An NBA Scandal, the WembyCorn, a Three-Day Power Poll, and NFL Week 8 Picks With Joe House

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to react to the NBA gambling scandal before having an early NBA power poll (3:24). Finally, they make their Ringer 107 picks for Week 8 of the NFL season (01:07:06). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetrades. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I will have a new rewatchables for you at some point early next week. I think it's going to be Monday night, but we have to do a horror movie and we've done

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  Halloween one and we've done Halloween four, but we have not done Halloween two. And especially now that I'm in the new studio with, can you see? Can you see the mic? There he is, right there. See him? Michael Myers, my guy. We're going to do Halloween two, so that's going to be the next rewatchables. Now I just screwed up my camera. And you can find that wherever you get your, wherever you get your rewatchables, preferably on Spotify on video. So there you go. We have, so I was gonna, I was gonna do the top of the podcast and talk about Chargers, Vikings, and then the Warriors Nuggets game. And then the Chargers decided to kill the Vikings.

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  So I was going to watch the second half and then have some notes, but it was just the classic Thursday night stinker. And it all kind of flipped in the beginning when Herbert seemed like he threw a pick six and then they called it back as I said, the ball kind of moved on the ground, the Chargers drove down and then that was it. So the Chargers beating the Vikings and I guess we didn't talk about that other than the fact that the Vikings. Do not look like a playoff team this year and J.J. McCarthy, the mystery continues. So that and then Denver and the Warriors, we had the whole year to talk about that. So we're diving right into this so we can get the podcast up faster. Joe House is coming on. We're going to talk about the NBA gambling scandal. I think scandal is the right word here.

• 2:15Bill Simmons?

  I am going to do a very brief blink test NBA power poll for House because I watched a ton of basketball over the last couple of days. And then, last but not least, we're going to do Ringer 107 and try to find five games in a depleted schedule because we have six teams on a bye, but we found five that we liked. This is a very fun podcast. I'm just telling you now, we just recorded it. And then I went a time machine to the beginning of this for this intro you're about to watch. And take a break, Pearl Jam, and then House. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. If you're betting on the NFL, come on, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live your way so you can set

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  your own lines on just about anything. The app's fast, it's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid instantly. I've been in Boston, Massachusetts recently. Guess what I did? Use FanDuel. Super fun. Download the FanDuel app or go to fanduel.com/BS to get started. Must be 21 plus, present in select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-797-777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. This is the first time I've ever done this, House, where in the new studio, I have the Chargers-Vikings game on, and I'm going to try to concentrate on you and not look to see what's happening, but there's... There's a lot of stuff going on right now.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Football, football's going on.

• 4:11Bill Simmons?

  Football, basketball.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:13Bill Simmons?

  The World Series is about to start. Did he pick a team to root for in the World Series? Or he's just staying away?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  I, I picked a bet. I picked a few bets. I bet the Dodgers to win four games to one, plus 380 on the FanDuel Sportsbook. I bet Shohei Ohtani to win MVP at plus 165. Did every square bet?

• 4:32Bill Simmons?

  Square. I love when you go square.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  But I, Ohtani MVP at plus odds. Like, I gotta have a taste of that, right?

• 4:40Bill Simmons?

  All right, here's the agenda. We're gonna talk about, uh, we're gonna talk about all the gambling stuff that happened this week. We're gonna talk about an NBA power poll and, and me watching basically two straight days of games and I have a lot of thoughts. And then we're gonna do Ringer 107 NFL. So the gambling thing broke today and it was, it was a massive story. And I was debating about like, do we want to do anything on the pod about it or wait until to see more facts and things like, but this, this passed the test of so many people in my life asking me, yo, what do you think? What is it? And I just feel like we have to do something about it. I just want to tell you the highlight though. My mom texted me

• 5:21Bill Simmons?

  right in the middle as I'm getting like a million texts. I hope you and Sal aren't involved in this NBA betting scheme, exclamation point.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm gonna have a heart attack.

• 5:34Bill Simmons?

  I can't tell if she was serious or not.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have a heart, I did have a lot of people in my life say you, like they, as a joke, you know, how, are you one, one degree removed? Is this three degrees removed? How far removed? You know, one degree of separation?

• 5:51Bill Simmons?

  So here, here's the thing. And this is gonna sound like I'm making a defense of the gambling universe, which as you know, I love, you love. We've been in it for this entire century, basically. I think with the, with the, with the way the legalized gambling happened in all the states.

• 6:08Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be rocky here in a couple of different ways as we sort through this decade with what you can and can't do, right? The good side is that the best, the best books, they can monitor all this shit. If anything nefarious is going on, they're gonna sniff it out. And that's what's happened over and over again with all this stuff. They always sniff it out anytime there's a regular stuff. So in a weird way, it's being policed, I think, better than it's ever been. Where we have an issue, and this is, this is what I thought happened, especially with the Damon Jones thing. That was the most interesting part of this whole thing to me. Damon Jones, who's obviously friends with LeBron James, he finds out LeBron's not

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  playing in a Milwaukee Bucks game and tells, allegedly, tells somebody he knows, hey, you know, LeBron's not playing, like, don't forget about me. He's like, D. Jones has to eat, whatever he said. And this is an issue I think the NBA and NFL specifically have, baseball too, obviously, where they can get intel that somebody's not playing or somebody's hurt and they can get that intel ahead of time and quickly make smaller scale bets. But it's the players controlling information that's coming from them where they don't even know where it's going. They're just telling a buddy, they have no, like, I'm telling you, yeah, I might not record my pod tonight. You know, this happened, you're like, oh, I'm gonna tell FanDuel Simmons isn't, like, that's kinda what's going on in house.

• 7:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how they police this.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Well, they can't really police that specific situation that you're describing with the Damon Jones thing, what's being alleged on that particular fact pattern. Because, yes, there is already in place a series of injury reports over the course of a day. Every single day, the NBA puts out, what, on the hour, every two hours, an injury report. The very first one, you know, identifies guys and gives the likelihood of playing.

• 8:09Bill Simmons?

  Right, calf strain, questionable.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Right, probable. And some of what's been alleged in these indictments is like guys going from probable to out, right, over the course of a day. But that at least is a form of communication that lets the market know, here are the possibilities for guys that are going to be, you know, possibly playing, possibly impaired, whatever the situation is. And for the most part, you can kind of see it coming. Like it is the case now that the journalism around the NBA, the NBA info sphere is sufficient, like, oh, that guy did something, tweet the calf last night. So he shows up on the injury report the next day and it might say started off as probable

• 8:57Speaker 01

  at the morning shoot around or whatever. And then over the course of the day, maybe the condition changes, it worsens. But you can, if you're, you know, trying to gamble on stuff, build that into what you anticipate, you know?

• 9:11Bill Simmons?

  Like the intuition.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:12Bill Simmons?

  The Warriors might rest Curry. It's a back to back.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:15Bill Simmons?

  You can kind of infer certain things. I think the difference with this though, what this opens up is all the people connected is to a good player's life.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  Can take advantage of that if they want to, right? The equipment managers, the trainers, somebody who's like a security guard in the building, who know, who overhears Steph say, yeah, I'm not playing tonight. And that's where it gets harder to please. But this is where like, I think the sports books actually, they can know, especially with the unders and some of the, some of the bets that they can go, that's weird. Why are all these people betting on the Terry Rozier under? That's how that started. It was like this irregular betting pattern that they noticed.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Well, the window of opportunity for the non-public information is before the first injury report. So like, it seems, it has to be the case. I had not, you know, sat down and committed to full memory.

• 10:10Bill Simmons?

  I have not either. Unfortunately, I was busy, too busy today to read the entire.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Reading indictments and stuff. But, you know, for both Damon Jones and what's being alleged about Chauncey, which is he told somebody in advance of a game that all he was going to sit all the best players.

• 10:24Bill Simmons?

  That one's different. That, that, so the Chauncey thing moves into Pete Rose territory.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 10:29Bill Simmons?

  And Chauncey allegedly is in both sides of this because this is two different things. It's an illegal poker scheme.

• 10:37Bill Simmons?

  Which was crazy with x-rays and the tables and you're putting in tinted contact lenses to see marked cards like shit. I didn't even, I've heard a lot of crazy illegal poker game stories. I didn't even know you could do this.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  That's what rich guys do to each other. You know what I mean? That's, that's rich guy crime on crime.

• 10:52Bill Simmons?

  You know who's never played an illegal poker game? This guy right here. I don't trust it.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good, good intuition.

• 10:58Bill Simmons?

  But so Chauncey was in that, but then he was also in this basketball side allegedly where, and I looked it up. It's interesting, the game they pointed out, it was the 2020, 23 team. It was, Dame was there and they kind of shut Dame down for the rest of the season because they were trying to tank to that Scoot Henderson pick. And it was the first game he got shut down on. He had played the game before and you could see the before afterward, the box scores of, oh, they still have some of their guys to, we have none of our guys. And if it's true that he tipped somebody off, that they were doing this in a way that he wanted that person to gain financially from it.

• 11:39Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's about as dark as anything that's happened in the NBA since Donahue, if that's true.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  So the way that has to go down though, is that the context surrounding the direction of the team. I mean, this is, this requires time and energy that I promise I will not commit to the situation.

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  I did it today. It was right as they, and they were already, they'd lost some games.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  See?

• 12:01Bill Simmons?

  They'd won that a day before, but it was, it was in the mix of the tank.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  They're headed in a tank direction. So the market is already kind of anticipating. So the advantage that would, that he would have conferred is telling somebody absolutely without equivocation, these guys are definitely not playing. And that news, doesn't he have an obligation in the injury report? All those names that the very first time the injury report appears should have had those names on it. And I'm not going back and looking at it, but we can.

• 12:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but you can put that game before it comes out that day. You can put in the game and the bet.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Yes, you can.

• 12:34Bill Simmons?

  Before it comes out.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  That's the point.

• 12:36Bill Simmons?

  That Dame's getting show because the key with this is Dame was playing and he realizes, all right, we're cutting this. We're sitting Dame for the rest of the season. Basically, I'm going to give this information to somebody if that's what he did.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Non-public information that presees the injury report. Cause you, the market, you can bet, you can bet when you wake up first thing in the morning.

• 12:54Bill Simmons?

  So this is true that he did that. And then he's also in this other, the legal poker side of it too.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  But that was a one time thing. The way the indictment reads, he's like, he helped get some lure, some poor sucker to the poker game.

• 13:10Bill Simmons?

  But he's still in it. He's like, if all this is true, we're not gonna, this guy coached last night. I watched last night.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  He did.

• 13:17Bill Simmons?

  Him coaching.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  He did do that. He was a coach on the floor. Yes.

• 13:21Bill Simmons?

  And then, and then they sprung this.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Pushed all his chips to the middle.

• 13:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it was unintentional that they sprung this.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  In the worst possible timing for the NBA.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Not, not, not unintentional.

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  Stephen, I pointed that out on First Take today, that this is, you know, we're coming off this incredible Wemby game. That is what we should have been leading the podcast with today, and they just cut the legs out of it.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  And I mean, really, two incredible games, two incredible nights for the NBA. Welcome back. A beautiful night on NBC, followed up by an impeccable night on ESPN. Inside the NBA is firing on all cylinders. We have a legendary, a career defining game out of Wemby. And the next day, it's Cash Patel time, baby.

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  It's not even the next day. It was 10 hours later, Eric, Cash. Chauncey was on this list. And this is crazy. This guy's a Hall of Famer. I think one of the more respected players we've had this century. His name was Mr. Big Shot. And he ends up on this list. Some of the people involved, these are some of the nicknames house in this indictment list. Spanish G.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:31Bill Simmons?

  Flappy.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 14:33Bill Simmons?

  The Wrestler.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  Spook, Juice, Black Tony, Sugar, Albanian Bruce, John South, Doc, Black Rob and Pookie.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  We need to give out all those nicknames and apply them to Ringer people. We need to do a draft. I mean, I already know who Black Tony is. I know who Flappy is.

• 14:51Bill Simmons?

  So do you think Black Tony, you think there was a white Tony? There were two Tonys in there and they had to split up the Tonys and that?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Very possible.

• 14:59Bill Simmons?

  A lot of questions.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Very possible.

• 15:00Bill Simmons?

  Albanian Bruce couldn't just be Bruce? He had to be Albanian Bruce?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  There was another Bruce. Weren't there two Bruces?

• 15:07Bill Simmons?

  I didn't, but the thing is this guy's Albanian Bruce's real name was Osman Hote.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 15:14Bill Simmons?

  So, yeah, there's a doc, there has to be a doc in all this.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  There was a doc and a Pookie, that's what really made it feel authentic.

• 15:23Bill Simmons?

  So, yeah, the Chauncey thing bad, Rozier, so here's the other thing.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Bad, yes.

• 15:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, just everything we said bad.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:32Bill Simmons?

  Bad, his career will be over in the NBA.

• 15:36Bill Simmons?

  Rozier, it's the other really interesting piece of this, was cleared by the NBA.

• 15:44Bill Simmons?

  Now, the FBI saying, not only is he not cleared, here's like some, some, and I did see some of that stuff in the indictment, like they had real hardcore stuff with Rozier that was really bad, and the NBA cleared him, said they looked at his phone, and now this is a he said, he said thing with did Rozier, what did he do? Now Rozier's career has gone into the absolute tank over the last two years, right? Really is all of this started? And, uh, and turn it was a guy that, you know, Miami traded for from Charlotte and gave up a first round pick, and we thought it was going to be this impactful trade, and two years later, his career is definitely over. I'm sure Miami will figure out how to get him taken off the salary cap somehow, and

• 16:29Bill Simmons?

  then replace him with a much better player.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  They are, that's gonna happen.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  We're not gonna be allowed to bet on that.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  No, you can, you can do that, but, um, so those are the big three, and I do think, on the one hand, I don't feel like this is as big of a deal as it feels like, like I think the Donahue thing was a much bigger deal.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Way worse.

• 16:47Bill Simmons?

  It's like 10 times of a bigger deal. This is like, yeah, if, if gambling is going to be more and more prevalent, we're probably gonna have a couple of bad apples, and everybody's gonna learn how to behave and deal with it, and maybe don't share information about who's playing, not playing to people you don't trust.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Maybe just don't share it at all. How about that? That's what the injury report is for.

• 17:09Bill Simmons?

  Let me ask you though, big picture. Because I think the player unders, especially in the NBA are problematic. And if I, if I was like, if they made me the czar of sports gambling, right? Which I think I might have a chance when you see some of Trump's cabinet. I can't be ruled out.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  If you made me the czar, I just want to know why we have player unders. Why not just be able to bet overs or nothing? Especially in basketball and especially when it's like not Steph Curry. When you're talking about like Quinton Post over unders and Al Horford under threes. And to me, that's a danger area we could just eliminate.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  So I would just tweak it a tiny bit in, in the, and just con, con, con, conce, I can't come up with the word. Tighten up, tighten up.

• 18:02Bill Simmons?

  Constrict?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  That's it. Thank you.

• 18:05Bill Simmons?

  Golly. We're so old.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Need the coffee. Yeah, take the pool of eligible players, just give out props on a handful of players. Just let it be the players that, that we know, that we have reasonable certainty are going to play. You can take the props down if the guy ends up not playing because it's load management, whatever. But let's just have, you don't need really, do, do we need Quinton Post props? Did we need Jontay Porter pop props?

• 18:30Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, I would do this for NFL too. I would only have like the bigger stars. Like, do we need K, K. Sean Booty? Do we need it to be like under three and a half for his catches and things like, he's actually pretty good. Maybe he's a bad example.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Give me, give me a booty prop.

• 18:46Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's like Kyle Williams, the Patriots rookie, like under, over under one and a half catches. Like that's, that's where I think it goes sideways. So I would, I would stay, if I was in charge of this, I would steer the props toward big players only.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can do that.

• 18:59Bill Simmons?

  There's some other radical stuff you could do, like freeze the lines five hours before the games and stuff like that, but that's really unfair if. You know, somebody gets scratched late. Um, I, the, the thing in baseball that happened allegedly with a couple of the Cleveland Indians pitchers, being able to bet on pitches, I think is insane. I would probably get rid of that.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  The first pitch props. Holy cow.

• 19:22Bill Simmons?

  I do wonder if 10 years from now, we're either going to have more of this or less. I would prefer less, but you know, I think it's going to shake out the way it's going to shake out. I, I still feel like, look, there's way more gambling across the board than there used to be. You can see it everywhere. You can certainly see it on this podcast.

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  And I think some of that stuff has to shake out, but we've always had the gambling stuff. I wondered like, do you think all of these things still happen? If gambling hadn't been more legalized across the states in the last 10 years, like I would argue like the illegal poker games, we've been hearing about those for 30 years. You know?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  As, as long as we've been sentient. Like I've been gambling on basketball since I was 17 years old. Like, how, how did I do that? How was that possible? Well, I knew a guy and they still line it and there were lines, there were lines in the newspaper. I, there weren't lines on, online, but there was a line in the, in the Boston Globe every day.

• 20:23Bill Simmons?

  Right. And the NFL is, is they're finding teams that lie in the injury report because they're putting these spreads out in the newspaper every day. So we, we basically we were, we've always been doing this. I just feel like we're more honest about it. And then the process of being more honest about it. I think there's going to be a couple of hiccups that ultimately, if we can police all this and we can notice every time something's a little bit off, I think that's a plus, not a minus.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  That's, that's where we are. Like it's, it's so much more regulated. The books can, all established books can detect irregularities very rapidly. I mean, even the Rozier game, didn't they shut that down? Didn't they close off?

• 21:03Bill Simmons?

  Shut it down right away.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, right away. And, and immediately, the same thing with Jontay Porter, like, oh, there, there are bets here and, and it doesn't even have to be si- very sizable increments, right? It's not like those dummies did. Attempt sizable increments because they're dummies. But you know, there are, and we'll, we'll see these indictments reveal how you can get to scale, how you can get to $200,000 on an outcome without calling undue attention. You're spreading it out, using proxies.

• 21:33Bill Simmons?

  That's not online usually. That's usually putting them on in different casinos. That's how they do it. They have like ten runners putting places.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 21:42Bill Simmons?

  I love thing, but you, you mentioned Jontay Porter. Like to me, that's the perfect example of why this is a little bit broken. Why are we allowed to bet on Jontay Porter unders? I didn't even know he was in the NBA. When he was playing, what was it on Toronto? He was like the 15th man.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it would be like, I, I'm trying to think of anyone I watched in that Celtic Sixers game last night. The most obscure guy in that game. You're betting that Barlow.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  I had to look up Barlow.

• 22:09Bill Simmons?

  Betting unders on Barlow block shots. Like that shouldn't be a bet.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Got all the Embiid minutes in the fourth quarter and he fucking deserved them. How about that?

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait to talk about that.

• 22:22Bill Simmons?

  So yeah, I, is there any other fixes you would do for?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  You can just, just, you know, the, the prop pool, you know, tightening it up a little bit makes sense to me.

• 22:32Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Well, uh, we're going to come back with Albanian Bruce, Black Rob and Pookie. No, no.

• 22:40Bill Simmons?

  I want to do some Power Pull stuff with you on NBA. And by the way, we'll, we'll keep talking about the, the gambling. I, I really want.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  There'll be a lot more information that comes to light, right?

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  We don't have enough info yet. I wanted to talk about it, but I also feel like the story is going to evolve and move. And like to me, people are saying this is the biggest issue the NBA has right now. I completely disagree. I, I really do. I think the biggest issue they have is the schedule and I still can't believe that he's in an OKC game. I watched on Tuesday night and how hard those motherfuckers played.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 23:11Bill Simmons?

  And they have to do that 81 more times plus playoffs. And Amen Thompson, who's probably the, one of the five best athletes in the league and is young and should be able to go all day. And he's about to keel over. They have to pull him out because he's getting cramps. And if you watch the game, how crazy he was playing back and forth. I'm much more concerned about how much speed, mileage, how much these guys run, the studies teams are doing about how much they run, how much sprinting they're doing during games. It's not sustainable. It's not.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, well then.

• 23:44Bill Simmons?

  And I think that's a bigger issue for the league.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  That's the concern I had watching that Wemby game last night. Like that, we only should get one of those every two weeks, maybe even only once a month where he goes to that level with that level of intensity. Like when they, they were up by double digits with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter and he is still playing. I'm like, get Wemby off the court. Get that man.

• 24:11Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Let that man rest. He's done enough.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  Right. And he only played 29 minutes, but they were hard 29 minutes, but.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Incredible 29.

• 24:19Bill Simmons?

  So yeah, listen, they have to figure out all the gambling stuff. My, my thing with the NBA is they, Sober's a smart dude. They had a lot of smart people looking at this and I think they knew it was going to be rocky for a couple of years and there are going to be a couple of sacrificial lambs. And they're going to be, as Barkley said on Inside the NBA today, which I've really enjoyed on ESPN. They have not fucked with the show. I gotta give them credit to that. It feels like the exact same show on a different channel. But Barkley, they were arguing about whether this is like a gambling problem or whatever. And Bark is like, this is, these people are just stupid.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  He's right.

• 24:51Bill Simmons?

  This is a stupid problem.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  He is right.

• 24:53Bill Simmons?

  Which is, I agree with. So how do we regulate the stupid? It's going to be a.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  It's self-executing.

• 24:58Bill Simmons?

  It's going to be a work in progress.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Well, it's self-executing. I mean, you know, if guys want to self-sabotage, there's plenty of, of, you know, attorney, whatever, ready to, to take, take them and put them in shackles.

• 25:12Bill Simmons?

  Cash Patel.

• 25:16Bill Simmons?

  Let's, we'll take a quick break and then we'll do the power pull. It's football season and Uber Eats is delivering deals every single day. This week, buy a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. When your watch party gets hungry, order in and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes. Get another one free. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score great deals on Uber Eats all season long because it's not football. Without food, it really isn't. Popeyes offer valid through November 1st. Add eligible menu item to order prior to checkout. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details.

• 25:58Speaker 02

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• 26:23Speaker 03

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• 26:35Speaker 04

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• 27:22Speaker 04

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  All right, coming back. Power pole. I watched both games Tuesday. I watched six straight hours of hoops on Wednesday. I had the three TVs going, which you've seen, plus my iPad. I had four going at once. I was just trying to soak in as much as I possibly could. How's it getting old? I have to like retrain myself how to watch four basketball games at once. I really was having a struggle with it. But what was interesting was, and plus, my daughter was playing yesterday too, her team. So that, so I had that, then that ended. But the, the heart wants what the heart wants and my eyes kept drifting towards Charlotte.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:05Bill Simmons?

  It's just a delight, just a delightful League Pass team. I really enjoy them.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I took a spin through League Pass. I had two, I only had two. I can handle two at one time.

• 28:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, I know.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Two screens at once. Um, the Charlotte game, I did not land on that one. That was not, it was like,

• 28:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, did it have a big O card?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I don't need to see Brooklyn. But that really was the decision for me. I'm interested in Charlotte, but I don't need to see Brooklyn.

• 28:30Bill Simmons?

  I want to rip through a quick power poll, just a little snapshot. There's some overreactions in here, but just after two days and there's games going on right now, like as we're talking, Indiana's playing OKC, uh, later tonight, Denver's playing Golden State.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 28:44Bill Simmons?

  Favorites still OKC contenders. So initially I had Denver, Knicks, Cavs, Minnesota, and the Clippers as the contenders. I'm replacing the Clippers with Houston. That was the big add for me after watching that game, which I talked about already on Tuesday, but the size and what we saw from Shingun and Amen Thompson, what the potential is of KD when they figure out how to use him. I think we did the over unders with Zach, what, two weeks ago?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  And I went under and I regret it because the, the ceiling of that team I think is a little higher than maybe I gave it credit for. What did you think?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  I went under as well, uh, but that's, I know that's not what you're asking, but the reason is because they do still yet need some guard play.

• 29:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, of course.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  They do still yet need some perimeter scoring, like Dillon Brooks, whatever the limitations are, that dude shot nearly 40% from three for them last year.

• 29:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Jalen Green, whatever the limitations are, could create a shot under, you know, the right circumstances. They don't really, Amen Thompson.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Could end up being that guy, but man.

• 29:56Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of one on one though. There's a lot of clear out, somebody beating somebody up the dribble or somebody posting up on a, on a side.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  And, and.

• 30:04Bill Simmons?

  Not a lot of easy stuff.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Over the course of all the number of games that they have to play, that limitation will kind of reveal itself to be a vulnerability. That's a badass basketball team. Let there be no doubt.

• 30:17Bill Simmons?

  I really liked, I think I forgot to mention this Tuesday night. I really liked how Jabari looked. It was somebody I've always liked. I've kept all my stock. Uh, I thought he had some good moments for them on both ends.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Most competent version of Jabari we, we've seen maybe in his entire career. He knew who he was supposed to be on the floor with that team. And he's like, I'm here for it. I thought he was very good.

• 30:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So they have to be in there because if Shengun and Thompson, I had them in the high twenties when we did ring one hundred, but if they're moving up toward the low twenties or maybe even the teens, combined with KD, combined with some of their depth, it might be enough to overcome all the other stuff. I went on Eddie and Termini's show yesterday.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 30:55Bill Simmons?

  And we were talking about this Reed Shepard thing, which you had the Brent Price joke that I gave you credit for on Tuesday. Uh, he's not Mark Price, he's Brent Price. We'll see how it goes with, uh, rich guy Reed, but rich kid Reed, that was what, uh, a friend of mine who saw him at summer league said he was like a rich kid in an AAU tournament, which I thought was funny.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  It's pretty good.

• 31:13Bill Simmons?

  Uh, but we were talking to Eddie Johnson, we were talking about the Matt Maloney season. Eddie was on that team.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 31:19Bill Simmons?

  That Barkley, Drexler, Hakeem, they make the, I think Western finals against Utah. And it came down to Stockton versus Matt Maloney. And Matt Maloney, who they kind of like duct taped as a starter and been able, and he could make a couple threes and he was okay. He was an Ivy Leaguer. Um, kudos to him for making it in the league. But then it got to John Stockton time and he got worked like a speed bag and it cost them a playoff series.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:46Bill Simmons?

  So the question for me with Houston is, are they going to leave that door open for a Matt Maloney situation and do what you've been saying for a month? Go trade for a fucking point guard?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they have time. I think they'll get a guard. I do think they're gonna do it.

• 32:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm sure they're monitoring. I mean, Derrick White was incredible yesterday. So if they want a godfather off for Derrick White, if the Celtics are going to keep.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 32:07Bill Simmons?

  Having exciting games and then losing with a minute left.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Wow. You just said that out loud.

• 32:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to trade Derrick White. I'm just saying.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Put him in this conversation.

• 32:16Bill Simmons?

  Because I think if Houston got a real guard. I think they could actually win the title.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Derrick White is better than a real guard. Derrick White is fucking good.

• 32:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but they have all these, they have this war chest.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Lord have mercy.

• 32:30Bill Simmons?

  I'm not the first one who said that. That's Derrick White's floated around.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  All right.

• 32:33Bill Simmons?

  Uh, all right. So Denver Knicks, Cavs, Minnesota, Houston. Only other thing I noticed last night, Ant,

• 32:41Bill Simmons?

  and especially down the stretch, he little comeback win for the Timberwolves. And, uh,

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Beat Chauncey.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's sent Chauncey packing, literally. Um, there was a little, don't forget about me in that game, where it's like all these teams, these new guys on the new teams, it's Wemby, Cooper Flag, the West, Minnesota, we talked about how they had, I think, the six best odds in the West and people were discounting them in general, but there was a, there was a fuck you energy that he had in that game.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Well, he needed it because they had to outscore the Trail Blazers 30 to 19 in the fourth quarter to win the goddamn game. They were just, you know, sort of cruising along. It was like, dude, this is game one. Don't just show up and think that, that the Trail Blazers is gonna roll over. Jeremy Grant ain't here to just roll over for you. I mean, we had a classic Jeremy Grant game last night.

• 33:35Bill Simmons?

  Black Tony's texting Chauncey at halftime. Chauncey's like, not now.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Don't let me send Pookie down there.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  Denver is about to play. We haven't even seen them yet with their, with their beautiful bench. I did see Mike Malone on Inside the NBA today, uh, bemoaning the fact that they, Michael Malone, they're bemoaning that they didn't have a bench when he coached the team.

• 33:59Bill Simmons?

  And Cavs, I, I don't want to hear a Cavs conversation though Garland is back and healthy. Let's see him healthy and playing well for two weeks and then we can talk.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  That feels fair. That feels fair.

• 34:08Bill Simmons?

  So OKC, then Denver Knicks, Cavs, Minnesota, Houston. Next group, two teams, possible contenders, Orlando and Golden State, and we'll see Golden State tonight. I liked how Golden State took care of business in the Los Angeles game.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 34:22Bill Simmons?

  How Kaminga?

• 34:24Bill Simmons?

  They're basically the words Sean Marion have been thrown around for what Kerr wants from them this year. No, listen, just run the floor, defense, rebounding, athleticism. Just do that for us.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  As a concept, yes. Okay, it's a concept.

• 34:38Bill Simmons?

  Just be Sean Marion for us.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  We want to describe a concept and we're going to use the word, the name Sean Marion to describe the concept, not the player Sean Marion.

• 34:48Bill Simmons?

  Not the player, just shut, just conceptually do a Sean Marion impersonation.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:55Bill Simmons?

  You know, the Horford thing, I love big Al, one of the most popular Celtics of all time. I did kind of hit fuck you mode watching, watching him in a Warriors uniform.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Why?

• 35:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, he left twice.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  He's allowed.

• 35:13Bill Simmons?

  He left Boston the first time he signed with Philly.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  Came back, we won the title with him. And then he's like, now I'm going to go chase a title with Golden State. Well, he already won a title, but you know, for a little more money, he's made a lot.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't say he's chasing a title. It's he's, it's he had a good place to go to get another contract. What's wrong with that?

• 35:31Bill Simmons?

  We loved him in Boston. Well, Boston wanted to give him a contract. Listen, I'm not saying it's rational. I just got spiteful watching. I was like, fuck you.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  So unlike you.

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  How dare, how dare you run Golden State? Yeah, it hurt my feelings. I didn't think it was going to hurt my feelings, but it did. He should have retired with the Celtics. And as usual.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  He can still do that with the additional.

• 35:49Bill Simmons?

  There's no loyalty in sports. I don't know why I care.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  With the additional $25 million in his pocket, whatever it was.

• 35:55Bill Simmons?

  But Golden State, possible contenders, but could see them moving up a notch.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 35:59Bill Simmons?

  I like the vibe with them and they, they very comfortably kicked the Lakers ass.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  It was really professional. It was very orderly. They're like, okay, this is fine. Good job. Pat them on the head.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  And then Orlando, who let Miami hang around for a while last night and then took care of business down the stretch. But, you know, news flash, Desmond Bain's good at basketball. He's the top 40 to 45 player and they added him and gave up nothing. They just gave up future assets that weren't going to help them this year. So Orlando, maybe. I, I, if I'm an Orlando fan and we went up, we went, I went slight under on them. Did you go under on them? It was like 50 and a half?

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Just, you know, 49 wins is still fine.

• 36:39Bill Simmons?

  I wondered, do you think 51, 52 wins could win the East if Cleveland continues to just have guys bouncing in and out and not ever being 100% healthy?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  No, because the Knicks.

• 36:48Bill Simmons?

  You think it's higher?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Well, I, one of my locks was the Knicks over 53 and a half, I think.

• 36:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So what's the number? What's the number for the winning record in the East?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  57 or 58 to me.

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think.

• 37:00Bill Simmons?

  Orlando's not getting there. But I want to watch them a little more carefully. See how, Suggs didn't play a ton of minutes in that first game. I think a month from now.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  We all bet over on Cleveland, by the way, me, you and Zach.

• 37:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  We were in agreement.

• 37:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm aware.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  And the number was 56 and a half, I think, for Cleveland, wasn't it?

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm not worried.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Okay. Just saying.

• 37:21Bill Simmons?

  When they're all healthy.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  If you ask me what number wins the East, it's gotta be north of 56 and a half. That's all I'm saying.

• 37:27Bill Simmons?

  I hope so.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm just, I'm trying to figure out a path for Orlando to be a one seed. And I think the win number would have to be way lower. Next category, the sleeper, San Antonio. So, look, this is what happens with the NBA. Everybody goes nuts when we're all watching something at the same time. And people throw the word insane around because insane is the most used word in probably sports watching. And it, it was insane. I would argue it was actually underrated how insane it was. I was in awe. Like, to me, this was like Tiger that first year in 97, just demolishing golf courses. And we're like, what's going on?

• 38:12Bill Simmons?

  Him doing that to Dallas, not just Davis, but you have lively there, you have flag, like you have this good defensive identity. And he completely eviscerated them in a way that we, we talked about in the over under pod. I was all in on San Antonio being much better this year.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  You did, you did.

• 38:34Bill Simmons?

  And I really thought he had a chance. I thought him at 12 to one when MVP was probably the best value odds. And who knows if he can even play 65 games. But what he did in that game. Was one of the most frightening things I've seen on a basketball court and I can't even think of that many other examples.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  This is, that's the problem with it. It is so rare now for us as sports fans to see an athlete that I'll just, you know, put it in a dumb way, takes our breath away. That doesn't really even begin to tell the story. Like, I can't believe my, my eyes are seeing something that I don't think I've seen before. That like, that's 100%. I, I can't like compare him to anybody. For all of the years we've been watching basketball, I can't compare him to anybody. Like.

• 39:24Bill Simmons?

  No, it'd be like if there was a seven foot wide receiver who was basically like a seven foot Randy Moss and they were just throwing 50 yard passes to him and he would just jump up and catch them and we were like, what's going on? How is this a human being?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. The speed is incredible. I mean, what he did in terms of, of taking Anthony Davis out sort of north of, of the circle, he starts shaking one way or the other. His crossover, he double crossovers, he heses and then he's, he's at the rim in a stride and he just flushes the fuck out of it. What? What did I just see?

• 40:07Bill Simmons?

  And the three point shooting, um, I loved, he was clearly realized he needs to be a little more around the rim.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 40:16Bill Simmons?

  And news flash, we've been telling you that for two years, but I'm glad he figured it out. And then defensively, it's always fun to see the new guy. Like flag, it's like, ah, this will be fine. I'll figure him out. And he had a couple of moments where he was like, oh my God.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  I didn't realize, uh, we'd, listen, we talked about this in the over runners pod. He just is moving better. He's more, we don't want to say more coordinated, but all the stuff he's done to work on his balance and his footwork, like you really see a difference. The first, that first year, he was falling over half the time.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  He's a child. He's still growing. He's like, he's not, he's not grown. He's still growing. Like he's still filling out physically.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking there was one play he had, maybe it was when he did that, threw his legs 19 times, hit a three and got fouled. And then cut to the Spurs bench and multiple guys were like this with their hands behind their head. And I was thinking like the Thomas Hill test.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:13Bill Simmons?

  Of the later shot.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Love this.

• 41:15Bill Simmons?

  They cut to him after and he's just like.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 41:19Bill Simmons?

  He's just like, I just in shock. And I think that's the rarest level an athlete can get to. When you, when you're Thomas Hill testing, your teammates or people on the bench, they're just like, and these guys are just playing basketball every day. They've seen every incarnation of everything.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  They're playing with him. His teammates play with him and they can't believe what they're seeing.

• 41:41Bill Simmons?

  Right. We haven't had a basketball player do that.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  I know. I was trying to think about.

• 41:48Bill Simmons?

  Curry, like Curry, when he was breaking through, starting to make the threes was, I think the last one that gave people that feeling.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, the two that I was wondering about, and I, I'll go back and look because I, I am actually kind of intrigued by this intellectual exercise. Young Shaq was mind blowing.

• 42:06Bill Simmons?

  Orlando Shaq.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Young Orlando, when he was like super skinny, when he started, it was like,

• 42:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  nobody can stop him. There's no way, the only way to, to, you know, you have to foul him. And by fouling, I mean, grab him by the arm and hold it because you can't.

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  But also the way he ran the floor, you and I both separately saw him in those first two years. And we were just like, oh my God, what, what's that? Is this guy going to be the best player in the history of the league?

• 42:31Speaker 01

  But I don't.

• 42:32Bill Simmons?

  So Shaq's a good one.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  I don't think we felt, ever felt that way with Giannis.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  I mean, Giannis was always, he, he jumps out at you, right? And, and, and because the physical specimen is incomparable. But it took a while for the basketball part to kind of come in.

• 42:51Bill Simmons?

  It was never a hundred percent like it was with the Wemby thing.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:54Bill Simmons?

  It was like, whoa, this is really cool. But that was when we had that unicorn era with Porzingis and

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:00Bill Simmons?

  some of the, you know, and be some of these other like, whoa, these guys, we haven't seen people like this. This, Wemby's beyond a unicorn. I mean, nobody's ever done that on a basketball court before. I was watching with my son, who for the last like five, six years has been playing all the NBA 2K, all those games. And he had this player he created when he was a kid called J J McCutcheon. And you think the guy would have like be a 99 in every category, but he was also seven feet tall. And we would, and I would always be like, Ben, this isn't like somebody who'd be a real person. It's like, yeah, but that's what makes him awesome. And we're watching. And he's like, this is like J J McCutcheon. This is like the guy I created, but if the guy was actually a real person.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  The kid, the kid says that. Here's what I want, I'm gonna ask, can we talk to some old heads? I want to know what your dad thinks. Um, how did he feel when he first saw Wilt? And did he get to see Wilt live ever? Like, how did?

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, I do think Wilt and Russell were both like this. There's unquestionably all the, all the reports from back then, like Russell's defense and his, the way he ran the floor and could protect the rim. Nobody had just ever seen it.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:09Bill Simmons?

  And then Will came in with some of the, you know, you can see some of it's on YouTube, some of his finger roll stuff and like his power and his power on the rim. It just didn't exist.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  So those are two good ones. Uh, Kareem had the skyhook that in person, you really had to, it's just, it does, it was just different in person.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  You just kind of couldn't, you were like, how's anyone ever going to block that? Um, Magic and Bird had the passing, obviously. Jordan had the athleticism. Dominique as an in-game dunker.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:40Bill Simmons?

  I thought had a little of like-

• 44:42Speaker 01

  It's a nice nod.

• 44:43Bill Simmons?

  In person, but nothing like this.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  This was, and I will say LeBron in the late 2000s.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:50Bill Simmons?

  His first two MVP seasons.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  And I remember writing about this once. Um, cause I wrote, I remember writing a piece about how he had arrived in like oh nine, but he had this play at a Clipper game where it felt like he just dunked two steps from midcourt and the speed he had, it was so fast. We were all, you could just kind of hear the arena buzzing after. It was so crazy athletic.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:13Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  What was that?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Athletic Karl Malone, like hard to believe that that's the sheer size at the, at that speed. So what we just went through, um, nine of the top 12 players in the history of the game. So there we go.

• 45:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was always the ceiling for him. I think what's interesting about this is, you know, and we've talked about this in the past, but-

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  This always happens earlier than we think. Like, nobody thought Tiger was gonna walk in and kill the Masters.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  You are right.

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  And crush everybody.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  You are correct.

• 45:43Bill Simmons?

  Nobody thought LeBron was gonna make the finals in '07. Sometimes this just happens earlier than you. Nobody thought Duncan was gonna win the title in his second year. Maybe some people did, I don't even remember. But it's always faster. Nobody thought OKC was gonna be a contender, and all of a sudden they were. And I wonder with San Antonio, is this just gonna happen fast now? Is this a supercharge where we should just start? If Wemby's gonna be healthy all year, this is a top 17 period? And I don't know the answer.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  It's fascinating, because we didn't really get a feel for what the role players, what the team around him looks like, how they're gonna compete night in, night out. All we got was what really feels like a once in a lifetime performance. Like, in one week's, in a one-week span, we got Shohei Ohtani with one of the top three best baseball games in the history of the sport.

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  You know, fine, if you wanna call it number one, I'm not gonna argue with you. And then we got this, this game out of Wemby, a human specimen that is unlike any basketball player we've, we've seen with the, the kind of dominance that is unparalleled.

• 46:58Bill Simmons?

  And we got an X-ray table legal poker game scandal. I mean, what a week for all of us. On FanDuel, Spurs over/under is now up to minus, it's at 45 and a half now.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  And I still think it's too low.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Two full games, or at least one full game.

• 47:13Bill Simmons?

  No, it was 44 and a half, it went down to 43, now it's 45.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:19Bill Simmons?

  But I just find it hard to believe that's not a contender. Here's the other thing with them, House. I loved how Cornet looked with them.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:30Bill Simmons?

  They have trade stuff if they want it.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  If they wanna go really try to upgrade somebody. They didn't have Darren Fox in that game. I loved how Castle looked in that game. I thought.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  What a fit.

• 47:42Bill Simmons?

  I thought, I just felt like he went up a level, and clearly, I liked how he had a couple of good alley-oops to Wemby.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Symbiosis, they are on the same page, them two.

• 47:51Bill Simmons?

  Unquestionably the sleeper this year. Next one, the aspiration gang, the Clippers. So move them down. They were so bad, I watched the first half of that Utah game, they were so bad. That I don't even know what to make of it, but it has to be flagged.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Why do they, why do they show up that way? What do you think the explanation is?

• 48:11Bill Simmons?

  One thing, we went over on them. We almost put them in our super boost.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Because we needed them to get to 50 games, right? The total was 49 and a half. Can they get to?

• 48:21Bill Simmons?

  We didn't put them in the super boost though.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  No, no, I, I mean, cause you can't trust. They did a good job of building out their, their, their bench. I mean, I think this, this, the thesis for expecting them in the 48 to 52 win range is a sound thesis, but shit can go wrong.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  I do wonder about the personality though. And it's one game I want to watch them more and I, and I especially want to see them in person. But if Kawhi, if Harden is in his own world, your guy Bradley Beal, who is like the, come on guys, let's fucking go guy on that team. Chris Paul's too old.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Isn't it Lopez? Should be Brook Lopez.

• 49:04Bill Simmons?

  He's not doing that. They, they don't have the guy is my point. So you're down 20 in Utah and the team's like, okay.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this.

• 49:12Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like their body language at all.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  You think that was Will Hardy's Super Bowl? He's like, I just want everybody in the basketball world to know.

• 49:20Bill Simmons?

  To remember that I'm good at.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  I just want you to see what I could do. Here's what, it's game one. The season's going to go the ways. I have some good players. Here's the stuff we're going to do. I could do this. We could, I could take these Utah white boys and, and, and get out here and, and run a basketball team this way. We're probably not going to do it all season long, but I just want you to see it.

• 49:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'll tell you this, Kessler, Kessler jumped out of the TV. He was fucking awesome in that game. Remember when the Knicks were like, we're trying to get Kessler. It's like, cool. Kessler is good. We're not just giving him to you. He looked great though. Um, it's going to be, I guess their guards will be the key to them tanking Utah.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:02Bill Simmons?

  But when you have Kessler and Markkinen, you're just going to hang around in some of these games. I think one of the lessons of watching all the games last night. The talent is so fucking deep. It's like outrageous. I just can't believe how many good players there are. Like even Charlotte, my beloved league past Charlotte team. Colin Sexton is just on the side, just coming in. Like the guy, the guy in the mid 2000s would have started on playoff teams.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  This is a nice, a nice observation you're making because I wanted to give out a handful of fuck yous. Hey, Atlanta Hawks, fuck you. Like, here's the thing, right? It's game one. It's time to show up. It's time to show out a little bit. L.A. Clippers, here's a nice fuck you for you. Here it is. I'll put it on a, on a platter. I mean, the teams that showed up like, oh, we're, we're, you're just gonna kind of roll through. I was impressed. The Heat, no fuck you for the Heat. Good job, Heat. Heat competed, right? No hero. Norm Powell was up for it and, and.

• 51:06Bill Simmons?

  How about Davion Mitchell?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Davion Mitchell.

• 51:09Bill Simmons?

  We'd, we'd seem like that, that had flash in the pan possibilities. The Chargers, Chargers just scored. It's 21 to three. This might just be the podcast tonight.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Good. All right. I do have a nice fuck you for the Pistons as well. Like just want to give one out, the Pistons.

• 51:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, I want to get to them in a second. So the aspiration game, the Clippers. By the way, I Googled aspiration to see if there's a logo because I was going to do a joke and send it to you.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:35Bill Simmons?

  And when you Google aspiration, the first thing that comes up is how it's people that choke on their own vomit.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And what? Okay.

• 51:43Bill Simmons?

  That's what.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Oh, aspiration. Yes, the physical phenomena. Yes, right. Yeah, that, that is, I guess, I'm surprised.

• 51:50Bill Simmons?

  They named the charity after choking on your own vomit? Why was that the charity? No wonder it went under.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  That's such a great, great joke.

• 51:59Bill Simmons?

  Vomit choking charity.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  We missed this joke.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. It took me forever.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Going on for two months now. We missed this joke. It's amazing.

• 52:07Bill Simmons?

  Bomber choked on his own vomit and $50 million.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Uncle Dennis didn't choke. Uncle Dennis got all that cash.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Next category. Now we're dropping off. This category is called, let's see in March. I got Dallas here and I got Milwaukee here for different reasons. Dallas, I, I just, I want to go on the record really emphatically.

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  This flag playing point guard thing is fucking stupid. It's stupid. Stop Jason Kidd. We know you got your extension. We know you lucked out with the lottery. We know you did this with Giannis and Milwaukee. But this is not the right way to bring in a kid who's not even 19. And who doesn't know what kind of basketball player he is yet, but he clearly is special. You're putting all this extra stuff on him that I, I think is ridiculous. I don't understand. As soon as Kyrie comes back, he's never playing point guard again. What is the point of this?

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Who's supposed to play point guard for them?

• 53:04Bill Simmons?

  Play D'Angelo Russell and Nemhard. Like who cares?

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 53:07Bill Simmons?

  It's October.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 53:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, what I don't want to do is have flag dribbling the ball up against, against Castle and people like that. Like that's crazy.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  You mean guys will just go take the ball from him?

• 53:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's not a point guard. He's six, eight and a half. He's played forward his whole life. I just, I hated it. Uh, and Anthony Davis.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  Moving into a different phase of his career. Watch.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Well, it's game one.

• 53:38Bill Simmons?

  I'm not on it yet, but I just.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Didn't love the ball. Here's the thing, right? Let's see them play.

• 53:45Bill Simmons?

  2012 and he's a big guy and big guys don't usually age well.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  We want to see them play a team that doesn't have. I mean, I don't, we have to come up with some way to describe Wembaiana. That's not unicorn. It's so superior to unicorn, the most superior. Uh, iteration of a unique being.

• 54:02Bill Simmons?

  Wemby. How about just one?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:04Bill Simmons?

  So when he, he's a Wemby corn.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  He's a Wemby corn. Sure. Good. Let's see Dallas when they're not playing the Wemby corn. Because they're like them not having an answer for that. Maybe we can show them some grace.

• 54:17Bill Simmons?

  Who do they play tomorrow? They play, oh, home against your Wizards. That's a great.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Great.

• 54:23Bill Simmons?

  Great one.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  That'll clear out all the bad taste in our mouth. Yes.

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  That sounds awesome. So anyway, I want to. I still think I like their players in their team. I'm still bullish on them.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:33Bill Simmons?

  Milwaukee's the other one. Um, Giannis looked like Giannis again. Porter got hurt during the game, but uh.

• 54:41Bill Simmons?

  You know, they beat a bad team, but I'm still bullish on Milwaukee as, as

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Here's the thing.

• 54:47Bill Simmons?

  A mid to high 40s team.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  They are dedicated to, if they are dedicated to the bit, they came out and shot the three ball. Excellent. And if that's

• 54:56Bill Simmons?

  They want to do.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Right. Because they were the best percentage wise, three point shooting team in the league, but they were under utilizing it volume wise. Well, five of their first eight made baskets were threes. They won the basketball game in the first six minutes. Now, this might be a common theme when you play the Wizards, but they, they got up by, by 20. They, they were on pace. They had, uh, they were on pace for 200 points in that game. They had 25 points in the first six minutes. Um, cause they were just were, you know, the ball moved beautifully. Those guys knew exactly where they were going to be.

• 55:29Bill Simmons?

  And they have space. Yeah, they have space because of the shooters. They took care of AJ Green. Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  And they dared Washington to rotate defensively and it didn't happen. They just knocked down threes.

• 55:40Bill Simmons?

  I like the concept theoretically of Giannis and shooting.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 55:44Bill Simmons?

  And then Turner with Giannis defensively, I think is going to matter. And I still am in on that team.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  It all makes sense.

• 55:51Bill Simmons?

  Next group flawed, but interesting. I have five here. Lakers, Detroit, Toronto, Philly and Atlanta. I was down on Detroit before the season. It was one of my under locks. Um, I think if I was a Detroit fan, what would disturb me is I'm playing Chicago, a team that's not going to make the playoffs. And if you knew nothing and you were just watching the game, you would think they were equal talent, talent wise. Right? That's not a good sign for Detroit.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  My problem was the effort. Like you, they have guys with that, with, with the motor. Like that's what Ron Holland is for. That's what Durin is for. Like they, there's, you're supposed to, the role guys are supposed to help, you know, the, the, the starters. I, I don't, are they discombobulated because Ivy is out again? Like what, what's the explanation?

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  Ivy's out. I just don't think with Ivy out, I just don't think from a talent standpoint, they're that special unless Cade goes up another level. So I just flawed, but interesting. I'm not ruling them out, ruling them in, but my instinct was that people were throwing them in this like east fringe contender conversation. I'm the opposite. I think they're closer to being a playing team.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  They, they had to outscore the Bulls by 11 in the fourth quarter to make it a, you know, competitive round the stretch.

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  Lakers I did not have as one of my playoff teams.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  And I have them losing in the plan. You gave them out as a plan.

• 57:15Bill Simmons?

  Have them playing and have them losing in the plan. And the reason is because I don't think they're going to be able to guard anybody. And then you watched on opening night, Golden State should have won that game by 25.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Sure, could have multiple times, multiple ways they could have won that game by 25.

• 57:27Bill Simmons?

  And I know they didn't have LeBron, but LeBron is now in his 40s. And I don't think you can count on him in a real way for regular season like you could have in even 2018.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  The Lakers aren't good enough. They don't have enough talent. That's all.

• 57:40Bill Simmons?

  And I don't, I don't necessarily even, I'm not positive they care about this season. I think it's more of a.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 57:47Bill Simmons?

  Let's just take some chances. We have some expirings. Let's kind of see where we go. They extended JJ before the year, which I, I said to you and Zach two weeks ago, I thought was interesting. It made it seem like, hey, no matter what happens, we believe in this infrastructure. Uh, I don't, I think they're one of the six or seven worst defensive teams in the league and, um, I don't.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  How would you handicap the likelihood that sometime here in the next, I don't know. 30 days, maybe even less, that we get word that this is going to be LeBron's retirement tour.

• 58:21Bill Simmons?

  Are you asking me because you want to tell Damon Jones and Black Tony?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Well, Damon Jones already knows. I need Damon Jones to tell me and Pookie, me and Pookie.

• 58:34Bill Simmons?

  I do not think, I do not think LeBron is retiring.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  I think he's going to play till he's 45.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:38Bill Simmons?

  I think LeBron and Aaron Rodgers are just going to keep going and going. Lakers, very suspicious. I just don't think when you compare them to some of these teams in the West like Houston and San Antonio, like Minnesota, these, these teams are young.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Go guy by guy, position by position. They're not good enough.

• 58:54Bill Simmons?

  They're not good enough. We'll see. I've counted out the Lakers before in previous years and then all of a sudden they went eight in a row. I just, I, Luca would have to go on a fucking heater.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Remember, again, Dorian Finney Smith was, really helped change the trajectory of that team because they, they, they really found a defensive identity. Like it's crazy shit like that that can happen.

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  Toronto looked great.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Toronto.

• 59:19Bill Simmons?

  That might have been one of my big misses.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  It was a Joe House lock. I don't remember whether or not Zach locked it, but.

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  They looked really good. I, listen, I'll admit defeat if that, if that is a potential like top 17, but.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  I believe that it is.

• 59:34Bill Simmons?

  I thought they played hard.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:37Bill Simmons?

  They were, they were long. They're healthy right now. Who knows how long that's going to last, but uh, they jumped out to me.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Coach Darko played 11 guys. They're gonna, if they, if they're gonna play with that level of intensity and make sure that everybody gets the feels, gets the touches, they're gonna be tough. You made fun of me.

• 59:54Bill Simmons?

  You know what I liked?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  When I said to you.

• 59:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, I did make fun of you. I did.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  The Oklahoma City, like, you know, they, they want to try that kind of blueprint, which is get out in transition, try and force turnovers, try and be a defensive presence. And they won uh, fast break points by, by like 20 and they had 86 points in the paint. In 138 points they scored, 86 of them were points in the paint because they kept going to the goddamn rim. Impressive. That's all. I'll stop.

• 1:00:25Bill Simmons?

  This was my overreaction game because Toronto kills Atlanta. And Toronto, I'm with you. What I liked about what I saw from Toronto, they, they clearly know what they want to be. And what they wanted to be was athletic and they want to push and they want to go and they want to go and they want to go. Now, I don't know if it was just because they were playing Atlanta or that's who they are, but there was an identity they had that I wasn't expecting. On the flip side, Atlanta, who was a team we were high on and then the over under got too high and I think that scared all of us. It got to like 47 and a half.

• 1:01:00Bill Simmons?

  So this is one of those things where you can look at something on paper forever. And then you have to actually see it on a basketball court and I don't know, maybe I've seen too many games over the years, but I was immediately like. Oh no, because they're not going to be able to rebound house. And forget about like the transition defense and some of the other issues in that game. But you have Porzingis, they started Porzingis, he's 25 feet from the basket. You got Trey Young, you have Jalen Johnson, Daniels, some other shooter. No, there's no rebounder. And one of the things with Porzingis, when the Celtics would play him, like Tatum, Tatum was, you know, one of the best 20 rebounders in the league. The team was a gang rebounding team.

• 1:01:45Bill Simmons?

  I really was worried about Atlanta after watching them. And maybe it's going to take a while for the pieces to fit together. But it was a team that didn't make sense to me as I watched it. Did you see it?

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Um, it did not make sense. And there are a couple of culprits. The rebounding is concerning. It could be Okongwu. He like, that's his, his, his job. And Jalen Johnson got seven and Porzingis got seven and you know.

• 1:02:13Bill Simmons?

  They got, they got, they got dealt with on the boards though.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Here's the issue, man. Let me ask you, I'll put it to you in the form of a question. Who do you think took the most field goals last night? Do you already know the answer?

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't. Who was it?

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Nikhil Alexander Walker took 15 fucking field goal attempts last night. He was two for 15 from the field. What in the fuck is going on in Atlanta? Like seriously? You built this team and had an idea for who you're going to put out there. How is he taking the most shots on the, on the team? How is that possible? In 26, 28 minutes, he took 15 field goal attempts. How? Why? How's that make any sense?

• 1:03:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't like it. I'm not writing them off, but my blink test watching them was like, ah, I don't know. I don't know if this, these guys all make sense together. We'll see. But I was, I was, I definitely cooled on them a tiny bit. But they might, they could win me back next week. And then Philly, I watched that entire game.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  I bet you did.

• 1:03:23Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's really interesting because Embiid just looks like he's done and who knows if he can come back, but he can't really jump anymore. He can't, you know, they, every time they really did well was when he wasn't out there, including the fourth quarter. They just didn't bring him back because he was on a quote unquote minutes limit. But the Maxey and VJ together was just the most electric. The VJ thing's unbelievable. The big, the big thing on him coming out of the draft was this guy's an incredible athlete. He can't finish. He has terrible finishing stats. Let me tell you, he finished the fuck out of the Celtic game. He was finishing everything and he was competitive and he's got a swagger to him and him and Maxey together. That's the future of that team. The Sixers fans

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  should be over the moon about this. They're gonna, you know, the Embiid thing, the extension disaster. George disaster. But all of it led to them getting the third pick in the draft and rejuvenated with this guy who looks like 2005 Dwyane Wade.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  I mean, it's stunning. It's stunning. Let's just leave it.

• 1:04:23Bill Simmons?

  That was, other than Wemby, it was the most stunning thing of the week.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  The confidence, he's, he game speed. He was there for all of it. The basketball IQ is off the effing charts.

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  He's, he moves when he doesn't have the ball. If he's in the corner, he's my favorite kind of guy where he's still thinking of stuff to do, even if he's not involved in the play. It's like, oh, can I back cut? Oh, can I get an offensive rebound? Oh, can I come flying in for a jam? He's up to stuff all the time.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  How many phone calls do you think Daryl in the second half was making like, hey, we know that, that Paul George contract. We know that, you know, that we'd the extra year, but let's figure out a way. Like how many?

• 1:05:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I thought you were saying Daryl was calling his wife, being like, I have good news. I'm going to be keeping my job for the next few years because VJ comes fucking awesome.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Well, that, and also they need to get Paul George off that team, away from this team as quickly as possible. There is, there is, it's a,

• 1:05:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how they're gonna do that.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  It's a zero proposition, zero sum.

• 1:05:31Bill Simmons?

  Also, like we talked about leap guys when we did the over unders. And I think I'd like to, I'd like to belatedly include Maxey in that combo.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  He deserves it. Oh, does he deserve it?

• 1:05:45Bill Simmons?

  He was downhill constantly and I thought the Celtics, they didn't shoot well, but they played really hard. And the reason they lost was because they weren't making threes. And then ironically, Kada fouled out and Luca Garza was in concussion protocol. So they had to play Xavier Tillman in the last two minutes of the game and he missed a big shot. But the, the VJ and Maxey thing, attack, attack, attack, attack. And Embiid just doesn't fit in with it. So I don't know what they do.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Just play him the 20 minutes. It's totally fine. He's a role player.

• 1:06:22Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna be miserable. He'll make him miserable.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Who cares? No, we're, if, if, if he, if they permit that to happen, then, then we'll know for sure. Then, then we'll be having podcasts with Daryl.

• 1:06:35Bill Simmons?

  How about LeBron for Embiid right now?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Who's?

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you paused.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Well, the Lakers have to say, no, no, no.

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  There's no, like, he's, he's a 20-minute player who, you know, should be able to get you a handful of rebounds and.

• 1:06:52Bill Simmons?

  I like Embiid. I hope it comes back, but it doesn't seem like his right leg works anymore.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  He's, look, I, I, I don't say this with any joy. This is end of career Greg Oden shit. This is what Greg Oden looked like after, you know, the, the last series of, of surgeries that he had. And he tried one last time to come back. That's what Embiid looks like to me.

• 1:07:14Bill Simmons?

  I hope he can come back. It did not look good last night. It's bad for Philly that it's like, we have to keep him out of the game if we want to win. Water treaders, Boston, Memphis, Miami and Indiana. We don't even talk about them. League pass all-stars, next category.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  People in Memphis are going to be mad that we, that we're just skipping over them.

• 1:07:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, they had 40 injuries already and, and they won the first game just because Ja Morant was awesome. But the guy plays 30 to 45 games a year.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  They handle their business at home against New Orleans and New Orleans did jump out to a lead. I mean, you know.

• 1:07:44Bill Simmons?

  But look at the, look at the group though. Boston, Memphis, Miami, Indiana, they're treading water, waiting to see who they're gonna be.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  Same spot. It's true.

• 1:07:50Bill Simmons?

  I think that Memphis is fair. League pass all-stars, Charlotte, New Orleans and Chicago. New Orleans, I think Zion looked really good. And they have fun players in that team and I just think they're going to be a fun team to watch. Chicago, same thing because of the pace. And then Charlotte was a revelation. I like Kalkbrenner. I'm just going on the record. I think he's a real NBA player. I think he's a 30 minute a game big guy. And we went into the season going like Charlotte doesn't have big guys. They're not going to be, but they, they have multiple guards.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  It was against Brooklyn, to be fair, but yes.

• 1:08:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, they were playing a G League team.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Yes, they were.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  But they have like semi competent big guys and then Knippel and I just like them. Next category, wait, where's our coach? That's Portland. The next category is why are we here? Phoenix and Sacramento. What a battle that was.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Don't show disrespect to Phoenix. This is going to be an ongoing theme. I honestly kind of like directionally what Phoenix, this is at least a team that, that makes a little bit of sense.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  More sense than last year.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Makes more sense than last year. And I honestly think the good people of Phoenix deserve, after that hot turd they were served for an entire season last year of unmet expectations and guys that didn't like playing with each other. I think this team does like play. I like what I'm seeing out of them thus far. One game in, I'll just leave it at that.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have them as either the fourth or fifth worst basketball team in the league.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 1:09:18Bill Simmons?

  And the other team that they were battling with was Sacramento, who that game came down to the last minute.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  It did.

• 1:09:23Bill Simmons?

  Last category is dumping for Darren. Utah, Washington and Brooklyn. Utah's the best of the three. Darren is the Darren Peterson on Kansas.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  If Utah really tried, what do you, how many games do you think they could win? If they competed.

• 1:09:36Bill Simmons?

  High twenties.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Okay. I was going to say low 30s. So I'm glad we're on the same page.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  All right. That segment was way longer than I expected. We're going to take a break and then do Ringer 107.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  It's just the NBA. What do you want us to do?

• 1:09:46Bill 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 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun with Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 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 Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails.

• 1:10:31Bill Simmons?

  So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. All right, House, Ringer 107. We went three and two last week. Felt like four and one was in play and we couldn't pull it off. We were one game under 500, but we've been slowly clawing back.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Bill Simmons?

  And it's a bye week week this week. These are the dangerous weeks when you can't find five games, but you still have to do the five games. I'd like to request that we stay away from Eagles, Giants and Chiefs, Washington with higher lines. I just want no part of that Eagles Giants game. I want no part of the Chiefs, you know, favored by nine and a half against your team with Mariota.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Is it only nine and a half?

• 1:11:16Bill Simmons?

  Is it higher than that?

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  I thought it was much higher.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's higher. Regardless, we're staying away.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11:21Bill Simmons?

  I have three maybes for you. Jets, Bengals, Jets are favored by, or Jets are getting six and a half in Cincinnati. I don't want to bet this game. I really don't. Jets 27th, DBO A Cincinnati 29th, but the line is so high. It's like trying to sucker you into betting the Jets.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Begging you to take the Jets.

• 1:11:43Bill Simmons?

  The Bengals should just be favored by three. And it's like, here, we'll give you three and a half extra points to take the Jets.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  You're supposed to take the Jets. You're supposed to do it.

• 1:11:51Bill Simmons?

  It's like that Criterion Collection had this 50% off flash sale. And I have all the Blu-rays I want. And I was like, all right, I'll look anyway. It's like, this is a flash sale of three and a half extra points.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  It's Tyron too, right? We think?

• 1:12:05Bill Simmons?

  Staying away. I'm not betting on the Jets. We bet on the Jets in Week 2.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  It just sucks.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  It does suck.

• 1:12:12Bill Simmons?

  Falcons Dolphins Falcons minus seven and a half. I have this as a maybe only because you have the Atlanta offense, fourth against the run. Miami's defense 32nd against the run. They didn't fire Mike McDaniel last week. Atlanta's defense is first against the pass, 70 yard per play. Miami's offense, pretty much terrible across the board. Coming off one of the worst games we've seen anyone play in the last couple of years. Falcons minus seven and a half, the hook scares me a little.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Not me, gotta play Falcons. This is Falcons at home. The only thing I wondered about was Penix, right?

• 1:12:50Bill Simmons?

  You want me to move this up?

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he, somebody rolled up on him. There was like an ankle kind of thing and he didn't practice. They had their walk through on Wednesday. He did do limited practice taping this on Thursday.

• 1:13:01Bill Simmons?

  They have a $40 million backup.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing I was wondering about. Now we're going to play it at seven and a half. We don't, we, we can't get out of that.

• 1:13:09Bill Simmons?

  This is going to be your pick.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  I'm definitely, I mean, as long as Miami, the Miami Dolphins put Tua out on the football field as their starting quarterback and their head coach is Mike McDaniel, you must bet the other side of it. I don't even know what the number is that would scare me off. It ain't this, it's not seven and a half in Atlanta. We think Atlanta is good when they play at home. We think their defense is good.

• 1:13:32Bill Simmons?

  This is, this is something we've been on for the last couple of weeks. Teams you, you're only allowed to bet on at home because there's another one coming up.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  I like Atlanta as a home team.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Me too. Yeah, I think they roll. I think they smash and I hope Miami continues to just bring Tua and Mike McDaniel out week after week so we can keep betting the other side.

• 1:13:52Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe Mike McDaniel's comeback. All right, I moved that into the, maybe into the yes category. Last one in the maybes was Saints Bucks. Saints plus four and a half at home against Tampa. I like the Saints at home a little more than anywhere else.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Learned my lesson last week.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  New Orleans, well, last week, we, we kind of fucked that up. That was your pick, but I, I supported it. And a lot of the reasons we took Miami, went against Miami and Cleveland, bad weather, blah, blah, blah. And then New Orleans is playing outdoors in bad weather. And we have New Orleans.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, wrong.

• 1:14:26Bill Simmons?

  And yet, Chicago still was like dying to let them hang around in that game.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Literally, the freaking hook and ladder that the, the guy threw a forward pass on. It was about to be a game, potential game altering. The trajectory of that game was in doubt. Rattler put the ball, gave the ball away too many times. I don't want to talk about it.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  So New Orleans at home, lost, came back against Arizona and San Francisco and almost won but lost. They beat the Giants at home and they lost to the Pats at home in a game that the refs tried to steal from the Pats. They're only averaging 18 a game. I don't know who's playing for the Bucks. My instinct leans toward the Saints, but I don't really want to have them again. I didn't enjoy it last week. And I don't know, how, how long is Rattler going to be the starter? Are they going to start tanking soon? There's a tanking strategy for them, so let's stay away. All right.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we dabbled with the Saints. That, that's enough. It's like, you know.

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  There's a parlay possibility house.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Bill Simmons?

  We have the Colts minus 14 and a half against the Titans. We can use their money line or some sort of version of that because they're going to kill the Titans.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  Could also just lay the points.

• 1:15:38Bill Simmons?

  Could also lay the points. Patriots against the Browns. Pats minus seven. Cleveland's offense is just horrible. 28th rush, 30th pass, 27 first downs. I know their defense is good, but I do think the Pats defense, this is a perfect game for them because they're really good at stopping the run.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:01Bill Simmons?

  You can throw on them a little bit, but Cleveland has Dylan Gabriel.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:05Bill Simmons?

  This New England fan base is so fired up by this Patriots team. They haven't had like a kick ass home game yet. They had that, the Carolina game. It was like in doubt for an hour and then they came back and won, but I think this could be the kick ass game.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Can I?

• 1:16:19Bill Simmons?

  Once you go up 13, the game's over.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  I totally agree with this. The only modest proposal I would like to make as we think about the idea of a, of a parlay, a money line parlay here is. I honestly would rather because it's we don't have a lot of choices on the card this week. Use the Colts, let the Colts lay the points with the Colts and use the Chiefs, parlay the Chiefs and the Patriots.

• 1:16:45Bill Simmons?

  We might, we might have enough though, because well, the other one I was gonna throw him was the Ravens against the Bears at home.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  That, that one, you, you, you know where I'm coming from on this.

• 1:16:53Bill Simmons?

  Ravens.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  Not only that, like, can I borrow some money from, from somebody?

• 1:16:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this is the first playoff game of the year with the Ravens. This is kitchen sink, we have to win. We have Caleb, I made this prediction on Tuesday's pod, we did one crazy prediction, me and the fantasy guys, that Tyson Bajet has the starter for the Bears by week 13.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:17:15Bill Simmons?

  Caleb was not good in that New Orleans game.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Wow, he was not.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  But, but parlay of Ravens, Patriots and Colts minus 1.5 gets us under the minus 120. Pats to win, Ravens to win, Colts win by two, it's minus 117 on FanDuel and we can do that and win.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Well, what are the remainder games? What are the games that we bet?

• 1:17:40Bill Simmons?

  I just putting that in.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:42Bill Simmons?

  Um, I mean, I'm just, that might be one of my picks. All right, here are the possibles. Texans minus one and a half against the 49ers. Houston's two and four, four of those games were on the road. Their next three are at home. They're eighth in DVOA somehow, coming off this.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  This is sick.

• 1:18:00Bill Simmons?

  Their defense is awesome, coming off this ugly Seattle game, right? Where they couldn't block and they, but guess what? Seattle has an awesome defense and they were home and it was a Monday night and they were maniacs the whole game. I'm in on Houston's defense. I thought that, like, talk about hats on the ball house.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Bill Simmons?

  It was one of those eight guys tackling every Seattle guy, they even got a penalty because they had too many guys continuing to tackle somebody. Their defense, third in DVOA, it's only giving up 14.7 points a game. They're going against Mac Jones, they're going against the San Francisco team that was able to Scotch tape a defense last week and do a bunch of shit that now you can just watch the tape and be like, oh, they're doing this, let's do this instead. They're gonna have no pass rush. I don't care if Nico Collins plays or not, I, I think Stroud with actual time to throw will be okay. And it's Texans minus one and a half. I love the Texans in this spot.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  So I I just was scared of this game because I have been on the wrong side of Shanahan and the 49ers too many times this season. Like they they just keep, we keep saying.

• 1:19:07Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing, they're they're five and two house.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  We just keep saying, here's the point where where it flips for them defensively here. The the, you know, Bosa, they can't get any pressure on.

• 1:19:16Bill Simmons?

  But we had them last week. We took them Sunday night.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  It was, and it was the correct play.

• 1:19:21Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  I know, but I'm just saying, like, you know.

• 1:19:26Bill Simmons?

  This is just like, I just want to bet the Houston defense in this game. Houston defense against Mac Jones.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  For the contest we have at one and a half.

• 1:19:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  It's your pick. I I I'm lukewarm on it.

• 1:19:39Bill Simmons?

  You're lukewarm?

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:41Bill Simmons?

  Okay. I like it. I don't think Houston's going two and five. I like if they lose this game, their season's over. This is a kitchen sink game for them.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  Proof. I want to see like one great quarter of offense when it's not against the Titans.

• 1:19:57Bill Simmons?

  Counter. This is a classic Niners look probably better than they are on Sunday night.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:04Bill Simmons?

  Houston looked worse than they are. They're in a bad situation for the team they have on a Monday night.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:09Bill Simmons?

  And this line should probably be two and a half or higher because their defense.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Two and a half now for the purposes of our contest. We got it at one and a half. It's published at one and a half. We're playing it one and a half. The public is going to have to ride the market.

• 1:20:24Bill Simmons?

  I want to make sure. So it's definitely, I want to make sure we don't cheat.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  No, it's two and a half right now, but I believe for.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  It's one and a half. Yeah, we have it at one and a half.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  I know. I know. It's locked at one and a half for the purposes of the contest.

• 1:20:36Bill Simmons?

  Next one. I want you to talk me out of this because I like it. Panthers plus seven and a half at home against Buffalo. We talked about Carolina at home, how they're a different team. Dalton, Bryce Young, I don't think it matters. Carolina's third.

• 1:20:52Bill Simmons?

  Rushing attack this year, third in rush yards. Buffalo thirty first against the run. They are getting their two suspended D lineman back. Carolina's D is not terrible. Fifteenth DVOA. Eighth against the rush. It is betting against Josh Allen. Josh Allen against bad teams has been money. But the seven and a half, like even that's, that's like a cheap touchdown late.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  We can't do it. I'll take, I'll take the L. Here's why. The, the, the Bills lost two games in a row and then had a bye.

• 1:21:25Bill Simmons?

  And they have Josh Allen.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Come off the bye with Josh Allen and lose another game. They're gonna lose to the Patriots.

• 1:21:33Bill Simmons?

  Should be four and a half.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  They're gonna lose to the Patriots, the Falcons and the Panthers. Okay. I mean, we're talking about the fact that the line still has some inflation in it. Like, we're not giving Carolina enough credit. That, that, I agree with, with all of that. Seven and a half, though. It's still in this modern NFL era, a one score game at seven and a half. I don't know.

• 1:22:00Bill Simmons?

  I might make it one of my picks. I also don't mind the plus three, ten for them.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  Oh, for the Patriots to win outright.

• 1:22:07Bill Simmons?

  Actual money line, which we're not doing in these contests, but uh, the case for Buffalo is couple losses, bye week, getting the guys back on D.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:17Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna show everybody, our defense is actually back. And that's what my fear is with this is you're like, oh my God, why do we bet against Josh Allen? The seven and a half is high.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  They can get rolling, though. That's the problem. We, we thought that that might happen in that Atlanta game, but Atlanta really had a great pass rush uh at, at home and a very good game plan.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  And they just ran the ball, ran the ball, ran the ball. Can Carolina replicate that?

• 1:22:40Bill Simmons?

  Here's the other case for this. They have the Chiefs next week, Buffalo.

• 1:22:45Bill Simmons?

  So is this a Milton Berle? Let's just bowl out enough to win.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Get in, get out.

• 1:22:49Bill Simmons?

  Let's not do too much. Let's not get anyone hurt.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Backdoor's open. They could be up fourteen in the fourth quarter.

• 1:22:54Bill Simmons?

  That's what I, that's why the seven and a half is huge.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. Mark it down. Cowboys plus three and a half at Denver.

• 1:23:04Bill Simmons?

  All the advanced stats say Dallas is a better team. They're ninth in DVOA, Denver's 14th. Dallas' offense, top four, second in yards per play. Denver's defense, first in yards per play, which is good, but

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  the question for me is the Cowboys, I just think are gonna score every week against whoever. Right? Can Denver match points with them? I think this line's just too high. I, they get in the hook. I feel like this should be like Broncos, one and a half. I think these teams might be even. I've been really impressed by Dallas.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  As have I.

• 1:23:38Bill Simmons?

  As have I. I think they're well coached.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  I, I said out loud on, on many programs last week that I didn't think that Washington, I had to puff my chest out because it was, it was Dallas week, but

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  It was fraught. That was a fraught situation.

• 1:23:53Bill Simmons?

  That was our big miss last week, not taking Dallas. That was a big miss. By Sunday, that would have been.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  That was a big miss.

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  That was one that I bet on.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  And I loved it. I bet it as well.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  So Dallas wins this. If Dallas can somehow win this in Denver, Cardinals next week, bye week, and then they're at Vegas on Monday Night Football. Like, there's actually a path for them to be a playoff team, but I think they need this game.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Why did they get blown out by the Bears?

• 1:24:19Bill Simmons?

  C.D. Lamb got hurt.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Okay. And then.

• 1:24:22Bill Simmons?

  Couple of coverage breakdowns.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  They just couldn't adjust on the fly quickly enough. They just couldn't.

• 1:24:26Bill Simmons?

  Why did the Patriots lose to the Raiders?

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  First game of the season, that's all.

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I almost wonder with the first three weeks of the year, do we just,

• 1:24:36Bill Simmons?

  you know, Green Bay killed Detroit. Would that happen now?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:24:41Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 1:24:43Bill Simmons?

  All right, Cowboys plus three and a half, we're marking this down. I, the Bo Nix thing, he just can't, it takes him two hours to be decent.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  I'm, you're not gonna, you, I don't know the circumstance. There will be a circumstance where I'm comfortable they're laying less than a field goal, maybe. Against, I don't, I'm not sure who, who the opponent has to be. No, and I, look, I asked him to shove it in my face against the Eagles and he did it.

• 1:25:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  He led them to 18 points in the fourth quarter against the Eagles on the road in Philly.

• 1:25:16Bill Simmons?

  And Dak against a really good Denver defense, which I think he can throw on. But Dak's just been one of the best four players in the league this year.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  He can throw on anybody.

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  Cowboys plus three and a half, we'll mark that down.

• 1:25:28Bill Simmons?

  Packers Steelers.

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  Packers favored by three in Pittsburgh.

• 1:25:34Bill Simmons?

  And normally you would say, oh, Pittsburgh, Tomlin, home. It's a smash, a smash spot. Can I make a Packers case for you?

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  I'm gonna listen.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  While I look something up for here real quick.

• 1:25:50Bill Simmons?

  You seem like you've lost interest in the.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  No, I'm looking, I thought it was three and a half.

• 1:25:55Bill Simmons?

  No, for our contest.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Oh, it's three.

• 1:25:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Minus 120, how they price that thing.

• 1:26:01Bill Simmons?

  I know. Sunday night game. If this was a Sunday 1pm game, I'd be afraid to take Green Bay. Sunday night game, the lights are on, and I do think this team has, the lights are on. They have that side to them. DVOA, Green Bay's sixth, Pittsburgh's 10th. Pittsburgh's defense, 31st against the pass, 31st against first downs, 25th on third down. And if you look at their wins, barely beat the Jets, week one, Fields' last great game ever.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Probably ever.

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  They beat the Pats because the Pats turned the ball over five fucking times and fumbled on the goal line and threw a goal line pick.

• 1:26:38Bill Simmons?

  They beat Minnesota by three points in Ireland with Carson Wentz. And they beat Cleveland, who sucks.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  Well, not just that.

• 1:26:44Bill Simmons?

  Those are their four wins.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  It was Cleveland coming off their international game with Dylan Gabriel, who, you know, his, yeah.

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  All they did was, then they lost to Joe Flacco last week. 26th against the run. Green Bay's second against the run, their defense. So I don't think they're gonna be able to run the ball. So this would have to be an Aaron Rodgers beats us game. And granted, going against Green Bay, but this just feels like a square, oh, Steelers, Tomlin at home, Rodgers revenge game. And it's like, how about this? We thought the Packers were a potential Super Bowl team before the year. Like you win this game if you're going to the Super Bowl. That would be the case.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  I don't have the time to go look and see what it opened at. It was three and a half for quite a bit of this week, and I thought it was a great Steelers situation.

• 1:27:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  The three is not a great number. I don't love.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  Packers minus three?

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't. But are you worried about the push?

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Well, no, I just mean from the Steelers perspective. I like it much better with them, you know, dogfight with the hook.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I want to take the Packers.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  I understand that. That's this is what I'm I had a case prepared for the Steelers.

• 1:28:03Bill Simmons?

  With the hook?

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  With the hook. Yes. Yeah, the hook feels pretty vital to me. Because like, here's the thing that Pittsburgh has been unable to address all season long. They give up explosives like, you know, like it's Pookie and Black Tony giving out, you know, injury advice before before a Trail Blazers game. I mean, they just can't wait to let somebody throw the football down the field. And that is one thing for sure that Jordan Love can do. It's one thing for sure that the Packers can do. They could throw the football down the football field.

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  So I also, you know, they they've definitely been spotty the last few weeks. There's no question, right? And they've had like Jacobs wasn't 100% Jordan Love. They the pace of their they had that terrible Cleveland game, just terrible.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  I like the zag. You know what? You're I'm feeling his egg. I'm feeling it. You're kidding me.

• 1:28:58Bill Simmons?

  Like a Sunday night, the Packers, I just it's a narrative game where we come out of that game. We're like, oh, the Packers, maybe they are a contender.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Because everybody was ready to write off the Packers after they looked so dominant the first two weeks. And then they showed some inconsistency, the Dallas tie, not looking very impressive.

• 1:29:17Bill Simmons?

  Dak was just unbelievable in that game. The reason they tied, they scored 40 points.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:21Bill Simmons?

  So why wouldn't they score 40 points against Pittsburgh?

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  You know, I'm here. I'm here. I'm I like this. Let's do this. Yeah, I like this.

• 1:29:29Bill Simmons?

  So we're looking at, I think we have our five then.

• 1:29:35Bill Simmons?

  That was easy. On a short week, we somehow have five picks. Apologies to the Panthers. They didn't make the cut. 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. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault,

• 1:30:20Bill Simmons?

  you're gonna want WeatherTech. For American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather, visit weatherTech.com today. All right, House, here we go. Today's Ringer 107, the BS House Edition, is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are one game under 500 for the season. We are 16 and 17. And we were 0-7 in games that could have gone either way. Or something weird happened in the last three minutes. And then we finally had some luck on Sunday with the Minnesota Vikings, where we had them in a parlay. They were, what, plus seven and a half?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Plus seven and a half.

• 1:30:57Bill Simmons?

  They're down six. Eagles get this long-played AJ Brown, and it's like, oh, my God, they're gonna get a field goal. We're gonna get screwed again. And they do some wacky time thing where they run out the clock, and they don't have to kick the field goal.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:31:09Bill Simmons?

  It was the first time anything's gone our way.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Endgame glory.

• 1:31:12Bill Simmons?

  All year in a stupid situation like that. So that makes me feel good. First one, we're gonna do your pick, the Falcons, just to blow out the Dolphins.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:31:22Bill Simmons?

  Falcons minus seven and a half at home. We love the Falcons as a home team.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Sure do.

• 1:31:25Bill Simmons?

  We just feel like, at this point, to be able to bet against Tua and Mike McDaniel, much like watching Victor Wembieyama right now, a privilege.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  I mean, we can go X's and O's. We can talk about how dominant the Falcons' rush attack has been, how incredible Bijon has been, how destitute the Dolphins' run defense is, how the Dolphins' offensive line is an abomination, and the pressure that the Falcons can bring.

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  How they can't stop the run.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  We can do all those things, but we don't really need to. You just have to look at Mixtape Mike one time, take a snapshot of that dude at his press conference and be like, I'm betting against that guy.

• 1:32:02Bill Simmons?

  This is the, I wish I wasn't going against Bijon Robinson fantasy week. Falcons minus seven app. That's our first one. They should be able to hopefully run it up. We like the Falcons as own team. Next one Texans minus one and a half at home against 49ers. This is a bet on the Houston defense in a kitchen sink situation going against Mac Jones and a Niners defense that's just Scotch tape, duct tape and glue and some thumbtacks.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  I just want to say I respect San Francisco. I'm hoping that the football gods look favorably.

• 1:32:33Bill Simmons?

  How about this? They don't need the game. They're five and two. This is an AFC cross thing. I get it.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  There are, that's a knock down drag out that NFC West.

• 1:32:44Bill Simmons?

  I believe in that Houston defense. I thought what they did Monday night as their offensive line was just murdering them and Stroud was murdering them and their defense over and over again was like, fine, we'll get the ball back again. Great. Cowboys plus three and a half against the Broncos is our next one. This is in Denver. This is, we think these teams are pretty even. Dak is a top three or top four guy in the league. And if it's a shootout or a back and forth with Bo Nix, I'd like to have my money on Dak. I also think there's backdoor potential, even if they're down 10 late of them scoring again. And we both like this Cowboys team.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  We do. Yeah. I, I'm just, you know, once again, in a position where Bo Nix might shove it right in my face. Just saying.

• 1:33:26Bill Simmons?

  As we're doing Ringer 107, the Vikings are down by 21 to the Chargers. And that was a potential playoff, you know, competitor for the, for Dallas to get that six seed or seven seed. So if you can shove the Vikings out of there, you get Caleb to self combust with the Bears.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  It's going to be the Falcons and the Cowboys. Not even kidding. Cause Washington's out.

• 1:33:49Bill Simmons?

  Falcon, and then Packers Steelers. This is a nice zag for us. Sunday night. Steelers looking too obvious with Tomlin at home, Pittsburgh, Aaron Rodgers rejuvenation. But if you go through that Steelers schedule, the wins and some of the stats, it's, it's pretty grim. We think there's another level of this Packers team. And every week, somebody goes up and people are like, whoa, that team. And I think this is a whoa, that team for the Packers. Packers minus three on the road, Sunday night. Then last one, a little parlay. Colts down to minus one and a half as they're blowing out Tennessee. We got that. Pats just to win against Cleveland. Only win, just win by one. We're fine.

• 1:34:32Bill Simmons?

  And then the Ravens in the ultimate kitchen sink game. They cannot go one and six. They have to beat the Bears. We get to bet against a very shaky Caleb Williams, against a Bears defense with some really good advanced stats going against them and more importantly on Lamar Jackson.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing for the, for the Ravens and I will separately be betting this. This will be my best bet. And I don't really even care if ultimately Lamar doesn't end up playing. I mean, he practiced, you know, there, there is the hamstring thing. They are healthy for the first time on offense with Picard at fullback and likely a tight end. And here's the thing for everybody to do when you hear this, go as fast as you can and buy your Derrick Henry. Their whole run game is a 12 personnel run game where Picard and likely are goddamn dominant. Go get every Derrick Henry total now because it'll all be seven yards higher.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  Get, get the number of touches, you know, attempts, all of it. Get all your Derrick Henry now. Anytime touchdown, the whole kit and caboodle because those prices are going to be through the roof by Sunday. I love the Ravens to absolutely smash the Bears this week.

• 1:35:47Bill Simmons?

  Ravens win, Pats win, Colts by minus one and a half over Tennessee, minus 117. That's our last pick. Texans minus one and a half, Cowboys plus three and a half, Falcons minus seven and a half, Packers minus three. That is the ringer 107. It was brought to you by Fanduel Sportsbook. Odds subject to change. House, we did it. We just cruised through a fucking shitload of stuff in an hour and a half. I'm proud of us.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  It's, it's pretty good. I mean, uh, uh, Alba and Bruce thought that was a pretty goddamn good show.

• 1:36:19Bill Simmons?

  Gotta get his thoughts later. I'll see you at our illegal poker game today.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  I can't, I can't wait. But let me borrow your contacts.

• 1:36:29Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to House, thanks to Gahan Eduardo as well. I will be back on Sunday with the Cuz. Hopefully, the Patriots will be six and two. Hopefully, we won't have any more illegal NBA gambling scandal stuff. And, uh, and I will see you on Sunday day.

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

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• 1:37:48Bill Simmons?

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• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

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