Best NBA Summer Arguments With Zach Lowe

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe fresh off Summer League to discuss the hottest NBA news, including rumors of a new international basketball league, the Pelicans, and the Kings (3:17). They also react to the Clippers making some significant offseason moves and L. A. being a possible landing spot for Giannis in the future (30:13). Finally, they talk about the Heat in the upcoming season, LeBron James, and more (55:04). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe 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?

  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 PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves,

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association Member, FTIC. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we have a new rewatchables coming on Monday. Just did one. We did Species on Monday. Me, Chris Ryan Van Lathan, an incredible CR performance. He's been on fire all summer. You can watch that on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Really, really funny podcast. Fantasy football season. We're in range now. Week one of the NFL season kicks off, really six Thursdays

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  from now, so we're in range. We have the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, which I think is the best fantasy football podcast. Craig Horbeck, Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz. And you can watch that as a podcast, as a video podcast. You can watch them on YouTube because we have Fantasy Football YouTube channel. And you can check out the Ringer Fantasy Football Guide that we did, which, um, which we keep adding to and adding different things. So we will have you ready for fantasy football. Those guys will be coming on at some point here. You can see in the background. So I have a new set that we have not decorated yet. I put some stuff up in the background that's not even on the wall. It's like leaning against stuff, but you can see through my finger. There's 1972 NBA, top song cut. There's my book poster with the Hall of Fame thing. You can see Bird and Magic's feet

• 2:15Bill Simmons?

  up there. The Fenway sign, my guy Croc in the tubs, Michael Myers kind of watching us from the background. This set's gonna be awesome and it's something that we've spent some time on. And over the course of the summer on this podcast and the rewatchables, like I'm gonna start having guests again. Like I just, I never wanted to have guests in the same way that I was doing in the end of 2010s on Zoom. I don't really like the experience of interviewing somebody on a Zoom. So we're gonna have studio hair. We're building some others, stuff in Hollywood that we're excited about. And just in general, like, you know, this has been almost a 14 year odyssey with, with video stuff for us dating back to Grantland and me and Dave Jacoby,

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  doing all the audio video stuff we did. We built a studio and electrical closet. All of a sudden we have a big guest in there. We're doing the Bill and Jalen NBA play, uh, season series. And, um, you know, we've always been in the mix with video stuff. COVID really knocked us back and, um, you know, all of a sudden a video podcast, the, uh, the bar started getting raised. They started looking better. I had a terrible camera on my think pad. Sorry. But I think, I think all of our stuff's gonna continue to look better as we go through the rest of 2025, including this podcast. And I'm excited to explore the studio space, literally. Coming up, Zach Lowe, we're talking NBA because we just had a lot of stuff to talk about,

• 3:43Bill Simmons?

  even though it's like the doldrums of July. Lot of topics, really fun podcasts. And, uh, we're gonna take a break, bring in Pro Jim and then Zach Lowe.

• 4:20Bill Simmons?

  All right, Zach Lowe is here. We're taping this on a Wednesday morning. Good to see you, Zach. This is you're about to disappear. This is when you're like a couple of weeks away from, we just don't see you for like a month and you you decompose from the NBA season and then you regenerate and you grow again when we get to mid-September.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I don't really have as many excuses to have to decompress this year, considering I was not employed for two-thirds of it, but I'm going to decompress nonetheless. I will say I'm going to be podcast-ready in Europe because you just you don't you don't know anymore with the NBA. There's always been a there's been more and more every year. There's a big story that hovers or that comes out of nowhere. So I'm ready just in case something comes out of nowhere.

• 5:02Bill Simmons?

  I like that I accidentally said decompose instead of decompress. I've already we're one minute in and I'm already screwing up words. You were in Vegas. Your summer league plan, I love. You just you go and you don't actually go to any summer league games. You just you're just there to gossip and have coffees and cocktails and occasionally a meat dinner and you're just gathering information. This is something. What was the first year we talked about this? The 2012 All-Star break or whatever when we sent you and I was like, don't go to anything. Just talk to as many people as you can. Now you've embraced that. It's become a life philosophy and you're just gathering things and you don't know when they're going to pop up. Are they going to pop up in a podcast? They might not. But you're just gathering info.

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  What was the number one thing people were talking about that you felt like was not being talked about in the mainstream?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Oh, not talked about in the mainstream. Okay, so I had a made the their number one topic is very mainstream.

• 5:59Bill Simmons?

  What's that?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Well, it's LeBron. That was like the number one topic of conversation by far. But let's go. Let's let's go not mainstream.

• 6:06Bill Simmons?

  Underground.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Underground.

• 6:08Bill Simmons?

  Let's go early, early 90s indie rock.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I would say, I mean, this has been talked about, but I would say. Expansion, Europe, what's happening? Why do they seem to be slow playing it all of a sudden? Is this like, what is the timetable now? I guess that was like the nerdy NBA topic of discussion.

• 6:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and it trickled out a little bit. It's, it's really funny how it's changed, right? Where it just seemed like a lock. It was going to happen for the last few years. And I think, I think Silver wanted it to happen. I think there was a consortium of owners that wanted to happen. And this media deal was so big. I, I just think there's owners that don't want to give up money anymore. And it makes sense because however they rig it, you're still giving up. It goes from 130th to 132 or 132nd for the media thing. So you're, you're giving up equity, you're giving up value. So then the question will be, well, what am I getting to give up that value? And before, when the franchise values were lower, it's like, well, then each of you will get this extra thing. We'll buy out that equity upfront.

• 7:11Bill Simmons?

  But now if you're paying six, seven, eight million dollars or billion dollars, whatever it is for an expansion team, why would I then also want to sweeten the pot for every owner with to buy their media rights too? Or not get media rights for myself? I think it's a real problem and I think there's a bunch. I talked about this two months ago. James Dolan was the biggest one against it. He's just against everything that Adam Silver wants to do.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  What would James Dolan be for? Like, how can we get, how can we get a yes vote but from the Knicks in a board of governors meeting?

• 7:42Bill Simmons?

  What, what, do you have any intel on what happened? That made him such an adversary to Adam Silver over the last five years? Like, why, how did this develop?

• 7:51Speaker 01

  I think it started with displeasure over revenue sharing being one of the big market teams that has to pay so much into it. And then it dovetailed into like, he just got this bee in his bonnet that the NBA league office is like way too big. It wastes money. Why are all these, who are all these people that are coming to my games at Madison Square Garden with their VIP passes? Who are like, what, why, why does it, why is it so bloated? He became one of those like, almost like a fiscal conservative about the league office. But to your point about expansion, like that was the topic of like, people were trying to figure out the sides. Like who, who is the? Anti crowd in the board of governors and I still don't really have a lot of great answers to that other than Dolan is part of the anti crowd. But I I don't know if it's an anti crowd as much as it is.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  People are trying to do their version of the same math problem in terms of like, what's the expansion fee that I get versus the the national TV revenue that I lose versus the valuation of my team versus my timetable of potentially selling my team. Does it net out a big plus, a big minus? I think everyone it it's it's not like that complex of a math problem. I was talking to one owner about this while I was out there. He's like, it's not that complicated. You just have to do your projections your way and figure out what works for you. This was a pro expansion owner who's kind of like, can we just, can we get a move on with this? But, you know, it was, it was a strange, it was a strange board of governors press conference in that sense.

• 9:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, and there's, there's some situations where there's some franchises that maybe could move to a different city and be more successful. And that's the other piece of this, like specifically New Orleans. And I I don't mean to start panic on New Orleans basketball. I'm also not sure there's enough of a fan base in place to even care that much. But that lease at the Smoothie King lease expires, I think in 2029. This is an experiment that has not worked for 50 plus years in New Orleans with professional basketball. And if like, if if you and I owned a team and they asked us what we thought. And I was like, well, we definitely have enough players to go to 32 teams. That doesn't mean we should. We're making so much money from the media rights.

• 9:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm not even sure what you could give me back that would make it worth it. There's a couple of cities that could potentially a team I think could thrive. I think Seattle, you know, we've been saying that since before you and I worked together. Vegas is definitely interesting and Mexico City is the other one they're all excited about. Right. So you have those three. You also have Nashville, which I think some of the other leagues jumped into and grabbed that market before the NBA did. But I look at a situation like New Orleans. I don't know what that team is worth in its current state. I don't know what it's worth with that, like playing in the Smoothie King, playing in a market that clearly has not responded to basketball in the same way of these other markets. And it's like, if somebody bought them and just moved them to Seattle and paid everybody relocation fees and then you didn't have to split your media rights.

• 10:42Bill Simmons?

  That seems like where this is headed and I think there's, I I'm just going to say it. I think there's some buzz starting that way that this New Orleans thing maybe is the situation. Is there any other? Franchise that you would think could potentially be a relocation threat? Or is that the only one?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  I have not heard anything about any other relocation threat. But there's a couple of subtopics that, based on what you're saying, let's put a pin in the New Orleans thing. Cause I want to, I want to come back to that. I just felt, I was at the Board of Governors press conference. And I just felt it was, it was notable to me. How often, and it was like three or four times. Adam Silver went out of his way to say, so our whole NBA Europe thing is separate from expansion, but kind of also connected to expansion. You said some version of that, like three or four times, like it's, it's not, it's not, it's not an either or, but they are connected in some way.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  And it just like, it made me think, is this thing like even further along than we realize? Is it, is it a little bit of an either or? Or is it like, we want it, we're now prioritizing this other thing abroad? Like, like accumulating these teams in these cities and trying to make this thing profitable? Make it real? Is that now on the front burner versus expansion? I just found that notable, how often he sort of preempted, like no one asked him about it. He just preemptively brought it up several times.

• 12:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that's important because he is one of the more purposeful press conference people that we have. And if he's, if he's putting little buttons out there, you just have to trust. All right, there's real intent behind this. I think Europe is a huge opportunity for them. And I think they know it. When you're talking about the, the player pool, which, man, when you go back to the, we've talked about this before with the mid 2000s. How rough it was from, from, uh, from a talent standpoint. Some of the people that made All-Star games, you know, some like you go back to read some of my old trade value columns. Some of the people who were like number 31, you're like, whoa, that guy? And now the league is just so much deeper.

• 12:48Bill Simmons?

  And I wonder like, part of the reason you don't do expansion here is because you're thinking, well, maybe if we have some sort of Europe thing. Maybe we need a little more talent that way combined. The Europe talent combined with some Americans, some people that in their early 30s, like you see like the Austin Rivers types of players just seem to leave the league like a year too early now, you know, because there's just teams would just rather take a chance on a second rounder. I think Europe's a big opportunity for them and I, the seasons are a little different. The, the, the time of the day is different. It's just more basketball. It's more things to offer. My question with that is, could they just, could they just try to buy a league? I don't even know how this works.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  Like, could you just, could you just try to buy the Euroleague or, or, you know, buy like the, the connecting properties? I know the teams make up it, but I, I don't know how you get in without directly challenging the league that already exists.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I think you're directly challenging the league that already exists.

• 13:49Bill Simmons?

  You're going after it.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  I don't know, I don't know the mechanics of acquiring a league. Like, we're getting a little out of my depth on this issue, but, but I, I do know that, like, take, take, um, they know the cities, like, they've identified some cities. Like, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna be in that city. And that city already has a landmark basketball team, right? How, what is the arrangement between the NBA and Real Madrid? If Real Madrid becomes part of this, whatever new league, semi-existing league, whatever it is, well, Real Madrid is part of a larger sports club that has basketball, that has soccer and all this other stuff. So what does the partnership look like? What does the finances look like?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I think that's, that's, but existing teams like that, I think, are part of the conversation too. I don't, I don't know the economics of it. He just brought it up a lot of times. And I do think they just look at it as a very simple, like, we don't think these teams, as they're currently existing, are making nearly enough money. We think we can come in, we're better at it, and we'll just make a lot of money.

• 14:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, so maybe it's a situation where they come in, they almost merge with the league and they buy smaller stakes of each team and the teams sell off like, you know, one third. So I don't know, we don't, we don't have enough intel on that, but the, the important thing is both of us feel like something is, something is amiss, that that expansion seems to have cooled off and that the Europe thing seems like it's, it's kind of raising importance. So what's your New Orleans piece for this?

• 15:22Speaker 01

  So a couple, this is topic one that I wanted to put a pin in. You, this is right up your alley because it just goes into, you've been having a field day with the return of the dumb teams, right? And so you're much meaner about it than I am, but

• 15:36Bill Simmons?

  I love it and I'm really, it's been one of the highlights of my summer. I'm so glad the dumb teams are back. It's great.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  There's just the, the amount of buzz that's still like every dinner I had, every coffee I had, every cocktail I had, there was some version of like, you know, everyone goes over the off season moves. What'd you like? What you didn't like? Every single one had a version of like, man, that Pelicans Hawks trade, like what happened there? Like how, how crazy was that? And then it dovetailed into, it, it got like, the NBA news cycle can be just, there's so much going on, particularly if, if the playoffs are also going on at the same time as some news events. You just sort of fast forward through stuff. There was a lot of like, so let's just hold up for a second. New Orleans and Sacramento just hired new GMs, Joe Dumar, Joe Dumar's and

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Scott Perry? Just like, no, did a search happen? They just wanted those specific guys? How did they land on those specific guys? If I'm a fan, like you, there was no interview process? Was there like what happened? Like they just got these jobs out of nowhere? There was a lot of that talk too.

• 16:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And people that have been retreads, I think Dumar's made it seem like he had multiple teams coming after him, which just goes, Dumar's a nice guy, but the way that the, the last couple of years of the Pistons thing ended, yeah, you almost can't do worse. I mean, you know, Ishbi's like, cold my beer, you can't actually do worse. You can do much worse, but the, the moves he made, he built that 2004 title team. And had a really nice mid 2000s. And then there was like a seven year run where it's like, what are you doing? He also turned a lot over to Troy Weaver, who I just think was terrible in Detroit. Like you go back to the, the, all the Detroit stuff and you're getting points for drafting Kate Cunningham first. It's like, cool. Pretty sure, pretty sure my son could

• 17:26Bill Simmons?

  have done that. But for the most part, the Durin trade, I guess, was okay. That was on his watch. But.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Most of the young, most of the young core belongs to Troy Weaver. Now, Isaiah Stewart, I saw Thompson, I believe was a Troy Weaver pick.

• 17:42Bill Simmons?

  Was Monty Williams a Troy Weaver pick?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  That didn't go great either. It was all the other stuff around the young core that was, if you talk to people who had sort of trade talks with Detroit during that time, it was all the other stuff that was kind of a mess. Just like the amount of voices, aren't tell them Troy Weaver, the owner, Tom Gores, like who's actually in charge here? And then the, the players they put around the young core, the lack of shooting did not put them in a position to succeed. But it, I think it is worth noting that like the young, you're right. You don't get points for getting a number one pick. Right. Like that's just kind of what you should do. And Kate Cunningham's awesome, but it is worth noting that he, that that is a Troy Weaver core for the most part. Trajan Langdon has done awesome to supplement it and to continue to grow it. But yeah, there was just a lot of talk of like.

• 18:29Bill Simmons?

  Till this summer.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, we're going to disagree on that, but.

• 18:33Bill Simmons?

  I thought the trade went backwards.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I disagree with you completely. I don't understand. Well, like, so, so on a, on a basic level, Schroder out to, to the Kings on just a wild contract. Schroder out, Beasley out, and maybe like out for a while, if not like for longer than a while.

• 18:54Bill Simmons?

  Beasley literally out.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Out. Hardaway out. In Jaden Ivey, who I think people forget is like coming back to take.

• 19:02Bill Simmons?

  But they had him anyway, though.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  But he was a hurt all last year. So that's why you got Schroder last year is that they had this void on the team because this other guy was hurt. He's back, Levert in, Robinson in. I think they're just better. And I think they're better because their young guys are going to continue to get better. And I specifically look at like, Asar Thompson, give him a full season. Something is gonna, is gonna pop there. Like, I think he's got a chance to level like two levels up in one season. Like, I, I think their supporting cast is better. I just think they're better.

• 19:32Bill Simmons?

  That's, but that's all stuff that could have happened. Anyway, I'm not a Levert guy. I've never been a Levert guy. I don't want to get aggregated like you did with Cam Thomas last week. I can't wait to talk about that. I'm just, like, Cleveland, Cleveland's like, trying to win a title. They're winning games with them and they're like, we're good. I think he's a little ball-stoppie. I don't like the fit with Detroit. And I think, listen, it's not their fault what happened with Beasley, but Beasley was really important to what they did last year. I thought he was their second-best player. Um, you know, at worst-case scenario, their third-best player behind Duren. But, uh, I just thought he really mattered for them, especially at the end of games. And now you're replacing that with Karis Levert and you're keeping your fingers crossed with Ivy.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  And Duncan, Duncan Robinson is, is good. And, you know, look, in the playoffs-

• 20:19Bill Simmons?

  Is he though? Like, like Miami seem, but here's the thing. And, you know, I, I enjoy those shooter ball movement guys. And I think there's certain teams who would have been really good for it. Miami seemed like they were in or out on him 13 different times over the course of the last five years. I couldn't keep track.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  They paid him a lot of money. So like, is, is, so Malik Beasley had a great year last year. High on our six-man of the year ballots for both of us. I think you voted, you voted for him.

• 20:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I did. I thought he deserved it.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  14 points a game in the playoffs, 37% from the field, 34% on threes, never gets to the line, complete defensive liability, like-

• 20:55Bill Simmons?

  But does he know that the scandal's coming is one of my questions with that. Well, I don't think that thing just came out of nowhere right after that. Like, I feel like that was brewing for a couple of months.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, at some point, it, it's hanging over his head. I'm just saying, like, is Duncan Robinson, whose contract is like partially guaranteed after the first year, like, I think he can do a different version of what Malik Beasley did for their team. And I think if anything, the playoffs showed in the regular season, I think they were over-reliant on Malik Beasley. And the playoffs, the game changes, the offense gets better, it gets more predatory against it. Now Duncan Robinson is gonna get hunted, just like Malik. I, I think, I'm on like Detroit's better next year. I, how many games did they win? I don't know, but-

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  They were in the mid, mid 40s and, you know-

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I think 48. I think, I don't know what the win total will be. I think they're gonna be a better team next year.

• 21:45Bill Simmons?

  I like the identity they had in the second half of the season, the playoffs with the, with those tough veterans, right? Built around Cade and rebounding and a real attitude. And I don't know, we're, we'll, we'll see, I guess.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  They lose any of that? What toughness and rebounding and defense did they lose?

• 22:01Bill Simmons?

  I thought Beasley was kind of a badass for them. I really did. I thought he had a real swagger and attitude and I, and he was the guy they went to over and over again late. And I thought Cade, Cade, it's obviously going to come from Cade over anyone else. The big thing for them last year is that they rejuvenated Cade as, you know, an A-list asset, which I just was, were you ever like wavering on him?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I was never off Cade Cunningham. I just couldn't.

• 22:27Bill Simmons?

  Neither was Rossello. I was, I was a little nervous.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  I could not believe, and I said this often, how quickly people went on the, well, you know, he's, doesn't get to the line. He doesn't get to the rim. He doesn't finish well at the rim. Like he's going to be, it reminded me of the dialogue, which turned out to be kind of right on like, I remember Andrew Wiggins rookie year. I think it was 538 ran a piece about like statistically, he's one of the worst number one picks of all time as a rookie. And like, this doesn't project well for him. And I was like, wow, it seems like kind of premature. And it turned out like he is not a great number one pick. It felt like the Cade dialogue was starting to trend that way. And I was like, I just, I like, I watched this guy play and he's got something. He's got the sort of in-between game and the vision

• 23:12Speaker 01

  and the strength that you need and like puts some real guys around him. But we're getting off topic with Detroit and Troy Weaver.

• 23:18Bill Simmons?

  I never gave up on him. I got worried, but I always look at those situations where you think, and this happens in football too. It's the situation, if the situation is awful, as I've gotten older, I've learned like you have to trust that that's the most important factor of somebody's not looking good. You almost have to value the situation over the talent if the talent is there. Anyway, we got off topic. New Orleans.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  New Orleans and then just the amount of like collective league-wide almost sorrow about what has happened to the Kings in two years, like how they went from the feel-good story of the NBA to like, nobody even really wants to talk about them. They're, they're like mediocre and boring and directionless in a way that other teams even are like, man, it's just, it's kind of depressing over there, you know? It's just, I don't know.

• 24:08Bill Simmons?

  It's funny. They just became the Kings again.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 24:11Bill Simmons?

  They weren't the Kings anymore. And it felt like, oh, my God, the Kings aren't the Kings anymore. They're actually like a real basketball team. And then that died within 18 months.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  And just like the word Vivek was said over many dinners and drinks like it that it just it's still kind of a mess internally. And it just that, you know, phrases like he can't get out of his own way. He can't help himself. You know, that's that kind of phraseology came up a lot like, because what's been the constant between the Beam team and now and all the crappy teams before the Beam team post Maloof, it's it's the ownership group.

• 24:45Bill Simmons?

  When that Halliburton trade happened, I can't remember. Were you apoplectic? Or you're like, I can kind of see it. Where did you land when it happened?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  I was surprised. I wouldn't have done it. I remember being on TV with JJ Reddick when he called it, well, it was like franchise mismanagement or something even more stringent than that. And I was like, that feels a little harsh, given that Sabonis has a real track record of of helping teams win and is is a very good player. So I was surprised. And I remember, I remember even saying like a year later, and it was, it was like, oh, what? This was a win win trade for both teams. This is a win win trade. It's like, it's not like, Indiana won the trade. Like, the Kings just didn't lose it as badly as some people thought they were going to lose it. And now it's like, what, what happened here? Like, how did we get here?

• 25:37Bill Simmons?

  I know. I hated it. I it was one of the few times I went all in. I'm like, I'm, I'm putting this in pen. I hate this. I would not trade Halliburton. I always thought Fox was the one, if you're going to make a move, that would have been the one I did. The Spurs thing, you know, we talked about it a little before the before Summer League, but, you know, they probably have a year here with Fox where you can bring Dylan Harper off the bench. I watched, I watched one of his Summer League games. I mean, he can't shoot, but he's just such a crazy athlete. And he's just clearly going to be a guy. I don't know if it's going to be year three, year four, like, how long it's going to take. But there's going to be a point where it's his team. And you could just see like, he's one of those guys who's had the

• 26:18Bill Simmons?

  ball his whole life. He's he's not going to be, oh, like, Halliburton had that rare ability to just be able to play off people and not have the ball at the time. I don't think Dylan Harper is going to be like that. So they probably have a year here with Fox. Where they can bring Harper off the bench and be like, we're going to ease you in. Maybe there'll be a game where Fox is hurt for a week. You become the guy for a week, but the weird part of it though is Fox doesn't have the massive extension yet, right?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  August 2nd, he becomes eligible to sign it, I believe. And I do expect something will be done.

• 26:50Bill Simmons?

  Because they did the wink wink, right? When they did the trade, it was kind of understood that they would take care of him.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, he, he went out of his way to say, there was only one, there was no list. San Antonio was the list. I wanted to be in San Antonio. That was the team on my trade demand list. And whether it was wink wink or not, I mean, you don't do trades like that without some understanding of what it's going to be when you, when you hit extension time.

• 27:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, your guy, Rich Paul, talked about that recently. He talked about, he was bragging about the Brandon Ingram extension. And he was like, we felt like the free agency money wasn't going to be there. We had to get him traded so he could make the money. And by the way, he was right because

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Completely right.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  He had zero chance of making 40 million a year if he was a free agent. Brandon Ingram. So yeah, with the Fox piece, I'm sure they have the wink wink extension. I'm sure it's going to happen. But I also, do you think he's going to be in that team in two years? Cause I don't though. Two and a half years, like three years. There's going to be a moment where they just give the car case to Harper and that's going to be that because I think he has a chance to be that special.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I'm not in a rush to make these kinds of decisions. Fox and Wemby played five games together last year. I think

• 27:59Bill Simmons?

  You want to see it?

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Well, not only that, like I'm, I'm like higher on the 2025, 26 Spurs than most people are. I think there's a chance for a big, big leap from them. I know they have some shooting issues.

• 28:09Bill Simmons?

  Can I, can I join you on that island?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  It's not an island, like anyone's welcome, but like I, I don't know what their odds are over, under or any of that. I haven't looked at that stuff. Yeah, it's maybe an

• 28:19Bill Simmons?

  Archipelago?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there you go. I think there's a chance for a much, for the very simple reason of those guys barely played together. One of them has the potential to be the best player in the NBA at some point in his career. And I like some of the, I like a lot of the moves they made and you know, we'll, we'll see how much the rookies can actually help, but I, something is cooking there and I'm not in a hurry to like, I understand the theory of we can win now with Fox. And then when the young guys are ready, we can flip Fox for stuff that fits Wemba Yama's timeline more like, it's not like Fox is old. Like I'm not in a hurry to make any of these choices.

• 28:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think it was Eddie Johnson who said this on my podcast about how Sabonis and Fox, with the lob stuff where they're both lefties was just weird. And he's like, watch what happens when Fox is with Wemby because he's going to go left and he's throwing to a guy who's right-handed. It's going to be different on those, on those high screens. It's like, all right. That sounds mildly interesting. Um, I'm with you on the Spurs. I've already looked at their over/under. Do you want to guess what it is? Cause I looked at it after Wemby said, I'm clear. I'm fine. I'm healthy. I'll be ready for the season. What do you think their win total is?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Forty-one and a half.

• 29:34Bill Simmons?

  Forty-three and a half.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  I'm over.

• 29:37Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of people on the archipelago.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  I'm not even thinking about it. I'm going over forty-three and a half. I know it's the way, I know they're way, they're young. It's the West. Everybody's good except Utah, blah, blah. I'm going over forty-three and a half.

• 29:48Bill Simmons?

  Me as well. And I think that, uh, that's probably this year's Orlando. If you're going to make a, or, or this year's Detroit, like the team that just kind of jumps into the high forties because they have a bunch of young guys and they always can throw dudes out. They also, I kind of like Kelly Olynyk. If he's your 10th man, if you, if you have this weird Kelly Olynyk, Luke Cornet, you're relying on, like that's, I'd rather have that than Zach Collins.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Oh, there's, I, Cornet's good. I mean, just flat out good. Olynyk has been one of these, like every team that gets him from Utah to Toronto to now San Antonio, I have the same reaction, which is like, I love having a shooting, passing big guy around young guards and young wings. I just feel like it helps everybody. And then he just never plays. And so it's just this sort of like theoretically helpful, theoretically helpful ingredient.

• 30:41Bill Simmons?

  With him and Wemby.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  I do too. I like the idea of Kelly Olynyk. That's, it's just an idea until it becomes not a reality.

• 30:48Bill Simmons?

  One of the things I love about them, incredible trade machine team.

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  They have all different types of Tons of stuff. Tradeable contracts. You compare them together. They have a bunch of cool picks and, you know, that's one of those when we get to December, January, February. That's one of those teams. If they're good, they start out like 20 and 12 and Wemby looks like he's an MVP candidate. That's a team that could shift pretty quickly. Let's take a break and then we have some other stuff to hit. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner

• 31:35Bill Simmons?

  that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. 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. All right, so we have more Tales from Summer League stuff. The biggest thing that I think became a basketball argument was everything the Clippers did. Let's go.

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

  And it's, let's do that and then we can hit some Summer League stuff later. I was less excited about it than others, while also admitting that everything they did was just cost-effective, low-risk. You have moves everywhere. You're just adding contracts that you could easily swap out or trade or package together if anything weird happens. Everybody's made jokes about how old this team is, how they put together the 2017 All-Star Game.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  There's a million ways this could go. I'll start here. They were post All-Star. They were fourth in net rating. I think they should have beaten Denver in five or six and they didn't because of what happened in game one and what happened in game four especially. But I think they were, I don't know if they were better than Denver, but they easily could have taken that series and it didn't go their way and a couple of plays happened, but they were right there with the team that then went seven against OKC. You could make a case they were one of the four best teams in the league last year.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  That's the most Clipper-y thing ever is to give them, is to give them a trophy for almost beating the team that almost beat Oklahoma City.

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  That's the banner that's going up. We almost beat the team that almost beat OKC. They're putting that up in the arena.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Game one, yeah, they blew it. Game four, Aaron Gordon, you were there. Like, all cool. Denver, Denver won another game and then they had-

• 33:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they were the champs.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Then they had, but then they had a game to win the whole series in Denver and they shit the bed so badly that it's just like, it's a black mark on the entire season. I'm sorry.

• 33:49Bill Simmons?

  And that's my, my bigger picture point. We could talk about, oh yeah, they're better, they're deeper. They're still a team that's built around James Harden. And I don't know if you're a Clipper fan, if you work for the Clippers, if you coached the Clippers, if you're the GM of the Clippers, if you own the Clippers. I don't know how you fall asleep at night feeling great about that after what happened in game seven and what's happened over the course of his entire career. I actually went back and watched, because I was like, I, I feel like that was so bad. I need to, maybe I'm, maybe enough time has passed that I'm misremembering something and maybe it wasn't that bad. It was that bad. He was so bad. He wasn't, he was doing the thing where he doesn't look at the rim

• 34:33Bill Simmons?

  at all. You knew him immediately.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  This segment could be recorded-

• 34:38Bill Simmons?

  I know, it could be evergreen.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  In five different seasons.

• 34:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, when I'm dead, they'll just CGI it. He was so bad that I don't know how, like, you're reading these stories about, oh yeah, he was recruiting Bradley Beal for a half hour. It's like, what was the recruiting pitch? Don't, hey, we had a really good thing last year. Could you do me a favor and not watch game seven? Can you watch like game five? Hey, and Bradley Beal's like, hey, what happened in game seven? It's like, I don't know. Denver just caught like- This is a team built around James Harden and fundamentally you cannot win four playoff rounds with James Harden. How old is he now? 36. And he's shown us who he is year after year for his entire career. And I just, I can't get excited about it. I'm sorry.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Well, it's also built around Kawhi Leonard and four playoff rounds is a lot for a player who has battled injuries for his entire Clippers tenure. And he had a great last, last, second half, whatever, 50 games of last season.

• 35:38Bill Simmons?

  When you say battled injuries, do you mean he played 266 games in six years and 37 last year? Is that, is that, is that battling or is that drowning?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  He's, it's, it's a toe to toe battle between Kawhi and, and the injuries. It's, it's, it's, it's neck and neck. Um, look, I'll just, let me just make a couple of cases for the Clippers. Okay. Number one, I don't think anyone with the Clippers has any like illusions about what they are right now. Like I think they, I think they probably think we are a really, really good team that slots in fourth in the West at best. And if you're, if you're talking about everyone's healthy, let's go. It's Oklahoma City, Denver, Houston, and then maybe the Clippers, probably the Clippers, whatever word you want to use.

• 36:26Bill Simmons?

  And I think for a regular season, I think you can make a case they could slot in in the top three because of the depth and the fact that even if these guys aren't going to play reliably, they still have so many guys, they might have the depth to be good.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And I'm talking to, like, you were the president of the Clippers are the second best team in the West Island for the last 40 games of last year. That was your, that was your call.

• 36:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And you know what happened?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  I know what happened.

• 36:50Bill Simmons?

  Hurricane, Hurricane Harden hit the island. So, and I had no electricity for a month and a half.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Out go, here are the, here are the rotation players that they, even semi-rotation players that are gone from last year's team.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  No, go ahead.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Can I just?

• 37:09Bill Simmons?

  Do it. I'm with you.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Ben Simmons.

• 37:11Bill Simmons?

  Ben Simmons. Not even signed yet.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  What was your favorite moment of Ben Simmons Clippers tenure? What the one day where everybody talked themselves into thinking that they maybe this is the tell look he like went to the rim one time.

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  My favorite was I was at the game with Mike Tolan and we were joking about how when he crossed the the big circle logo at midcourt, it became like an electric fence for him where he had to get rid of the ball before he got to the three point line. And I was I nicknamed him the new logo because the logo like triggered. It didn't matter who it was or whether the person was open. He had to pass it. He wanted to know he did not want to have the ball within 25 feet of the basket. And I think it might be one of the reasons he's not signed yet.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Out goes Ben Simmons, Norm Powell, Amir Coffey, Drew Eubanks, Jordan Miller. In comes Brook Lopez, Bradley Beal, John Collins, Chris Paul. They're undeniably like better than the team that was last year. They have 11 guys who can really play. They're going to need all 11 to get through the regular season. And I think the idea of the team is like, look, we know the issues with our top two guys. Harden's playing big games, Kawhi's availability, et cetera. We know how good those other three teams are. All we can do with the resources that we have and the money we've committed to these two older veterans at the center of our team is put ourselves in the best position possible to pounce. If the matchups break right, if a team takes an injury that's in the top three, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then maybe we're in the conference finals again.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  And once they're there, that's all they can do. I don't think they're going into the season like, oh yeah, we hit it out of the park. We're a championship favorite. I think they know exactly what they are.

• 38:45Bill Simmons?

  Over under on Fanduel is 49 and a half.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Um, that's right. That seems about right, honestly.

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm not against any of the moves on paper, except one, which we'll get to in a second. The Collins one, uh, I just think they had they weren't going to give Norm Powell an extension. And I think he was going to get really sour. And I think they were worried about chemistry and happiness with that. Right? So you flip them into Collins, who hasn't been on a good team since 1995.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Oh, stop.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm just saying like he he's like.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  It's been a while.

• 39:17Bill Simmons?

  He's in a contract year and he's on his first good team since that one Hawks team that made a run. I there's it's it's funny. He's become a weirdly polarizing player because there's some really good nerd arguments for him.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  You and I, you and I very much disagree on John Collins.

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, so the highlight is.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  You're out.

• 39:36Bill Simmons?

  Not out, just the highlight of his career was that Philly series. He was good in that Philly series. I thought he felt like he was becoming a real playoff guy. And then if my memory serves me correct, they then played Miami and he was abysmal. And you know, I just think with what they have with Zubats and Kawhi, who I, I think Kawhi is a four at this point in his career. You could play him at the three, but I just think he's a four. And you're putting Collins with Zubats and Kawhi. That doesn't make sense to me in the way basketball is played in 2025. But I do think for the versus Powell, who I think they had a lot of guards. They worried about him being unhappy. The trade makes sense. It's an expiring, they can flip it like, I'm down with the trade.

• 40:21Bill Simmons?

  I'm not down with John Collins being a huge part of a team that wins four straight playoff rounds. Where I get off the bus is with Beal. I still am waiting. I've been waiting all summer. I'm waiting for somebody to explain what actually happened with him in Phoenix. Cause even my friend Eddie Johnson, I tweeted something, we went back and forth on Twitter. And every time we do that, then somebody will aggregate it like we're mad at each other. Like Eddie's my friend. But Eddie's like, no, no, he was good here. He was, everybody liked him here and he, he, he was a good son. It just didn't work out. It's like, what does that mean? Cause I saw the Suns in person and the entire team looked miserable, including Bradley Beal. Nobody was happy with how he played the entire time he was there.

• 41:04Bill Simmons?

  Part of the issue seemed to be that he didn't like being a role player who didn't have the ball all the time. Now he's going to be a role player in the Clippers. And I just don't understand why people think this is going to be an awesome situation with him and the Clippers. I don't get it. So explain it to me. Why is he going to be happier in the Clippers than he was with Phoenix?

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Well, they, they got him for cheap, right? So it's a difference between $50 million and $5 million. That, that's kind of a big deal. And he did average like 17 a game and shot it well and can be a secondary ball handler. And I think if you're asking him to do that on a team where he's whatever in the hierarchy and not part of a big three, and he maybe he comes off the bench or they're talking like he's going to start. I'm not convinced that that's.

• 41:49Bill Simmons?

  They're talking like they're going to rely on him and he's going to have the ball a lot.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  I would not rely on him to have the ball to, I mean, I would rely on him to have the ball in this sense. Harden, Zubot's pick and roll, bend the defense, kick to Bradley Beal, attack a closeout, or take a second screen from Zubot's and when the, when the defense is already moving and that's, that's cool. Like I don't, I don't know that there's any idea that we're like, all right, give the ball to Brad Beal and get out of the way. I don't think that's going to be part of the, part of the offense for the Clippers unless people are injured or there's just a whole bench mob in the game. I was like, what, what's the, what's the opportunity cost for them? They got him for essentially nothing in NBA terms. He's still a 17-point a game scorer, still shot 40% on threes, still can handle the ball. And look, I think you're right about Phoenix. There was just a malaise over the whole team. I think his effort level wasn't good enough, not nearly

• 42:38Speaker 01

  good enough, and it's going to have to be better, obviously, on a team.

• 42:41Bill Simmons?

  Why wasn't it good enough? Nobody's been able to explain that part. They changed the coach every year. He knew he was going to play with Durant and Booker. And he knew he wasn't, when, when he gets traded, he waves his no trade clause to go to Phoenix, a team that already had Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. What did he think was going to happen with the shots and the usage rate? Did he think it was going to be awesome for him? Those guys averaged like 60 points a game in the playoffs. What did he think was going to happen?

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I would hope that he understood he'd be the third option, but I will say this, you just got through saying about Cade, like, you always got to remember that the circumstances really matter. Like, they do change the coach every year in Phoenix. They've kind of become a punchline for their spending, which focused on Bradley Beal, the sort of ridicule that he took. And like, you're the body language doctor. How was Kevin Durant's body language from like, you know, game 10 on last season? Like, the whole team, the whole team just seemed like checked out.

• 43:36Bill Simmons?

  But why did that happen? I, this, this is, this is my point, though. I still don't understand what happened in Phoenix and why that team was so unhappy for two years, right? And why, and why they fell as short as they did. And then, you know, it's like, no, no, it was good with Durant. It's, it was great. We're sending him off. Wasn't his fault. Was, wasn't Devin Booker's fault. Here's 75 million a year, even though we won 35 games with you last year. And it wasn't Bradley Beal's fault either. He was a great son. Well, whose fault was it? Because that was the unhappiest team all of us watched last year. And I don't, if you're carving up the blame pie, who has the biggest slice in the blame pie? I still can't figure it out.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Um, the rest of the roster.

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  There was more stuff going on behind the scenes than we're finding out about. And I'm still waiting for like the now they tell us story and nobody wrote it.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  No, I mean, somebody, there's gotta be something somebody wrote that was interesting. Like they all, the clearly the, the bit, the closest thing was the, the whole very weird like Bud telling Devin Booker, "Hey, man, you gotta like talk less in huddles." Like that, that, that was, that was a weird one. But I'm not sure that can break a team like that. I, maybe they just never recovered from just getting absolutely humiliated by Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs two seasons ago in a sweep in which that ended with Bradley Beal just like falling over and losing the ball three times in the, in the last six minutes.

• 45:00Bill Simmons?

  Bradley Beal was so bad in that end of that playoff series. And it's one of those things that we just, the time passes and you just kind of forget. We've never really seen Bradley Beal, except for the, what was that, the 2017 Wizards? Which I thought, even though he didn't, I think he had some up and down shooting stuff. I felt like he really competed. I don't see a guy that competes in the same way anymore. And to just expect him to turn that on because he's in a contract here, that's, that's the other piece of this. So Bradley Beal is somehow gonna make more money out of this.

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  And there, and Dame Lillard, same thing for different reasons. And I feel bad for Dame, but Dame somehow tore his Achilles and, and somehow made more money out of it. The league is in this weird situation where they have the second apron that penalizes everybody and penalizes all these smart teams. And if you draft well and you sign well, but then it has this other mechanism where you can kind of either get hurt or tank your situation or just not play well. And it can somehow work out, we will make more money. Cause the, part of the narrative was, well, Bradley Beal does well in the Clippers. He'll be the biggest free agent a year from now. It's like, he was already making 53 million a year. That wasn't enough incentive for him? And that's somebody I'd want to bet on?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 46:15Bill Simmons?

  Am I being a dick? Like, I feel like I'm in the minority on this.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Who were the Clippers getting with a $5.5 million salary slot that's better than Bradley Beal?

• 46:24Bill Simmons?

  Nobody. He was 17 points a game, 39% threes, but I would be really worried about.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  So that's it. That's.

• 46:31Bill Simmons?

  I have this chemistry thing where I already have the whatever the Harden, just never knowing where I can trust him in a game. I have Beal where I have no idea. He wasn't happy as a relegated role player in Phoenix, but now he's going to be happy with that. I don't know whether I can trust Kawhi. It's a team that now has a clear two-year window. Right? And I can't wait to talk about that piece of it. You're bringing CP in basically ceremonial. He'll play 40 games during the regular season. He might have a playoff moment, but I would just have real concerns about what happened to Beal in Phoenix and whether. What that meant because he wasn't happy that last year in Washington either. We haven't seen the guy be happy in the 2020s.

• 47:12Bill Simmons?

  And meanwhile, he's been making crazy money. I just, I don't get it. I, so I need it explained to me. And on top of it, like his agent and the Suns, you know, president or whatever, they're father and son.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  I'm aware.

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  And the best you could do is, oh, Bradley cut the exact amount of money he's going to get from the Clippers and it's going to save Matt Ishby all this money. It's like, why didn't he have to give up more money to leave a situation he hated? And if you're Phoenix, why didn't you wait until February to do this? If you're going to buy him out, you're not going to get any relief out of it. And you, the luxury tax does, all that shit doesn't kick in until February. Why not wait and try to have a staring contest with him?

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Could I, could I just unleash a mild take right now, speaking of.

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it. I'm so ready for it.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  This reminded me, there are a lot of things we have to ban in NBA discourse, like, nobody's talking about that guy. We need to ban that. That guy's a problem. Here's what we need to ban. I sat down yesterday and for some goddamn reason, I decided I'm going to watch the entire 11 and a half minute video that the Phoenix Suns just posted.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Inside our draft room, day one of the draft. No more, no more, ban them. They should be 45. I, I kept waiting, minute eight, maybe there'll be something interesting that happens in the video. And it's just a bunch of dudes wearing the same ugly ass Suns polo, high-fiving about how the guy they wanted might fall to them. And then it's just phone calls where Brian Gregory is like, hey, man, let's come here in Phoenix to work hard. You want to work hard? And Malawatch being like, yep, I'm gonna work hard. All right, let me give you over to Jordan Naught. Jordan Naught's gonna say something to you. Enjoy the night with your family. Enjoy the night with your family, then come here to Phoenix to work hard. Yes, sir, I'm gonna come here to Phoenix. Enough. And then there's a whiteboard that's blurred out, just no more videos of everyone be like, yeah, all right.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Woo, woo, look at our polos. No more.

• 49:07Bill Simmons?

  Has anybody ever not been excited when they drafted somebody in the top 15? Where's the draft room footage of the people like, ugh, man?

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, where's the draft room footage of the Kings calling in the Papayanas pick? You know, and, and they have to call, that's what I want to see because the Suns, I believe, had to make that pick for the Kings. I want to see Ryan McDonough on the phone being like, yeah, they want, they want Papayanas, man. I don't, I don't know what to tell you. That's who they're telling me to pick Papayanas. They don't, the guy from Greece, that's the guy we want. 11 minutes of crap, man. I'm sorry. Just nothing interesting happened in the whole video. Don't watch it.

• 49:44Bill Simmons?

  Great rant. Couldn't agree more.

• 49:48Bill Simmons?

  So old guy champions, if you think, if you think, uh, James Harden at age 36 is gonna miraculously change who he is in playoff games? Old guy champions, the two doppelgangers would be the 98 Bulls and the 2011 Mavericks. 2011 Mavericks, Dirk was 32, Marion 33, Kidd 38, Terry 33, Chandler 28. Peja, forgot, he played 18 minutes a game on that team. I don't remember any of the minutes. And then, uh, he was 33 and Barea was the youngest guy at 26. The difference is, well, the difference is the league is much better now. And you're going against this OKC team where basically all the guys in the team are born after Michael Jordan's last Bulls game? Except for like Caruso?

• 50:31Speaker 01

  I think that, that team though is and remains. A team that gets brought up.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  The gold standard.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  For but for this reason of of like they're the just stay just give yourself the puncher's chance as many times as you can as a good and maybe not great team and maybe one year it all comes into place. And I think that's just that's the game the Clippers are playing is like that's the team.

• 50:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the game the Clippers are actually playing because if you put if you gave them truth serum.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Oh, let's go.

• 51:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, let's go. Let's do it. If you gave them truth serum and you said, do you think you could actually win the title? Like, come on. You'd be like, all right, we have like a haymaker puncher's chance, but OKC is going to be really hard.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  This whole podcast. I think that's what they think.

• 51:20Bill Simmons?

  But what they've really done here is cleared the books for the summer of 2027. And the Norm Powell piece was a big part of this. He was going to be unhappy if they didn't give him an extension. They didn't want to give him an extension. Well, why? He was almost an All-Star last year. Didn't play well in the playoffs. That's not enough of a reason. Ballmer is a guy that has always spent and added and paid money and he's never been afraid of the future. And now this is a team that's clearly we are on short term here. We're on two years. Well, why? It's because Giannis is a free agent in the summer of 2027. And I don't this is like the you know, there's some maybe some TV networks

• 52:00Bill Simmons?

  that dabble and specialize in this just throwing out names and teams. I think there's this is a real thing. I think the Bucks are terrified of it. I think it's a big reason why the Myles Turner thing happened because the Bucks knew they're on a two year window with Giannis and that is a player option. And they're trying to do as much as they can to make it so that if anyone's winking at him, that they'll at least have enough of a foundation and try to keep him. The one thing with Giannis is he's already won the title, right? That's it's when you've already won, it's a different level of mentality because now you're weighing I've already won. I could start and finish my career in Milwaukee by all counts loves Milwaukee. But I think if you're the Clippers.

• 52:44Bill Simmons?

  And short term, you can compete with a puncher's chance for a title, but long term, you have 20 million on your books in the summer of 27. You just have Zubots, that's it. You can basically build the new team and they're in the best position. Bomber doesn't care about money. You've been, have you been in the, the practice facility and that their, their thing is like a fucking palace? Like you go there and you're like, this is a team that spends every, every possible asset, dollar or whatever, to impress the people that play for it. And I think, I think that's their end game is that summer of 2027. Short term, let's try to win. Long term, Giannis, and that's how they're thinking.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  So, um, a couple of things. Lawrence Frank does not, does not wink subtly. He winks like Costanza's got the grapefruit pulp in his eye in Seinfeld. Remember the Kawhi recruitment when he was just like at Toronto games? Just that, and now it might be different with Giannis as a player option, but like there ain't nothing subtle about how the Clippers operate. Number two, they're also in position, if, if need be, to get max cap space a year from now, because Harden's contract is partially guaranteed. It's a, it's a weird thing where he got the player option and they got, I think it's only 13 million out of 40, whatever million guaranteed. And then they have team options on like a million guys, Bogdanovich team option, Lopez team option,

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Batum team option. Like they could clear out $50 million of space from their books without even trying. So they're, they're flexible on a couple of different levels, but sure. I mean, everybody knows the timetable of Giannis' contract. Everybody sees how desperate the Bucks are. And you know, I haven't closed the books. It's, I don't think anybody has closed the books. I'm like, do we, do we, do we know that Giannis is like, okay, I'm done thinking about anything else now? I don't, I don't know that.

• 54:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but he, by all accounts, he's fine in Milwaukee and.

• 54:39Bill Simmons?

  The team's gonna be pretty good. I mean, they actually had a really good offseason. When you consider like what that the the second best player in the team who made 50 plus million dollars was gonna miss the entire season and you would have said this team has no chance to look competitive. The Cole Anthony thing was a big deal, but they got him to be able to get somebody like that for nothing. He's a rotation guy. They kept Trent for nothing. He's a rotation guy. You know, they they've added together a team that in a weak conference with the best player in the conference at least is now in the game. And I think with more of a puncher's chance than maybe the Clippers have.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Interesting. You're you're I actually I don't disagree with you. I went through all the East rosters the other day and I'm like, the Bucks are actually a little better than I think they are.

• 55:23Bill Simmons?

  They have a little more depth and a little more day to day. And I do think they can patch together some some lineups that I like. I don't mind a couple of their young guys. They have some shooting already.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  And I agree with you. Like, he's shown us over and over again, he would prefer to stay in Milwaukee. It actually reminds me of ironically Dame in Portland, who would they would just like walked up and walked back, walked up and walked back. And like now that he's back, is publicly saying like, I kind of, I maybe I shouldn't have ever left. And Yanis kind of reminds me of that.

• 55:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you did a good job with Mahoney talking about the on the pod you did with Mahoney this week about the culture that Dame put in Portland and how he was all in and all in and all in. And I think what changed that was the Scoot Henderson pick and just getting it getting a top three pick and taking a future point guard. And I just think that changed how they thought about it, which is why I brought up San Antonio earlier. Sometimes you can get lucky in the draft and it can just completely change what you thought your plans were for a roster. And in that case, I think, you know, I, I would have been really interested if he hadn't gotten hurt to see how they would have handled Dame this summer and whether they would have.

• 56:38Bill Simmons?

  Would have tried to peddle him because he ended up the second half of the season before he got hurt. I thought he was pretty good. Um, all right. So we're just, we planted our flag on keep an eye on this Yanis Clippers thing. I'm not saying we invented it, but I wanted to quickly mention, uh, let's take one more break and then I have another thing to throw here. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought

• 57:20Bill Simmons?

  to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. So one other thing happened since

• 58:02Bill Simmons?

  the last time you and I talked basketball. And it's the Miami Heat, the zombie heat. I'm not saying they're in the cornfield, starting to eat human beings again, but there were a couple of small things they did over the course of the summer where it's like, I just thought that team was done and maybe should think about trading Bam and just blowing it up and starting over. Um, there's, there's just kind of a roster flexibility slash identity forming.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  And I didn't know if you were intrigued by it. So are you intrigued by it?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  You, you have this, it's, I don't know if you have some telepathy abilities like, like I remember a couple of months ago, you said, you know, what teams do you have your eye on is like potentially frisky teams in the offseason. I've mentioned one, you were like, that's the one I want to talk about. So tomorrow I'm having, we're doing a podcast, the Zach Lowe show. We're going to put the Eastern Conference teams into tiers of teams, which is I like to do just for fun. And I'm looking at the FanDuel odds, one, two, three, four, Miami is 10th to win the, to win the East. I'm not saying Miami's going to win the East. That's not a conversation. I'm just saying the odds are what they are. Indiana's plus 2,300, they're ninth. Then there's a jump all the way to plus 4,100.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  That's Miami and then plus 4,600 is the Raptors. And I keep looking at the teams above Miami, Indiana, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia, that group. And I'm like, I don't think Miami's worse than those teams. Like I, I understand that Miami, that all of those teams save Indiana with Halliburton hurt. And maybe even Indiana with Siakam have a player who's much better than anyone on Miami. I don't say Siakam is much better than Miami. He's probably a little better all around, but Boston's still got Jalen Brown. Philly's got whoever is healthy. Milwaukee has an MVP candidate. I kind of think the Heat are in that group and I was talking to a couple of front office guys earlier this morning before we hopped on this podcast.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Almost trying to get them to talk me out of my Heat optimism and, and one of them tried to, one of them kind of shared, I, I don't, I'm not saying this is like a great team. But if you told me the Heat went 45 and 37 and snuck into the sixth seed or whatever, I, I wouldn't be surprised. I think it's a better team than, than Vegas is giving them credit for. What's their, I bet their over under is like 38 and a half or something like that.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. 30 and a half. It's too low. And I, I actually think.

• 1:00:36Bill Simmons?

  I know it's insane. I actually think like 48 wins could be in play. With the, with how bad, with how bad the East is going to be from a star power standpoint. You're just not going against stars night after night. You're going and said like, you might play Philly. There's no Embiid. You're going to play Boston. There's no Tatum. You go on down the line. The game, the East games are just not going to be as hard as they were last year.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  So literally 20 minutes before we hopped on this podcast, I was talking to an executive on another Eastern Conference team. Saying like, am I like, am I crazy to think Miami could win, could be like 46 and 36 and be the fifth or sixth seed? Like is that, am I like, like, am I missing something about the composition of the East? Like, what am I missing? Because I seem to be wildly off on Miami. And he kind of was like, yeah, 46 seems a little much, but I literally just said this stuff to somebody 30 minutes ago. I said 46, you said 48. 48 seems a little high to me. 46, it's 10 games or 500. Like, that's a good team. I don't know if that's a little over my skis, but I'm with you. I don't know what we see.

• 1:01:39Bill Simmons?

  Powell in a contract here. We already know he's gonna, he's a 19-point game, point a game scorer. They have Wiggins for a full year. They have Hero. They have Atabio. They got Fontecchio, who I just like. I'm sorry. I'm always going to think on the right team, that guy can succeed. There's just certain guys, like on the wrong team, I get it. But on a team where guys know what they're doing, I'm just in on him. Jovic, everybody else likes. I don't like him as much. Like, Rosillo likes him.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  I like Jovic.

• 1:02:09Bill Simmons?

  I haven't really seen it yet, but I know you're, of course you like him. He's got the itch.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  I gotta, I gotta be welcomed.

• 1:02:14Bill Simmons?

  You've got an itch for the itches. Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I gotta, believe me, all, all the, all the people in Croatia that we visit with, when we're there, they know, they know my awards ballot. And if I've shunned the wrong Balkan, I hear about it.

• 1:02:28Bill Simmons?

  Hakez, if he ever learns how to shoot. Yakashonis, I still feel like is, is gonna, I'm still in. And then they have Highsmith, who I've always liked. I don't know. I just don't mind their team. There's a Rozier piece. There's two ways it could go good and one way it can go awful. The two ways it can go good is he's in a contract year. Maybe he comes back, he gets cleared. And he's actually good again. This was a guy who was like a 24-point a game scorer two years ago. They gave up a first round pick for. The second way it could go good for them, wouldn't it be good for Rozier? What if it turns out he gets suspended for the year? Like, does he come off the cap? How does that work? We haven't had that happen before. Does he disappear from the cap?

• 1:03:13Bill Simmons?

  It feels like if anyone would ever luck out from something like this. I was talking to my friend Mike Scher, who hates the Heat the most. And I was like, you realize if Rozier gets suspended for a year, the league will somehow figure out a way that that just magically comes off Miami's cap. And he's like, you ruined my day.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  I like that you guys are still, are still, the Miami scars are so deep for you.

• 1:03:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just want the, I want Heat culture to just be dead. And it never dies. But, uh, but the third way it would go. I think, uh, I think the bad version of this is that's just a giant 26.6 thing. 26.6 million. He's not playing, but you also can't trade him because he gets suspended. And it's just like this cap albatross for a year is the one bad way this would play out. So who knows?

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  I'm penciling him in as out of the rotation when I'm, when I'm.

• 1:04:10Bill Simmons?

  I think that's fair.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  No, no, I just, just in terms of my projection of the Heat, because I want to make sure my optimi, I want to make sure my optimism is not based on the, whatever small percent chance that the Terry Rozier thing totally turns around. I'm not expecting that to happen. Like, it's been, it's unbelievable how much of a zero he's been for Miami. Like, it's, it's one of the most under the radar shocking, like, from, from semi-productive slash productive to like, like can't even get on the floor in the playoffs for a team that's losing by 50.

• 1:04:42Bill Simmons?

  The off-court stuff, I think, murdered his season last year. There, there's no way you can come back from that, especially if you think potentially really bad things are happening. But he was really good on Charlotte. Yeah, he was, he was becoming a guy that you had to start talking about as you're kind of like what happened with Norm Powell last year where he wasn't an all-star, but you actually had to throw his name into the, into the conversation for it. Um, anyway, there, one of the things I like about what they did, and I like the Mitchell signing too, that I've always never gave up on that dude, feeling good about my condo on that island. Um, but they have a flexible roster for trades, right? Like Powell's still an

• 1:05:26Bill Simmons?

  expiring, Fontecchio is an expiring, Heisman's an expiring, uh, Wiggins has a player option for next year at 30. It's not bad. They, it's, it's, it's a situation that looks a little LeBron-y. I'm just going to say it. If we were going to go, all right. Somebody came from a time machine and said, in January, February, LeBron James will be traded. And you had to pick a team. I think Miami would be one of the teams I would think about.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Okay. Two, two things. Um, and I already, I already, okay, two things. Number one, they're only in the hole one first round pick, and I believe they could trade up to three if they do it right. Number two.

• 1:06:10Bill Simmons?

  Their 27 pick goes to Charlotte for the aforementioned Terry Rozier disaster trade.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Um, number two, I know, no one has time to listen to every episode of the Zach Low Show, let alone, let alone someone as busy as you. Last week in Vegas, I, I said, I did a segment on LeBron because everyone's talking about LeBron. And I said, look, I've already done all the, all the like, I've already gone through all the teams everybody's gone through, the Cleveland's, the Dallas, the Warriors, the Knicks, and on and on. I said, the one team I forgot to bring up when I was doing it is like, there's actually kind of a, a Heat reunion trade that isn't crazy on paper for either team, if it ever came to that. What I neglected to mention on that podcast and should have blamed the Vegas

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  haze that I was in, is it ended very badly. Like, there were hard feelings in Miami when he left and the manner in which he left. And Riley doesn't strike me as someone who gets over hard feelings particularly easily. Now, winning and a superstar papers over a lot. But I don't disagree with you. Like, I don't. LeBron's on the Lakers. I've heard there's, it's kind of gotten quiet now after it was the talk of summer league. There doesn't seem to be like a clean solution either way. Everyone's saying we should expect him to be on the Lakers. That's my expectation, but I agree with you. Like on paper, there's a heat trade that is not crazy for either team.

• 1:07:33Bill Simmons?

  Wiggins and Powell for unhappy LeBron in January and maybe some sort of pick swap and maybe that's all it is. As crazy as that sounds.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  I think for the Lakers, Ware has got to be in it. Like just because I've gone out of my way to say I've got to get a rim runner that compare with Luka, blah, blah, blah. And I'm trading arguably the greatest player of all time. I gotta, I gotta hit the trade well. And I think he'd be the piece that they'd have to get.

• 1:08:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, the only thing, if there would be real urgency to trade him, you know, he would have to start acting passive aggressively. And we've just never seen him do that over the course of his career.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna let, let that hang, hang in the air there.

• 1:08:18Bill Simmons?

  There's just been no evidence over the course of his career that he could use the regular season as a tool to try to make a transaction happen that he would be in favor of.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Do you think he wants to do that at the end of his career?

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  Can't think of any examples.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  But do you think he'd want, he'd want to taint the last X years of his career with his son on the team by doing that?

• 1:08:36Bill Simmons?

  Trying to think. Yeah, I can't really come up with any seasons where that happened. Um, listen, they waived clutch client, Jordan Goodwin.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Who's good.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  To sign Marcus Smart after he was recruited by Luka Doncic. And I was like, they're now antagonizing the LeBron side. Like this is, this is flat out antagonizing. They can say what they want, but think about, think about the hold that, uh, Clutch and LeBron had over the Lakers for those first seven years to the point that they drafted his son who had played 10 minutes a game in college. Um, and now it's gone full circle where it's all Luka, Luka, Luka, Luka, Luka recruited. I mean, you and Mahoney did, I thought you did the perfect breakdown of the Marcus Smart thing. To expect him to guard anyone with speed who's a guard at this point of his career,

• 1:09:29Bill Simmons?

  good luck. He also can't really shoot threes and is the kind of guy that's just a bad fit with a LeBron Luca team. I didn't like the move at all. I would have rather had Jordan Goodwin. Like for real. I don't think Marcus Smart with Luca and LeBron and Austin Reeves makes sense to me at all because I need somebody who can actually guard all of the awesome guards that are in the NBA. And guess what? I still don't have the person after I did this Marcus Smart move. I have the person who can guard bigger dudes who could be like, let's throw him against Giannis.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Which by the way, which matters. It matters because LeBron doesn't want to do that kind of bang and Luca only wants to do it against the guy who's a non-threat. Rui can do it, but they need someone else. And look, Marcus Smart is not

• 1:10:12Bill Simmons?

  It's not gonna be Marcus Smart.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  He's not a great three-point shooter, but he's a good enough catch and shoot three-point shooter on open looks, which I think he's betting. You're betting on the up. Like, we know what Jordan Goodwin is. I like Jordan Goodwin. I said there's a universe where he's better than Marcus Smart next year. I think if you're the Lakers, you have to bet on, you just have to make a big bet that we're a long shot to win the West. To even make it plausible, we've got to hit home runs on some things that on the fringes of like, this is a chance at that. You're never going to hit a Jordan Goodwin homerun.

• 1:10:45Bill Simmons?

  He just, his body seems like it broke down to me. I love Marcus Smart. He was a great Celtic. There's an interesting, would they retire his number case that I think if the season, if you have a season three years from now that's going terribly, you could see it happen. He never won a title with them, but was one of the most beloved role player Celtics ever in my lifetime. I don't think

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  Did you see that?

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't think his body can handle a nine-month season anymore.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  Did you see that he said he expects to get booed in Boston?

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  No, never.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I saw it on Twitter. I suspect everything is fake. It didn't look fake to me. It didn't look like an AI-generated quote, but my reaction was like, dude, it's going to be a standing ovation. Doesn't matter if you're on the Lakers. People are going to go crazy for him when he comes back.

• 1:11:36Bill Simmons?

  I have penciled in August 20th. I put in my Apple calendar. You use an Apple calendar?

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  I have a Google calendar.

• 1:11:44Bill Simmons?

  I use the Apple calendar. I penciled August 20th in for the day that I'm going to try to talk myself into Deandre Ayton and the Lakers.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  I already did it. I'm done. I did it. I got through it in early July.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  Like you're officially like you've talked yourself into the scenarios?

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  I would say my thesis statement for Deandre Ayton working is is just this. I think it's going to go better than expected. That's as far I think it's going to work as well as the Lakers could reasonably hope it works. But I think he's going to have a decent offensive season and a decent defensive season. I think if you're expecting him to be amazing, it's not going to work. I think he's going to roll more. I think he's going to play with a little more force. He's an elite mid range jump shooter, and I think any big man worth his salt, who's embarrassed by being bought out by the freaking Blazers and you could spin it like, oh, no, that's what I wanted. I wanted to play on a winning team, whatever. The Blazers were super excited to clear the way for their

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  young centers. And I want to talk about that before we get off. I think he's good. Luca and LeBron are going to make him look good. He's going to be a productive offensive player the way he was in Phoenix. And I think I think he's going to be, if your expectations are mocking him as dominating, and I'm a max contract guy, and I've done my share of mocking and mocking him for getting to the foul line once every two weeks. That's one of my go to eight in lines. I think he's going to be better than that. I think he's going to be a serviceable starting center for the Los Angeles Lakers to help their team.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  Did you ever see the clip from the movie Scanners when the guy's head blew up?

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  I don't even know what that movie is.

• 1:13:17Bill Simmons?

  It's a horror movie that came out in the early 80s, and it was by David Cronenberg. And it had this famous scene where this guy's head exploded. And it's one of the best special effects scenes of the 70s, 80s, 90s. The guy and his head like explodes. I think it's in play for JJ Reddick this year with Ayton. With the combo of Ayton and passive aggressive LeBron, and Marcus Smart trying to guard point guards, I just feels like it could and Luca trying to play defense like there there are pieces of this where you could talk yourself into the Lakers season going really good. And there's a case for them to be a three seed. I also think there's cases for JJ.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  They were just a three seed.

• 1:13:56Bill Simmons?

  I know. And it could totally happen again. I think there's also a case that JJ Reddick's head could explode in the sideline because of Ayton. When you've watched him play basketball.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  I have.

• 1:14:08Bill Simmons?

  I say it both ways. I do think though, this is the type of team that could honestly kill.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  I'm going, I'll just put it, I'm going Deandre Ayton, 16 and 8, solid bounce back season.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  16 and 8, he does get rebounds, you know, it's like, it's like Barkley's whole thing about you can't get three rebounds a quarter when he gets mad that like Jaren Jackson has five rebounds a game. He does get rebounds, he'll grab them. Luca seems like he's in better shape, but who knows? We'll find out. And, uh, and the LeBron situation is just going to be really, really weird. They have a lot of expirings and a lot of ways to make the roster better. It seems like Luca is going to sign next month, which I, I think, you know, nobody's going to be surprised by it, but.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  I believe that's August 2nd as well.

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  All right. So February 15th, what team is LeBron on?

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Safe bet is still the Lakers, right? I mean, like I, I haven't heard enough, I haven't heard enough actionable, realistic stuff to go anything but Lakers. If you're telling me Lakers versus Field, I think that's, I'd still probably go Lakers a little bit, but until I hear something, because why would they ever buy him out?

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  What, I don't think he has it in him to act out the way Jimmy Butler did to get out of his situations. Passive aggressive, maybe, but I think you can live with that. And I don't know that he wants to do that at the end of his career with his son on the team. Even, even that level, like 2018 Cavs level, eye rolling, passive aggressive.

• 1:15:36Bill Simmons?

  We've never been in a situation with a player as great as him before, where the focal point of the franchise is on shifted to another guy. I'm really interested to see where, like, I'm talking like the best part of all time.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  So what's your answer to the question then? What team's he on February 15th? Dallas?

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  No, because I don't think there's any scenario where the Lakers buy him out. He would have to really, to your point, he would have to really push the envelope in a way that I just think it would be crazy for him to do. Like he's a role model. People love LeBron. He's going to be a dick to try to get traded. He'll do the passive aggressive stuff, but he's not going to do the outward, he's not going to tank during games. He's never going to do any of that stuff.

• 1:16:17Bill Simmons?

  I honestly would say Miami. I don't know why.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  I'm so glad we're on the same Miami.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  It's just like a weird gut feeling. It's just, and I don't think the Riley start, yeah, it ended awful with them in Miami. I don't think it, this stuff matters. He went back to Cleveland after the Comic Sans letter and all the, all the shit that went on. If it's the right move for both sides and if Miami can look at it and go, holy shit, like, we could actually win the East if we turn Wiggins and whatever else into LeBron. And I don't know.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  I, I encourage people, go back, listen to the Zach Lo Show from last week. I talked about it. I was like, hero, Bam, LeBron, something like, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be like a terrible Eastern Conference team.

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• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  I gotta, I know you may have other things to get to, but there are a couple of other summer league things I wanted that are in your wheel, in your wheelhouse, much more than mine. A summer league topic that came up quite a bit, given Young Honsen's play, is why is there like no buzz about who's gonna buy the Portland Trailblazers? So I ask you, you have a lot of ownership sources. You're always good on this stuff. Like, why is there, there's, there's like even people within the Blazers that I talked to were like, I don't, like, we haven't heard anything. Like, what's going on? This team is like allegedly in the beginning processes of being for sale. It's an NBA team. What's happening?

• 1:19:24Bill Simmons?

  I heard there's a guy and I heard it's gonna go over four, are the only two things I've heard.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Who's not going over three and a half or four at this point?

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, but I think the consensus is it's gonna be in the mid threes, but I think it goes over four.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this then.

• 1:19:40Bill Simmons?

  There's, there's just not a lot of teams available. This is, it's Portland. It's maybe make a power play for New Orleans, over, overpay for New Orleans and then move them to Seattle, Vegas. And then, other than that, unless, unless the Ryan's door of shock everybody and just sell the team for 7 million, what, what other team is there?

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this. I know you're, you can't say who the guy is if you even know who the guy is, but is it, is it, is it someone who already knows I'm not getting Vegas and I'm not getting Seattle if and when those things happen? Is it somebody in that pool potentially? Cause that, that, that's, that's a, that's a, no.

• 1:20:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay. That wasn't the name I heard that I'm not gonna say.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  Um, the Vegas one was really fun because there were so many groups for it. I was ready for the Game of Thrones between all the groups and each group had like a famous person in it. I was just very excited to see how that was gonna play out. But now if we're not gonna have expansion, um, you know, if somebody hired me as a conciliary for all this stuff, I would just be like, just go after New Orleans.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  What is?

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  That's the move.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  I know you've talked about it before, but now we've seen him play summer league. Some time has passed since the draft. What does Conspiracy Bill think of the young Hanssen pick? And the conspiracy theories that it was all a ploy, partly a ploy, let's say, to to increase the valuation of the franchise?

• 1:21:02Bill Simmons?

  So that was a summer league combo, right? That the combo of Dame, because the Dame thing was nuts like that. They paid 14 million this year not to play.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  And I know it's great to have him back, but it's just, I thought the combo of those two things I thought was notable. And the fact that you took Yang Hansen at 16, when you probably could have gotten him in the mid, late 20s, but you were so desperate to get him, you didn't want to fuck around. Conspiracy Bill was activated. There's no question. Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of Chinese money in play, you know, like that we've just seen it with some of the players we've had in the league. So, yeah, I marked it.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:47Bill Simmons?

  What was your other thing?

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  That's it. I think I think that between that and Strahina Jokic, just lighting up summer league all over, all over the place, the big scary Jokic brother appearing everywhere and scaring everybody. I think, oh, the other one, the other one, there was a lot of like, late in my summer league visit, a lot of like, wait, what? When did Paul George get injured again? When did, when did the surgery happen with Paul George? I thought I just saw him walking around a casino somewhere. Why did they announce it now? What's happening with the Paul George injury? What's there in just a lot of like, Sixers? What are you gonna do?

• 1:22:24Bill Simmons?

  Did the Embiid piece come out? That was on ESPN.com when you were in Vegas?

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  It came out the last day I was there.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  I left that, I left that afternoon.

• 1:22:36Bill Simmons?

  I have no comment on the Embiid piece.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  What does that mean?

• 1:22:40Bill Simmons?

  I just have no comment on it. You, you did no comment.

• 1:22:47Bill Simmons?

  A representative for Simmons was reached and said, no comment. You had a rant before.

• 1:22:56Bill Simmons?

  You did your little thing. I have my little stupid rant. I'm gonna give it to you for 40 seconds. I don't understand. So Washington trades for Marcus Smart. And they get, they trade expirings and they traded 20, 25 second rounder for Marcus Smart, who's making like 20 million and then 20 million the next year.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  They got a first round pick too, right?

• 1:23:17Bill Simmons?

  And they get Memphis's 2025 first, which at the time seemed like it was gonna be in the twenties. And then Memphis fell apart and it ended up being the 18th pick. So then they traded 18 for 21 and two seconds. And they took Will Riley and then they bought out Marcus Smart for $6.8 million.

• 1:23:37Bill Simmons?

  So basically, and we've seen teams do this a bunch.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  I guess that's the market for a non lottery first round pick. You're, you're paying whatever is left for the guy in the, in the previous year, but you had the expiring, so that offsets. But then the next year you're paying, so they basically paid $7 million and their second rounder to get the 18th pick in the draft. Does that sound like the right price? Because this happens all the time where we're like, oh yeah, but they got that pick. It's like, is that the right price for a non lottery first rounder? And conversely, should they make a rule that teams can just pay whatever they want for somebody else's first rounder? Like just no cap at all? Like if the, if the Lakers wanted to pay $35 million

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  for, for Memphis's 18th pick, they could just do it. Why do we have a cap on it? Would teams actually pay? What are the values of picks? I just, it got my brain percolating. I didn't know if you had any thoughts.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  So people have studied trades over X amount of years and like, what is, what is the average financial valuation of a first round pick? Like how mu- how much did the Nets just pay for the Nuggets 2032 first round pick? Right?

• 1:24:52Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  More than $7 million and a second round pick for sure. And I think those studies would probably conclude, again, you're, you're hitting me with this up top of my head, that that's actually kind of a cheap price to pay for the 18th pick, that that's probably a good deal cash wise for the Wizards.

• 1:25:09Bill Simmons?

  Because the guy's making like three and a half, four million a year and it's locked in. Has the chance to have upside of to be a real guy. So it's like the four plus the seven that you paid. So it's almost like getting a mid level free agent.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  I, I, I think it just the, the like on average, what do teams pay for a first round pick and salary dumps, right? How much dead salary do, does it take for me to get a lottery protected first round pick? I'm guessing that's a pretty cheap price overall for Washington to get that pick. Your second idea broke my brain a little bit. Uh, obviously there is a cap on the amount of cash and trades that you could use in a calendar NBA year. You're saying, should that cap just not apply to draft pick only trade? Should we just, and then you just come into a thing like, what is the price for your humiliation as a team? Like, how much do you have to pay me to be able to go to my fans with,

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  and, and, and take the heat of like, yeah, sorry, we just sold the, I know you guys were like super excited about all the mock drafts and who we were going to take at 17. And like, we actually need a player. The Lakers just paid us $75 million. How can we, so what's the price for your humiliation as a franchise owner?

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  Cause it's humiliating, it's humiliating to just, it would be humiliating to go to your fans and be like, yeah, you know, but look, I mean, I'm richer, we're richer, like the practice facility might be nicer.

• 1:26:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but in soccer, or as they call it in the, uh, in the European areas, football.

• 1:26:46Bill Simmons?

  They have these transfer fees, right? You develop some awesome player, you have like Khan Canipal, and he's the rookie of the year in year one. It's like, wow, this guy's the next Klay Thompson. And then the Lakers just buy him a year later for a $150 million transfer fee. And people are used to that in soccer. I think the CBA to me, the older I get, the more I stare at how they think about it, is all about just checks and balances with the owners against themselves in two ways. One, to make sure that you don't end up becoming like Ishbia. Like without the second apron, Ishbia, you're almost saving Ishbia from, from yourself. It would be like if I, if I fed my dogs at four o'clock today,

• 1:27:27Bill Simmons?

  and I just put all the dog food on the floor, my idiot dog Murph would eat all the dog food. Right? If I put 20 pounds of dog food on the floor, he would eat all 20 pounds and then he would have diarrhea for like a week and a half. That's kind of what the second apron is for Matt Ishbia.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  What's the, what's the diarrhea in this metaphor? Is it the stretch? Is it the waved and stretch money?

• 1:27:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's the Bradley Beal, seven pick swaps and 19 second round picks.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  But so it's checks and balances on the one end. And then the other end is that humiliation thing you mentioned, where they don't want to give the smaller market owners either the the chance to be humiliated because like OKC, Jalen Williams, they build him up and then he just leaves because they can't afford what the Lakers or Miami paid. But then you also to put owners in the position where they would just sell off shit like they were selling off things in their attic or, you know, their car.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Honestly, I didn't hear anything you said after diarrhea. I just, I just, I just lost, I just like lost.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Checks about, well, I mean, this is the same thing like.

• 1:28:36Bill Simmons?

  Hold on, I have a news flash. The Clippers have just traded for 20 pounds of Murph's diarrhea. It's gonna be fine though. It's solidified. It's a hard.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Like I remember.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  I remember when they shortened contracts, right? And like, that was the whole argument. It's like, well, we got to save these owners from themselves. Otherwise, it'll be like another seven year, $120 million David Lee contract. Like it's like that it's saving the owners from the, the Stepien rule is about saving owners from themselves. It's always checks and balances and it gets more and more complicated with every go like, good luck reading some of the fucking pick swaps on Real GM. Like, I don't know. Can someone just tell me who gets what pick? I don't understand. This pick in the second and fourth.

• 1:29:20Bill Simmons?

  Do you want my document? I have a document. I created a document that I rely on because it's so confusing. I actually had to write all of it down with all the Mac and I'm gonna send it to you. It's my little summer gift. Are you upset that when we brought you to the Ringer that we didn't do a recruiting trip? We didn't have people calling you like Luka Doncic called Marcus Smart? Should I have done that?

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you should have all come to my house and, you know.

• 1:29:44Bill Simmons?

  We should have done that.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Like seven of you should have appeared at my front door with, with food and wine.

• 1:29:51Bill Simmons?

  Like I have a type that could have read. Apparently Joe House called Zach Lowe today and they were on the phone for a half hour. Talking about how great the Ringer is.

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  Drunk house or sober house?

• 1:30:02Bill Simmons?

  Drunk house.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Or like drunk in an ambulance house?

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  Being carried out of a Chinese food restaurant house.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  Here's my last thing and then we'll go. The Bleach Report did that top 100, whatever the point Kobe was 11th and everyone went crazy.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I haven't looked at it. That's the only thing I know about the whole list, by the way, is what you just said Kobe's 11th.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  It's basically for the ninth spot, 9, 10, 11 and 12, I guess. It's Curry, Kobe, Jerry West and Jokic.

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  And people, I'm not going to make the case today. I'm not going to put you in the spot. You've done no research, but. It's basically a Curry versus Kobe versus West argument. And I thought it's interesting because people are just so stupid when they talk about the history of the NBA and it drives me crazy. I don't even know why it bothers me, but. People like Kobe 11, that's nuts. It's like, okay, well, make your list.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  But it's the Curry versus Kobe versus West is so fascinating to me because it's these three different generations of guards. And I think you could honestly make a case for any of them. I think Curry's case, I thought Curry was going to pass Kobe and actually had him proactively in my pyramid ahead of Kobe. But now I'm looking at the end of Curry's career and I think. I just think that's going to be an awesome historical argument as we get further and further away from it. Because Curry's whole thing about how he's only made four first team all MBAs. That's like Kobe was first team NBA like for frigging a decade and a half, it felt like. But Kobe only won one MVP. They Curry has the four titles Kobe has five Curry never got to play with anyone like Shaq, but he did get to play with Durant.

• 1:31:47Bill Simmons?

  So he had the two Durant years, but Kobe had the three Shaq years and. It's just a good battle and I think it's a more interesting argument than. Social media gave it credit for. Because it's one of them for that ninth spot, I feel like.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  I'd have to. I'd have to go down and do it, but having done it before.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Some like 11th doesn't feel wrong on its face. And if you started to list the 10 guys above him, I bet it would be pretty like at the very least, I mean, there's like seven that are just, they have to be.

• 1:32:19Bill Simmons?

  I'll give you the list, just so people know, like MJ, LeBron, Russell, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Duncan and Wilt. So eight guys that it's not, it's not negotiable. Those are, those eight guys have to be the eight in some order.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  And by the way, I am glad we've reached a point, not like you talked about Curry, Kobe being a fun historical argument. For a while, the go to one was Duncan, Kobe. And I would always be like, I like, I love Kobe. Like it's not like Duncan, Duncan is a top whatever, like Duncan's above Kobe and has to be.

• 1:32:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And you know, the older we get, we're going to have to defend that one more and more. But we were both there and it's just, he has to be, I mean, Duncan, you just won 50 plus games if he was on your team. There was no ifs, ands or buts. He made everyone better and I just, he's now become the most underrated. Him and Hakeem, I think are the two most underrated historical guys ever. And there's some other guys.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Where's Shaq on the list?

• 1:33:19Bill Simmons?

  I have.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Report list.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  I think Shaq might've been higher than 11. I can't remember, but Shaq's one that as the years have passed, I think he's actually, his stuff has kind of gained steam.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right. And people. I think Shaq has been largely underrated until the last few years historically. Like there was just nothing you could do with Shaq. It was just like, there was, you had no defense for him other than foul him.

• 1:33:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's now Jokic is in that conversation too. And there's just a really fun Jokic, Shaq, Hakeem, Moses. There's this whole tier of centers. That would be fun to argue about it too. But we should, I was thinking, we should do a special podcast at one point where we just go Curry versus Kobe versus West and try to figure out what's a problem. Cause West is the most, out of all those guys from the first 25 years. First 30 years, I really think West is the one you could put in a time machine. You could have just put him into basketball now and he would have been completely fine. Even somebody like Russell, who is the greatest winner in the history of the league. They're still like, all right, he was 6'9", 210 pounds. Like, I at least want to see, couldn't really shoot.

• 1:34:23Bill Simmons?

  I at least would have wanted to see how dominant he could have been compared to how dominant he was when he played. West is like just fucking plug and play for 80 years in the league. There's nobody like him, you know? So anyway, we should do that at some point.

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  He's one of my favorite, he's one of my, what, one of my favorite players of all time. I've been, I've read every book about Jerry West. I've got to talk to him on the phone and meet him, which is obviously an honor. I think he's just like, I, I've said before, like when they, when people do who's the greatest Laker of all time? It's like, well, Magic, Kobe, Kareem should get some love. I'm like, I don't know, like Jerry West gets no love in this argument. The guy is like a lifetime Laker.

• 1:35:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  All time great player, great at every part of basketball and made the finals a million times and, and, got the nickname Mr. Clutch despite losing in the finals every goddamn year to the Celtics. He was still so good. Imagine that, imagine now you lose in the finals. Everyone just makes fun of you. Oh, you got no rings, no rings. That dude was so good that he got the nickname Mr. Clutch, losing in the NBA finals every year.

• 1:35:30Bill Simmons?

  Right. He won the 69 finals MVP. He had have a check inconsolable after he won the 69 title being like, I feel so bad for Jerry West. Cause he like literally did everything. The one thing that he didn't have was that he never won an MVP. But I did this in my book, he should have won the 1970 MVP. It's like actually kind of crazy that he didn't. So I feel like that's an honorary MVP.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Can I ask you one, just it's, it's an unfair follow-up to this, but it's, it's a, it's another summer league conversation I had with one guy. What's the ceiling on Jokic's all time ranking?

• 1:36:08Bill Simmons?

  How many more years can he be at the level he's been at for the last five? In your opinion?

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't see why it's not at least five more.

• 1:36:19Bill Simmons?

  So if he does five more, I think he has to be on that magic bird level for connection to the teammates, success every year. Probably needs, you know, I, I, I, it's funny.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  It's, it's the multiple rings.

• 1:36:36Bill Simmons?

  The ring culture thing has become stupid because it's like, guess what? You know what matters? Winning the title. It means you were the best guy when you played in a, in a season. It's the best way we can figure out who the best guy was. I'm sorry, that still matters.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  So I was, I was listening long overdue, listening to the Steve Nash LeBron mind the game podcast about when the rings culture thing came up because I wanted to hear, I wanted to hear exactly what they said, full context. I didn't want to hear the soundbite. I didn't want to see the aggregation headline. I want to hear what they said about ring culture, what LeBron said specifically. And I texted Steve afterwards and I was like, man, I wish, I wish I had been in the room because I had like a lot of takes that I could have pushed back on to this. But like, the other thing I said was if Jokic wins one title and that's it, it, he's going to be the ultimate sort of barometer for this because the statistics are going to say he's a top, whatever, single digit player of all time.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  And how do we talk about him with only one ring? Is it going to be like a Jerry West situation where we just sort of like, well, he's just that great. But if, if he just gets stuck at one and he's, let's say he wins another MVP. He's a four time MVP with one championship and these statistics are like, don't even make any sense. How are we going to talk about him? It's too early for that, but you know, I, yeah, I, it's, it's just, he's going to be an interesting test case. If, if, and I'm, Denver's got a shot to win it all this year for sure. Probably the next year after that.

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  I think the big thing to remember when you talk about this stuff is what era was the guy in and how good was the league, how competitive it was, right? Because when you talk about like the Bird magic, magic, magic was in the West that just they didn't have a lot of competition because of what happened to the Mavericks, what happened to the Rockets. Any sort of big rival that was coming kind of got vanquished and they were just in the finals year after year. I sound like a Celtic fan talking about the Lakers, but the Celtics were in that conference against Philly and then Milwaukee and then Detroit. And we probably had five really good teams and they kind of split all the rings up, right? Between four teams. I think now when I look at the Jokic thing, I just think it's, I think it would be harder to do that.

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  I think winning, a guy winning three rings now in the 2020s with the, especially the second apron stuff, and I think it would be even in a weird way more impressive because everybody's better at putting together a team and we also have more high-end talent, right? Giannis has only won one title too. LeBron's won, he won in 16 and he won in 20, so he's won two in the last 10 years. Curry's won, uh, he's won four, but that, I mean, that team was a historical fluke with what happened with the Durant ad, right? Upgrading from Barnes to Durant, we'll never, we'll never see anything like that in our lifetime. And I just wonder like, is it just everybody's going to win one or two now going forward?

• 1:39:33Bill Simmons?

  Unless OKC can figure out how to be dominant, right? That maybe they're a historical fluke, I don't know. But don't you just feel like we have too many good players for somebody? And then sports too hard to play. These injury variables, like that's another piece, like just to stay healthy, um, almost feels like you need more luck than ever.

• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  You agree?

• 1:39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you look at just who's won all the multiple rings in the last, look at who's won all the multiple rings in like the last 15 years, whatever. It's like whatever teams LeBron on and the Warriors with their, their four in a short span of time, two of which are with Durant and an all time, one time only cap swag. And then you have the Spurs who won, you know, five over an enormous period of time, which is in its own, you know, there, there's only one guy that was on.

• 1:40:22Bill Simmons?

  And that's a perfect example. They won five and really could have won seven. But you go back and look at some of those teams and those teams just wouldn't have won titles in the league that we have now. You, you couldn't have won a team, you couldn't win a title in 2003 with Duncan in his prime, but then Robinson in a back brace, super duper young Tony Parker in rumors that they're trying to get Jason Cade instead of him. Manu is not even close to Manu yet. You go through, it's like, how did that team even win the title? It was just the league was way, way, way weaker. And it just was, you know, like people from that era probably pushed back on it, but it just was like, go look at some of the teams we've had this decade. The teams are, you know, I think way

• 1:41:05Bill Simmons?

  deeper, even a team like Indiana, which was unconventional. They had real depth. Like, think about that 2012 Celtics team that was playing Michael Pietrus and Brandon Bass.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  I was gonna say Brandon Bass mid-range jumpers.

• 1:41:20Bill Simmons?

  Or, or the 2010 Celtics that was relying on Rasheed Wallace for 36 minutes in game seven of the finals. Like, nobody had depth like we have now. So I just think it's gonna be way harder.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Brandon Bass was guarding LeBron in game seven of the 2012 conference finals, like on purpose.

• 1:41:38Bill Simmons?

  I kind of like Brandon Bass. I thought, like, he's one of those guys that just, where the league went, he was one of the casualties, that kind of six foot six.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Out, out fast.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  15 foot kind of post-up game, didn't have three, yeah, he's one of those. Anyway, I could talk about this all day. Zach Lowe, you got a podcast tomorrow, you're breaking down the East.

• 1:41:59Bill Simmons?

  I didn't look, what is the Celtics over under, by the way? I'm nervous. Ooh, 43 and a half.

• 1:42:08Bill Simmons?

  Seems high.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  It's not, that's not out though. Yeah, we're gonna break down the East and we're gonna have another, JJ's coming on for Mets Corner. Mets Corner's taking off, everyone's favorite baseball segment.

• 1:42:17Bill Simmons?

  You didn't go to David Wright Day, did you?

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  No, I was, I was planning to, and then we had to change our plans. I was gonna be at the Sunday game. So it wasn't gonna be, it was David Wright Weekend. It was gonna be the end of David Wright Weekend, but I did not end up going. We have tickets, we're going to Old Timers Day on, in mid-September for sure, when they're bringing back, they're doing Team Shea versus Team Citi Field in mid-September. So hopefully the team is still in contention at that point, I'm not sure.

• 1:42:45Bill Simmons?

  All right. Thanks to Zach Lowe, thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm gonna be back on Sunday with another podcast and then we have a very fun rewatchables on, on Monday. There's rumors you might be on our rewatchables in August before you disappear.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  I, I sent you a list of, of candidates, that's, that's for sure.

• 1:43:05Bill Simmons?

  All right. Good to see you Zach Lowe.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Have fun, guys.

• 1:43:22Bill Simmons?

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• 1:44:08Bill Simmons?

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