Why Can’t the NBA Actually Fix the NBA? Plus, Super Bowl Hangover Stuff With Nick Wright and Bill’s Dad.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Nick Wright to compare the Super Bowl runs of the Chiefs and the Pats before breaking down what happened with Drake Maye in Super Bowl LX (3:12). Then, they discuss how they would fix the NBA All-Star Weekend, the problem with tanking, and much more (36:29). Finally, Bill cracks open a Michelob Ultra six-pack and answers six questions to reflect on the season before Bill’s dad joins to catch up on the Celtics and the Pats (01:28:42). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Nick Wright and Bill’s dad Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Head to https://www.pepsi.com/where-to-buy The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says The Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that The LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide.

• 0:41Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new Rewatchables episode that went up Monday night. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. We had not done a lot of Jim Carrey on the Rewatchables, which is my fault, but we're starting to gain steam. We did Truman Show, now Ace Ventura. It was me and Craig Horlbeck and Zach Lowe in his first ever Rewatchables appearance. Oh yeah, very fun episode. The next episode that we're doing next Monday is a movie that's also on Netflix. They have all the Bond movies and we're doing Gold Dye, which was Pierce Brosnan's first Bond movie. And there's a great story behind it. It's actually an awesome movie and you have six days to watch it. So there you go.

• 1:26Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of Rewatchables, I am going to be in LA. That's where I live, but we're also doing a live show at the Wiltern tomorrow night. And for everybody that's going to that, just prep on heat would be my advice. The BS Podcast Live, Wiltern, 8 o'clock LA. Prep on heat for the people going. Obviously, everyone is not going. I'm sorry you can't go, but we will be, we will be running it on this feed. So there you go. Coming up on this podcast, Nick Wright.

• 1:55Bill Simmons?

  He's coming back. The Patriots got smacked in the Super Bowl. I'm gonna let him, listen, I talked a lot of smack during the season and everybody gets their turn now and they can smack back at me, but we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of general sports stuff, Super Bowl, NBA, Winter Olympics, and then I have a little, little Michelob Ultra six-pack that I'm gonna do, a little mini NBA mailbag. And then, my dad demanded to come on. He's, he thinks that I'm banning it from the podcast because we're also showing it on Netflix, it's on Spotify as well. It's on, you can find that on every platform, but it's also now on Netflix. And he didn't think I wanted him to come on anymore. He's very, very, very upset about the Patriots loss. So we're gonna talk about that and some Boston sports stuff. So that's the podcast. We're gonna

• 2:37Bill Simmons?

  take a break, bring in Pearl Jam, and then Nick Wright. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The football season may be coming to an end, but things are only getting started on the court, on the hardwood, on the wood, as some people call it. FanDuel, the number one choice for same-game parlays, live betting, and much more during the NBA season. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21-plus and present in select states, or 18-plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, or visit rg-help.com, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:48Bill Simmons?

  All right, Nick Wright is here. You can see my first things first. And like me, on Sunday night a year ago, you watched your team just get eviscerated during a Super Bowl. And then your team, you were never the same. I think you went 6 and 11 and your quarterback blew at his knee and it was bad and it was in the dynasty. And here comes the Patriots, our new dynasty. And then they get annihilated in the Super Bowl. And now we're dynasty-less in the AFC.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Well, all right. So a few things as you just come out swinging. Um, you're of the erroneous belief.

• 4:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  That I, that the Patriots had one dynasty of 01 to 18. That's your belief, correct? That it wasn't 01 to 04, then the 05 to 13, good but not good enough with the undefeated season.

• 4:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  And then 14 to 18. Like, I think you, like, do you, because if you think the Patriots had two separate dynasties, then I will fold my hand, the Chiefs dynasty ended this year. But if you think it's one continuous run, then we're still alive, baby. We can, we could not win a Super Bowl for five years, eight years, like you guys, and still be alive. So I, what are the table stakes here on dynasty rules?

• 5:07Bill Simmons?

  First of all, we went 10 years.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. You went 10 years with a couple really horrifying, embarrassing, ugly, Super Bowl defeats. Like, worse than getting blown out, losing heartbreakers to the bad Manning brother. Like, it's hard to get over those types of things. Blowouts, it's just like, oh, it's too much.

• 5:24Bill Simmons?

  So, when during the Super Bowl, somebody put a montage of all the times they almost picked off Eli Manning during the first Giants Super Bowl, and it was over two minutes. It was over two minutes of balls hitting our hand, fumbles, that we had the fumble and then somehow the guy rolled over and didn't have it. I got mad all over again. Yeah, we went 10 years and it got to the point that when, when Curse made that catch, Jermaine Curse and the Seahawks.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  You thought you were dead.

• 5:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, no, at that point, it's like... Spygate has cursed us. I remember like walking through the emotions for two minutes there of like, there's something sinister happening now. David Tyree, Myron Manningham, um, all the weird shit that went on. Now we're gonna lose on this freaking curse catch and then it flips with Malcolm Butler.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  And, and so the Patriots run is so special for a hundred different reasons, but it's also so interesting because it feels like, man, play five of those games, two plays different. And do you guys have 10 rings? And then also take five plays to, uh, five games, five plays different. Do you guys, if the Malcolm Butler pass play doesn't happen, do you have the emotional gravitas for 28 to three? Or is the run over there? You know what I mean? Like, I do think that the Seahawks comeback, which is an underrated comeback, down 10 in the fourth quarter against that defense.

• 6:54Bill Simmons?

  Two good drives, two good stops.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Right. Was the precursor to the belief, we can do it in 16. Um, with so the, I, but we're now.

• 7:06Bill Simmons?

  No, no, hold on. This is an important point though, because I do think when you're in the mix year after year, you're gonna have some either or Super Bowls, some ones you definitely should have won, and then the lucky ones. And somehow that evens out. So the Brady Belichick, they, I think they finished six and three. Rams was a 50 50 game, but they really had the game. And they're doing the interception touchdown, which gets called back, which flips it. Panthers should have been a win. Eagles should have been a win. Um, first Giants game, they came back. We're down 14 10. We do the drive with two minutes left, but then we can't stop them. That was a 50 50 game. So is the next Giants game. Seahawks game, we should have lost.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Should have lost.

• 7:47Bill Simmons?

  That's a should have lost.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  You should have lost.

• 7:49Bill Simmons?

  Falcons should have lost.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You should have lost. And the last Rams game.

• 7:53Bill Simmons?

  No, we should have won that one.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Should have won that easier than you did.

• 7:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, what about the Eagles game? Where does that stand? Because we, Brady threw for over 500 yards. And they somehow lost to, so Nick Foles and Doug Peterson beat Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. It's the one that doesn't add up out of all of those.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Especially because Brady was so great.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  It feels like an arrogance tax and I, and I, the arrogance on Belichick with the Malcolm Butler weird thing.

• 8:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  That there is just no, I understand, listen, Foles to his credit was unreal in the conference championship game. The week before, he was great that week, but there's no way whatsoever where Tom Brady could have the game he had. And you lose. And so that, that feels like maybe the oddest result. Of the last 20 years in the NFL. Can I, the either or thing on the Chiefs side is interesting. Because we've had no either or Super Bowls go against us.

• 8:57Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  We've had three close Super Bowl wins and two teeth kicked in Super Bowl losses. Our either or games were conference championship losses. But I, you know, can I silver lining those?

• 9:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, yeah, the deep forward game, that was a classic either or.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  A classic either or that to this day. Part of me is like, damn it. You win that game. Brady's on five rings, not six with the Pats. Mahomes can get that one. He's beat them. But galaxy brain here. If they win that game, they don't, and they make the Super Bowl, Mahomes' first year. They don't fire the D coordinator, Bob Sutton. And who then, they then brought in Spags, which trend, which allowed, transformed an undermanned defense early. So if they win that game, I don't know if they win the next year. I don't know if they have the defensive personnel. Cause that defense was so bad in 18. The other either or game we lost.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  AFC title game to the Bengals when Mahomes got concussed and nobody, you know.

• 10:02Bill Simmons?

  We still haven't admitted he got concussed. Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Right. It's down 20, up 21 to three. They blow it. That's a, that's like, oh my God, left a Super Bowl on the table. But again, the butterfly effect of that was that led to the Tyreek trade, which led to the next two Super Bowls.

• 10:21Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  It led to the, and so the, the Chiefs either or moments have come around before the Super Bowl. But this was that you were, so I told Wilds on Friday. He was like, just the only thing that can't happen is we get blown out. He was like, if we get blown out, all the schedule folks are coming out, everything that we've seen the last 24 hours. He was worried.

• 10:44Bill Simmons?

  The Drake, my MVP stuff, everything.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yes, all of it. He was worried that what has happened would happen. But I told him, I was like, okay. But, and he was as confident as you. He thought if there was a blowout coming, it was the other way.

• 10:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, we, we didn't know our quarterback got a freaking shot in his shoulder right before the game. If I knew that, I wouldn't have been confident.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Well, maybe your Patriots should stop lying on injury reports then, because they took them off the injury report. Strip them of a draft pick. If you want the sympathy, I want a third round pick. See, you took the quarterback off the injury report, threatened for the Super Bowl. But here's the question I have, because what I told Wild was, a blowout will not, the worst case scenario for you emotionally, watching with your sons, is a heartbreaking loss. So let me ask you, what like, what was, because I've never had a heartbreaking Super Bowl loss. I've just had teeth kicked in Super Bowl losses. What was harder to deal with, the, let's call it the, the Eagles, the Giants are weird because there's extra baggage there.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  The Eagles Super Bowl loss, where it's like, close the whole time, how did we just lose? Or this loss where it was pretty clear 20 minutes in, oh, we might be screwed here.

• 12:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad you asked, because I actually prepared something for this, the five levels of Super Bowl losses.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Wow, really?

• 12:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  Level one, this is the easiest one. We put up a good fight and we easily could have won, but we didn't. That's the Panthers against the Patriots in 2003. Really good effort. We almost won. We threw some haymakers. They beat us in the end, but you feel good, like we got there. We showed up. We didn't embarrass ourselves. We could have won the game. Couple of plays could have gone differently. But if you're a Panthers fan, you're like, man, I wish we had won, but you know, we couldn't stop them.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Can that only apply if you're like a house money team, and nobody expects us to be your team?

• 12:42Bill Simmons?

  Which, so if the Pats lose to the Seahawks 24-21, and we came close, but you could kind of tell we weren't as good. It was like, you know what? That's a really good season. We can build on this.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:53Bill Simmons?

  Level two.

• 12:57Bill Simmons?

  That was painful. I wish we lost two weeks ago.

• 13:02Bill Simmons?

  So that's, that's, you know, like Raiders Bucks. When the Raiders get to the Super Bowl and the Bucks just kill them. And at some point you're like, I wish we never even made it. But you're going through the seven stages of grief as the game's happening. You probably had that with Chiefs Eagles last year where it's like, you know what? Probably could have, probably could have missed this one completely in retrospect.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  I, the, I, I, the only reason I didn't feel that way was I like the having never lost to Josh Allen component of it and the ownership of the AFC.

• 13:35Bill Simmons?

  Four and over Josh.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Right. Which is a huge thing. But yes, that I was thinking the, like the Chargers, uh, Niners, Steve Young game. Where it's like, oh, man, maybe.

• 13:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I wish we weren't even here or the last Bill's Super Bowl.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:51Bill Simmons?

  The way they, when they lost to however many around. Uh, I, I'm pretty sure the Pats game like that was on Sunday, but here are the other three levels. Level three. Wow. We almost won and we freaking blew it. I think to me that the perfect example of this is the Jimmy Garoppolo Super Bowl.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Oh, I was gonna say the Brock Purdy Super Bowl.

• 14:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, the, but you go that, that Garoppolo, that long pass that he missed, he overthrew the guy by what a yard, half yard?

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, Emmanuel Sanders.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  You're thinking about that 10 years later.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  But doesn't, maybe this is a next level. What about the next Niner Super Bowl loss where they had a lead in overtime and the Chiefs were in fourth and one? The night that, that next Niner Super Bowl loss, it is 1916. Fourth and one in overtime, get a stop and you win the game. And Nicky Bosa thought Patrick Mahomes on fourth and one in the overtime of the Super Bowl was gonna hand the ball off. And crashed down on the running back and Mo to scamper. Like that to me was the more heartbreaking loss, but maybe it's a higher level. Maybe it's, I'm, you're not there yet.

• 15:00Bill Simmons?

  Cause I always felt like, I, I thought the Chiefs were gonna win that. Everyone had so much belief in Mahomes at that point. It was just like, as long as he has the ball, I feel like they're gonna win.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  Level four.

• 15:12Bill Simmons?

  We were demolished to the degree that it now changes every positive member I had of the season. So that's the 85 Patriots where we had this great run. We beat the Raiders and the Jets and the Dolphins all in a row. We extinguished all these demons, get to the Super Bowl. It is an absolute prison beating. Like it's like just people coming into the cell and hitting us for two hours. And then two days later, we have a drug scandal. There's a cocaine scandal two days later. And by the time it was over, you're like, I kind of wish we, I now, when I think of this season, I'm gonna think of this first, which is probably what happened to the Chargers, the Stan Humphrey season and a couple others. I don't think that's the case for this Patriots season because they were two years ahead of, one

• 15:56Bill Simmons?

  or two years ahead of schedule for the, we thought they're gonna be. It was kind of amazing. They made it. And it didn't make me feel worse about the season. So I think this was level two. And I have one more level, but yeah, well, here's the last level. A brutal, unforgivable loss that will haunt me the rest of my life. That's 28-3 Falcons. That's Malcolm Butler game. That's Scott Norwood. You know, you know, the ones for that one.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  So, so this, the Patriots game obviously wasn't that. And you haven't had a drug scandal. Now, your guys' version of Travis and Taylor, Stefan and Cardi B might have, you know, hit the rock shortly after the Super Bowl. So there's, there's that.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  Can't believe those two crazy kids couldn't make it work.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  I know. I really had my money on that one.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  They seem so stable.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  It's stunning. Uh, but here's, here's why I wonder if this approaches level two territory.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  Sunday. I think it's level two.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  That you do.

• 16:55Bill Simmons?

  I did.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Oh, no, level, I'm sorry. So I was saying.

• 16:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you think level four, yeah, the second to last level. Okay.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, second to last. I was, I did it backwards.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  I do think this Super Bowl paired with the playoff run in its totality. For me, has made me shift Drake May in my brain from sure thing to probably probable thing.

• 17:24Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Like Drake May, I, I said after week 10, like he's just gonna be a top five quarterback for me moving forward. Like, I don't know if that means Burrow gets kicked out.

• 17:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Or who, I don't know how it shakes out, but seeing him go 0 for 4. He was miserable in all four first halves miserable and the weather was fine in the first halves of those.

• 17:48Bill Simmons?

  He had a good second half against the Chargers. He had three good drives against the Texans.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't like a dumpster fire for four rounds.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  No, well, he was a dumpster fire in the first round for all four rounds and I thought that in the first half, sorry. Um, and I thought that this way the Super Bowl played out was concerning in this regard. I thought it was pretty clear Vrabel's game plan was Darnold's gonna screw up. Like the, the game plan was don't make a mistake, Darnold will. And man, the first play of the game, he almost threw a pick six.

• 18:27Bill Simmons?

  It felt like we almost got three of them.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Right. And so he just, and you almost got a couple drive changing sacks. And he just barely eluded them. And so Vrabel's game plan was don't make a mistake. And those first nine drives, it's nine punts. And then the moment it was like, okay, Drake, you gotta go make a play. Your final five drives is two touchdowns, three turnovers. And it felt to me like throughout this postseason. The window opened of oh, against good defenses in order for him to hit those huge plays that he was so great at early in the year, does he become too loose with the football?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Like, does the fumbles and the sacks and the interceptions, is that the cost of doing business for him hunting big plays? And that would be my concern. That, and I think that stuff predates the shoulder injury late in the Broncos game. I thought he was awful the first half of the Broncos game before there was a fleck of snow in the air. I thought, and that's, to me, it was, he was like, I just can't turn it over. I've got to be careful and that concerns me.

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  So, I watched the game again, and that's where I've landed. There's two pieces. One is what you just said. I think he was too sloppy with the ball in the first game. And they were hammering and you have to protect the ball. And he kind, they kind of shut down a switch with him.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:58Bill Simmons?

  What was great about him during this season, and this is why I'm obviously not, I still am 100% in on Drake May. He had the wow plays, there was a recklessness in a good way. And over and over again, he would just do something, you're like, holy shit, whoa, oh my god. And it felt like this was a more, I just got to protect the ball, I got to, so that was the one piece. And the other piece was, I think he just took too many hits during this season. The shoulder thing, I don't know what the injury was, but he was missing, especially in this last game, he was missing throws that he made, he completed 73% of his passes. He was missing throws that he made for four months. And I've never been in a situation before, in basketball, you're used to it, right?

• 20:42Bill Simmons?

  When somebody's just, they, they're bad in basketball, it's like, oh, that guy's gacking. Or, oh, that guy, they've unlocked something, like Tatum and Brown in the 22 finals. It's like, oh, the Warriors have figured out something. These guys are young. This will make them better. They're going to come back stronger. The May thing, I, him missing 10 yard throws over the middle, just tell me, it just tells me that he was hurt and they were hiding it because they weren't doing rollouts.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  You think he got?

• 21:08Bill Simmons?

  They weren't doing rollouts where he threw on the run.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  You think he got hurt before, like, he got hurt at the end of the regular season?

• 21:14Bill Simmons?

  I think he got, if I had to bet on a, on a scenario, I think he got banged up in the Chargers game because he took big hits in that game.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:21Bill Simmons?

  Um, but I think he got hurt in the Broncos game because if you look at the way they designed plays, they didn't use his legs at all. Seahawks are running, or they're rushing four. They have seven going back, which is like, that's like, that's like money for Drake May. Just get me past those first four, I'm getting 10 yards. They just didn't want to use him that way.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Didn't do it.

• 21:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, they didn't want to use him that way, which is different.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that, so that's, I mean, he's played 33 games, been sacked 102 times. That, which is a big number, obviously 21 in these four playoff games. And that is what made him so unbelievable. The first half of the year in particular was, he had a real devastating quality with his legs and.

• 22:09Bill Simmons?

  And throwing on the run, which was that, that was the secret sauce.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  And the best deep ball thrower in the league by a lot. Those first two, like the best deep ball thrower in the league, the first two months, he was the, there was a period where he was the only guy in the league. That when I'm watching, you know, you're, obviously you're watching the whole league, but your primary focus when the Pats are on is the Pats. The Pats are, you know, one of my focuses. He's, but he was the only guy in the league that when you saw him chuck it 30 yards deep, you expect, it was the opposite of how I felt early in the season when Bo Nix threw it 30 yards deep. Every time Bo Nix early in the year threw it 30 yards deep, I'm like, that fucking thing is going out of bounds.

• 22:50Bill Simmons?

  Where it's going, yeah, yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Right. And, and Drake, you expected him to catch it. That changed by the end of the season, then into the playoffs. Then there is this other, because Greg Jennings on the show, the biggest criticism he had was for Josh McDaniels for not giving Drake answers to the witherspoon blitz. He's like, it's a slot blitz, which means, and you said it, I think on Sunday's pod.

• 23:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Darius has to go turn around two yards.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Darius, turn around. Um.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  So I think McDaniels obviously is an awesome offensive.

• 23:23Bill Simmons?

  But did you see, did you see the Seahawks? First, they said two things. One, they knew they could attack certain things. They knew it was gonna work. It's always scary when the other team's like, we knew this was gonna work. But it seems like they knew when the Patriots were in run or pass, that they could tell by the way the linemen were lined up, that they could tell what the play was. And it was like, that kinda makes sense. How did they know over and over again when the team was passing?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  So that would be, I mean, that, sorry, I don't mean to make you bummed out. I, the, cuz I, I wanna, I have one, Josh McDaniels question, and then one offensive line point, and the, do whatever you want.

• 24:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's another thing. We found out the left tackle had a torn knee ligament.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  But we knew that. He missed a month with it.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but they made it seem like he, he could play and it was, it was healed. And then he's like, yeah, I was playing with a torn, I mean, I think he was playing with a torn MCL, which makes sense, cuz there were times people pushed him back and he just fell backwards.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, when, if people aren't watching on Netflix.

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  Benjam.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Okay, if people aren't watching on Netflix, Bill pantomime falling backwards, but when Bill pantomimed it, his arms weren't T-Rex like, they were regular. So like, that's, so that.

• 24:32Bill Simmons?

  Poor Bo Campbell.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, you took a pretty good guard for overall. It's a tough spot.

• 24:40Bill Simmons?

  No, Brable said he's, he's.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  I know Brable said it. I know Brable said it. What do we make of this stat?

• 24:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  10 Super Bowls Josh McDaniels has coached in. Only, to be fair, only seven is the coordinator.

• 24:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  But all, you know, Tom Brady or Drake May's the quarterback for those 10. Three first quarter points total.

• 25:02Bill Simmons?

  It, it ties into what happened all season. They always started slow and then took second quarter, started, come on. I thought the coaching was terrible. Can I read you the common reasons for a shoulder injection, according to Google?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Jesus. Yeah, I'd love it.

• 25:18Bill Simmons?

  It was like, yeah, shoulder injection. I wonder why somebody would get that. I don't know. I've never had a shoulder injection. There's five possible answers that Google said. Number one, rotator cuff injuries, inflammation or partial tears. Number two, bursitis or tendonitis. Inflammation of the bursa or tendons due to overuse or injury. Number three, arthritis. He doesn't have that, he's 23. Number four, frozen shoulder adhesive capsulitis. Extreme stiffness and pain where the injection helps improve range of motion. And then number five, impingement syndrome, pain caused by tendons rubbing against the shoulder bone. He had to have an injection before the game.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Bill Simmons?

  And then he, and you could see it with some of the throws where he's like whipping 10 yard throws. And there's a throw that died 20 yards. We'll never know, and I don't think they'll ever tell us because I think they probably lied on the injury report, which is illegal.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  But they didn't know probably. He was on the injury report Thursday, Friday before the game, they removed him. And then after the game, he's like, yeah, my shoulder shot up. But what's weird about that is the, his three best throws of the game were in the fourth quarter. Like as the, the, the throw over the middle in triple coverage, not the one that lost to the game, but the one that was caught, sorry, was a great throw. The touchdown was a great throw. Those were late, so I don't, I don't know.

• 26:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, can I ask you this?

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:43Bill Simmons?

  QBs, who would you want the next five years?

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Love this, love it.

• 26:48Bill Simmons?

  Next five, so that takes us 26, 20, basically through the 2030 season.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Rest of the decade.

• 26:54Bill Simmons?

  Allen, Mahomes, May, Burrow and Herbert. Is there anyone you would bump for somebody else?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 27:02Bill Simmons?

  Allen, Mahomes, May, Burrow, Herbert. Is there anybody on the cusp for you?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Well, that wouldn't be my top five.

• 27:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what I mean. So who are you bumping?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I would, I would go, I would go Mahomes, Allen.

• 27:19Bill Simmons?

  So you'd take Mahomes over Allen?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  Coming off an ACL in his early 30s then.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  The early 30s, by early 30s, you mean 30. So yes, technically early 30s. Yes, coming off an ACL, I, I am not, I, I feel about Patrick Mahomes heading into 2026 the way you felt about Tom Brady in 2009. Um, so yes, I would have Mahomes, Allen, 1-2.

• 27:47Bill Simmons?

  But for me, May would have been 1, and now with the playoffs that he just had, whatever the reasons were that we don't know the answers, I don't know how he can be 1. And I love Drake May. I wouldn't trade him for any QB, but I just, I'm trying to be rational. He can't be 1 after how he just played in the playoffs.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  And that's what's fair. And, and I think, and I think we can open the conversation up a bit to, hey, May versus Caleb will be an interesting debate over this next five years.

• 28:18Bill Simmons?

  So you would take Caleb over Herbert? Cause I would too. I was trying to be generous to the nerds.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  There's a, there's a lot of people I would take over Justin Herbert because every column on The Ringer that is a Justin Herbert defense has this sentence in the first paragraph. You have to be willing to ignore his playoff meltdowns or there is, there is this little like Cliff's Notes version of, or footnote version of, yes, we understand the two worst games he's played in his last 50 are the two playoff games and they were both meltdowns of the historical context. Right. It's, and so I wouldn't, and I would, so here's, cause you included Burrow, I have a crazy stat for you. Last five years, last five years,

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Burrow and Lamar have played the exact same amount of games. And we look at Burrow as like a real injury concern, and he and Lamar Jackson have both played 73 games the last five years. They both have not played in the playoffs three of the last five years. So I would, for me, my top five would probably be for the next five years, Mahomes, Allen.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Caleb, Drake May, Drake May, Caleb, three, four, and then my fifth. God dog it.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Who would my fifth guy be?

• 29:46Bill Simmons?

  Burrow, Herbert, Jaden Daniels is in there just to chalk it off as an injury thing.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Jayden's as skinny as I am. Jaden, Jaden, I would go Burrow, but I would be nervous.

• 29:55Bill Simmons?

  So Burrow, Burrow's my worst case scenario for the next five years for Jake May because part of the reason they had so many injuries is because he was getting the shit kicked out of him every year. Playing behind no offensive line and it's like, there's so many hits, they're just going to add up after a while and I don't care who you are.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Don't you think Vrabel will, the, the reason I would not be as worried about that piece of it is Vrabel is just so much sharper than Zach Taylor and Vrabel, like I don't think, Eli, again, you know, the Pats better than me. I don't think Elliot Wolf is running things. I think Vrabel is, and Vrabel knows what to prioritize. So I think you guys will protect him. Can I ask you one more Pats question? I know there's other things you want to get to.

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Do you want them to trade for AJ Brown?

• 30:37Bill Simmons?

  No, I want them to build through the lines. I honestly, we see it every year and then we forget. Built through the lines.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I totally agree with you. I totally agree.

• 30:46Bill Simmons?

  If you can get to the point where you have a four man pass rush that's effective, that seems like that's the single most important thing you can have other than a quarterback. And then the third most important thing is can you block? Can you block? Can you rush with four? Do you have a quarterback you trust? And if you just have those three things, you can win the Super Bowl.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  And you just said the, a pass rush with four is the most important thing other than a quarterback. Some would argue it's the only thing that stops the great quarterback.

• 31:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right. Certainly stopped Brady a couple of times.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Brady lost to the Giants because of it. Both the Mahone's Super Bowl losses is because of it. The Pats just lost because of it. Like our last two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks are quarterbacks that. You grew to like, like, okay, there, but you had questions about who had these awesome D lines that just made the other team's quarterback pee down their legs or, you know what I mean? Just play terrible. And so, yeah, that's the, so I, Wilds wants them to trade for A.J. Brown because he has the relationship with.

• 31:49Bill Simmons?

  I think that, I think the receivers are fool's gold. Like they, people should look at the Tyreek trade as like the example why he wouldn't do that. Trade Tyreek, he won two Super Bowls the moment you traded him.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 32:00Bill Simmons?

  I, I, to me, paying $60 million for two receivers, I would just never do that if I ran a team. But it does seem like part of the art of this, and I hope the Patriots, Bob Kraft's been cheap. I'm going to use the C word. He's been cheap for 12 years. Um, part of the art of this and something Philly's been really good at, I think the Rams have been good at some of these teams of just, they keep pushing the cap a year later. It's like the, the dinner check comes and they give it back to the waiter and they're like, can you bring this back in a half hour? And then the guy comes back and says, can we take 30 more minutes with this? And they just keep pushing it kind of to infinity because all the NFL does is make more and more money every year in all these different ways. And that seems to work.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  So here's, so that is, so this is something, because I listened to Shield, Shield talks about this a lot.

• 32:50Bill Simmons?

  This is a big Shield thing.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  And I disagree with him on the efficacy of that. If you believe you have a quarterback, the level you believe Drake may is. So let me just give a look. So what you're talking about is, I'll do this as quick as possible. I don't want people to turn it off. Talking about void years, teams tacking on void years. So you can pay a player a bunch of cash and it costs you cap in years. They're not going to be on the team.

• 33:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  You're borrowing from future years.

• 33:19Bill Simmons?

  It's like, it's like a loan shark strategy.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Correct. A quarter of the league doesn't use them at all. The Chiefs are one of those teams. The Pats are kind of one of those teams. They don't do it. No, the Browns did it out of necessity because the Watson trade's been such a disaster for them.

• 33:34Bill Simmons?

  Wait a second. The Chiefs are doing something because they somehow had the ability to pay Chris Jones, Mahomes, Kelsey, like they, they.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  But Kelsey makes no money and those are the only guys on the roster they're playing other than their offensive lineman.

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  But you have other, you have other expensive guys in the team though.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  The offensive lineman, Chris Jones and Mahomes is the whole list.

• 33:54Bill Simmons?

  That's where you landed now. That wasn't where you landed three, four years ago.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Well, what the Chiefs are doing is Mahomes has a 10-year deal. So Mahomes is deal, can they, it's not void years. They can just constantly rework that. But let me say what Philly's doing.

• 34:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  So the average team, like the median team 16th ranked, has like $60 million of void years, of future cap that they're borrowing from. The Eagles is at 472 million.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  And it almost all comes due in 2028 and 2029. So what the Eagles did, and they did this previously in one of Super Bowl was they are saying, we are stocking up on this five-year run and then we are going to by definition have at least one season where we're bad.

• 34:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Saints did this too with Peyton, right? That was one of the first teams that did this. Yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  But they did it because their great quarterback was at the end. They're like, who cares if we suck after Breeze? We're going for it. I wouldn't want the Chiefs to do it now. When Mahomes is 35, start doing it. Because who gives a shit about the team when he retires? It's going to be bad. If I were you and the Pats.

• 35:14Bill Simmons?

  That's what we should have done with Brady near the end.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Correct. At the end with Brady, it's, if that's when you do it, or.

• 35:20Bill Simmons?

  You do the seven-year deal with Brady and you just keep pushing money around. But they never did that.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  If they did that now with May, it's like, okay, just so you know, when Drake May's 29, all these bills are due and we're gonna have an awful team for a year.

• 35:35Bill Simmons?

  But that's why you give them like a 12-year deal for $700 million. And then you start getting.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  The Mahomes deal is so crazy that 10 years, I mean, he's on a 10-year, $450 million contract. So he makes $45 million a year that they, they've never added money to it. They've accelerated money.

• 35:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Through him. And that gives you a level of flexibility that other teams don't necessarily have.

• 36:03Bill Simmons?

  All right, we gotta take a break. Um, coming back, I, some other sports I want to talk to you about. This episode is brought to you by Pepsi. I have one. It's right here. Pepsi Zero Sugar. Ooh. Drink it later. It reminds me, you guys have to watch the new Pepsi Zero Sugar Super Bowl. I'll have a sip. Okay. It follows a polar bear who steps up to the iconic Pepsi Challenge. Labels removed. Which tastes better? Pepsi Zero Sugar? Or Coca-Cola Zero Sugar? The winner? You guessed it. Pepsi Zero Sugar. And that's based on real results.

• 36:46Bill Simmons?

  Last year Pepsi revived the iconic Pepsi Challenge and 66% of participants agreed that Pepsi Zero Sugar tastes better than Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. I don't know what to tell you. Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi. All right, NBA All-Star Weekend is coming up. It's 37 minutes from my house. I'm not even sure I'm gonna go. I'm still on the fence. That's, the All-Star Game has just beaten, beaten out any sort of curiosity out of me over the course of my life. Now they have the world. I don't know what's happening. Brandon Ingram is somehow on a team now. I'm like, I don't, I might just stay home. I have a couple.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Can I try to convince you? Hold on before you get to you, because if you're not going to the All-Star game.

• 37:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Because I am, I'm flying to LA Saturday morning for a number of reasons. One of which is in something that I almost think is better if we don't even explain. And the audience who doesn't know my story is just perplexed by it.

• 37:48Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  One of the reasons is I'm coming to LA to see my granddaughter, who's three months old.

• 37:53Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Um.

• 37:54Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  The other reason is, and this is where I think if you're not going to the All-Star game Sunday night, you certainly should hit up Ringer colleague Rich Paul and come to the Clutch Sports Party Saturday night.

• 38:11Bill Simmons?

  The Clutch Sports Party?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  The Clutch Sports Saturday Night All-Star Party. I'll be there. It's.

• 38:18Bill Simmons?

  I'd officially be a member. I wore the Clutch sweatshirt last week, kind of ironically during the trade that led.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  I know. I'm, I'm just saying.

• 38:27Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you an All-Star Saturday thing that I just have to put my foot down on once and for all? I don't mean to be a dick and just piss on stuff, but. Nobody likes tall guys in the dunk contest. I'm waiting to meet my first person who's like, hey, I heard they have three centers for the dunk contest. Can't wait. The shorter the better. I'd rather watch five foot two people try to dunk than a seven foot person. I'd rather they pick five foot two people out of the stands. Who wants to watch Jackson Hayes dunk? I wouldn't want to watch him dunk if he was outside my house right now, my court.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Dwight was the outlier. Dwight was fun.

• 39:05Bill Simmons?

  It was fine. Whatever.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  He was fine and there was a lot of showmanship.

• 39:08Bill Simmons?

  Dunking on a 10 foot hoop. How hard is that?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Is this possible, Bill? That we, until we get to the point in human evolution where somebody can do a front flip dunk, that all the dunks are done?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  That like we've that that the re what's happened to the dunk contest is actually we're out of new ways.

• 39:32Bill Simmons?

  It's over. I've been saying this for 15 years. It's over. We we're done. I was thinking watching the Winter Olympics. I used to love the ski jump as a kid. It was the most terrifying event. They were, you know, they were using 1970s skis. They don't have the track the same way. And these people go down. You really felt like their life was in danger every time. You'd watch it. You'd just be like, oh, my God, next one. Oh, he landed. And now they have awesome equipment and it's the most boring thing I've ever seen. It's like, oh, he's a foot longer than the last person. It's like, cool. All right. And I didn't watch it. There's no danger at all.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Once we've removed the possibility, there are certain things that the possibility of disaster is what makes it captivating.

• 40:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's F1. Like, let's be honest. People are watching F1 partly because of the danger. And if they if they say they're not, they're lying.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  The so I don't the All-Star Saturday, I I have a lot of feelings about the things the NBA needs to fix and needs to fix from a unilateral, just a an edict from Adam Silver. Like not let's let's not have a committee. Let's not, you know, it seems like they keep tweaking different All-Star approaches and none of them have worked.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  And well, it's like we're both married. It's like if our if our wives were like, hey, I'm I'm gonna try that tuna casserole again. And it's like, well, it was terrible the first 49 times you made it. No, but I was talking to one of my friends and they said, if I use these different kind of breadcrumbs, it's gonna be really good this time. I was like, all right, I guess. And you know, it's gonna suck. That's that's Saturday night. It sucked every year.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  And the game, here's the only thing that could save the game.

• 41:31Bill Simmons?

  And wait, can we go back? But I want to get to the game for in a second. The Saturday, strip everything down. Forget all the all the contests and the events.

• 41:42Bill Simmons?

  What do people actually want to see? Like if you ask your son, if I ask my son,

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:48Bill Simmons?

  Just be like, what do you want to see? The first thing they would say to me is, I want to see Katelyn Clark and Sabrina trying to make threes and beating the NBA players. I think would be the number one thing people want to see. The number two thing would be, I want to see the best players in the dunk contest. Right?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:05Bill Simmons?

  And that's really it for Saturday night. And then, I don't know if you-

• 42:08Speaker 01

  You're not into a one-on-one tournament?

• 42:11Bill Simmons?

  No, because I think that, I don't think the guys would care enough. I think they would do the half-assed, the same reason a horse doesn't work. They don't want to be embarrassed. These guys always move into, I don't want to be embarrassed mode. You'd really have to pick it carefully. Like you'd have to pick the people, like the Anthony Edwards types, who would be like, I'm actually going to take this seriously. Um, so, I mean, honestly, I'd, out of anything, I'd watch the Isaiah Stewart running off the bench contest over anything else. Isaiah Stewart coming off to save a teammate, risking a ten-game suspension. I'd watch it.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Do you think, slight non sequitur, you know, you guys have talked about how Joker, Joker wants to be, you know, wants to do something with his horses and is kind of cursed by how good he is at basketball.

• 42:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, right.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Like if, if, there's a hundred percent chance that if Joker could make as much money doing whatever he does with his horses as he can in basketball, that's what he would do.

• 43:07Bill Simmons?

  So you think he'd run into a horse event? Where he rode a horse, shooting threes?

• 43:11Speaker 01

  No, I was thinking about Isaiah Stewart.

• 43:13Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  We all agree that Isaiah Stewart's real passion is fighting, right? Like if somebody was like, hey, your, your NBA contract is, is valid, but it's for the UFC. He'd be like, I'm never touching a basketball again. Sign me the fuck up.

• 43:29Bill Simmons?

  Really good, like that hurt the Pistons, that he's going to get suspended. I think he's just like the greatest teammate. He really takes things personally on behalf of his teammates, which I love. But we've also seen that going wrong over, yeah, and on behalf of himself. He, he's the only person in 20-plus years who actually legitimately got mad at LeBron and wanted to-

• 43:48Speaker 01

  That's what I was going to say.

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Well, he was going to fight LeBron.

• 43:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and, and beat his ass is what was going to happen. Ime Udoka was the only other one who kind of side-eyed LeBron and was like, if we want to go, I'm right here.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I don't think that would have worked out well for Ime. Isaiah Stewart maybe has the age advantage and would have had a, would have had a shot.

• 44:12Bill Simmons?

  Do you have him like minus 180 over LeBron?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Who, Isaiah Stewart?

• 44:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, young Isaiah Stewart against old LeBron, maybe.

• 44:21Bill Simmons?

  LeBron crafty, like a little Julio Cesar Chavez.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Right, I would, but I would have LeBron minus 400 over Coach Ime Udoka.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  Ime trying to act. He's a tough, he's a tough motherfucker though, that guy.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  I know he's a tough guy. I understand. I still, but this is foolishness.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  Wait, you, I interrupted you on your Sunday thing. Well, how would you fix the game on Sunday? Is it fixable? Cause I don't think it is.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  It's fixable in four years if your guy, Khan Knipple continues on this trajectory. And we just have to say, you know what?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  PC headlines be damned.

• 44:59Bill Simmons?

  I know where you're going.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  White, white guys versus black guys. Luka, Joker, Flag, Reeves, Knipple, again, against Wimby, whomever. And I, you, I'm telling you right now, guys would play fucking hard.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Like that, there would, there would be a, there would be a real edge to the game.

• 45:22Bill Simmons?

  It would get a talking, we get a lot of talking points going that week.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  A lot of attention and we are getting close to a place where it'd be like, oh, that'd be a good game. Like there hasn't been a moment in the NBA in the last 50 years where if that ended up just by chance being the game, it would be, you, you could see either team winning. But right now, like Cooper Flag and Khan Knipple and Austin Reeves.

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  Preachers out there, yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Right. But they also get all the Eastern Europeans. Like you get Luka, you get Joker, you have real talent. That's something. In the meantime, I don't know what the hell you do. This US versus the world thing is not, nobody understands it. Here's the problem.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  I do this for a living. I don't totally, when they announced the All-Star teams, I'm like, wait, I thought they were gonna announce eight foreign guys, 16 Americans, they still did East-West. I didn't understand any of it.

• 46:20Bill Simmons?

  If you can't explain it in a sentence, fire the guy who came up with the idea.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right.

• 46:26Bill Simmons?

  Like, it's a, it's a basketball contest. Can you explain it in a sentence? Well, there's three kinds of, we have the world, this team's eight, there's gonna be a round, it's like, wait, you, you lost me five seconds in. Um, this leads to,

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I really wanna dive into Adam Silver here, who, I might even run into this weekend, so this could be awkward. But I thought of this one. You know, I, I've been talking about Seattle and Vegas and expansion for four years. I was like, the first person to bring it up, and I think it was serious for a while. Then I think they backed off when the media deal was as big as it was. Then I heard it was just gonna be one team. Now there's been buzz for a while that maybe they're thinking about two again. There's a big coalition against it that Jim Dolan is a big part of. And somebody reported this week, it's, it's back on. I think it'd be a huge mistake. And it ties into the other biggest issue that the league has now is the tanking, which

• 47:26Bill Simmons?

  has become Groundhog Day. Every February, we do this. It's like, the first time everybody realized that tanking's terrible. Um,

• 47:33Speaker 01

  And new, and been, new ways to, what the Jazz have done this past week is unprecedented.

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna have two more teams when we already have eight teams on February 7th that have punted on the season. Eight of the 30 teams have punted. We're gonna add two more that don't give a shit? Why would they do this? Like, to me, there's like, huge fundamental issues with the league.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  That they're just yada yadaing and pointing to all the media money they've made and the fact that their players are famous and that everybody loves the playoffs. It's like the regular season has real issues. It's too long. Guys are getting hurt too much. Everybody is making so much money. The only reason to have 82 games is because you make money from it. You go down to 70, you make less money. Guess what? Devin Booker, instead of making $75 million in 2028, he'll make 73. He'll be fine. All this shit, everything they're doing, they're not serving the larger picture of what do fans want? How do we keep our players healthy? How do we have a competitive season from start to finish? How do we avoid over one-fourth of our league not giving a shit

• 48:42Bill Simmons?

  for the last two months? How do we fix this? And it's the first time I've really wondered, like, is, do we have the right guy running the league? Because he doesn't seem interested in actually fixing real problems that everybody can see. And it's not about, like, look at the NBA Cup. Oh, we created this thing. It's like, your schedule's too long. You have to fix this. It's too long. It should be 70 games.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  So, I, I want to, first of all, that's a, that's a great, great three-minute Simmons rant.

• 49:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just did a first-take rant. Jesus.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  That was, that was great. That's a great rant.

• 49:18Bill Simmons?

  Sorry, I got fired up.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  No, but it, but is Adam Silver a wartime consigliere and does anyone in the NBA office understand it's wartime? That I don't care. To your point, the media deal is separate from the overall health of the league long-term. I, I listened, obviously, to your conversation with Chuck about his great book, Football.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  And he talked about it kind of a sidebar to your conversation was the ebbs and flows of leagues and popularity and what has been in the in the sports fan zeitgeist over the last 100 years. And one of the lessons of that is no league, no sport has a lifetime license to importance or to being a major, major American sport. And the arrogance any of the leagues could have, which is it couldn't happen to us, is concerning. Major League Baseball, for whatever criticisms people have, their commissioner, who I think is fair, there's a lot of fair criticisms of him, he said, you know what, we have real

• 50:32Speaker 01

  issues right now, and I don't give a shit if people think these changes are too drastic. I am just going to, by edict, change some of the rules and make the sport, because ultimately, it's all entertainment. This is the entertainment business. We're fighting for eyeballs. We're fighting for interest with Broadway, with the other leagues, with TikTok, with everybody. We've got to become more engaging. And the NBA's right now refusal to, to me, address what are, they're in a three-front war of what are real threats. Front one, I'm not going to pretend to be smart enough to understand, which is something about the way modern basketball

• 51:15Speaker 01

  is played, modern athletes' bodies are not really able to handle.

• 51:20Bill Simmons?

  Your guy LeBron said this on More Than a Game, and I, it kind of came and went the moment, but he's like, basketball is way harder to play now. It just is. I'm telling you, I've been here for 20-plus years. It's harder to play now. There's more running. There's more stop and start. There's more sprinting. It's harder. They're not going to listen to him. What the fuck?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  And you've talked about how the, you know, the canary in the coal mine is the Achilles, and how that used to exclusively be an old guy injury, and it's not anymore, and the soft tissue issues. So that, that is a big, I, I'm not saying there's a simple fix to that, but that is something that is existential.

• 52:00Bill Simmons?

  Get rid of the Euro step. How about that as a fix?

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Change the rules dramatically.

• 52:05Bill Simmons?

  How about like, like the, the footwork shooting coaches? And I don't have to name them, but how come certain clients of certain shooting coaches seem to have lower leg injuries all the time? It's because they're putting too much stress on their lower legs. Tyrese Haliburton and Jason Tatum shouldn't be blowing out their Achilles.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 52:21Bill Simmons?

  At age 26, 27. It's ridiculous.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  So, so that's the first one. And that's the, I think that's the hardest one to solve, but it might be as important as any. The second one is this. And this one, I don't care if I sound like an old guy, as I said, I'm a grandfather. I'm allowed to be an old guy.

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  Grandpa Nick.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Part of

• 52:43Speaker 01

  every sport has an identity that makes it special. For football, it's violence. It just is. It's just of our, you know, that, that, that's not the only thing, but there is a violence to it that attracts us.

• 52:56Bill Simmons?

  I think it's, I think football's violence and strategy combined.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:01Bill Simmons?

  I think those two things together makes it the most popular sport.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Baseball, it's kind of nostalgia and the fact that it just remind, it brings you to a place in the year, a place in your life, summertime outdoors, the feeling of that, that all of that. And basketball for me, for my entire childhood and young adult life was, holy shit, is that guy flying? Like it is crazy athletes. It is crazy feats of athleticism mixed in with balletic brilliance. And

• 53:38Bill Simmons?

  And I would throw on coolness too.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  Even as in the seventies, going to games, the basketball players just seemed like the coolest fucking guys in my life. And that's been the case ever since.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  And what the analytics revolution and three point shot has done to what is rewarded? What style of play is smart? And what types of athletes succeed in the league?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Has taken away an enormous amount of what was the NBA's identity.

• 54:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Which was the rewarding, getting to the rim and rewarding different styles of play. And so when I say on this one, I have some drastic suggestions that seem insane, but I don't think in, I don't think in radical changes are out of line. Like on, I loved the Hollinger idea of every team draws their own three point line up to and including a team like the, I don't know, the, but the Nuggets three years ago, if they were like, we're not having one. And if we get home court, you better be able to win games going by two.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  And every, it, it makes the regular season matter more because home court matters more and teams need different styles. I've said and people laugh at me like I'm joking and I kind of am, but I'm kind of not.

• 55:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm jealous of that three point line idea. He's had that forever, but it's a great idea.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  It's such a great idea.

• 55:10Bill Simmons?

  It's basically like the outfield wall in baseball. Every outfield wall is different and that's how we do it.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  And, and in different parks, it's like, oh shit, we're going to Fenway. It'd be like, oh man, we're going to Golden State. Remember their three point lines from 40 feet out. You know, or the, whatever it is. And the other, the one I've said that people think I'm joking, but I'm only kind of joking. Hey, everything stays the same except for one small rule change. Dunks also worth three.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Dunks also worth three, by the way. And see if you prioritize athletes and a different style of play. If, and again, that seems insane and I'm not saying, and the, the NBA historian part of me doesn't even like it, even though it's my own idea. I'm like, ah, what would you do to the record books? But the sport is on it teeter shaky ground because the smartest way to play is not the most attractive way to play. And that thing gets us to the third thing, which is the tanking.

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  All right. So you have style of play. You have the injury stuff.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:17Bill Simmons?

  And now you have the tank. Those are your big three.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  And the tanking is an abomination and the fact that it hasn't been nipped in the bud by the, I don't care if you want to go to Mike Zeran's draft wheel. I don't care if you want to go to your idea of, hey, you are whatever pick you had in last year's draft, if it's in the lottery.

• 56:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  You are guaranteed a pick at best three spots worse. So if you have the number one pick, you're capped at four. If you had, you know, whatever it is, I wouldn't care if they said, hey.

• 56:54Bill Simmons?

  How about if you can't have two top four picks two years in a row? You can't. So that, that kills. So Dallas, San Antonio, Philadelphia and Charlotte had top four picks last year. None of them are eligible. So Dallas, tank yourself away. You can only get the fifth pick, but knock yourself out.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  I also would be, I don't understand how you can see what Utah has done the last couple of games.

• 57:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, the one, this week is, I, they might've made history with, with really good players just not playing the fourth quarter in early February. It's not even April yet. It's not even March yet. It's not even Valentine's Day yet.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  It's not the All-Star game.

• 57:34Bill Simmons?

  These guys are just sitting, Jaren Jackson and Laurie Markkinen are just sitting on the bench and they win anyway, which was the funniest thing.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Well, but it is, but think about what we're saying here. The Utah Jazz traded for a really good player.

• 57:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  With the intention being, yeah, of course he's not going to help us win games. The Hawks traded for two players. With the intention of, well, not for this year, and we're all fine with it. And I shouldn't say we're fine with it. The league's fine with it.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  I mean, the Wizards, not the Hawks.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I apologize. They traded with the Hawks. Yeah. They, they got Trey Young and Anthony Davis. To never play them. And I understand there's injuries. I, how do the Jazz, like?

• 58:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but here, here's my question back to you. How do you blame them? The whole point, so I'm going to go back.

• 58:32Bill Simmons?

  And I want to keep going on your three things, but I'm going to go back to 1984, which was the birth year of tanking. This was it. This was the Jonas Salk polio vaccine of tanking. Hakeem and Jordan are the draft prizes. It's still a coin toss for the first pick.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 58:49Bill Simmons?

  Everyone has traded away their first round picks in dumb trades. Indiana, they're one of the worst teams. They'd already traded their pick for Tom Owens. Cleveland, they're one of the worst teams. They'd already traded their pick for Mike Brats. The Clippers, they'd already traded their pick for World B Free. So the only two teams that controlled their own picks that were bad were Chicago and Houston. Chicago starts out 15 and 17. At some point they're like, huh, they finished 12 and 38. They lose 14 in their last 15. They get blamed for tanking. I went and looked at the roster. Their guys all played. I think they had a lot of like drug stuff and weird shit on that team. I'm not even positive they're tanking. You know who was tanking though? Houston. Houston has Ralph Sampson.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:32Bill Simmons?

  They start out 20 and 26. They finished nine and 27 in their last 36. They lose 14 to 17, nine of their last 10. There's a famous game that is the birth of tanking. Second to last game of the year. They're playing San Antonio. They need to lose. Game goes to overtime. They lose in overtime. Sampson only plays 22 minutes. He is a 22 and 11. They don't play him basically second half. Elvin Hayes is on this team. You know who Elvin Hayes is. One of the title with the bullets. Top 50, top 50 guys.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I would say one of, yeah, I would say one of the top 35 guys ever.

• 1:00:04Bill Simmons?

  Top 60, whatever. He's washed up at this point. He's playing 12 minutes a game. He's at the tail end of his career. He's like, I don't know, pick somebody now that's, he's Chris Paul.

• 1:00:16Bill Simmons?

  He plays all 53 minutes of an overtime game. Goes seven for 20, 16 points. They lose. They never take him out and they're joking after like, he needs an IV. He might need to take him to the hospital. Their way of tanking was to just put Elvin Hayes out to fucking die. So what happens? Houston gets the first pick. They win the coin toss. They get Hakeem Olajuwon. Chicago gets the third pick. They get Michael Jordan and everybody's like, this is fucked up. We have a lottery the next year. And we haven't figured it out since. This was 1984. So this is 42 years ago now? And 42 years later, after this event of the Elvin Hayes game. We have Lori Marketing and Jaren Jackson completely healthy now playing in fourth quarters.

• 1:01:00Bill Simmons?

  Forty-two years later, they have not figured this out.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  So, all right, two things quickly.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  But by the way, it was worth it. They got, Chicago got Michael Jordan and Houston got Hakeem Olajuwon. Would they do it again?

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Of course, but so two things. First one is this. There is nothing you've ever said about LeBron, Patrick Mahomes, or my hair that hurt me more than you questioning if I knew who Elvin Hayes was.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, I just wanted to make sure. That's fair. I like your hair.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Thank you. No, it was House who killed it.

• 1:01:30Bill Simmons?

  I was just House.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Here's the, here's the, obviously.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, come on.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  But, um, the, I, I don't know the year, you'll know the game, not that long ago.

• 1:01:44Bill Simmons?

  Mark Madsen?

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  There you go. Gratuitous tanking was games seventy-nine, maybe eighty, yes, eighty-one and eighty-two, fine. And Mark Madsen, green light from three, no problem. And we kind of were all like, like, yeah, and we kind of all were like, okay, we understand it. Like, it, it, we get that at the very end of the year. But the mission creep of that to where we are now.

• 1:02:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Is galling. And I, I do think that the simplest solution, in addition to what you're describing about you can't, you know, if you have top four, your, your, the next highest you can have is five or whatever, might simply be, it is back to a version of the Ewing lottery, which was everyone has the same odds.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Like you, everyone is at.

• 1:02:51Bill Simmons?

  I caught this in my book in two thousand nine, and then I somehow got off of that idea, and now I think I'm creeping back onto it.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  I, it, now, it's possible the negative impact of that would then be teams that could be in the playoffs would be like, nope, we want to miss the playoffs to get in. But I think if you just said.

• 1:03:13Bill Simmons?

  Playing teams are not eligible. Cause the worst case scenario would be a playing team being like, ah, we're not going to do anything anyway. And they tanked the playing game, which would be an absolute disgrace.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  So playing teams are not eligible.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  So the final 10 all have the same odds, the worst 10 teams, same odds across the board.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  10% across the board and with real harsh penalties. If there is any indication that a team is attempting to avoid making the play.

• 1:03:44Bill Simmons?

  Not gonna do that. He's already, he, he's already been too soft on that. Can I throw an idea at you? Cause I think that no top four pick two years in a row would solve some of this. Any team that falls below 27 wins for the season. So you have to go 27 and 55. That's the cutoff line. For every, every loss under that, you lose a million dollars in cap space for the next season per loss.

• 1:04:10Bill Simmons?

  2% refund for season ticket holders per loss for the next season. So if I'm, if I'm a, I don't know, wizard season ticket holder and they go 16 and 66, they go 11 games under the cutoff. I have 22% off my tickets for the next year. Just like, just blanket. It's, I'm actually, we're taking money out of their pocket. Plus they would lose 12 million in cap space for the next year. So you couldn't do the thing where it's like, we're tanking, but then next year we're going to go for it. It's like, no, you can't do that. You didn't take last season seriously. We're taking some of your cap space. We're lowering your luxury tax and we're fucking you over on this because this is not right.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I am, I'm fine with like extreme penalties. I, I would be fine with they said, hey, just so you know, um, if you get the number one pick of the draft. If in that number one picks rookie contract, you make the playoffs. It's five road to home in the first round. I would be fine with drastic. And it would, and it like, I, nobody, you know, who ends up with Cooper flag is going to actually be bummed about it. But they, that there is like, you can't do relegation in the NBA. But something that is relegation ish where there is a real.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Negative impact of being awful.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, that so that so the way to relegate is cap space.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  Like it like to actually like hurt a team's ability to make themselves better and to penalize them. The thing to me that I always go back to is the season ticket holders like they have to pay full price for this shit. You're in Utah and you're loyal to the team and I like you. I like their owner Danny Ainge is there like I get why they're doing what they're doing because the rules aren't telling them not to do it. So they're actually playing this correctly. But it's not fair. Now Utah's this is three years in a row where they haven't given a shit about the season. They have Lori marketing who's top 25 guy, top 30 guy.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  But but so that is when you what you just said there is a huge key to I think also the three point issue, which is

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  directly contradicting incentives. And I actually had a Sloan conference 10 years ago or eight years ago.

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, name drop.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  The well, I moderated a panel and our friend Daryl was on it.

• 1:06:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  And I asked him then, basically, how do you square the circle of the smartest way to build a basketball team? Which is your job might not be the best way for the league to grow. And he said, I am not my job does not allow me to be concerned with anything other than what is the best path possible to build a champion, whether that's style of play, how we approach things, whatever. He said, and I'm, you know, paraphrasing him, it's the league's job to worry about those other things and put the rules in place to make sure

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  the smartest way to win a championship and build a team does not contradict with the smartest way to grow the sport. And that's where I think the league has failed. I don't think it is an extreme position to say they have failed in that what you're saying is. These tanking teams, it's smart for Milwaukee. You know what you should do? Not play Giannis the rest of the year.

• 1:07:57Bill Simmons?

  But look at the people that we think are the best general managers or the best run teams, right? San Antonio tanked twice.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:04Bill Simmons?

  Right? Oklahoma City, Presti, shut down SGA, I think, two years in a row. Danny Ainge with the Celtics, not 2007, the team threw, Paul Pierce was healthy. They threw him away for the last, all the smart teams have done this. Daryl would do it. I mean, it went out of control with the process, but everything we're talking about is tied together, though. The schedule being too long.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Sean Marks, too.

• 1:08:32Bill Simmons?

  But the schedule, tanking, actually, like, you can solve a lot of the problem by fixing both at the same time. Do you have a shorter schedule? Like, I look at the Premier League, which

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Bill Simmons?

  has a way shorter schedule than the NBA would ever do, but it leads to some really great things. And you have, like, Lester was able to win that one year, partly because the schedule, the sample size was smaller and they got lucky. And, but if you have a 70-game season or 72, whatever, better for the players, you could space stuff out better, it's more egregious if guys don't play, and you also cut down the last three weeks of the tanking, right? Like, I had Con Knippel on my podcast in December, and I gave him a ride back, or maybe he said this on a pod, I can't remember, but we were talking about, do you ever get to practice? He's a rookie, he's 20. You think, like, man, it might be important for Con to practice, he just got in the league. He said they hadn't

• 1:09:26Bill Simmons?

  had a practice at home in six weeks. How is that, like, in six weeks, they hadn't practiced in the practice center at Charlotte, when I saw him in December, or January, whenever that was. Like, it's like, and Steve Kerr says the same thing, and at these press conferences, if you want a free, like, two-minute answer from Steve Kerr, ask him what he thinks of the schedule, because he'll talk about it every time. It's like, we don't get to practice, our guys are playing hurt, our guys are banged up, the sport's too hard, the season's too long. Now Curry's hurt. Like, this is part, like, I was gonna go to the Laker game, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon, it was gonna be a good day, they rested all their dudes today. And it's like, now I'm not gonna go.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, momentous, by the way, because of that moment of silence, LeBron's incomprehensible 21, 20 straight all NBA is officially dead. I know that he, listen, he probably wasn't gonna make it anyway, but now he won't hit the 65 game threshold.

• 1:10:19Bill Simmons?

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• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

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• 1:11:47Bill Simmons?

  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.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, that is a, we, and again, this part is cliche at this point. Everybody knows this is an issue, but people, Coach Mangini, my dear friend and contributor to First Things First.

• 1:12:14Bill Simmons?

  Spygate whistleblower. I'll never forgive him. Turned down his mentor.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  He's one of the greatest guys in the world.

• 1:12:20Bill Simmons?

  I had him on my podcast once.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  He uh, he and his son were in New York, oh, two weeks ago, uh, when he was doing the show. And they had tickets to Lakers Nets because he wanted his son to see LeBron. Son, they live in Cleveland, son's a huge LeBron fan. And he talked with me a ton the days leading up to it, like, do I need to also buy tickets to Lakers Knicks? Because how confident are we that LeBron's going to play? And now, you know, LeBron's the oldest player in the league.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Right. And so, but that is such a, you can't be, and I know people have heard this before, but it's so maddening. They haven't fixed it. You can't be a league where you are just stars, stars. Market the stars. Come see our stars. Our stars carry us. And by the way, if you go see a game, the stars may or may not play. It's a disaster. That is a disaster.

• 1:13:22Bill Simmons?

  And we're also on five different channels right now and you have to spend 10 seconds remembering what day it is for the Peacock game or the whatever. I love the NBA. This is why I care. This is why I wrote a 700 page book about it once. I would say anything we have talked about for the last 40 minutes to anybody who works for the league. I know a lot of people that work for the league. I like the people that work for the league. They know this is a problem. And the schedule thing comes down to money and that's it. And it starts with that. And then the tanking thing also comes down to money. And comes down to coming up with real penalties that would decentivize somebody like Utah, who clearly Utah's Jaren Jackson, they have Lori Marketing, they have Keanu George, who's been a breakout star. They're gonna have another lottery pick.

• 1:14:05Bill Simmons?

  And they obviously want to be good next year. Will Hardy's gonna, you know, probably develop a drinking problem. If they're, if they're actually penalized for how they're handling this year with the cap, and the cap comes backwards by 12 million or whatever because of the way they're behaving, maybe they don't behave that way. Like, they have to start thinking about this stuff.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  So here's my question for you, because I don't know the people in the league the way you do. I, but I do care about it the same way you do. Like, this is my whole life up until probably. 10 years ago at most, I'll be honest, probably till Mahomes came into my life. I would have said the NBA is my favorite by a mile.

• 1:14:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  And now I don't feel that way. I feel like the NFL is slightly ahead of it. Um.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  I'm like, I'm 50 50 and I never used to be 50 50. I was always NBA first.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Correct. Me too. I love the league so much. I understand on an intellectual level, why shortening the season is a hard ask because of the money. I get it.

• 1:15:05Bill Simmons?

  It's six home games for every team.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I, I think they should do it.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  You're talking 12 million a year plus TV money. Maybe it's 20 million per team split with the players. It costs everybody 10 million a year.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  I, I agree with you. I, I agree with you a hundred percent, but I still understand why that's hard. I don't understand why penalizing tanking is hard. Why, why can that not just be a red line? Hey Utah, congrats on what you did this week. You don't have your first round pick now. So do whatever the fuck you want to do.

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  So you're talking about wartime conciliary Adam Silver being like, I've had it. If you do that again, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna suspend you. So another theory that, or another idea that a couple of readers had was could you suspend ping pong balls?

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Love it. Yeah.

• 1:15:58Bill Simmons?

  So with Utah, they do the Lori marketing Jaren Jackson thing. Adam Silver's like, I didn't like that. You're gonna be 20 ping pong balls shy at the lottery.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Well, that's, you, you could.

• 1:16:09Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm taking away 20.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  And, and this is where I, you need to just have, hey, I, you need to have a commissioner. Who people trust is ethical, which I believe the league has. I don't think people think Adam Silver's. It, it, it, that, so you need to have someone who they trust is ethical.

• 1:16:29Bill Simmons?

  But you might need a fucking asshole at this point. You might need like mid 2000s David Stern.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Right, and but the rule needs to be, you know, i- i- if the more lenient than what it takes to overturn a call in the NFL. Basically, like, if I think that's fishy, you might get penalized. It's like, you know, so and and you're gonna have to trust me that I'm not playing favorites, I'm not. But just so you know, i- i- if I think you are not, on a night in, night out basis, trying to win basketball games, you might end up out of the lottery, no matter what. You might end up having real penalties that go against what the whole, you think the whole purpose of this is. I, I don't think it's that hard.

• 1:17:20Bill Simmons?

  So the ping pong balls with the lottery.

• 1:17:25Bill Simmons?

  I forget how many there, there are for each team.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Well, there's, I mean, I can do that. There's a thousand total. So if you have

• 1:17:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So the top team gets, or the top four get 200 or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So 130 would be a 13% chance.

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  Would you allow teams to trade ping pong balls? Like, maybe ping pong balls are part of the answer with this. Adam could penalize people ping pong balls when he sees fit, and there's just less ping pong balls in the, in the thing. I mean, it's sad that we're have to come up with dumb ideas like this. This already should have been solved. Because here's the thing with the league. They do this new CBA, they basically put in a hard cap, right? You saw these teams scrambling to get under the tax, making their teams worse. It's a hard cap because yet again, they took advantage of the Players Association, which got its ass kicked. I think for the fifth or sixth time in my lifetime by, go figure, by a bunch of rich dudes with like better lawyers.

• 1:18:26Bill Simmons?

  They just figured out how to do this, cut the costs, because they're gonna make as much money as they can from everything possible, right? He could still be kind of a hard ass with the owners. They all won. They're all winning. They all made a kajillion dollars already. Like, start cracking it a little bit, Adam Silver.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  Well, that's the part of it, and that gets back to the point I was making about the difference between shortening the season and fixing tanking. Shortening the season, you're right, it would be better. Long-term, I think everyone would make more money. There's a million reasons to do it. The one reason they wouldn't do it is those 30 owners would be like, wait, so 12 million less? Eh, doesn't sound great to me. And you don't want to have that fight. But there is no, it doesn't cost the owners money to fix the tanking. All it takes is a stern will to actually enforce your book, your rules on the books. You have anti-tanking rules. Just like you have anti-flopping rules that don't get enforced.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  You can simply say, like, to teams, hey, you are allowed, if you would like, to trade away your best players. That is fine. You are allowed to do things where you were like, we're not there yet. So you are allowed, if you're the Pacers and you see Halliburton's hurt, and you want to, I know they didn't trade Myles Turner, let Myles Turner walk. You're allowed to build your team however you want.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  But once the season begins, those guys who are paid to play pro basketball and the coach who is paid to try to win games, if you're not doing it, there is no world where that's good for you. There is no world where people can come on this podcast and be like, Milwaukee not playing Giannis is smart. That's not smart. That's abhorrent. And it would never be accepted in the league that keeps growing in the NFL. It would never be accepted for, at the, before Thanksgiving, much less before, you know, they wouldn't even be accepted at Christmas. But if the, what's a good example this year?

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  If the Cowboys, after the first six weeks of the season was like, we're sitting Dak Prescott because we really want Julian Love out of Notre Dame. Is he hurt? Well, he had that injury last year and you know, we're just being careful. But let's be honest, we're not playing for anything. You think Roger Goodell would accept if the Cowboys were like, I know we're playing on Thanksgiving, but Dak Prescott and C.D. Lamb and George Pickens aren't because we want to lose the game. Well, the players are out there, we'll try, but we actually want to lose. No, they wouldn't. It would be an outrage.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they'd be probably afraid of the reaction from the person in charge of the league.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:21:19Bill Simmons?

  It's a, as I said, this has been a 42-year problem. And it's funny that it becomes a talking point for people like us right after football ends. Because people look around, they're like, ah, NBA, dog days, what is there to talk about? And the irony is, we have more good players than we've ever had in the league since I was a year out of college. This is the most high-end talent we've ever had. I did a trade value list that had over 80 guys on it. Night to night, it's been the most entertaining kind of group of games. There's always one awesome game every night. We have all these young players that have come in the league that I love watching. This last rookie class was a home run and it seems like this next rookie class is a grand slam.

• 1:22:01Bill Simmons?

  The answer to all of this isn't to expand the two teams and don't fix the tanking and don't really fix anything, including like, what's going to happen with the Clippers thing? Like, what's going to happen? Because, just because, did it happen? Did it not happen? We've had three months to look at it. Everybody's talking about it. If there's not a smoking gun, does that mean they look the other way? I, like, that's been another topic. It's weird. It's just weird. We always talk about. And then the other thing that people are talking about is like, Jokic isn't going to be an All-NBA? He's gonna, if he plays 63 minutes, but he plays 2,100 minutes? If he's 20th in the league in minutes, but only plays 63 games, he's not eligible?

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Well, the all NBA thing, if you got, there aren't, you couldn't find 10 people in the world who care more about historical accuracy of the all NBA list more than you and me.

• 1:22:59Bill Simmons?

  Right, exactly.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like, it is.

• 1:23:02Bill Simmons?

  2,000 minutes, just make it 65 games or 2,000 minutes.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  Or again, make it with, at the commissioner's discretion. Like the, again, so I am, I'll use LeBron as a, for instance, pretend for a moment LeBron was playing at the level he was at two years ago.

• 1:23:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Okay? Just for, just for the sake of this discussion. If, if a guy in year 23 at 70,000 minutes, suffered an injury before the year, a real injury, and had to miss 15, miss the first 15 games of the year. And then, over the next 67 games, played 62 out of 67. It's like, nope, that guy's ineligible for everything. That guy, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like, that's, that's not.

• 1:23:56Bill Simmons?

  But I understand why they did it the way they did it, because they were trying to crack down a little bit on guys just skipping games, like, which goes back to your story about the Knicks and the Nets game, and not knowing when LeBron is gonna be there. So, at least in this case, the spirit of it was okay. I just think they came up with the wrong numbers.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  I, I agree with you.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  Let me ask you a bigger question, though. Do you think the NBA does this intentionally?

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  To create some level of controversy?

• 1:24:26Bill Simmons?

  They're intentionally flawed. They like this. They like that we're doing segments about this. They like that we talk about the league and how we should fix this, and they should do this, and they should do that. Like, because that's the only explanation I have, because some of these fixes are so easy and simple. Like, literally, nobody likes the instant replay thing. Nobody. Not one person. Nobody's like, oh, cool, last two minutes of the game. Now it's gonna take a half hour. This'll be fun. Nobody likes it. They just bring it back. It's like, they like that, we don't like it.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  So if they, if that is true, I think it is a massive strategic error.

• 1:25:04Bill Simmons?

  Me too.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe answer replay is not because actually with like the ratings still go up the late, like the longer the game goes. So maybe that's fine, but the other stuff I think is outrageous. But here's the other reason why I think it is a real threat, if you will.

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  One thing leagues correct, I've never liked, but they are correct about. The reason they have rules about celebrations and taunting is because kids emulate. I've always thought that's stupid. I've always, listen, I had, I had a kid who played college basketball and was a high level, all state level Texas basketball player. And I told him the same thing I would tell anyone, tell their kids like, hey, here's the rules. Once your games are on national TV, you can act like the guys on national TV. Until then you're a high school athlete, you know, conduct yourself as such, but they are correct. Kids, whether it's the three goggles or the style of play emulate the pros.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  And I'm watching this kid at Kansas. Who is emulating the pros, it appears in a different way, which is. Yeah, I don't really need to play all the time. And that's concerning. That's good. This, this guy you were talking, you guys were talking about as the best guard prospect since Dwyane Wade or since whomever.

• 1:26:30Bill Simmons?

  Probably since Vince Carter at North Carolina.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Right. So just.

• 1:26:33Bill Simmons?

  And I mean even better than him, maybe like the Kobe level potential talent, potential.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  Right. And. They're playing the number one team in the nation at home.

• 1:26:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's, but this is like, all I need to know if I'm drafting.

• 1:26:48Bill Simmons?

  Because the number one thing that we know. That I'm older than you. Yeah, it's like psychotic competitiveness. Cooper flag. Just like right now, like just like being like, I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm gonna keep working at it to get better as any way I can. LeBron in year 23, still getting up at five in the morning. He used the fucking versa climber. He has every record that exists. What makes him use the versa climber at five in the morning? Cause he, I don't know, there's something inside him and it worries me that this kid's at Kansas being like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm playing today. It's like, it reminds me of Ben Simmons at LSU, which was a red flag when that happened.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  It, but my question would be, is there any chance?

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it trickled down.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  It, right. It, it, it 20 years ago, if he has the exact same makeup, exact same everything. Is there any chance that happens? Or is it like, no, of course I'm playing. Of course I am playing. And so it just, it has trickled down. All of this stuff has trickled down. And it, it, do you, I, I know you're like, have you been to a? Yeah, I guess you have no reason to go to one, but I'm talking like middle school basketball game. It's just threes. All of it is.

• 1:28:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I, I lived through that. Yeah. My, my, both of my kids were in high school. Yeah. It's just pull out, it's fast breaks. The two kids dart out to the sides instead of trying to get a layup.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  And I know, I know we sound like old cranky men right now. I don't mean to, but what I'm saying is there are, there are real things. There are great things about the NBA. There are things better now about the NBA than ever before. Your point about the depth of talent, about how I, I think it is a testament to the league. The whole weak link theory, that it's less about, do you have the best guy? And more about, can you put out five really good players? I think that's all awesome.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  And everybody plays really hard, which we should point out too, like that, like there's an intensity to these games when the people do play. That like people are playing defense. They really like, it's always impressive seeing a person.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  And it's harder to play and it's smarter. And the, the strategy is so much more sophisticated and all of that stuff. And we have gotten more, if we were like, hey, what are the 10 greatest? Old guy seasons in NBA history. Eight of them are LeBron, Steph and KD over the last four years.

• 1:29:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like we are, we are, the all time greats are playing longer. There's so many great things about the league. And then there are these giant warts that seem so obvious to not be directly attacking them head on is frustrating because they're never gonna lose you and me, ever. It, but to bring in the larger tent and young people to care is important for the health of the league.

• 1:29:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, you made the key point earlier. You mentioned baseball. Who realized they were at a crisis point. They were, they were at a much more dangerous point than the NBA is.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  But they realized like, we have to fix this. This is like-

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  And they did it drastically.

• 1:30:04Bill Simmons?

  This is, this is like a real problem. Our sport might be going sideways here and they fixed it. And I, I think the problem I have with the NBA is they think everything's fine because of the media deals they signed and because people like their players, which I said at the top and that, that, that, there's still real issues here that are gonna get worse. And you could stop it now or you could wait four years from now and be like, oh shit, we should have done this four years ago. And that's just where we are. Um, all right, Nick Wright, I took too much of your time. This was really fun though. I felt like we had to do this. I was excited to do it.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  Well, it was night. You, you had me on for the first time when, as you put it, once the Chiefs were dead.

• 1:30:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  So it was nice to come on.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  I had to do the right thing.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  Died.

• 1:30:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Um, and I guess I'll see you in a few days at the Clutch Sports All-Star Park.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Let's see you there.

• 1:30:55Bill Simmons?

  It's very possible. You might. All right, Nick Wright, great to see you. Thank you. It's time for a special part of today's episode. It's brought to you by Michelob Ultra. A really good beer. You should try it. It's a superior light beer. Best served cold, kinda like all the best, weirdest, funniest, strangest moments of the NBA season so far. We're heading toward All-Star Weekend and it's a good time to reflect on all the things that we've seen over the past, what is it? Half months, four months, whatever it is. I have a mini mailbag. We're gonna do six questions, just six tiny questions that I'm gonna bounce off from this season. First one's from Justin Carrio.

• 1:31:35Bill Simmons?

  And he asks, do you realize that Small Game James has been sitting there out in the open as a nickname for James Harden all this time? Frankly astonishing that Bill Simmons hasn't been using it. I agree. It's petty. It's unfair. It's a little mean spirited. It's right in my wheelhouse. Big Game James, obviously, was James Worthy, who, you know, for the record, 1984 finals, game two, threw the pass that got picked up by Gerald Henderson. Celtics tie it. They go into overtime. They win it.

• 1:32:06Bill Simmons?

  He shed the name. He became Big Game James, thanks to game seven, 1988 finals. He was just a great big game player in general. Not too late for this to happen to James Harden. We'll see. But for now, Small Game James is pretty good. Next one, from Matt from Ithaca. Can we get a quick clarification on the Ewing theory eligible for Jordan and the resurgent Hornets? He means Michael Jordan. Wow. Here's my answer. I can't believe he's besmirching the goat, Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan deserves it because he was a really, really, truly terrible owner. This isn't Ewing theory. Ewing theory is you lose a player who is considered to be a superstar,

• 1:32:49Bill Simmons?

  and then he gets hurt and the team inexplicably plays better without him. That's not the Ewing theory, because if you win a championship, you're ineligible. I think there's a cousin of the Ewing theory, which I would call the Yaki family trust theory. This is what happened with the Red Sox, where they had the Yaki family on the Red Sox. First Tom Yaki, he died, gave it to his wife. She got old. She had a trust running it. I can't remember if she even died or not near the end, but the trust was terrible. Fenway Park was a pit. The area around it sucked. The team didn't spend enough money, and everybody was really, really frustrated about what was happening with the team. And then the team got bought by John Henry and Tom Werner and Larry DiKino.

• 1:33:32Bill Simmons?

  And it was basically, and I remember writing about this at the time, like it was the very cool, nice boyfriend following the terrible boyfriend. That's what the new owners became. And I wonder if the Yawkey family trust theory could apply here to the Hornets because they have a really good ownership. They hired a smart coach. They make smart moves. They're actually building a team that has a sense of purpose. This is what happens. It's the opposite. We have new owner syndrome when we have situations like Matt Ishby and people like that, when they come in, they try to get crazy. The, the Yawkey theory, that's where you want to be if you have somebody taking over your team. This also happened to Warriors with Joe Lacob, by the way. Okay. Next one, Doug from Chapel Hill. Why don't we call the Yanis trade derby, the freak out?

• 1:34:16Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty good. Kind of mad I didn't think of that freak out. And by the way, we didn't end up freaking out because he didn't get traded, which leads to the next one from Jack O. Not the same Jack O. I checked the email address. He said, I see your point that I made in the trade deadline podcast that Yanis could have forced his hand and right near the trade deadline and forced a trade somewhere and he didn't. But he says, historically, we have scrutinized rightfully Harden, KD, Kyrie, et cetera for saying, I want out at every stop. Shouldn't we be talking positively about Yanis not being a jerk, keeping it in house for the most part and handling this like a respectable employee? It's a fair take. Here's my counter. He never really a hundred percent did that. He never came out and said, I don't want to be traded.

• 1:35:01Bill Simmons?

  Please take my name out of these trade rumors. I want to retire in Milwaukee. He just never said it. He was kind of like, I don't know. It was like watching one of your friends being wishy washy about whether they're going to break up with somebody or not. And, and then the day after, all of a sudden he did that, the deal with the prediction company. And, and it just felt like the whole thing was a ruse to get attention. And if I was a Bucks fan, I wouldn't have liked it. I'd be happy that we kept Yanis and maybe you scratch him for the year to get a lottery pick, but.

• 1:35:30Bill Simmons?

  It wasn't like a Dirk Nowitzki situation where Dirk Nowitzki was just like, I'm never getting traded from Dallas. If I get traded, I'm not going to my next team. It was basically what he said. I feel like Curry's like that now with Golden State, Milwaukee and Giannis. It never, Giannis was always kind of like, you know, he's getting dressed up and going out to the nightclub, showing some cleavage at the trade deadline and then pretending he wasn't doing that. I think he was. So, uh, next question is from PH. He said, can we agree that Chris Paul officially had the worst retirement tour in NBA history? It was pretty bad. The worst one ever though, was Elgin Baylor,

• 1:36:10Bill Simmons?

  who was on the 1971, 72 Lakers and his knees were just completely broken down at that point. And instead of having a retirement tour, he kind of abruptly retired. He, he just felt like he wasn't playing his standards and it was just over. And then the Lakers went on to win 33 straight games, which is still a record. And then they won Jerry West's only title. And, uh, not only did Elgin Baylor not get to participate in any of that, but then he became a famous Uang theory. We didn't even know what the Uang theory was in 1972. That's the worst retirement tour because Elgin Baylor was one of the 15 best players of all time. And probably when he retired, one of the best 10. So, uh, now he's probably in the 20, but, um,

• 1:36:52Bill Simmons?

  that was pretty bad to, to abruptly retire and then watch your team win the title without you. This Chris Paul thing wasn't great. Last question, Nick from North Carolina. The way the Kings and Bulls keep trading with each other is hilarious. I agree. Even in three team trades, they cannot stay away from each other. It's pretty funny. It's like when your friend gets another friend from college or something and all of a sudden they bring them along, whenever and wherever. It's like, I know we've had this plane to go to Topgolf for weeks, but can my friend Ralph tag along? Or like when a big brother has to bring his little brother along with him to meet up with friends. I wonder if Vivek has to check in with the Bulls before pulling the trigger on some of these trades he makes. Hey, I'm about to get fleeced at another deal. You want in?

• 1:37:35Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. It's too funny. I agree. The Bulls and Kings, when you see them in a trade together, the only thing you know for sure is that you want to be the third team. It's Bulls, Kings. I want to be the third team. I don't even care who's in the trade. That's where I want to be. Vivek just brings an incredible amount of comedy. He's going to probably not enjoy the live show at the Wilted Theater tomorrow night. The only other thing I want to do before we wrap up the six pack, let's talk about a superior All-Star player. I have my eye on Jamal Murray, because Jamal Murray has come out and said, I care about this game. I'm going to try really hard. Let's see if anyone can follow your example, Jamal Murray. That's it for today's six pack. Go grab your own six pack of Michelob Ultra. Plus, Michelob Ultra is giving you a chance to win exclusive prizes, including courtside tickets and more. Enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside.

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  Michelob Ultra, superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Courtside 25-26. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and prizes and details. This episode is brought to you by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/ simmons and discover the versatility of Viori

• 1:39:04Bill Simmons?

  clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. 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. Last but not least, my dad is here. He thought I was banning him from being on Netflix, one of his favorite streaming services,

• 1:39:44Bill Simmons?

  but he's depressed. You big blizzard, the Pats lost, Celtics made a trade, not looking as good, and you were in a great mood with sports a month ago, and now, now I'm worried about you. I don't know what's going on with you, so I'm checking in.

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  I was in a great mood two weeks ago.

• 1:40:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  A week and a half ago. I'm not a big fan so far of the Celtic trade, as you know. I think it upset the chemistry. I love the way Simons played. He gave them energy and was a great scorer off the bench. And it's going to take them a while to get some chemistry with this guy. Maybe it will work out. I hope so.

• 1:40:23Bill Simmons?

  Did you figure out how to pronounce his name yet or no?

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  No, I just call him Vuk.

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  Do you want to give it a try and see?

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  Vukovich, right?

• 1:40:34Bill Simmons?

  Vukovich. You've always liked him though. He was one a year. I always liked him guys, but unfortunately now he's in his mid 30s.

• 1:40:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I always liked him. I didn't know he was going to be 36 years old soon, but I liked him. I wish we had traded for him five years ago.

• 1:40:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that I went to the game Friday night, the Miami game, and then obviously they sucked on on Sunday night. But yeah, that we were just worried about going from three guards to two when the team what was working was these three guards that they were interchangeable. They could play off the ball. They could play with the ball. You always had two of them out there. And you could feel the shift, but they it feels like Tatum's coming back for real. I mean, that every check mark and it really seems like beginning of March. There's two home games in the beginning of March. It feels like it's going to be one of those.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the only thing that's getting me through the lack of chemistry that we have right now after the trade.

• 1:41:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I thought you were going to say the end of the Patriots season and my concerns about Drake May. Okay.

• 1:41:33Speaker 02

  That they know Tatum's coming back.

• 1:41:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  They know that they're going to get scoring that they didn't have before to take the place of Simons. I still though like the three guard movement.

• 1:41:46Bill Simmons?

  I did too.

• 1:41:47Speaker 02

  The three guards coming back with Tatum, but

• 1:41:51Speaker 02

  and I understand the money thing and it's a shame. All these moves we've made in the last 10 months, they're all money motivated, but. I guess that's the new NBA.

• 1:42:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, there's two ways to think about it with the tax. And I, I, I don't mean to defend the Celtics and you're coming on after a segment where we were really critical of the NBA with their schedule and a whole bunch of things for a half hour. So,

• 1:42:16Bill Simmons?

  with the Celtics though, getting out of the tax for one year, that enables you to have all the spending flexibility for the next three, basically. And I think that, I don't think fans fully understand that because on the surface you see like, oh, they're just cheap. They don't want to pay it. And it's like, no, actually like now they can go all in on next season where they had this trade exception. And, you know, they can actually outspend some of the people they're competing against who are more hampered by the tax. That's how, that's the glass half full reason for it. The glass half empty is pay the fucking tax. You just paid seven million for the team.

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  I understand all that. It's just,

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  you know, I don't know how many more windows we have with this current makeup of Tatum and Brown and the people that are trying to surround them with. And

• 1:43:06Bill Simmons?

  Are you worried at all about Tatum coming back when it's kind of Jalen Brown's team now?

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  I am worried because I've been to the games like, and you've been a couple. And this is a different Jalen Brown this year. He's, he's a kind of black hole in an okay way, meaning that the ball, once it gets to Jalen Brown, doesn't always move to another player because he's

• 1:43:29Bill Simmons?

  But he makes, but he makes good decisions when he has it. So it's, yeah.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  He does, except for four or five plays a game that you and I always talk about.

• 1:43:38Bill Simmons?

  No, you talk about, I'm, I'm way higher on Jalen. You get frustrated by the missed free throws at the end of games. And I think he's been unbelievable. I honestly, I think he's first team all NBA right now.

• 1:43:49Speaker 02

  I don't disagree with you. I love that he's going to the basket so hard this year. It looks like he built up some strength because defenders are just bouncing off him.

• 1:43:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  But he's playing a game that he didn't play when Tatum was here, healthy.

• 1:44:05Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  And I don't, and you know, I don't know how they're going to mesh this when Tatum comes back. Cause Tatum likes the ball. Obviously.

• 1:44:15Speaker 02

  When Jalen Brown is out there, I don't know what his usage rate is, but he always has the ball.

• 1:44:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Speaker 02

  And Tatum always had the ball. So they're gonna have to learn how to live with each other again in a different way, I think. And Tatum, I'm sure they'll bring back slowly.

• 1:44:31Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be emotional. You know, we, because the way we thought before the year, their over under was like 41. I thought they were gonna be better than people thought. I didn't think they'd be a top three seed. But it seemed like the likely scenario was they'll be a seven seed. Maybe he comes back if he's completely healthy. Plays 20 minutes a game, but it's not, it's not a serious playoff team. But they, they have a chance to be a serious playoff team if he comes back, which I don't think.

• 1:44:58Speaker 02

  They do. You know, they, a game like the game against the Knicks Sunday worried me.

• 1:45:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:05Speaker 02

  The team just didn't look together and they've looked together all season long. Now I realize you bring in, you know, we haven't had a real post player in years. So you're bringing in a guy who's a post player, a center who passes very well. And from what I've read and looked at his stats, he has the three. We haven't seen too much of that yet, but.

• 1:45:26Bill Simmons?

  We've seen some bricks.

• 1:45:27Speaker 02

  I don't even, yeah, I don't even know if he's had a practice with the team yet. So I guess we have to wait until after the All-Star break and, and you have a date in mind for Tatum to return in your mind when March turns around.

• 1:45:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So I think one thing with the All-Star break is the, the two guards and Jalen, I think just had a pretty, I, to me, White looks cooked.

• 1:45:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:49Bill Simmons?

  And, and White's shot has, has gone sideways. Like even today, then somebody got bounced, somebody got scratched for injury from the All-Star game. And I think White would have made it three weeks ago, but he just hasn't been consistent at all shooting wise. So Brandon Ingram got the spot. But I think Pritchard, White and Brown really need the break. Brad, the bet, one of the best things about Brown this season, he hasn't missed. He's only missed a couple of games. Like he, he's been out and he's guarding the best guy on the other teams a lot of times. I just think he's been awesome.

• 1:46:19Speaker 02

  You know, that's a very good point. He wants to guard the best guy on the other team.

• 1:46:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  That's publicly, he's talked about that.

• 1:46:27Speaker 02

  Pritchard really needed a rest.

• 1:46:30Speaker 02

  And I've loved Pritchard all year long and last year. But against, like Sunday, against a team like the Knicks, he had trouble just getting a shot off. When a team really guards man to man very closely, our guys have some struggles. Maybe Tatum will help fix that, but that Sunday game was a worrisome game.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  Fun.

• 1:46:54Speaker 02

  This late in the year.

• 1:46:55Bill Simmons?

  Fun subplot. Well, that's the thing. When you're in February marks, you can't overreact to wins and losses. Cause you're just.

• 1:47:03Bill Simmons?

  But the Tatum thing, him coming back and getting in there will be really fun to watch.

• 1:47:06Speaker 02

  It would be very fun.

• 1:47:07Bill Simmons?

  The Pats, not fun.

• 1:47:10Speaker 02

  You know, I've thought about it a lot because you and I have talked after the game. I go back to September and I would have been really hopeful if they were nine and eight. And, and excited if they were 10 and seven.

• 1:47:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Speaker 02

  You know, I didn't pay attention to the schedule that much, but I was thinking about the two terrible years we just had. Where we, we, we were lucky to win four games each year. So nine and eight on a rebuild year with a new coach, working with a second year quarterback, I would have been satisfied and maybe we would have snuck into the playoffs. So this was all gravy. I mean, we were in the Super Bowl. Nobody expected that. And.

• 1:47:52Bill Simmons?

  Wow, man, you're handling this really well.

• 1:47:54Speaker 02

  I am. I have been, I've been philosophizing a little bit.

• 1:47:58Bill Simmons?

  Sounds like it.

• 1:48:00Speaker 02

  And it was obvious Drake May's shoulder was hurting him.

• 1:48:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:04Speaker 02

  You know, and now more news comes out. They shot him up and, and now more news is coming out about.

• 1:48:11Speaker 02

  The left tackle, uh, maybe never should have come back from his injury because he was terrible.

• 1:48:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this, we're in the Super Bowl. I can't complain really. And I love the coach. I love the chemistry and camaraderie he's built into that team. I hope most of them come back and they supplement a couple of guys with great draft picks. So I, I, I'm not that disappointed. I was disappointed Sunday night, obviously.

• 1:48:39Bill Simmons?

  You're disappointed, then you got to watch Cousin Sal make fun of me for 15 solid minutes.

• 1:48:44Speaker 02

  I didn't, I didn't enjoy your position that night, but.

• 1:48:48Bill Simmons?

  It was tough. At least I had time to prepare for it.

• 1:48:50Speaker 02

  Cousin Sal, I've never seen him so happy.

• 1:48:53Bill Simmons?

  How about if you had told me in the early nineties that we were going to be in 12 Super Bowls by the time we got to the mid 2020s? Like I, I was thinking about that the other day. They made the Super Bowl once in 1985. And it was, it was played in 86, but that 85 Pats. And it was like, we were so dumbfounded. They made the Super Bowl.

• 1:49:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:17Bill Simmons?

  Then it happened again in 96. It was like, oh my God, we made it again. And now, now we have the record for most Super Bowls, which was when we were Pats fans in the seventies, just winning a playoff game would have been, we would have been excited.

• 1:49:32Speaker 02

  I know. I remember Sugar Ray Hamilton. I still have nightmares about that game.

• 1:49:37Bill Simmons?

  And you took me to the Oilers game, the playoff game.

• 1:49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41Bill Simmons?

  Got killed.

• 1:49:42Speaker 02

  Got killed. Um, the irony is, yeah, we've been in 12 Super Bowls. We've lost half of them.

• 1:49:50Speaker 02

  That's bizarre.

• 1:49:51Bill Simmons?

  And this was the, out of all these, the first one and the last one were the two where we just felt like we got our asses kicked. Even the Packers one, I still feel like if they didn't kick off to Desmond Howard, I still feel like we would have won.

• 1:50:04Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:50:04Bill Simmons?

  I'm always going to think that. Nobody will change my opinion.

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  I can close my eyes based on where we were sitting and see Desmond Howard, Howard coming right at me. And guys had so many shots.

• 1:50:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah. You went to the game. I didn't. You went to that game.

• 1:50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went to that game. Yeah. Um, no, I, I give the Pats and the coaching staff and the players' energy and, and they're always plugged in a lot of credit.

• 1:50:30Bill Simmons?

  What's the mood in Boston? Cause I know you've been dabbling with the TV, radio stuff. Has it been more negative than I thought it was going to be or?

• 1:50:36Speaker 02

  No, I don't think it has been. I think there's some, if there's anything, there's some disappointment, I guess, in Drake May.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  Maybe a little less so when it came out that he had to get shot up before the game, you know, cause they, they really downplayed that he was injured.

• 1:50:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm aware.

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  And they, and they probably should have had him on the injury report for the Super Bowl and that could back, come back to haunt them if he got shot up, right?

• 1:51:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you don't get shot in your throwing shoulder unless something bad happened to your throwing shoulder.

• 1:51:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:11Bill Simmons?

  And we also watched him all year and he was like, you know, he was really accurate. And then in this game, he just wasn't. So I don't, like the fear is like, maybe his shoulder wasn't that hurt and he just choked. But I, I'm not willing to go there because we saw too much from him during the year, but.

• 1:51:27Speaker 02

  He was so accurate all year and it wasn't just the Super Bowl though. The whole playoffs were kind of a nightmare in terms of turnovers.

• 1:51:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, maybe he needed it. Maybe this will make them double down and maybe, maybe it'll make them want to have a better offensive line next year.

• 1:51:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. There is a, there is that radio station that talks about, is he really Mac Jones in disguise?

• 1:51:54Bill Simmons?

  I can't even imagine.

• 1:51:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Bill Simmons?

  Cause they're still, I was there this weekend. There's still, now it's like frozen still on the ground. It's freezing.

• 1:52:02Speaker 02

  Well, you know, that's the other thing. If we had won and they wanted to have a parade.

• 1:52:07Bill Simmons?

  You couldn't even have had it.

• 1:52:09Speaker 02

  They couldn't have had a parade.

• 1:52:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 02

  There's, there's cars that won't come out until April. They're, they're covered with sheets of ice. So.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  And then how, where did you come down on the second season of Landman?

• 1:52:24Speaker 02

  Um, I thought the last four episodes, uh, pulled it together and, uh,

• 1:52:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh, pulled it together?

• 1:52:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. I thought there were middle, episodes in the middle, like three, four, or five. They were a little bit slow and didn't know where they were going.

• 1:52:41Bill Simmons?

  What are your, what are your top TV shows right now, other than all of your favorite Netflix programming? I know you love The Rip. I'm just saying that's part of Netflix. I know you love the, what, what are you, what are your top ones? Is the Donnie Wahlberg show up there? Did it, did you?

• 1:52:55Speaker 02

  No, I, I think it's mediocre. I like the three Chicago shows, Chicago PD, Fire.

• 1:53:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, the Met, the Chicago Marathon? What is it?

• 1:53:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, I'm into that.

• 1:53:07Bill Simmons?

  Police, Fire, and Hospital? Are those the three?

• 1:53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, I'm okay with that.

• 1:53:11Bill Simmons?

  Do they ever merge them where somebody sets a fire and the people end up in the hospital? And then they have to solve it and it's all one three hour show?

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  That's coming up. I'll, I'll, I'll text you when it's, the night it's gonna happen.

• 1:53:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's, that's, that's exciting.

• 1:53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Speaker 02

  Uh, again, you and I both love Landman. Um, I thought you didn't think it pulled itself together at the end?

• 1:53:33Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I thought it was a four episode season. That was 10 episodes. Uh, they just padded a lot of stuff, which seems to be the, one of the moves now with the streamers. You don't watch industry, but industry's been amazing.

• 1:53:45Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 1:53:46Bill Simmons?

  Um, and then, uh, we, both of us really liked The Rip. I think that was my favorite

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53Bill Simmons?

  movie I've seen. I've been, I, I went back and I, I did a second tour of it and, uh, I liked it more the second time than the first time.

• 1:54:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:00Bill Simmons?

  First time, I think there was too much coming on for me. The second time I was like, all right. But it was like an old school, you used to call them the five o'clockers.

• 1:54:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. This was a six o'clocker.

• 1:54:10Bill Simmons?

  It was a five o'clocker with better actors.

• 1:54:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe. Um, yeah, I, I'll watch it again. Um, I like your new channel. I like the stuff Netflix is producing.

• 1:54:20Bill Simmons?

  Oh, thanks for the Netflix.

• 1:54:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:23Bill Simmons?

  Wait, so, so I did the 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century at the end of last year. And it was controversial because I had Limitless, number 16.

• 1:54:34Bill Simmons?

  You love limitless.

• 1:54:36Speaker 02

  Not number 16.

• 1:54:38Bill Simmons?

  But you you've watched it a ton, though.

• 1:54:40Speaker 02

  I watched it a few times.

• 1:54:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, so what what out of the ones that were on the list, what should have been on? Because Taken is a big one for you. All three equalizers you would have had?

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely. Getting equalizer three was the best. I thought.

• 1:54:56Bill Simmons?

  Basically, anything Denzel you're in.

• 1:54:58Speaker 02

  Or John Wick. Did you have all the John Wick?

• 1:55:01Bill Simmons?

  I had Wick two. I arguably could add Wick one as well.

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, that Wick one. It's all about the dog.

• 1:55:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:07Speaker 02

  Wick one. I would have leave. I like ballerina. I'm probably the only one in the country, but.

• 1:55:13Bill Simmons?

  No, ballerina did all right.

• 1:55:17Speaker 02

  That whole genre. You know that I like that genre.

• 1:55:20Bill Simmons?

  So it's just sort of been all. Yeah.

• 1:55:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, all that. It would have been all that genre.

• 1:55:24Bill Simmons?

  All right.

• 1:55:24Speaker 02

  No, no wrong comes.

• 1:55:26Bill Simmons?

  So you're gonna make it through the gross winner and the terrible Super Bowl loss. And get ready for Jason Tatum.

• 1:55:32Speaker 02

  As we're talking, it's snowing here again.

• 1:55:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:55:35Speaker 02

  This is just awful. Yeah, I'm looking forward to now I can look forward to Tatum coming back because it looks like that's going to happen. And worry about the chemistry when he comes back and does Jalen Brown take him back the same way? It would be interesting.

• 1:55:53Bill Simmons?

  How did you like how the Devers trade ultimately turned out?

• 1:55:56Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, you and I killed the trade.

• 1:55:59Bill Simmons?

  It was a money dump when they then had to do a second money dump of one of the guys that got in the trade. There's nobody left. They traded all three guys.

• 1:56:07Speaker 02

  But we've been told that they're going to use that money elsewhere.

• 1:56:11Bill Simmons?

  Right, which they did.

• 1:56:13Speaker 02

  Which they have not yet. No, we didn't get the big thumper. Which is what the papers are criticizing. We don't have the middle. We don't really have contrarist. We don't have that middle of the order. Outfielder or third baseman.

• 1:56:28Bill Simmons?

  It seems like I don't know this for sure, but it seems like they're banking on Roman Anthony basically being their version of what happened with Drake May this year. And that they don't need the expensive guy because this guy is going to be an MVP candidate.

• 1:56:42Speaker 02

  Possible.

• 1:56:44Speaker 02

  Him getting hurt really hurt our team, obviously.

• 1:56:48Bill Simmons?

  It hurt my summer. I was having a really fun time watching the team until he went down.

• 1:56:53Speaker 02

  And we really get a sense, is he going to be a power hitter? He certainly was a hitter.

• 1:56:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:58Speaker 02

  But can he put up those home runs?

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, people are excited about him. People are always excited when everybody's healthy. It's the injuries that start cropping up. I'd say our pitching staff looks pretty interesting what they brought in.

• 1:57:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:13Speaker 02

  The depth. And I did like the trade they made yesterday for the third baseman, but again, he's not a power hitter.

• 1:57:21Bill Simmons?

  I was pretty lukewarm on that one.

• 1:57:23Speaker 02

  And I think they're done.

• 1:57:26Bill Simmons?

  You know what they're not done doing is taking money from the fans.

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  Well, most expensive ticket in baseball.

• 1:57:32Bill Simmons?

  They're not done with that. Send your checks here.

• 1:57:35Speaker 02

  I guess John Henry's still doing very well money wise, right?

• 1:57:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, he just sold the Penguins for twice as much that he paid. And I'm sure they're in on this. If the Vegas expansion actually happens, they're probably saving money to be one of the ownership groups going after that. But.

• 1:57:52Speaker 02

  It's just, it's inexplicable how they have stopped spending money after we won the title in 18.

• 1:57:59Bill Simmons?

  I would say it is explicable though, because they won four titles and they were like, we're good. You're welcome.

• 1:58:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:07Bill Simmons?

  And then they scaled back. I think they felt like they did what they needed to do.

• 1:58:11Speaker 02

  It's, it's seven, it's eight years later.

• 1:58:13Bill Simmons?

  I know. I'm aware. That's the trade of Mookie Betts. I don't know if you remember that.

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  You know, the Devers one didn't bother me as much because they promised they would re-spend that money. Of course, they didn't. The Betts trade was an abomination.

• 1:58:26Bill Simmons?

  Also, the Devers

• 1:58:30Bill Simmons?

  maybe got out of that one in time. That might have been a good mulligan. They paid him a lot of money for a guy that, uh, not even sure what position he would have been two years from now.

• 1:58:40Speaker 02

  But the package they should have gotten back for a guy at his age with his stats. They didn't get that package back. You know, they, they just sold for the first bidder, it looked like.

• 1:58:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, I know, I know you saw Jacko this weekend, who has only won one World Series this century.

• 1:58:57Speaker 02

  I might have brought it up. How are Yankees looking?

• 1:59:00Bill Simmons?

  We've won four times as many as him, so that was good. All right. Be careful in the cold weather out there. Good to see you.

• 1:59:05Speaker 02

  It was good seeing you this weekend.

• 1:59:07Bill Simmons?

  Thanks for popping up.

• 1:59:07Speaker 02

  Okay, bye.

• 1:59:09Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Nick and my dad and Gahal and Eduardo and everybody at The Ringer. I will be back on Thursday with one more podcast. It's going to be our live show that we haven't done yet, but I know it's going to be fantastic and I know you're going to enjoy it and I can't wait to do it. So we'll be back on Thursday with that. New rewatch was coming next Monday. We're doing Golden Eye. The last one that went up is Ace Ventura. Go check that out. I will see you on this feed on Thursday. Thanks.

• 1:59:52Bill Simmons?

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• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

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