get to him. And like, it looked like DiVincenzo was on a ride at some point. I would say this for a Pistons team. And I think we touched on it in the very beginning. Like this team's like, I know we're going to do this others group, but they were nine and 15. They're 33 and 17 since that. So over 50 games, they're 33 and 17. Their net rating, Bill, over these last 50 games is fourth best in the NBA. So yes, Isaiah Stewart is looking for a fight all the time. You really, I think every team needs one guy like this. If you have two, it could be an issue with Holland.

• 1:15:04Bill Simmons?

  That was the Indiana Pacers issue.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  You can't have like.

• 1:15:08Bill Simmons?

  You can't have our test with Stephen Jackson.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  No, you love having the one though.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so I could tell you like there's some like Stewart completely overreacted. Nas overreacted on his part of it, but damn it, this team has sucked. And so if this is part of it, I couldn't believe it when I saw fourth best net rating in the NBA over the last 50 games. Then let the boys watch, you know?

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, I looked at, it's funny. You did the last 50. I did the last 25 before today because they got, they got shellacked in the second half.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  This was before today. Yeah, I did.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  17 and eight in their last 25 before today. They were third net rating, but they were fifth offense, second defense. And I put in all caps as a question to ask you. At what point do we take the Pistons seriously? Cause that's a really big sample size. I remember like three weeks ago, we talked about, could there be a team like Dallas last year where we just didn't take them seriously? But there were all these signs in the last 30 games.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  And you have to almost throw out every Dallas stat prior to the acquisition of Gafford and PJ Washington.

• 1:16:15Bill Simmons?

  Right. So with Detroit, they add Schroder, who isn't the equivalent of Gafford and PJ Washington. But he did give them a little extra balance and, and a different look in crunch time. And he's somebody who's been in big games and he's another guy who's, and I mean this as a compliment. He's a fucking dick.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:34Bill Simmons?

  They just have a team full of guys who are like, I don't care if you think I'm a fucking dick. I'm going to keep coming and I'm going to annoy you and I'm coming after you. Beasley's, who knew he had this?

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Well, I think either this was always the idea of Beasley. Like I was always shocked that like a team would bring him in and be like, oh, we need him for spacing. His three and D would be like, where's the three and D part? And I know that the shooting numbers will tell you that over the years he's, but I just never felt like I ever trusted him. You know, there's certain guys, I, I can't even write it down and say that this is true. But there's guys that I know, like Andrew Wiggins is hitting the three in the corner with four minutes left. He's not hitting the corner three with two minutes left. You know, and there's a bunch of guys, I mean, like Beasley has been so huge for them spacing alone. I mean, when you start sorting out what their numbers are, they're seventh in offense in the last 50. They're fourth in defense, the last 50, they're ninth in shooting. They're also playing a million guys, which I don't know what that means for them in playoffs.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  But in March, they played 11 players, 13 or more minutes, which we've already touched on with the Pistons. But I am with you in that you, you gotta throw away the first couple of months because it was new. By the way, Cade, as I keep saying, by the way, here.

• 1:17:42Bill Simmons?

  We didn't mention Cade yet.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cade's missed four straight with an injury that shouldn't be that big of a deal. But the Pacers, if you want to do the 51 games with them, because I was, I was doing it like, all right, what's your low point record wise, right? And then what are you since then? So the Pacers at one point. You know, we're below 500. I guess I don't have the record stuff in front of me, but they are 34 and 17 since December 5th, the same, the same number. I guess now the Pistons are 33 and 18. Their, some of their ranking stuff isn't actually as impressive as Detroit's is, but that expanded standing stuff that I always like looking at, like, how do you do against those teams over 500?

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  You know, other than Cleveland and Boston who have really good records, if you look at the East, you know, the Pacers are 16 and 15. The Knicks are 12 and 18. Detroit's 10 and 20. Milwaukee's 11 and 20. This is, this has been a really good team since that stretch as well, but the five, the, the wins against the 500 teams tells us the Pacers are better, but I still think it's open for discussion, which I'm now going to like pivot it back to you. Do you like one team?

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  I'll start with the Pistons.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18:57Bill Simmons?

  I think Cade is the best player in a Pistons Pacers series, as good as Halliburton's been the last two months. I just, I think Cade is, I think he's a top 10 to 12 guy. So you got that. Pistons can rebound and defend. They're plus four, plus five rebounding every single game, and they have multiple guys that can, I think Schroder's a huge pest in a Pacer series. And the, and by the way, the reason we're talking Pistons Pacers is it looks like this is going to be the four or five. Beasley and Hardaway are making six threes a game, 40%, and they make big threes at the end of games. They run plays for them. I mean, one of their plays, they'll, they'll be down, you know, 1.40 seconds left, and they'll run a big play to send Beasley coming off some sort of screen and he'll make it.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  And remember like Hardaway was just out of the rotation last year too, and at times like you can't roll him out there, just see what happens. They were done with him.

• 1:19:51Bill Simmons?

  And I like that. Yeah, I know Cade's missed a couple of games here, but their best guys for the most part play, unless they got suspended for fighting, which is going to happen today. I think they're a real team. I was really excited for them to play the Knicks because I genuinely thought they could beat the Knicks in a series. Pacers is a little more interesting. Now, you mentioned like even the last 25 games, they're top eight in net. Halliburton is the numbers that I, that jumped out to me. Since New Year's, he's 20 and 10, 51%, 44% from three, and that's in 33 games. They're 24 and nine in those games. And eye test wise, it seems like he's back. We were worried about him. But it seems like he's back and you noticed it the other day in the Laker game when Carlisle

• 1:20:33Bill Simmons?

  went offense, defense with him and it was fucking stupid and in that they weren't able to get it back in the last 50 seconds. It was one of the reasons they lost. My thing with Indiana, they shoot themselves in the foot so many times in these games. They're like, I feel like they're in every game. It doesn't matter who they're playing. They should, they either, they're winning or they should be winning. And yet you watch them in the last couple of minutes, you're like, why are they doing that? Why is that guy out there? Why was that their play coming out of the timeout? I think their fans are just as frustrated as, uh, as I probably am watching them. I think they're, I think the ceiling of that team is really good. And it feels like they're their own worst enemy a lot of the time. That's my Pacers takeaway.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  Okay. Uh, just for the record, I think game three, Hardaway played like 19 minutes and missed every single shot, but they got killed in the third quarter. Um, I don't know the answer yet to who I like more that between Detroit and the Pacers, uh, because that Pacers record against 500 or better, I think is a very telling thing. It's, it's one of the most important things I look at when I'm getting ready for the playoffs and be like, hey, are you actually beating any of these good teams? I mean, this is a perfect second part of like the Memphis, like, okay, what's your seed? Oh, you have the worst record against 500 or better teams of the top eight teams in the West? Like, that's something.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  You were 18-0 against the worst five teams in the East?

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  Right. Uh, the Halliburton part, remember last year, pre All-Star, his splits 22, 412, shooting splits 49, 40% from three. After the All-Star break, you're like, oh, what happened to this guy? Now he's dealing with a bunch of different injuries, 17 points, four boards, 10 assists. The shooting splits went down to 45 and 30. That's in 26 games. Pre All-Star this year, 18, three and a half, eight and a half assists a game, shooting splits 45, 37% from three. And you're like, this is a really long stretch of Halliburton not being the All-NBA guy.

• 1:22:28Bill Simmons?

  Almost an entire year.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Right. Um, granted, it's only 15 games, but since the All-Star break, he's 22 a game, almost four boards, 11 assists, 54 and 45% shooting splits. And so that, again, it's only 15 games. It's a reminder of this dude that we got so incredibly excited about. It was so bad during that long year. We almost did a pod of was everyone wrong about the Sabonis trade? You know, kidding around, but it's just how many times we re kind of litigated a bunch of different trades that have happened. But even with that, uh, there have been times where I go, do they? And maybe it was prior to the All-Star break, but I'd be like, do they trust Nemhard a little bit more? That's not the case right now because Halliburton's breaking the paint. He's just flying around.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  He's doing all the stuff that we fell in love with when he was in college. You're like, this guy just sees the game in a different way. They clearly have a Neesmith Matherin decision. I think that they like Matherin better. And the funny thing is with Neesmith coming back because they had all of these injuries that really held back their depth. I would think that Neesmith would be the primary defender, unlike the other stud. And it looks like they may like Nemhard better. I don't know what that means.

• 1:23:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, it almost seems like they, they just want offense and they don't even care about having a guy out there who can stop the other guy. Cause they think they can outscore whoever they're playing.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  The center rotation problem, like, you know, so if I said, hey, I like the Pacers because of the record and then you go, okay, but.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  Now the Pacers defensively, the numbers are a little bit better than you would think because they were a disaster last year.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  They're better, but then it's a bit like the Knicks where you go, okay, I've got these other defenders that maybe give me a chance. But if it's Turner, who's been in decline as the back line of the defense. And then, I mean, they've had to play Thomas Bryant 15 minutes a game in March. He's got a massive negative net rating. They've even played Tony Bradley like five minutes a game. So like the center part, they don't really have any other option at all, unless they want to go Siakam and play small in a certain matchup. But again, back to my Knicks comp here, it's like this fun team we all really like. But it's like, do I really take them seriously enough when it feels like the head of the snake in Halliburton can be hunted? And then your center is somebody that.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  People feel like, you know what, we're probably gonna have a really good chance attacking them over the course of a series. And I know Pacers fans get like really upset of us maybe nationally being dismissive. It's like, hey, we made the Eastern Conference Finals last year. Well, let's go through it, man. I mean, Milwaukee had the injuries, the Knicks had the injuries, and it was a fun four games against Boston. Like, those are really fun games, but it it's always gonna fall into the category of kind of like Atlanta's Eastern Conference Finals and Portland's Western Conference Finals. Like, congrats on getting that far, but no one expected it.

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  I think it was more impressive than the Atlanta, that weird Atlanta Philly series, because Philly just completely fell apart during that series. I mean, Atlanta was down big in some of those games. The Indy, that goes back to the point I made earlier. They completely fucked up game one when Jalen hit the shot in the corner, and they completely fucked up, I think, game three and game four. They could have won both of those games. And Carlisle's a really good coach, but he does some end of the game stuff that I just, I don't understand. And the teams do weird stuff.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  Right, but if they win game one, then Boston's gonna, they're just gonna, the series is going to feel different.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  They were in three of those four, though, in like a real way. But this goes back to my point. I think Indiana's good. Like, I'm actually, I'm pro Indiana. I think that

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  I like them.

• 1:26:02Bill Simmons?

  If they're in the four seed, if they're, if it's a four, five, and it's Indiana, Detroit, and I'm Cleveland, I'm like, fuck, this is who we get in round two? It's to play Indiana? Like, they're a pain in the ass, and you're gonna score on them. They're also gonna score on you. I just think they wanna go up and down, up and down, up and down. And I think they could play with Cleveland. I don't know if they'll beat them, but that's not a great round two draw for a team that's about to win 66, 67 games, you know?

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  If they're healthy.

• 1:26:30Bill Simmons?

  And you're in a fistfight with Detroit.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  If they're both healthy, I think Cleveland dissects them in a, in a way that you go, okay, like, it's, we can't stop the flood. Like, there's nothing that we can do. Even though the Pacers defensively, when I ran the numbers again and split it up a little bit, you know, since December 5th, they're actually like 12th defensively. That, that at least gives you a chance, you know, because I used to-

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  I like how they're playing.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  I used to talk about-

• 1:26:54Bill Simmons?

  I really like Halliburton, too.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  As like Midwest Knicks. Same profile, really good players. I like the Pacers' depth, you know, other than the center part of it. I like some of the stuff that they can do, but it's kind of back to your Cade point, which I think Cade is your answer. But is there a series where the Pacers would have the best player in any of those series?

• 1:27:16Bill Simmons?

  I guess the problem for me with Cleveland and the reason, I don't want to overreact to some of these losses in the four game winning streak, but at the same time, their defense hasn't been good now for a month. You know, they're, they're not even in the, I think like net rating the last 15 games or so, they're 15th. They got torched by the Clippers tonight and outscored them. But over and over again, you're watching them like outscore other teams versus what they were doing in the first four months where I thought defensively, even though it's a little weird with the guards, I thought they could get stops when they needed to get stops. And now I'm wondering if they can. So if I'm Indiana and I see those guys in round two, I feel like I can score on them. And I feel like I can hunt guys in their team and I can hang around and who the hell knows?

• 1:28:00Bill Simmons?

  I still think Cleveland's going to make the Eastern Finals and, you know, I, I really felt like they were going to make the finals three, four weeks ago, from what I was seeing. They were hitting every check mark. Like even if you look at the teams that, did you see this stat about the teams that started out 50 and 10? You basically have a 50% chance of winning the finals based on the history of this. If you start out 50 and 10, um, one, two, three, five times didn't, five teams didn't win the title, starting out 50 and 10, and six teams did. So the 50 and 10 is like no joke, but I do feel like they lost momentum the last four weeks and defensively, I just not seeing it with them.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Okay, you're right, but do you believe it?

• 1:28:47Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what to believe. That's why the season's been so weird.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Do you believe they'll be bad on defense and not shoot it well?

• 1:28:52Bill Simmons?

  I think there's, there's issues with them defensively that I think the smarter teams have exploited and maybe that's a little follow the leader where teams, the other teams are watching. Huh?

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Orlando, the smarter offensive teams out there?

• 1:29:08Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm talking about like the way teams like Celtics and OKC have attacked them.

• 1:29:15Bill Simmons?

  That might be what's happening where teams are like, oh, look at what they did. Oh, here's something picked up. I don't know.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Maybe, but they're also missing a million threes. I mean, Mitchell's shooting splits in this stretch, the last eight prior to today's game. He's 36 and 22% from three. He had that two and 18 game against Phoenix. He went 08 from three. I didn't even think they were bad looks. He just, you know, high volume, the Clippers, he was five of 18.

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  I,

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  I just think they're so good and they've been so good for so long. And it's not because of playoff success in previous seasons. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. It's I think they were a million games up and

• 1:29:53Bill Simmons?

  So that's the thing. You have, that's what you have to point to and be like, they have had nothing to play for other than one seed in the finals. It's a home court, basically. That's the only thing they've had to play for for the last month. And then they lost that. So now it's like, what do you have to play for? Nothing.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  They, and I watched the game today. They were, they got up 34 17. I thought they were clearly the better team. The Clippers stayed in it with some threes there to make the score look a little bit closer. So yeah, like the technically without Kawhi, the Clippers came back and fought this against the full group with Cleveland. They didn't have Ty Jerome today. He's out with a knee thing, but I, I just like, okay, maybe you're right about the defense, but this team isn't all of a sudden just going to not shoot well. That would be very surprising to me. And if you look at their true shooting on the season, it's like first. And if you look at it through this down stretch here, and it reminds me a little bit of Denver in 23. You know, Denver closed the season.

• 1:30:48Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  What were they? They were 46 and 19, then had a five and seven stretch. In March. So actually they closed the season. They won their NBA title. They closed it seven and 10 in their last 17.

• 1:31:03Bill Simmons?

  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 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. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault.

• 1:31:48Bill Simmons?

  You're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. 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. Milwaukee is the other team we didn't discuss. I don't know how long Dame's going to be out, but it doesn't look great. Portis is suspended. Kuzma has given them some energy and some rebounding, some defense. And his offense is not good enough.

• 1:32:33Bill Simmons?

  And they're just getting waxed by certain teams. And it's starting to feel like they sold their souls to win one title. The weird breaks they're getting and just the bad luck and the way they traded Drew for Dame and all the stuff they gave up. It just feels like their window has come and gone. And I think if I'm a Bucks fan, I don't know what I'm feeling good about right now than the fact that Giannis is on my team.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Well, it wouldn't be today. They gave up 145 points to the Atlanta Hawks today. So that's playing.

• 1:33:08Bill Simmons?

  You'd think with Dame out of the lineup, that wouldn't make your defense worse. 145, I don't know, Milwaukee looks.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  I never really understand it because I would say like of all the fanbases that you hear from, Milwaukee fans get really, really chesty in an annoying way. You know? And obviously it's not all Milwaukee fans, but the loudest ones.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  Find the most creative ways to feel slighted. And I just never understood it. You watch this team like, yeah, when they started four and nine, it's like, are they really going to be this bad? Not really the case. They put together a nice little one win streak there, but it was, you know, the Houston win was close. Chicago stunk back then. They did beat the Pacers and Charlotte, Miami, Washington, Detroit, you know, look, that was right before we were kind of doing some of the Detroit stuff. So I'm like, I'm not, it just feels like, hey, they win three or four and they lose three or four. They win three or four, they lose three and four. And there's, I've watched them a lot because I, I keep trying to figure out if I, if there's something I'm missing. And I think that's kind of the point is you're not really missing anything.

• 1:34:15Bill Simmons?

  They are plus 245 on FanDuel to make it to round two. So that means Knicks Bucks, round one, the Knicks will be at least minus 300 favorites. And that's how the betting public sees it. And it's not great for Milwaukee. They are 19 to one to make the Eastern Finals. And there's going to be, look, we always talk about it. We've been doing this pod for a few years together. We get to the summer and there's always like the two stars like, whoa, this fell apart fast. And I don't know, Giannis has to be one of the guys considered because I don't know, if you're him, maybe you're happy staying in Milwaukee. You want to retire as a Buck, but if you're just thinking big picture, do I want to get back to the finals? Do I want to have another relevant season? It's not going to happen with the group they have now. Kyle Kuzma's

• 1:35:00Bill Simmons?

  not saving it. So I don't know.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  No, I saw some, I saw some net rating stuff because like, I totally understood the Kuzma trade just to feel like they'd have a little bit more juice with it, but I don't have it in front of me. I was trying to find it here because I, I don't think it's like the raw net rating number, but there's some stuff, some on off stuff with Kuzma that is rather alarming, but without Dame, which is a really serious issue here, I don't, you know, what do we, what do we even talk like with Dame? If everything was right with Dame health-wise.

• 1:35:31Bill Simmons?

  Against the Knicks, would you still take them? I would not.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  Would you take him against the Pacers?

• 1:35:37Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Would you take him against the Pistons?

• 1:35:41Bill Simmons?

  So Dame's playing? Yeah, I probably, I probably would.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Better this year. I mean, offensively at least, but.

• 1:35:49Bill Simmons?

  I, so I would take them over the Pistons just because nobody in the Pistons has played in a playoff game, basically, except for these, the Beasley Hardaway types. But I wouldn't bet on, you know, I wouldn't bet on the Bucks. Dame got knocked out of any chance to be in the All-NBA. Just wanted to mention this quick.

• 1:36:11Bill Simmons?

  Mitchell.

• 1:36:13Bill Simmons?

  If you did the first team, we got two weeks left. Is Mitchell in there? Over Edwards for you?

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  It's a bad shooting month, but yeah, I, I think I still have him in there.

• 1:36:22Bill Simmons?

  I still have it slight, I same way, I have slight edge for Mitchell there.

• 1:36:29Bill Simmons?

  We had JJ, Triple J, LeBron, Mobley, Cade Edwards as a likely second team. And then I wonder if KD has played himself into third team possibilities just because we're not going to have Brunson and we're not going to have Dame. Is Harden in the All-NBA mix for you?

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  He wasn't the first time we did the exercise two weeks ago.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  So I don't, I didn't have it then. Who are you moving out?

• 1:36:57Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you some Harden stats?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Bill Simmons?

  I'll just give you this one. 25, 6, and 9 since the All-Star break. Like he's actually having a, he's having a, well, it's like, I don't know. When was the All-Star break? Mid-February? Yeah, 15, something like that.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  And he's been pretty durable. So I think he's in the mix. It gets really confusing. I mean, Hal Burton, I think is in the mix too, especially if Indiana can, can keep playing well. I think he's entered the fray.

• 1:37:28Bill Simmons?

  Other than that, I don't, I mean, Garland, Trey? I'm not voting for Trey for All-NBA if they don't have a winning record. It's tough. We lost a lot of guys.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  That's 19 games for Harden.

• 1:37:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we lost a lot of guys, man.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  Reeves?

• 1:37:46Bill Simmons?

  Reeves? If you want to start the Reeves hive now? I think they should move it to 60 games. I think the 65 is prohibitive because like it's not Brunson's fault. He got hurt in overtime of a fucking Lakers game when he was doing everything and he stepped on somebody's foot. And now he's not an all NBA player. He's one of the best 10 guys we had this season. You know, it's one thing if it's John, you're missing six here, eight here. It's one thing if you're Kawhi and you're sitting, you know, and nobody ever knows who you're going to play. The Brunson thing was a fluke injury that wasn't his fault. And the guy's a warrior and he's playing 37 minutes a game. And I, I just, I almost wonder if it should be minutes instead of games.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. I don't care. Actually, I, I'm with you on the Brunson thing, but I think as soon as the NBA-

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  I care for the voting.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but I'm, I'm just saying, clearly I care for the voting, but it's just my natural reaction now with everything. It's like, hey, we kind of figured out something that makes it better. And there's an incentive for guys to play and it's like, yeah, but can we change it? Like here's where the NBA got it wrong. And it's like, Jesus Christ, like we're just trying to run a league here.

• 1:38:51Bill Simmons?

  65 is too high. Booker, is he in the mix for you?

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  He's always in the mix for me, but if we're talking-

• 1:38:58Bill Simmons?

  It'd be funny if two Suns made it and they finished like six games under 500.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  He was on my, my worksheet.

• 1:39:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Bill Simmons?

  Want to do some March Madness before we go?

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  Do you like? This new kind of world where we just have really good teams going against each other, almost like women's basketball? And we don't have the same kind of Cinderella situation, but the actual quality of the games is better?

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Look, I, I feel like an elitist saying this, but I've said it for years is that everybody likes a Cinderella until it fucks up your TV schedule, right? And you're going, who's on St. Peter's again? You know, I actually just wanted to watch North Carolina, Arizona. Yeah. And so I think everybody loves a Cinderella until you're like, I don't, I don't know what this matchup is. So, uh, look, if Colorado State doesn't give up the queen game winner, then I don't know if the headlines are different. But since it's all blue bloods, not necessarily blue bloods, but like the power four conferences now. And it's 16 for 16 and then it's all chalk all the way like this was an historic.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  If you looked at some of the Ken Palm stuff, the top four seeds going into this tournament, they're combined. Whatever his ranking system is, it was the highest four quality teams. You'd had in tournament history for one seeds since they had expanded this thing. Um, and not to 68, like we're going back almost 40 years. So we knew on paper was going to be really good. And you know, the way that Duke Bama game played out like Bama was a really good basketball team. They couldn't, it wasn't shooting variance and not making threes. There was no good shots available for them for 40 minutes. Like what Duke did to those dudes, a good, a really good basketball team in Alabama.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  That felt like they were in the mix or the same tier as, as a Florida or an Auburn. You know, and look, you're going to dig them a little bit because Auburn looked like the best team all season long. And everybody fell in love with Florida as they won the SEC championship bill. But to watch Alabama go the whole game being like, I guess I'll just shoot it from here again. Because we can't get past the perimeter guys. We're never getting into the paint. We can't post it up against these guys. Even if we get a screening, we get some angle, Malawatch is coming over here. This dude just started playing basketball four years ago and a seven foot two, and he's altering every shot at the rim.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, I, I've loved watching this tournament, even if it hasn't been the buzzer beater and the drama stuff. So, and I need more than, well, I always say this kind of stuff, but like, I need more than one year results. Just say this is now the new normal. Now it's very clear, the mid-major programs, the strength that they had, the advantage that they had against some of the other higher profile programs. Was that they had continuity, that a lot of their guys were playing together multiple years, maybe even a little bit. Older and sticking around they don't like we ignore that basketball far too often that it's the same thing in the NBA like have these guys actually played together for a long time like that's a massive advantage that I feel like has never ever talked about or at least we we've

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  diminished the importance of that continuity and so maybe that's maybe this is the first year of the new normal but I would need it to be like this and in a single elimination like we're definitely gonna have Cinderella teams again we're just gonna have weird scores that'll happen it just didn't happen this year in the top of the field as we knew going in was historic anyway and it's played out that way

• 1:42:27Bill Simmons?

  I like watching really good basketball teams I'm a snob I like watching good good sporting events and good teams and the quality does seem a little higher but Duke is like I'm this when you watch them like the ceiling of the guys they're putting out there and how they play together which is I talked about this with Tate and Kyle the other day like it's not just like oh they have four like that 2000 what was that 2019 Duke team and it was like Zion and RJ Barrett and it's like look at all these lottery prospects but it didn't feel like a team this Duke team now feels like an actual basketball team that you would have put together like a GM like the way they play together I think that's been really interesting to watch because I had just gotten to the point

• 1:43:09Bill Simmons?

  with college basketball I was like this all feels fucking random everyone's just chucking up threes and some of them will go and some of them won't but that but I think the quality has been higher and the other thing is some of the teams feel like they have different identities almost which is the way college when we really love college in the 80s and 90s the teams would have these different personas like St John's is like oh the pressing team Texas Tech was like these guys are just fucking huge like they're just like big bully ball team so that that part's been really fun to watch Mofar knowing fun knowing nothing and then you watch you know the games today and it's like Jesus Christ Houston it's the athlete team you know so that that part I've enjoyed

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  yeah Tech will almost want I mean it's gonna be tough for Tech fans today going like you kind of blew that one but again we've already been talking about the Gators and the shot making they just everybody between Hawk and Clayton Jr they hit every one of those threes when they needed to and then they missed the front end of the one on ones on the other side twice but Tech was looking like they were gonna run away with that game with post ups old school post ups somebody somebody was sitting on a couch a young man listening to us right now was on the couch with his father maybe even his grandfather and he was like That guy reminds me of Adrian Dantley.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  Although Adrian Dantley probably had a little bit more face up. Like I could have just gone real old school post-up guy, and I don't want to use Mikhail here, but they got back into it because Florida could not handle the big guy, Williams, I think from, from Tech, who just was destroying him. And it was-

• 1:44:42Bill Simmons?

  With space. Yeah, they were just kind of spacing it out for him and chucking it to him and he was doing this-

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  They didn't want to double him.

• 1:44:49Bill Simmons?

  Spins or face ups. It was pretty interesting.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Because you could see Florida's like, we don't want to double here. And then they finally like had a guy overplay his shoulder so much that it, it kind of screwed him up a little bit. Yeah, look, man, like even Tennessee, what Tennessee did to Kentucky in that first half was horrifying. It was, I mean, the energy, the effort. So I think, because as NBA guys, whenever I dig into the college stuff, there's this abruptness, this shock part of like, oh my God, like who's actually going to score? Like, do they have, like, we're just so used to the NBA now. It's weird if there's two guys that aren't offensive threats on the ball. And in college, you might have like lineups where it's always three guys that aren't really a threat with the

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  basketball. And they play so damn hard, especially in these tournaments, they're just going to play harder than anything you're going to see in the regular season in the NBA, for the most part, which would only make sense. I don't even think it's a criticism of the NBA. It's just the reality of it. That, once you get past like, what the hell are they doing? Is anyone ever going to score? That's a terrible shot. Or where are the shot makers? Like Lanier, I know Tennessee gets eliminated today, but that guy's like one of the just purest shot makers I watched all season in college hoops. Like, damn, like this guy's getting into this kind of stuff as a college player? And so you have Tennessee just swallow up Kentucky. And then they go up against Houston where you're like, I don't know, like, are a couple guys going to get, their career's going

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  to end in this game? Because you know how physical it's going to be. And granted, it was 29 to 8 with 3:38 to go in the first half. And Houston basically reminds Tennessee, like, you think what you did against Kentucky, you're going to be able to do against us? And then Kentucky even has, or excuse me, I think Tennessee had the ball down 10, making- This run and they played so hard to close this game, which is a credit to Rick Barnes and everybody with Tennessee. So I'm going to say nice about something about the team that lost here. I don't know how many other teams in college basketball are able to hold off the effort that Tennessee was playing with. And yet Houston was able to get it back up to 20 because there was about this six or eight minute stretch where I'm like, is Tennessee going to find a way to actually get back in this game? And if you can appreciate the effort and obviously the pageantry, which we've always talked about in the past, it

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  helps you get over some of the moments where there's just such a gap between the shot making ability and you know, how clunky the college game can look at times because a lot of it times like these guys are busting their asses. Every single rebound is a wrestling match.

• 1:47:18Bill Simmons?

  I think the shot making is, I just wonder if basketball is just going to another level as we're watching it, just at all levels. Like you watch some of the drives and the finishes that the college guys have and some of these guys aren't even going to potentially even play in the NBA or some of the threes, like the threes that Clayton Jr. is making. The artistry feels like it's gone up a level versus where we were before. Now some stuff has changed. Like I don't like when we did blue chips for the rewatchables and you watch Bobby Hurley is in that movie and he's just like the old school classic point guard head up. I'm just going to set up. Those guys seem to be kind of gone and they've just been replaced by these, all these different shooting point guards that all seem like

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  they, they, every team has like three of them. And then flag is another one who just seems like a complete anomaly for what we're watching. But for the most part, like you watch some of the shot making and it's, it's really high level. I just wonder if maybe it's the camps, maybe it's people following like the previous generations and stealing the best things from them as they watch and they're playing when they're eight years old, but it just seems like people are getting better at basketball. Is that crazy? Like there would be finishes in traffic where guys are bouncing off each other and doing like spin, spin layups like Jesus Christ. That's like a round two NBA playoff shot. This guy's like the fucking fourth guy in Florida.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Now, wait, if you're missing Bobby Hurley, do you feel like you didn't spend enough time with Stephen Ashworth this year or Creighton?

• 1:48:53Bill Simmons?

  I probably didn't. And probably not the Illinois guy either, the pick and roll guy with the long last name. I don't think, I didn't spend enough time with him either, but that's why we have YouTube when I'm doing, when I'm jumping in late on the draft, falling in love with different people.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Uh, so I, I did a little exercise. I was going to save for my pod, but I'll do it now. The Cooper stuff. Now that I feel I'm, I'm caught up on him.

• 1:49:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  I asked. I asked, I think it was, I don't think I got 10 responses. So maybe I'm not as cool as I thought. I think I sent out 10 texts to NBA teams being like Zion coming out, Cooper coming out. So I have eight responses. What do you think the vote is? For Cooper or Zion?

• 1:49:33Bill Simmons?

  Who is going to be a more reliable superstar?

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  No, we can't do that. It's a little hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube because we have all the Zion information, but go back to when Zion was coming out.

• 1:49:43Bill Simmons?

  But what's the question?

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  Number one pick. What's the question?

• 1:49:47Bill Simmons?

  Who do you like more as a prospect coming into the draft?

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  If they were both coming out with only the one Duke year behind them, how would you rank Cooper flag and Zion Williamson?

• 1:50:00Bill Simmons?

  And we, we both really love Zion coming out of college.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Loved him.

• 1:50:04Bill Simmons?

  Um, I'm going to say Cooper is more of a sure thing. So he'd be ranked slightly higher just because whatever he's doing is going to translate so well. There's less variance with the ceiling and Zion was always like had the higher ceiling, but he was always in the air. There was always the injury fear with him.

• 1:50:22Bill Simmons?

  I just think Cooper's a safer bet. So I would say him.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Five, three in favor of Cooper. So not the most scientific polling. I don't know.

• 1:50:30Bill Simmons?

  Interested now.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  But it doesn't represent, it's just, you know, you could have five guys.

• 1:50:35Bill Simmons?

  He's the best, he's the best kind of ceiling prospect. That's come out of college since Zion, right?

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Cause I mean, you know, clearly women Yama was generational, but not the college background. Right. Doesn't count.

• 1:50:49Bill Simmons?

  Davis at Kentucky Zion. Like if you're just going like the last 15 years, I think he's Cooper's in that conversation.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's definitely, there's way more anticipation for him than there were Anthony Edwards.

• 1:51:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's interesting though, because it's different than the typical college guy that comes in because you stick him on these different teams and he can kind of fulfill whatever you were missing. You know, he goes to Charlotte, he just has this immediate impact in all these different ways for them. Right? He goes to Washington, you put him next to Sar, same thing. It'd just be, I just don't think there's a team that's like, yeah, this is going to be a weird fit for us.

• 1:51:28Bill Simmons?

  And I can't wait, but we'll see, we'll see with, uh, we'll see with some of these other Duke guys too, because the seven foot two guy is fascinating.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Malawatia.

• 1:51:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what to make of that guy.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Canipal's good, too.

• 1:51:40Bill Simmons?

  He's, so I'm already on the record, he's going to go five spots too late in the draft and it's going to be stupid. We don't know if it'll be, he should have gone 11 and he ends up going 16, he should have gone 14, he ends up going 19.

• 1:51:52Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:51:52Bill Simmons?

  Teams will talk themselves out of him, I think.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's because I grew up such a passionate hater of Duke. And then once I started working in the business, I just started respecting it a lot more. And the weird thing was that Zion year, I found myself doing the impossible and like not hating Duke and wanting, I wanted him to advance, which is, I don't think it's ever happened. And, you know, it's a, it's a Big East ACC thing. It's, it's very natural Duke fans. I mean, I know you're sick of hearing it. But when they're killing Alabama and then they start sharing the notebook. And it's like, hey, you lost last year in the Elite Eight, NC State, John Shire's like, I had to examine, reexamine the entire program top down. And we needed to like reemphasize these things and we needed to build this team in a certain way.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  And I'm listening to all of it. It all sounds incredible. But I also think that people have a habit of in certain industries, making their job seem like it's more challenging than it is, or complicated perhaps is the right way to say it. Cause we all know coaching this kind of program is, is complicated for everybody. It's going to just wear you out. But I'm sitting there, I'm in my hotel room and I'm listening to all this stuff as they're killing Alabama. And I'm thinking like, so you had to have a philosophical adjustment to want to bring in three lottery picks?

• 1:53:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Is that the whole goal of a year?

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  Like, you know, we thought-

• 1:53:16Bill Simmons?

  Philosophical adjustment to having Cooper flag on your team?

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, we examined everything. We did the work. We triple checked everything and we thought, hey, we have a chance to have three lottery picks. They're all huge.

• 1:53:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Should we do that? Phil, it doesn't match our new philosophy. And it's like, you know, I bet it does. My guess would be so.

• 1:53:35Bill Simmons?

  I looked at the mayor, should I have the best guy in six years of my team? And the answer, you know, I stumbled into it, but it was yes. It's really nice to have them. Um, we were in Boston for the rewatchables. We did Goodwill Hunting on Thursday and the weather was terrible the entire time, except for like one hour, one half. You split, you lasted two days. You were out. I left a day early. And the first day we were there, the Red Sox were 1-0.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  People are feeling great and now they're one and three and everyone's freaking out about Rafael Devers. Baseball is back, baby. We've already run the gamut of emotions in four days.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  Torpedo bats, too, by the way.

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  Three Devers panic texts and wondering that and the Yankees are using the torpedo bats and really running the gamut of emotions already. Major League Baseball. I don't understand these torpedo bats at all. How do we, how did we still figure out how to innovate with baseball bats? In 2025, how did, how did we not run out of every possibility with these things? Now it's like, soup up the barrels?

• 1:54:43Speaker 01

  I have no education on it, so let's start there. But I, I found it a little weird that I didn't know that you could just make your own bats now.

• 1:54:53Bill Simmons?

  You just can't use aluminum bats seems to be the only, and don't, you can't cork your bat. Those seem to be the two rules.

• 1:55:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't get it. And of course, it's the Yankees that have figured this out. So we're off to, uh, we're off to a great start.

• 1:55:07Speaker 01

  See, Nester came in and gave up three home runs on three straight pitches.

• 1:55:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:16Speaker 01

  Torpedo bats or did they hate him? You know?

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  And I saw Judge wondering, should he not get a torpedo bat? Cause it's been working for him the last two years. He doesn't want to change it up. I just think when you have something called a torpedo bat, it's probably going to get banned from the league. Pretty within a year, just the name itself. It's like, how long is this going to last? Probably over, under, over, under three months.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  What could you have named it to prevent the pushback though? Something less hostile, the human bat?

• 1:55:46Bill Simmons?

  Like big barrel bat?

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  No, I don't think you could do that. I think that's too aggressive.

• 1:55:52Bill Simmons?

  Barrel.

• 1:55:53Speaker 01

  The natural resource bat?

• 1:55:55Bill Simmons?

  Barrel, big barrel. Did you pick a side in Stephen A versus LeBron or did you set it up?

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  It reminded me of a lot of political debates.

• 1:56:08Speaker 01

  I was like, I have to pick one.

• 1:56:10Bill Simmons?

  So you sat it out?

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, we've talked about Stephen A. How many weeks on this pod?

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I'm ready to move on right now.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:56:19Bill Simmons?

  Just to know if you picked a side.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  I didn't. I think some quotes, like anything with me, I thought some of the quotes made sense. I thought some of the quotes were ridiculous and I'm sick of talking about them.

• 1:56:39Bill Simmons?

  Any last things before we go that you wanted to hit? Anything weird, any book you're reading? What'd you read in the plane home?

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  I read Tim McMahon's Wonder Boy Luca book.

• 1:56:50Bill Simmons?

  How was it?

• 1:56:51Speaker 01

  I really enjoyed and I enjoyed having it. It was a sports book. It was like 380 pages. I was like, oh, right, Tim, here we go. This guy's not sending out a little pamphlet with Luca on the cover.

• 1:56:59Bill Simmons?

  No mail in for Tim.

• 1:57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was like, here, because you know, you sell these sports books. I don't like reading them that much anymore. Just because in my free time, I don't want to do more sports. But, uh, yeah. Oh, uh, I have one for you. I don't, I don't know if I should share this. It's good though.

• 1:57:21Bill Simmons?

  It's up to you.

• 1:57:23Speaker 01

  I sat next to Liv Tyler on the flight home.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  And she was awesome. She was so nice. And then I was telling her, because she's lived in Maine, and I was telling her, you know, what we did for work. And I was like, well, I'm pretty aware. I know what you do for work. Because I was like, do I play it that I don't know who she is? Or do I say, hey, I know who you are?

• 1:57:43Bill Simmons?

  Gotta be authentic.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Right. And I said, hey, like, I'm not going to pretend that I don't know who you are, because I figured it out. And then we were talking about Maine, and I was talking about Martha's Vineyard, and I was talking about Vermont. And then she was like, I don't really know that much about basketball. I said, well, funny enough, I'm like, this guy right here. And it was during the Duke Alabama game. I was like, this guy's from Maine, and he's the best player in college basketball, and he's going to be the number one pick in the draft. And she was like, that's, that can't be normal, that he's from Maine. And I said, look, you're already on your way. So, but yeah, really nice. Like, not, you know, she's a huge movie star, and she was like,

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  totally friendly, normal. And then I was like, hey, I got to get back to the game. Headphones. And she's like,

• 1:58:33Bill Simmons?

  You headphonester?

• 1:58:35Speaker 01

  But she was ready. She was like, I'm gonna watch a movie. She was like, we'll check back in in a couple hours. And I was like, deal.

• 1:58:41Bill Simmons?

  Did you do the, I saw, I saw your dad play at Avalon in 1994? You didn't do any of that?

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  Like, I have a pump cassette tape that I was wondering if I could get autographed.

• 1:58:56Bill Simmons?

  So you, you headphonester? That's a really interesting move.

• 1:59:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, now that's going to be the, the part. I didn't really realize that.

• 1:59:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's Duke Alabama. It's your job. It's your job.

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, do you know how much of the first game I missed?

• 1:59:13Bill Simmons?

  I flew back today and I had the games, but the wifi, we just, it's 2025 and the wifi just, I don't know why I thought I'd be able to prepare for a lot of this pod and that the plane would come through, but I made it work, but I just feel like the wifi should be 100% at this point on planes.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  What's your best famous person encounter on a cross-country flight back to LA? Cause you never know, like when you're, when you're leaving another major city and you're on that direct, that big boy flight, maybe you're sitting up close, a little closer to the guys driving the plane.

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  I have, I actually have a story I think I wrote about 20 years ago, but I'll, I'll do it again. We flew to Houston for Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2000, 2004 Super Bowl, Pats Panthers. 2003, 2000, no, it was so February 2004, we're going to Houston. So we were in writer's go, so it was first class, it was in first class. I was sitting in a seat and one of the other writers was like two rows behind.

• 2:00:19Bill Simmons?

  And I was like, I want to sit with him, asked, asked the person next to him to switch seats with me. And they switched seats and then five minutes later, Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels sat in the seat right next to the one I gave up. And she was still smoking hot at that point. She was probably, I don't know, early 50s.

• 2:00:38Speaker 01

  How, what would you have done?

• 2:00:40Bill Simmons?

  I would have been next to her for three hours and it was like, I love Charlie's Angels. So I would have, I don't know how that would have gone.

• 2:00:48Bill Simmons?

  But the most fun, this is, I don't know if I told you this one.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Look, I'm going to give you credit here because you, you would find a way to get past the awkwardness. Cause like you, let's not kid ourselves. You've been in this world.

• 2:01:00Bill Simmons?

  22 years ago? I don't know. I think I would have froze. I think I went at a bad lead.

• 2:01:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. I've seen you. I've seen you in settings where I was kind of shocked at how.

• 2:01:12Bill Simmons?

  How I can navigate stuff?

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, how cool you navigate like different stuff. And I remember even asked, it was like another director. I was like, he's just gonna sit over with those guys the rest of the night? And the guy was like, I've never seen anybody like Bill. Like Bill can hang out with those guys. He can hang out with those guys. And like, look, we're talking different backgrounds. I think it was the documentary. Was it? Was it the Juice WRLD documentary?

• 2:01:33Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 2:01:33Speaker 01

  And I was, I was like, he's just gonna hang out with those guys all night? I was like, that's, and they were like, yeah, man, Bill, Bill could just, he just can move. He can move and he navigates all this stuff really well.

• 2:01:43Bill Simmons?

  Says, the scouting report can move in different areas. Here's, here's my best airplane story. I've never told this story to you. Flying back, Super Bowl, Colts. Who did they beat Peyton Manning's for Colts Bears?

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  Oh, Colts Bears, Rex Grossman.

• 2:02:02Bill Simmons?

  Flying back. And I'm flying back day of the game because I don't want to be there and Peyton Manning wins the Super Bowl. I'm still pissed off about the AFC title game. And I'm sitting next to this lady and the plane never, it doesn't take off for like an hour. Just it's like a stuck on the runway situation. So start talking to the lady. And it was Rick Riley's girlfriend. But she didn't know who I was and she starts telling me about how Rick Riley's gonna leave Sports Illustrated. And he thinks he wants to go to ESPN, but he doesn't really like writing his column anymore. But he so much money, he's gonna have to. And she's just giving me all this stuff. And I'm like, oh my God. And goes through this whole thing. He's probably gonna do the deal.

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  She told.

• 2:02:45Bill Simmons?

  Before he might go back to Sports Illustrated, but he doesn't, he doesn't really like writing it anymore. And I'm like, oh my God. So then she's like, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, ironically, I work for ESPN. I write a column for them. And, uh, and so she's like, oh, that's so weird. But how long have you had the column? Blah, blah, blah. So then she's texting with them. And she looks at me and goes, he's telling me not to tell you anything, but I feel like, so now you can't tell anyone. But now I feel like it's almost 20 years later. I could probably tell that story because I felt bad because she was nice.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 2:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  So she then, she then told you that he was texting her? Like, I understand him saying-

• 2:03:26Bill Simmons?

  He was texting her. You're sitting next to Simmons. Don't say anything.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  You're literally texting, you're telling the one person that you shouldn't, I mean, other than the people making the decision, but if they had already offered. So I guess there's, I'm trying to think where you were ranked on the worst possible people in the world to have that information. So I guess there's probably like four decision makers that'd be ranked ahead of you. So I'll put you fifth on that list. Cause I can, I can imagine like, there's a couple of people at the top, top of ESPN where like, if she was sitting next to Skipper at that time, and then was saying to Skipper without knowing who Skipper was, he's not sure if he really wants to do it. That's probably still worse to tell Skipper than you, right?

• 2:04:05Bill Simmons?

  I, I think he was talking himself into it, which was really instructive to me. Cause I was, you know, I'm still like trying to climb the ladder. And I'm like, this is great. This guy doesn't sound like he's that hungry anymore. I can beat this guy. Cause I'm a competitive psycho.

• 2:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause I remember, um, I remember you being really excited in support of that signing.

• 2:04:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, he took a shot at me. We made up. We, I think he came on the pod at one point, but yeah, he took a shot about how long my columns were. And I was like, what did I do? I'm just over here, motherfucker.

• 2:04:37Speaker 01

  Did you have to go to therapy for that?

• 2:04:39Bill Simmons?

  No, I was, it made me mad. I was like you. I, I went into like fucking gym in the town mode. Like, whose car are we taking?

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  I, uh, I'll be honest, any encounter I had with Rick in person was fun.

• 2:04:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He's a good guy. I ended up, I really ended up liking him.

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  I ran into him a couple of different times and he was like incredibly cool to me. Um, and the first time like I was a complete nobody. Yeah. So he had, he had no reason, but I think he thought, I think he might've thought I was somebody else. Maybe that's why he liked me, but, um. That's really, really funny. So anyway, they put him on sports. Didn't they put him on Sports Center too? Wasn't that part of the thing?

• 2:05:19Bill Simmons?

  They gave him a talk show, whole, a whole bunch of stuff. He was writing the column for the, uh, the magazine. It was an instructive lesson to me. I told, I came home and I told my wife, if you're ever sitting on a plane next to anybody, don't start talking about my career or my contract, my contract negotiations with them.

• 2:05:35Speaker 01

  The best is that she told you that then she was telling her, stop talking to him.

• 2:05:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, he started, I think he was yelling at her and, and texts.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  I would have been like, you can't, you gotta stop. And then she was like, well, now it's too late. I'll, I'll never forget like in my stretch of like the skipper meetings that I would have, you know, like when you were lucky enough every now and then. And he was, when you had your first skipper meeting as an on air person, you were like, oh, okay. Like now I know why this guy's in charge. Cause he fucking kills it in those meetings. Like he's just so good.

• 2:06:11Bill Simmons?

  Turns it on.

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  It's not even that he's, he's just folksy. He's making all these points and you're kind of like, I thought this before. And then now I left and I totally get why you did that and why you did this and why you did all these things. Cause then he'd also like try to make you feel like you were in on something. He wasn't telling anybody else. He'd be like, I was watching SportsCenter the other day and I saw someone on and I didn't know their name. I didn't know their background, Ryan. And I thought, that's bad. I'm here every day.

• 2:06:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm in charge.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  And I, I was like, I do not know this person. That's not something that should happen on television. So when the Riley thing, cause there was a lot of people that are pissed off because Riley, that always felt like, hey, is somebody who doesn't work here? Let's pay them way more money than somebody who does work.

• 2:06:59Bill Simmons?

  It was a strategic move by him where he felt like he was crippling Sports Illustrated by doing that. And it was, he wasn't wrong.

• 2:07:06Speaker 01

  Right. And I didn't even bring it up. It was almost as if he was just like, I'm going to let Ryan have this piece of information. And then if he's ever at a cocktail party with somebody, again, I never went to any of that stuff, but like if, you know, like, well, Rick Riley was a great signing. Cause he was like, we spent a few million dollars, we destroyed Sports Illustrated.

• 2:07:27Bill Simmons?

  Right. I don't know if that was true, but it was, it was the right, it was the right narrative. I think Sports Illustrated, I've figured out the web destroyed Sports Illustrated.

• 2:07:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's also like, yeah, cuz, cuz print killed it in every other avenue.

• 2:07:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:41Speaker 01

  So was that a, was that a Rick Riley thing or was it a print thing? But I, it wasn't even whether or not Skipper was right. The lesson was sharing your strategy in a very clever way where you would gain allies for a decision at the time that was very controversial internally because on air people are maybe the pettiest people ever. And if somebody comes in from the outside and he was going to surpass so many different people salary wise, people were just going to be pissed cuz that's what happens. Yeah, no, I know. I remember.

• 2:08:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was a fun one. I, by the way, Rick Riley's girlfriend, wife, whoever she was, she was very nice. I don't want to get in trouble now if they're still together. It was also 20 years ago. Who cares? All right, that's it, Russillo. So you got two podcasts this week. Next week, uh, we have something fun for the Sunday episode. And then, uh, then we're in the home stretch here. Good to see you. Thanks for coming to Boston.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, no, thanks for having me. The Good Will Hunting thing was awesome. It was, you guys are so good. You shot a CR.

• 2:08:46Bill Simmons?

  Ah, you fit in great. It was a really fun one.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  No, I was really good on the pod. I'm not being humble, but I'm just saying you three are also very good.

• 2:08:54Bill Simmons?

  Thank you.

• 2:08:56Bill Simmons?

  See you next week. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Ryen, Russillo. Thanks to Chris Vernon for joining us. Thanks to Sarudy and Gahal and Kyle. As always, don't forget you can watch this on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can always watch it as a video podcast on Spotify. New rewatchables coming tomorrow. Good Will Hunting, Prestige TV Podcast, White Lotus, episode seven is up. And last but not least, the Zach Lowe Show is coming. So get ready to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Very excited about that. We will see him on this podcast on Tuesday.

• 2:09:55Bill Simmons?

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

• 2:10:38Bill Simmons?

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• 2:11:23Bill Simmons?

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