Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Giannis to Miami! An Urgent Gathering Pod With Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier to react to Giannis Antetokounmpo getting traded to Miami.
(0:00) Intro
(1:15) Heat trade for Giannis
(13:26) Why didn’t the Giannis trade work for the Celtics?
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier
Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers
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Transcript 10,328 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:16 Bill Simmons? All right, we are recording this. It is 9:45 Pacific time. It's not an emergency podcast because this isn't an emergency. We've been waiting like 307 days for this. Justin Berry is here from The Ringer. Chris Ryan's here from The Ringer. Just got back from dinner. I don't know if it's drunk house or relatively unsober house. What version of house are you right now?
2:36 Speaker 02 I'm legally allowed to drive, but I don't know if I'm legally allowed to comment on a Giannis trade.
2:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that we've been waiting forever. All right, so Giannis going to Miami. It was Boston versus Miami for days and days and days. I thought it was gonna happen today. Then everyone was like, it's not happening. And then after I took my contacts out, gave my dog a bath, just brought my dog out of the bathtub, and then all of a sudden Giannis was traded. Berry, are you surprised? It's Miami?
3:02 Speaker 02 No, it seemed like obviously it was going to be Boston or Miami. And I always thought Miami's package just made a little bit more sense than what the Celtics were offering. I just never got just getting Jalen Brown back for a Milwaukee team that had just struggled for multiple years at this point, dealing with one superstar without the supporting cast in order to make really anything of it. And so just getting a bunch of stuff, at least to me, like, I'm not sure what that stuff really amounts to. It's more of an opportunity than a sure thing in there. But I would rather that. And I think that's ultimately where the Bucks decided to.
3:33 Bill Simmons? All right, so they see, they got Hero, Ware, Hakez. They got Hakashunus. That's how you say it, right?
3:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:40 Bill Simmons? Like him.
3:41 Speaker 02 Yakashunus.
3:42 Bill Simmons? Yakashunus. They got the 13th pick in this draft. They got 31 and 33 unprotecteds and a 30 swap. So they basically gave up everything they had except Bam Adebayo.
3:54 Bill Simmons? What do you think, CR? Because I don't know what's left. I'll tell you what's left for Miami now. Now, they could patch this together if this was the good old days. But basically, Giannis, Bam, Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Bobby Portis, they got in the trade as well. And then Norm Powell, if they can re-sign him as a free agent. And then minimum free agents, and that's their team.
4:16 Speaker 03 You know what the first thing that jumped into my mind with this trade was? Was the geek story slash quote about if somebody's gonna trade for me, I'm worried about how much they're gonna have to trade to get me and what I'm gonna be walking into when I walk into that locker room. Is Giannis on a better team now than he was yesterday?
4:35 Speaker 03 I don't think so.
4:35 Bill Simmons? I would say Bam's a better teammate. Maybe the front office is a little more motivated, but I don't think, I don't think this team's a title contender. Do you, Verrier?
4:45 Speaker 02 No, but they're definitely in the mix. And I do like how they contrast some of the other teams that have ascended in the East here. Like, the Knicks are obviously probably gonna go into next season as the presumptive favorites. And you look at them and they're more of an offensive-driven team. I know they did a lot of work in the finals in order to win that. But like, you think about Brunson, you think about the blender with them. At the very least, the Miami Heat have an identity from day one, which is they're gonna be like, pretty physical and pretty defensive-minded. I think Bam, Giannis, Andrew Wiggins is like the core, and Davion Mitchell is really the core of the type of like, grounded-out defensive team that I think fits Miami's identity for like, years on end at this point. But also, maybe something that would be a contrast to a lot of these teams that are counting on like, high-octane offenses.
5:28 Speaker 03 And this also goes like a long-
5:30 Bill Simmons? Don't ask for any shootings, CR.
5:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say, I mean, what we just saw in the playoffs was the importance of depth, you know, throughout the whole entire postseason. But I was gonna say, this is gonna test two of Miami's kind of like, big myths of self-belief that they have, which is, A, we're an attractive destination for top-tier talent to come.
5:52 Speaker 03 And, B, we trust our development so much that we can turn coal into diamonds wherever we look. And they're really gonna have to dig now because they need to find four more guys. Like, this is not, this might be a playoff team in the East, but this is not a title team.
6:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, this is not 2011. All right, so I have a two-part take. One, I think Miami had to do this. They gave up both an incredible amount, but also an amount that if I'm a Milwaukee fan, I'm like, wait, what did we get? Like, what do you tell your nine-year-old Bucks fan's son? Hey, we traded Giannis. What did we get? Well, we got all the other guys on a 43-win team that aren't Bam, and we got some picks, really starting four years from now, and we got the 13th pick in an eight- or nine-player draft. And then after that, you keep your fingers crossed. With that said, they did get a lot of stuff. And I think one of the keys, and the thing we kept hearing the last day and a half, was that Milwaukee was really split on the offers. That there was, the front office really wanted this Miami offer,
6:53 Bill Simmons? and the owners were split on, should we just get Jalen Brown? Like, we can, he's one of the 12 best guys in the league. We could either keep him, or we could flip him. Like, he's just, he's a dollar. Or we're just getting all of these quarters and dimes from Miami. And I think ultimately, this proves yet again that front offices love nothing more than trades that can keep themselves in power for a few years. This is the perfect trade if you're John Horst and his team, and you already got rid of Doc Rivers. You don't really know where you are. This Giannis thing has been paralyzing you for over a year. And now you could be like, hey, we're rebuilding. We have picks. We have stuff. We have pieces. I don't know what this is, but I know I'm not going to get fired anytime soon
7:38 Bill Simmons? because this is a mess. Whereas if you get Jalen, I think there's slightly different expectations. So do you think that's a fair assessment of that barrier?
7:47 Speaker 02 I do. I just think the die was cast when they fucked this last offseason, where like, not only did you just like, not figure anything out last year and just basically punt this down the road, but you put yourself in debt with the Dame-Wavens stretch in a way that just was going to make, putting anything else around Giannis, there were no last outs for this team in order to go through. And so, I don't know if like, what they have now is all that great, but I guess considering where they are because of that, I don't mind it. I just don't see like, because they were so in debt with the picks in addition to the Dame-Wavens stretch, like, what they were going to do with just like, one player, like with Jalen Brown or anything like that, it's just like, you were just going to be in the same sort of situation. So at the very least-
8:31 Bill Simmons? You don't think they would have flipped them? I always felt like they were acquiring him to then repackage him, was my- Whereas like, Giannis was basically like, I'm going here, here. So you had two places to send him, and that's it.
8:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, if they moved him to a Portland or like a Clippers, then it would have made more sense. But would you rather your own picks back versus Miami? I don't know, considering the flattened lottery odds, I might even lean more toward like Miami's picks. Plus just guys that I know at the very least have some like concrete value to them.
9:00 Bill Simmons? CR, tell us if you had a Bucks fan in your life, what are you telling them today?
9:05 Speaker 03 That Kalil Ware, it might, might turn into something that you're probably actually not going to be appreciably worse than you were last season. That Tyler Hero is coming home and you can start cutting together the montage now. That Hakez is a nice player.
9:17 Bill Simmons? Yes, I love Hakez.
9:19 Speaker 03 You, you needed to, uh, you needed to amputate. This was no more cutting, no more, no more little procedures. This was basically sinking the franchise. I think the, the sort of long national vigil that we have held, watching where this guy is going to go. And is he going to sign a contract was probably sucking the life out of this team. You've got a new coach who's good at coaching up players.
9:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
9:44 Speaker 03 Start from zero. Let's see what happens.
9:46 Bill Simmons? And you have the 10th and 13th picks.
9:51 Speaker 03 Um, hey, and I just want to say, I, so two things. One is that we're five minutes in, I'm not going to let you not talk about Boston much longer. So just get ready and two, 10 and 13. I wonder whether or not they're going to do something with them and try to get up.
10:06 Bill Simmons? A move up.
10:07 Speaker 03 Well, so you would, you'd been talking about this, a lot of people have been talking about this on Sunday night. You were talking about this with Zach about the people at the teams at five, where the point guards are going to start to go.
10:17 Bill Simmons? Clips.
10:18 Speaker 03 Don't need point guards.
10:19 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:19 Speaker 03 And could you, you know, could one of these guys help the Clippers? Could there be some sort of deal? I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think that that's, there feels like maybe there's another step coming. Cause if I'm the Bucks, I want to get younger. I want to start, I want to start the clock at zero.
10:35 Bill Simmons? Or there's the other version of this where they take Nate Amen at 10. And then somebody else we're not sure about at 13 and the Bucks fans are like, what happened? Um, but from the Miami side of this.
10:51 Bill Simmons? They're just in purgatory, right? They're miles behind the Knicks and the Celtics as well and the Cavs. Maybe even the Raptors and or lately going down the line. They finished 10th this year.
11:05 Speaker 02 Like, let's be real here.
11:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Yeah. So they kind of had to take the Hill Mary. There's also, you know, there's a lot of swagger in that part of the country about we're Miami. We've done this. I've always joked about the zombie heat. I think pulling off LeBron and Bosch in 2010, pulling off Shaq in 2004. The incredible one was Jimmy Butler in 2019 when they somehow convinced Portland to take Hassan Whiteside. But it started to feel like their, their luster was slipping a little, JV. Pat Riley's 80.
11:38 Speaker 02 Right.
11:38 Bill Simmons? It's like, do they still have the magic? Now they could be like, hey, we got Giannis. He was number three MVP two years ago and is one of the 25 best players of all time. And please don't look at his playoff game log for the last five years.
11:50 Speaker 02 I mean, I just think like the league is better when Miami is a villain and everything. Like practically since the late 2000s, they've been a primary character in the NBA's story. And I just think like having Pat Riley being out there, like putting the rings on the table and giving like any given Sunday style speeches at his press conference is just good for the league. It's also good to see Giannis back in a competitive environment because what has it been? Like two years, three years since he's practically been in the wilderness? If you want to loop in the years with Dame, which were just sort of mixed and muddled. Everyone was injured and like, it just, just wasn't good for a player where Bill, I don't know where you have him on your pyramid, but he has to be like one of the most prominent players in the league historically that is still active right now.
12:33 Speaker 02 To see those two things come together, I don't know what they'll be next year, but the very least they're going to matter. And I think that matters for just like fans in order to plug into this.
12:42 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I was, he's going to be motivated. He really hasn't played basketball a year. I think he has one, maybe two really, really, really elite years left. I did a bunch of stuff on my podcast, I don't know, two, three months ago about all of the historical signs that are against Giannis. Like just even averaging a 2010 after your 14th season in the league is just about as rare as it gets. Being, being really good from age 32 on, not really, really realistic. But if you're Miami, what the hell else were you going to do CR? Like this is, you had no other options and you just basically traded the all time poo poo platter. And all these picks, Pat Riley is going to be 84 when the 2030 swap is coming into play.
13:27 Bill Simmons? Do you think he cares? He's going to be excited to still be living in his house.
13:31 Speaker 03 Now that this is finally over, I would love to get multiple now they tell us notebook dumps out of this trade because I want to know who's driving this trade for Miami? Is it Riley looking for one last shot at glory? Is it Spoh being like, hey, to keep me engaged, we need to take a step up here? Is it one of the Arison's? What was the Bucks side of this? Was this Haslem driving this?
13:54 Bill Simmons? 100%. This is Haslem because he's getting the team in two years.
13:57 Speaker 03 And who came up with the like, if he doesn't sign an extension, it's over now idea instead of seeing him with Taylor as the new coach? And I want to know, Bill, I want to know what's going on? What happens next for Boston?
14:09 Bill Simmons? Wait, I thought you were going to do a one last job thing with Miami. Is this a directed by Michael Mann? One last job, we gotta get you on us.
14:18 Speaker 03 This could be go fast boats. Yeah.
14:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we've been talking to JR Smith. He might make a comeback. We could do this.
14:24 Speaker 02 He comes back from Scotland. Yeah.
15:11 Bill Simmons? 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 that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. From a Boston standpoint, this whole thing's been confusing. They made an offer two weeks ago that I don't think they changed. And I think it was Jalen Brown and a couple picks, and that was it. And I think Milwaukee, I think, said, all right, when we get close to the draft, we're going to come back and we're going to really try to figure this out. And I don't think Boston really wavered. I think they wanted a whole bunch of stuff
15:56 Bill Simmons? other than Jalen and two first-round picks. Jalen was second-team All-NBA last year. Jalen's younger than Giannis. Jalen's more durable than Giannis. And I think Boston was like, that's kind of our trade, guys. There's not, we don't really need to do this. Now, the risk for the Celtics is that this came out and Jalen was in trade rumors. And that's, that's just what's going to happen with this. You're not going to be able, if there's too many people involved on both sides for if an offer is floated out there, no matter if it was like, here is our actual offer, or here's the vicinity of the offer we're thinking. However you stage it, you're still discussing your second-best player or your first-best player, depending on how people feel about the Celtics. So my take, and I said this on pods over and over again,
16:40 Bill Simmons? I didn't think this was the trade for Boston. I didn't like it. I didn't, I thought it was too risky, and I thought there were better Jalen trades. Like, if, to me, the pivot would be looking at New Orleans, if they're going to trade Jalen and trying to get Murphy and Herb Jones, or Murphy, Jordan Poole's expiring and picks from the Pelicans, whatever version of that, or the Hawks, or I just, very, I just feel like there's better trades than this for Giannis. I don't know how Giannis and Tatum would have played together. And you're talking about, Giannis has health risks, Tatum's coming off a torn Achilles. Like, I just, I don't think this trade was a slam dunk for them. And I've said this the whole time.
17:18 Speaker 02 I know the playoffs ended poorly and I don't want to bring that back up between you guys. So we could just move along here, but I don't remember that. Okay, that's good. It's good to hear. I just don't remember coming out of that series and thinking that this was such a desperate situation in the way that Brad Stevens kind of projected it was in his postseason press conferences where he brings up the stat where it's like all 311 against the top three seeds. I'm like, okay, you also didn't have one of the best players in the league for like three quarters of the season and you never really hit a stride where you would say like everything is clicking. Derrick White was awful all year from three point land, got worse in the playoffs. Like he didn't have a good year whatsoever. A lot of these guys that they're counting on are young. And so I look back at this, I'm just like, where is the incentive to just go do and hit the button with Giannis? Now, I have
18:03 Speaker 02 to assume that Jalen Brown is just such a tax on everyone's emotional bandwidth just because of who he is and also how tough it is to build the right team around these two. It really took getting Drew and Derrick and Kristaps, these like awesome role players in order to make it work in the first place. But from a big picture POV, if you're going to do anything, I would say take a step back. Like trade Jalen for young guys like you're talking about. Like Trey Murphy has a lot still left in him. Herb Jones does and maybe picks from the Pelicans and just like bring Tatum back along slowly. So you could be like really, really good in two years. I never really understood the Giannis thing.
18:38 Speaker 03 I for one, am never going to forgive Milwaukee for rolling this grenade into the Celtics locker room. My brothers stood arm in arm. They waited for JT to come back from his Achilles in record time. And now Jimmy Haslam has destroyed that with one fell swoop. I don't know, Bill, I could never really, really totally tell whether this was Jalen Brown, like you've kind of said a couple of times, saying, I like the taste of having my own team. Let's find that for me. Or was this, was this Brad Stevens coming out and being like, hey, guess what? Basketball is different than it was 18 months ago and we can't just shoot threes all day and we need to have a different speed here and we need
19:19 Speaker 03 to have like a completely different look. And maybe that's what was driving the Giannis searching. I was curious.
19:27 Speaker 03 Bill, this Randall trade that happened concurrently with Giannis, and I don't know how related you feel like these things are, but now Minnesota opens up like this $33 million trade exception and are obviously looking to stay competitive with the Western Conference powers. Like, is that a sneaky Jalen destination possibly? Like, is there, is there more stuff to come?
19:50 Bill Simmons? Oh, I thought you were gonna say Derrick White, which I don't think would happen. Um, no, I think, I think they were delighted to get off for Randall. Um, and they got a big trade exception for it and they got the ability to, to sign Io, which they already did. So I, to me, it was just a sour thing. That was the rare trade that I kinda didn't like for all three teams. Like, I just don't like Nick Claxton that much. I'm not, the Bulls had max cap space and it's, they used 20 plus million of it on Nick Claxton. And for Brooklyn, like, okay, Julius Randall maybe prevents you from being one of the three worst teams. And now you're locking in three lottery balls instead of two. Congratulations. Um, I didn't know, Barry, if they were just gonna get everybody who didn't get a ring with the Knicks
20:34 Bill Simmons? the last five years and just slowly get all those guys and put them in Brooklyn.
20:38 Speaker 03 Everybody that Mom Donny shouted out at the parade.
20:41 Bill Simmons? DDB, they get him back. I don't know who else was on the, Jeremy Lin, maybe get him out of retirement. Who else could they get?
20:48 Speaker 02 I have to imagine that they were the Trey Young suitor that forced the Wizards into giving him just basically a max from an outside team. And so like, if you had Trey Young and Julius Randall, were they just trying to build like the biggest villain possible for the Knicks? Cause they knew that like, they were never gonna get anyone in that building whatsoever.
21:03 Bill Simmons? Right.
21:04 Speaker 02 Um, I'll be honest, I know this is like my cross the bear here, but I, I don't hate the Nick Claxton move for the Bulls. I just think if you're, if you're just building like a fun young team that's like gonna get out and run, like, I actually think Nick Claxton is like pretty good for that system. He might weigh 150 pounds soaking wet. And, and like, he's been like two years away for like seven years at this point. But I actually think he fits at the very least what they have and like is young enough to build with the young team. So.
21:31 Bill Simmons? When you said that was the factor for the Trey Young extension, I think the other possibility is, um, mushrooms.
21:40 Bill Simmons? Like, if you had told me they, he opted out and they gave him a two-year deal at max, I would have been like, I don't know. That's pretty risky. And instead, they basically did four. I thought that was dumbfounding. I don't know who they're competing against. I thought that was really weird. So with the Celtics, um, I just think they felt like Jalen was a good enough offer.
22:03 Bill Simmons? And that's it. We're not throwing in more stuff. We don't care that Miami is desperate. We're not. And, uh, you know, whether it was Hugo, whether it was Shireman, whether it was more than the 27th pick and an extra pick, I don't know what the ultimate final offer was, but, um, or we have to take Kuzma back. I don't think they want to do any of that stuff. I, I think they like their team and the Jalen PCR.
22:29 Bill Simmons? You know, it's nothing major. I can't, there's no smoking gun with this. I can't really point to one specific thing, but I think it's just a bunch of small things that seem like they've added up. You know, doing the twitch every day, starting, starting shit with Stephen A. Smith, talking about how last year was the best year of his career. Um, some of that Jalen, Jason, whose team is this stuff? Maybe they wanted to, maybe this was the easiest way to avoid it. It's the, see, it's honestly the reason I haven't let you host the rewatchables for six months because I don't want to come back and then you're just kind of side eyeing me the whole time and being like, I don't know.
23:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:07 Bill Simmons? Pod ran better when I was running this thing.
23:09 Speaker 03 My favorite pods I've ever done is when I did Blade Runner without Bill.
23:14 Bill Simmons? So I don't know. Did you guys hear that Blade Runner pod? But there, I, I, I personally do not think they would have entertained this at the end of the season. I think something definitely shifted as we went along and, you know, I just think, I, I'm not convinced he's going to be on the team in October, Bear. I would say it's 50 50.
23:35 Speaker 02 I mean, especially considering that they've been down this road with him, what like 17 times where they've almost traded him. Like I was talking to someone earlier today, like remember the time where they almost traded him for Anthony Davis on the Pelicans? Like, we're talking about Trey Murphy now, where it's like the Kyrie no rules rule thing. Like that was like 10 years ago. And he was always so hard headed that I think he was the type of person you didn't want to get into this situation. But now it's just compounded time and time and again. And after he has this great year, you're doing it again. It seems pretty unsolvable at this point. I think the good thing, I think you're right about like standing with the offer that they gave the Bucks where it's just like take Jalen and like some picks and that's it. Because Jalen is still really good. The problem is he's probably best suited for a really good team, but not like a championship contending
24:20 Speaker 02 team. He's probably best suited for where he is now as a 1B on a really good team. But there's just so many of these other teams like that. The Blazers, for instance, my hometown team here, like he would fit really well there. And the Clippers, the Hawks. And so
24:33 Bill Simmons? Pelicans, yeah, there's four good ones.
24:36 Speaker 02 They could still get a lot for him, but I do wonder if the Celtics, I'm curious what you think about this, would be willing to take a step back after being so pronounced about taking a step forward here and actually prioritize picks or just young players so you can retool rather than just like push the button, let's win tomorrow.
24:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Tatum's, I think, could be 28 next year. Chisholm just bought the team. So new owner not really being like, hey, let's take our time. Like he wants to be good. He wants they they lost in seven games to a Philly team that immediately the tires, the tires came flying off the car.
25:09 Speaker 02 We came up against a team of destiny, Bill, couldn't do anything about that.
25:13 Bill Simmons? It's too bad.
25:14 Speaker 02 The financial doping of James Dolan and the Brunson mafia.
25:18 Bill Simmons? See, if they had just benched Embiid in that first game, you couldn't have come back.
25:22 Speaker 02 Sure.
25:22 Bill Simmons? They just listened to you. You said it that day.
25:25 Speaker 02 I know.
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26:11 Bill Simmons? Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. So from a Celtic standpoint, there's lots of ways this could go. There's also the way it could go where they just bring them back. They have a 27 million trade exception. They have a bunch of their picks. They have some moves to make. But it's a bizarre situation. I will say with the Boston fans in my life, and even Boston fans online, wherever, wherever you want to look where Celtic fans were, I don't think anybody was like, we gotta get Giannis. Holy shit, he's available. I think they were real concerns, and I think there's real love for the Jays in the last 10 years. Like Jalen, they drafted him 10 years ago, I think tomorrow.
26:57 Bill Simmons? They won a title with the guy. He's been in six conference finals. I was looking at one stat.
27:03 Bill Simmons? I was looking, because I honestly thought, there was a point today where I really thought that he was gonna get traded. There's only 11 guys ever who have played 125 playoff games and averaged 19 a game. And the other guys are LeBron, Duncan, Kawhi, Wade, Magic, Larry, Kobe, Tatum, Worthy, and Klay Thompson. Like, he's had a pretty great career, you know? And I still feel like he's getting better. I thought last year was the best he's ever looked. So if you're the Celts, like, hey, Tatum's gonna be healthy. We've won with these guys. Maybe we have to tweak our style a little bit, but I don't think this is a disaster.
27:44 Bill Simmons? Now, the question is, does Jalen do a six-hour Twitch stream tomorrow, CR?
27:49 Speaker 03 Right.
27:49 Bill Simmons? And what, how does he handle the next 48 hours?
27:52 Speaker 03 I think we find out, we find out in the next 48 hours whether this was gonna be, you might get traded for Giannis, but you are getting traded, or whether it was, we might walk the dog here with you and Giannis, but that doesn't mean we don't believe in you. There's something kind of weird about the fact that they withstood six, seven years of can these two guys play together and win together, win a title? And then... And now we're going to trade you guys after we've established ourselves as a powerhouse in the East. And I do think that there's a little bit too much, um, let's tear up all the plans that we made over the years going on right now because nobody knows how to like counteract the newly emergent powers in the NBA. And it's just like Boston's really
28:36 Speaker 03 good. They're going to be really good next year if they run back the same team. They can do some tactical tweaks that will easily get them into the mix here. But I feel like Zach tried to kind of shoot you a little bail on Sunday night and he was like, you know, only sources are saying this. Like, I don't know. What if Jalen's not even in this trade? And you're like, Jalen's in the trade. So obviously, there's like, there's some truth to the matter that Boston's offered him.
29:00 Bill Simmons? That was reported all over the place this morning, too.
29:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, so.
29:02 Bill Simmons? I was saying it for.
29:04 Speaker 03 At this point, at this point, I'm just saying, it seems like he's done in Boston to me. But, you know, stranger things have happened.
29:13 Bill Simmons? Or very, or maybe this was their way of like, maybe like a scared straight type thing. Remember that show in the, in the, what was that, in the 70s or 80s?
29:21 Speaker 03 See what it would have been like if you had gone to Milwaukee?
29:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah, see?
29:25 Speaker 03 You could have been in Milwaukee, that would have sucked. How's this looking?
29:29 Speaker 02 Listen, Bill, like you, I'm a bit of a hot-blooded, mostly Italian person. I feel like there are times where I've probably held a grudge a little bit too long, but like, I've had to get over it, right? I just feel like at a certain point, like, maybe this is his best recourse because like, is he really better off going to a lesser team and just like having his way? Because all the teams that we mentioned, aside from maybe the Pelicans, are going to have similar issues. They're not going to be a Jalen, Jason Tatum type, where he's making all NBA teams and all this other stuff. It's more of a Jalen Johnson or a Denny Avdia, or like, we'll see if Kawhi or Darius Garland would be there with the Clippers. But like, he's still going to have to get along with guys. Like, the league is just too talent deep at this point, where you don't just get your team like it
30:12 Speaker 02 was 10 to 15 years ago. And like, there are no issues there. You're just the guy and we'll play through you, you get 30 game, like Jerry Stackhouse, and you go to your All-Stars and that's that. Like, the league just doesn't exist that way. So I think it's best for both parties to figure this out. I just don't. Know if it's like, if for him, it's just unsalvageable.
30:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's like, on one hand, I completely agree with Justin that this just seems like it's like three conversations and they could all be taking pictures together on Instagram in a couple of days. On the other hand, we have seen with Kyrie Irving, with Kevin Durant, like, we have seen situations where it's like, so you had Valhalla and you walked away from it multiple times. What happened there? And I just think, especially once a guy wins a ring, it's kind of like, where are you happiest? More than where do I have the best chance to win a championship?
30:59 Bill Simmons? And what's his incentive as a basketball player heading into the 11th year of his career? He already won a title. This is ironically the Pat Riley disease of more, which the Knicks are going to have to deal with now too. When you sacrifice and you're unselfish and you have a common team goal and then you have to start thinking, all right, I'm ready for some shine. So when Jalen said that was his favorite year of his career last year, and then he tried to backtrack a little and was like, no, I was meant because everyone counted us out. We had all this adversity and but.
31:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:27 Bill Simmons? I think a huge part of that was he finally got his shine as a real guy.
31:31 Speaker 03 You say some things you don't mean sometimes.
31:34 Bill Simmons? But I'm sure he loved it.
31:35 Speaker 02 Get to the segment.
31:36 Bill Simmons? I'm sure he loved to prove that you can still be a really good team if I'm your best player. Right? They went, they went 56 and 23 after going 0-3 to start the year.
31:47 Bill Simmons? So he, he proved it. We'll see what else he wants to prove. I think, I think he's a really good player. I had him second team all NBA. I think I voted for him in Ringer. Where did he end up in Ringer 100? Like 13, 14th range, somewhere in there?
32:01 Speaker 02 I think he was 12th or 13th behind Cat, but above Tatum.
32:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I had him right around there and he's still in his prime. I mean, he looked as athletic as he ever was going to look last year. It's interesting though. So I was talking to my daughter who's been living in Boston the last three plus years and has really become a Celtic fan because she's gone to a lot of games. And she's like Zach with the draft, like she's just dangerous enough with basketball opinions now because she's gone to these games. She doesn't know a lot about trades, like the Celtics have made smaller trades, but never like a big trade with one of their dudes. And she was asking me about this Miami versus Boston for Yanis thing and she's like, I don't understand. So Miami's not going to put Bam in the trade, but we are going to put Jalen in the trade, but they might not take Jalen in the trade.
32:50 Bill Simmons? I don't understand trades. And I was like, well, Miami's going to put all of this other stuff, but it won't be Bam. And she was just like, I know, but I saw the Heat last year. Like, that kind of sucked. Like, how do you get Giannis for that? And I was like, honestly, I don't know.
33:06 Speaker 02 Was she not available for tonight's podcast?
33:08 Bill Simmons? I think she was asleep. But
33:10 Speaker 02 You guys talked about the second apron after that.
33:13 Bill Simmons? I was like, you know, flexibility and picks. But it is funny to think in that context that Miami was like, no, no, we can't put Bam in it. And meanwhile, Jalen made second team WNBA last year, and Bam didn't make any team, right? And Bam was in the Ringer 100. He was in the 20s. He means more to Miami. He's a big part of the city and the community. And, you know, I know they love him. They've been to finals with him. But it was just interesting that he couldn't be included in this. But now that now you made the key point earlier, they can at least build an identity around those two guys and a year of Wiggins and Mitchell. And we're just going to be a bitch to play with. We're going to have good, we're not going to shoot that well, but it's going to be really hard to score against us. We're in ugly games up. And you have to hope Giannis
33:56 Bill Simmons? just has one of those 30, 12, 30, 12 and 5, play 70 games. It's conceivable.
34:01 Speaker 02 That Miami doctors fix him up?
34:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's in Miami. A lot of, a lot of magical things have happened in Miami. A lot of rejuvenations.
34:10 Speaker 02 I mean, I would have to be concerned if they don't get the depth that they need in order to support him. That like not, it wasn't just this past season where there were a ton of soft tissue injuries, specifically because it seemed like he was playing too hard and they were overloading him too much by playing through him, right? But it's like now a track record of multiple years. And we're saying like, all these superstars across the league are getting these injuries in part because there's too much torque on their body, considering the way the game is played right now. And so like, it really is incumbent upon the Heat to figure the rest of this out. The one good thing that he have going for them is that even though they don't have the picks, they find these guys all the time. The Drew Smiths, like how many guys are across the league at this point? The Gabe Vinsons, where they, Max Streus is like, they just make these guys out of nothing. But
34:54 Speaker 02 they do have to do that on the fly because they need to fill like, three roster spots at this point?
34:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And I think in 2027,
35:03 Bill Simmons? That's a harder task than it was 15 years ago because the league is so fucking deep now. Like, everybody goes nine, 10, 11 deep. Look at the guys that were coming off the Knicks bench who were barely playing. We're talking about, I always talk about the 2012 East Finals when the Celtics almost made the finals and they had Mikel Pietrus and Brandon Bass and Greg Steamsma. Like, we had dudes that would not play for NBA teams now that were playing 30, 35 minutes. So I think it's a harder task here.
35:33 Speaker 03 Do you think that there is, is there another step to all of this? Whether it's, you know, whether it's a completely separate thing from Jalen and Giannis, but that these were dominos that had to fall first to make them happen? Does Miami even have anything in the cupboard to get anything else going in the next couple of?
35:51 Bill Simmons? They have the Wiggins. The Wiggins is 30, right?
35:55 Speaker 02 Right.
35:57 Bill Simmons? That's right. There's a Ja Morant Hail Mary sitting there.
36:01 Speaker 03 Oh, now I'm interested. The drinks just kicked in. Are you serious?
36:08 Bill Simmons? There's a lot of South Beach places rooting for that scenario. But, yeah, I mean, look, I don't know what the Ja Morant suitors are. Can you, is there one barrier? Is there one suitor? Like, if the Kings take Acuff, the Kings are out as a Ja suitor. I don't even know who else we would say. Washington is a trade.
36:27 Speaker 02 Is McCabi Tel Aviv like an option?
36:29 Bill Simmons? It would be NBA teams.
36:31 Speaker 03 Sparta Prague is getting it.
36:34 Speaker 02 I think if he were to get let go, then certainly I think teams would be interested. But, yeah, he just makes a shit ton of money. So even getting him in the building would take a lot in terms of assets, even if you wanted to cobble together the contracts. And they just gave up like half of the roster. So I don't know how they even get.
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38:12 Speaker 02 To that point.
38:13 Bill Simmons? I have some FanDuel news. The Miami Heat are now fifth with title odds.
38:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:20 Bill Simmons? 20 to 1. We have.
38:22 Speaker 02 In the East?
38:23 Bill Simmons? Everywhere. OKC plus 250.
38:25 Speaker 02 Do they know something we don't?
38:27 Bill Simmons? OKC, San Antonio's plus 260, Celtics 6 to 1, Knicks plus 750. The Knicks having worse odds than the Celtics is, I don't know what to say about that. And then Miami's 20 to 1 and Denver's 22 to 1, Detroit's 25 to 1, and the Lakers are 30 to 1. So Vegas likey.
38:47 Speaker 02 Detroit is low there.
38:49 Speaker 03 That's really low for Detroit.
38:51 Speaker 02 I guess the thing with the Knicks is just like, they do have a lot to recreate their bench on the fly here because they're so top-heavy, they'll probably lose Mitchell Robinson. It still feels like a pretty extreme overreaction, but like, yeah, Detroit is out there. I know that like it ended very poorly and you can't, you couldn't be bullish based off of Jalen Durin and everything that happened there outside of Cade looking good when he wasn't turning the ball over six times a game. But like, they just have so many raw resources in order to figure things out. And it does feel like, for instance, if they wanted to spin off Hero from Milwaukee, like, I think he makes a lot of. Sense there like he's got the on ball juice. He could play without Cade. He could shoot and space the floor with him like that seems like a natural next move if if Milwaukee doesn't want to keep him around for Milwaukee beer night or wherever they're keeping him for.
39:35 Speaker 03 I gotta say also, and I've been saying this probably at this time of year, every year for 12 years, the East is getting better. So I don't know how this is not going to be Miami gets to cakewalk two out of three games a week like Indiana is going to come back stronger.
39:49 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah.
39:50 Speaker 03 Philly will be Philly. Sean Sweeney in Orlando, maybe kicking.
39:54 Bill Simmons? Wait, can we go back to Philly being Philly? What does that mean, CR?
39:56 Speaker 03 It just means Philly is Philly. It's kind of, uh, I saw inside of a fortune cookie once.
40:04 Bill Simmons? They're just like one of those UFC fighters that could get knocked out or knock anyone out every day.
40:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. But Indy, Orlando, Cleveland and Detroit and Toronto are all like, these teams are all better than Miami. So it's not going to be like, I don't see Miami slingshoting ahead short of a Yanis superpower season.
40:27 Bill Simmons? Right. And we saw even with the Bucks where again, Yanis was third MVP a couple of years ago, but it's not like they were a 60 win team, right? I just think it's harder for one guy to have that kind of impact anymore. Again, I think Miami should have done this. I'm okay with it. So what'd you guys think of my tweet today? When I said I would be absolutely shocked if Hugo was, was or is thrown into any honest trade offer? The entire organization is all in on him. Stevens probably the most. They could not be hiring him. I genuinely don't believe he's involved. Guess we'll see. Well, I was right. He wasn't involved.
40:59 Speaker 03 Only way you could have improved that tweet is if you had finished it the way Trump finishes his where he's like, thank you for your attention on this matter.
41:09 Bill Simmons? Should I put that on true social?
41:12 Speaker 02 Yeah. Would you have been more upset if they let go of Hugo if only because Brown was the assumed price for this? If they went above just Brown and picks and got rid of Hugo?
41:22 Bill Simmons? I think, yeah, I thought one of the reasons they were even entertaining this is because they felt like they had guys that they could patch together the Jalen minutes with and be like. Not as good as Jalen, obviously, but okay. Like Shireman and Hugo and then Tatum coming back, playing 38 minutes. And then you have Giannis grabbing a bunch of minutes. I think they did the math. It didn't make sense to me that Hugo or Shireman would have been in the trade if you're trying to win a title. You know, because that's a pretty big hole to just remove Jalen out of that and his 36, 37 minutes a game. I know they love Hugo and I never believed that the, I just will never believe that he was in the offer. I don't, I think they value him, whether it's right or wrong. We've seen teams, we've made jokes about this over the years.
42:07 Bill Simmons? There was, I think my favorite one was Roddy Bubois on Dallas. When he was just untouchable.
42:13 Speaker 02 Yeah. For so many years. About Roddy Bubois.
42:15 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's like Behringer on, on the Wolves now.
42:19 Bill Simmons? He's a good one.
42:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:20 Bill Simmons? But there is, not to compare this to the Rondo KG situation, but I'm about to. When they traded for KG, they made Rondo untouchable. And they just wouldn't discuss him as part of that deal. And Rondo, at that point, he had played garbage time for like a 17 win team. And, you know, I really liked him. The real Celtic fans who watch the teams were like, that guy, I hope he's not in the KG deal. That guy's good. I felt the same way about Hugo. I just think he's 20 years old. I think he's an asset. And I think Shireman is another one who's an asset. So we'll see what they do. I still feel like, um, my guess is this isn't over, CR.
42:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's what I figured.
43:00 Bill Simmons? I feel like either it's not over or something dramatic is going to happen where we'll read like, Brad Stevens and Joe Missoula met with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum for seven hours at, at the Seaport, some restaurant there. And they were in a back room.
43:17 Speaker 03 Four times.
43:18 Bill Simmons? The town over and over again. And then.
43:20 Speaker 02 Jiu Jitsu flipping him.
43:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:22 Bill Simmons? Then Missoula took them for a ride through the North End, through the getaway for Doug and those guys. And yeah, it's going to have to be something like that to flip it.
43:30 Speaker 03 I don't think he's going to play for the Celtics again. And I just, I'm just basing that entirely off of how much Brad Stevens seemed unhappy with the state of how they were playing. And I don't know how you radically reimagine that team without breaking those guys up.
43:44 Bill Simmons? What do you think, Vera?
43:46 Speaker 02 The odds are on that. I just hope that like cooler heads prevail here because I just think it's in both of their sides benefit in order to make this work. I just don't know how either makes out better if winning is the ultimate goal for both sides in order for them not to still be together. They just won the title two years ago. Like we're not that far removed from that. And they did such a good job of replacing like key components to this team on the fly. We just talked about Miami like being able to like conjure up bench guys out of nowhere. You just mentioned Hugo. Like, I don't know if you've seen the story about Amari Williams. Apparently is like two inches bigger.
44:20 Bill Simmons? Did you see this CR? No, I missed this one. Yeah. He grew three inches. He's seven foot two. Our backup center. He grew three inches.
44:28 Speaker 03 The Wemby killer has arrived?
44:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's here. Congratulations. He's ready to destroy Wemby.
44:34 Speaker 02 This team just has so much going for them. It just seems like it is more just on the personal level in order to figure it out.
44:40 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And with that 27th pick, it's interesting. There are some, some guards that could drop. And the thing that this team wants Simons, they didn't have him. The one thing they were missing was some sort of guard that could create, maybe they could find that with the trade exception or whatever. What's your team gonna do CR? What's gonna happen there?
44:59 Speaker 03 It's really weird. I don't know. I don't know where we are. I mean, Gansey, I think is trying to come up with an identity for the team. That's his big key word is that we have to have like a style of play. And to be honest, like, I kind of got tantalized by that a little bit because that's one thing that like, we haven't really had. It's all been like, it'd be, it'd be availability dependent. And so, coming up with some sort of coherent philosophy of how you want the Sixers to play would be great. A great starting point, but I have no feel for what we're gonna do, or even if we can do anything.
45:30 Bill Simmons? How about El Chepo in Portland? What do we got?
45:33 Speaker 03 The cup. He's raised the cup, Bill. Come on.
45:36 Bill Simmons? NHL champion Tom Dundon. What's he got for us?
45:39 Speaker 02 I think he's just finding out creative ways to get me and all the other taxpayers to pay for his fucking stadium renovations. I can't believe it. It's just so.
45:47 Speaker 03 I was wondering if you might zag and go pro Dundon because I've been, I've been kind of workshopping a couple of them with Bill where I'm just like, we sure we needed that many photographers? You know?
45:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I do like this. How many assistant coaches do we need? Yeah, he's just zagging all over the place.
46:01 Speaker 02 I can't, I can't think of a single person who, within days of getting a team, or just going to a new team, if you're a player or coach, executive, has just been so universally reviled and just like everyone is out on him. I think the one good thing is it seems like he does have an itchy trigger finger, and I would be surprised if they went through this entire offseason and didn't do something splashy, because he just wants to get his name on it.
46:25 Speaker 03 He seemed like a real, I was almost surprised this morning when I woke up, and by the way, I'm not a big fan of what Dundon is doing, but like it did seem like he would have been the kind of guy who would hire Dusty May. Like they're, they're like, I was
46:39 Speaker 02 For half the price.
46:40 Speaker 03 Surprised and impressed that Dallas did that. It really does feel like, like Dumont has like completely stepped away from that team. And he's just like, let's redo this. But I was, I was, I was like, oh, I wonder if this is the kind of guy who's going to start getting hired by these new owners.
46:57 Bill Simmons? Wait, any predictions for tomorrow on the draft, Eric, before we go?
47:03 Speaker 02 Nothing out of the ordinary. I would like to see, I've talked myself into Boozer going too, although that sounds like it's cooling a little bit.
47:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah, even I've cooled on it.
47:12 Speaker 02 Okay, just in terms of the fit, though, I, I think it would make a little more sense, because I don't know, like Peterson and George just doesn't really mesh as well, I think, considering that Boozer seems like the type of player who connects disparate parts of your team. The Jazz just have so many different guys in order to stir, and he needs someone to stir the drink there. I also, maybe I'm just riding the fumes of the Knicks title, but I'm thinking like George as the small guard surrounded by a ton of size, like just might work, and it seems like they have this sort of synergy to do it. But yeah, Peterson's going to go to there. It's a little disappointing.
47:45 Bill Simmons? I was texting Verno about this today. I would take Boozer too. Verno's a little scared of Peterson at three, which I know he's talked about on his show. Just because they've lived through this kind of uncertainty with the team they have for so long. And now you have this guy who was basically 15 minutes before Kansas games being like, yeah, I'm not going to play. And they had that weird creatine thing. There's some red flags. Now, he's been doing interviews heading into the draft where people have been pretty impressed. So who knows? I don't know.
48:15 Speaker 03 Just want to let you know, Bill, Darren Peterson, I think, if not today, recently said that his top, top three movies are The Fugitive, Interstellar, and The Negotiator.
48:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he caught my attention, CR.
48:26 Speaker 03 If the NBA doesn't work out, there's a third chair on the rewatchables. Get more.
48:30 Speaker 02 It's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, these guys usually just say like Air Bud or like Gladiator.
48:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they could have thrown in the town as his fourth one.
48:41 Bill Simmons? But I'm going live after the draft, after probably like around the Boston pick tomorrow for the draft. But the big questions for me, the Utah pick, what do the Clippers do at five? I still haven't heard anybody feeling awesome about any of the directions. And then I think the draft just gets weird around eight. And now you have the Michigan coach at nine, and all three of his Michigan guys are going to be on the board.
49:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, and they were all on Instagram like, love your coach.
49:07 Bill Simmons? Right here. And, you know, as, as a huge Steph Curry fan, I'm hoping somebody falls to the Warriors at 11, so they can have one last run. It would be amazing if Burry's, you know, was somehow able to fall to them at 11 because two teams did something weird. And then Milwaukee at 10, now that they have 13, could they take off, you know, get a little frisky at 10 because they know they have another pick coming? I think this is a really good draft. I'm excited for it. And there's going to be some guards that fought. What pick? Do you have a pick or no, CR?
49:35 Speaker 03 Uh, I think we're 22.
49:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I mean, you're in the 20s. There's going to be good stuff. Portland does not have a pick, right?
49:45 Speaker 02 No, they conceded the pick because I think of the the trade with Chicago a few years ago. So we got Young to look forward to because unfortunately, he's still basically a rookie and he didn't play last year.
49:57 Bill Simmons? Right. Yeah, you gotta boost up his Chinese appeal. All right. Well, I think we covered everything unless you want to take some shots at the Miami media. See, I don't know if you.
50:06 Speaker 03 No, I wish those guys the best.
50:09 Bill Simmons? And peace and love to those guys. You guys have been a class act all this whole time.
50:14 Speaker 03 I'm sure in one year when Yanis does an exclusive, you know, anonymous sourced piece about how he's looking to get out of Miami, we could start this all up again.
50:25 Bill Simmons? Now, did the brothers come? I guess we didn't cover that part either. I guess they have to be there, right?
50:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:30 Speaker 02 Certainly, yeah.
50:31 Bill Simmons? But Pat Riley is famously not a, hey, we're not like other teams. You're going to fit into our culture kind of guy. That's the kind of why Jimmy Butler, one of the reasons that I've fallen apart. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if the brothers come. All right. Barry or CR, thanks for joining me. This wasn't an emergency pod because we've been waiting for this trip for 13 months. It was, what do we call it?
50:50 Speaker 03 Emergency timed. Yeah.
50:52 Bill Simmons? I wouldn't call it emergency, but what would we call it?
50:54 Speaker 03 Urgent.
50:56 Bill Simmons? Urgency, urgency gathering?
50:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, urgent care, an urgent care pod.
51:00 Bill Simmons? Urgent care pod. Thanks. Thanks to Chris and Gahan Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back right after the draft. We'll be live on Netflix tomorrow night, probably around like the Boston pick range around eight o'clock. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.
51:33 Bill Simmons? Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling. Help line MA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY, or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller
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Previous The Giannis Never-Trade and a Mega-Mailbag With Zach Lowe, Plus Wyndham Clark’s Second U.S. Open Title With Joe House Next 2026 NBA Draft Winners and Losers With Joe House and J. Kyle Mann Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated