‘Blue Chips’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan owe them this rewatch… WE OWE IT TO 'EM! The guys shave a few points for Western University as they revisit the 1994 sports classic ‘Blue Chips’ starring Nick Nolte, Mary McDonnell, J. T. Walsh, Shaquille O’Neal, and Penny Hardaway. Directed by William Friedkin. Watch this episode and much more on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck Video Producer: Jack Sanders, Chia Hao Tat Try Loom today, visit loom.com to get started. 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?

  Hey, rewatchables fans. You already knew we were coming to Boston for a sold out show on March 27th, but what you didn't know is we're sticking around that weekend. We're gonna host our first ever rewatchables film festival while we're in Boston. We're screening some of our favorite movies, movies that we have done on this podcast, plus maybe a couple others, at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater. We're doing it all weekend from March 28th through March 30th, one of my favorite theaters in America. We might even make a few surprise appearances at a couple of these screenings. It's your chance to see some of our favorites as they were meant to be seen on the big screen. Classic mob heist Boston movies we

• 0:40Bill Simmons?

  love. Goodfellas, The Town, The Departed. Oh yeah, we're doing Heat. Again, it's gonna kick off Friday, March 28th at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Visit the Ringer dot com slash events for showtimes and ticket information. Hopefully, we'll see you there. The rewatchables brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. You can find all of our video on Spotify as video podcasts, as well as The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. You can find Chris Ryan doing the watch.

• 1:08Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 1:09Bill Simmons?

  Some good TV lately, finally.

• 1:11Chris Ryan?

  Uplifting adolescence.

• 1:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13Chris Ryan?

  Talked about that, yeah.

• 1:14Bill Simmons?

  And then White Lotus, Last of Us is coming. Lot of good stuff.

• 1:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19Bill Simmons?

  Van, Higher Learning?

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Higher Learning, Midnight Boys. What, don't do it, Bill.

• 1:24Chris Ryan?

  Pew pew.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  I said pew pew. Thank you. Lot of stuff going on, lots of political news, lots of news in the superhero space. Great pod that we did just recently. Me, Sean, Joe, CR.

• 1:37Bill Simmons?

  What was the pod?

• 1:38Chris Ryan?

  It was about the state of the MCU and superhero movies.

• 1:41Bill Simmons?

  And... You're skipping that one.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Okay, so Bill tells people not to listen, so yeah.

• 1:49Chris Ryan?

  He's skipping it. It doesn't mean...

• 1:51Bill Simmons?

  No, no, that sounds like a great idea for a pod. You know my feelings. I could've just come in for a cameo at the end and been like, "Yeah, I've been here for 10 years."

• 1:59Chris Ryan?

  He's gotta light a couple more candles for Abdul Carter first.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:02Bill Simmons?

  All right, well, coming up...

• 2:03Chris Ryan?

  DMing Cleveland Brown supporters.

• 2:05Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna talk about a very polarizing sports movie that is somehow weirdly endearing. Blue Chips is next.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  All the other schools are doing it.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  We owe them this money.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  I figure about 30 grand, like having cash.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  Did you cheat? He bought them, Charlie. I know he bought them. Did you take money? We owe it to them. Nick Nolte and Shaquille O'Neal. Blue Chips, rated PG-13, starts Friday, February 18th at theaters everywhere.

• 2:55Bill Simmons?

  All right, guys. So I wrote this in the mid 2000s about Blue Chips. I wrote that it would, it turned out to be the Penny Hardaway of sports movies, ironically. Unlimited potential, great start, peaked early, some ups and downs, ultimately disappointing, and then kind of grows on you year after year. And I wrote that mid 2000s. We did like kind of a tester sports movie Hall of Fame pod maybe eight years ago and I liked it more. Yeah. And now we're in 225, all these years later. And I like it more than I used to. And I think it just makes me nostalgic for whatever this weird era of sports movies and young skinny Shaq and young Penny Hardaway and Nick Nolte and whatever they're trying

• 3:38Bill Simmons?

  to do in this movie. I don't know. I really enjoyed rewatching this.

• 3:41Chris Ryan?

  I think it actually is an inverted sports movie. And if you look at it that way, it is, it works better. It's inverted because it's a feel bad sports movie. It starts out with them losing.

• 3:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 3:53Chris Ryan?

  It starts out, then it goes to him compromising on his principles and then it goes to his career's over.

• 3:58Bill Simmons?

  There's no heroes.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  Nope.

• 3:59Bill Simmons?

  There's no, no takeaways.

• 4:00Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 4:02Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of unintentional comedy, Van. There's some really fun basketball that's shot in a super weird way, but it's still compelling to watch, but you're watching it going, why didn't they just bring the camera back? I just would have loved to have seen all of these famous players from the 90s play together. And Louisiana's in it. So I know your feelings.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Love it. Well, first of all. It was part of Shaq's media rollout as a pro.

• 4:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Shaq and Penny together was like, oh, my gosh, Shaq and Penny are in a movie.

• 4:32Bill Simmons?

  But we barely knew who Penny was.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Barely knew who Penny was.

• 4:35Bill Simmons?

  Shaq had real gravitas.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Shaq was a gigantic star, but Penny was Memphis was still Memphis State at this, at this point. Penny was this silky smooth big guard from Memphis State. And then when you see him in the movie, it's part of what makes him a celebrity. But the film itself also is interesting in that it predicts the future. It's an easier film to watch retrospectively because so many of the things that it was about like came to pass like it.

• 5:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's why we want to do this because now we're in the NIL era, which is the era that Blue Chips was telling us for 30 years. We should be in this era.

• 5:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:10Bill Simmons?

  And now we're actually in the era and it's, you know, I remember I saw this movie in the theater with my, my dad and my buddy Kurt Sanger. And we were really excited.

• 5:20Chris Ryan?

  There's something every time you mention a guy you went to the movies with.

• 5:23Bill Simmons?

  Kurt Sanger, the Juice Man.

• 5:24Chris Ryan?

  For sure, the Juice Man.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  The Juice Man.

• 5:26Bill Simmons?

  We, he was in town, we called him Juice. We, it was one of those things where we would give. We also had a friend named Night Train. We would give our friends weird nicknames. Yeah. We would do like weird football nicknames from the 40s and 50s just, just for normal people.

• 5:42Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:42Bill Simmons?

  But anyway, we saw this movie, super excited, Nick Daulty, Fried Ken.

• 5:45Chris Ryan?

  Super excited because you thought it was going to be like.

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  Thought it was going to be great. It's like, and this was the era where sports movies had shifted from that Rocky model that we talked about. The Rocky pod, which goes from like through Hoosiers to the late eighties. Then there's like a little kids era, but then the Ron Shelton era comes in. He wrote this movie. Bull Durham's happened. We're moving toward like a more sophisticated sports movie, but we're not quite here that, there yet. And this movie never really figured out what it wanted to be. But on cable, still like really rewatchable. And I think it has a weird. Kinda, kinda tale.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it, yeah, it, for sure. Number one, I mean, you know, it's, it has that tale because of nostalgia, has that tale because of the relevance of the subject matter of the movie.

• 6:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  But also, it's an easy watch.

• 6:33Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Uh, it's a easy watch. The movie doesn't, it talks a little bit about some of the poverty that the players live in and like what they're going through, but it doesn't get too deep into it. It talks a little bit about the corruption of the NCAA, the NCSA, or their draconian rules, should I say, but it doesn't really go too hard into it. You know, Happy is a very easy villain to root against. It's like this slay, he's slimeball.

• 6:58Bill Simmons?

  Chris isn't rooting against him. If, to Chris, this is a Happy movie. It's a JT Walsh extravaganza.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Love JT Walsh. You know what's funny? If, in today, in today's world.

• 7:09Chris Ryan?

  Happy would run shit.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Happy is the hero and P. Bell, the guy who doesn't want to pay the players, he's the villain if you, if you do the movie today.

• 7:18Bill Simmons?

  There was a nostalgia thing in a couple of different ways, but one of the things that, you know, it was such a big deal that all these college guys were in the movie and even like Calvert-Cheney and Hurley and people like that in the game scenes.

• 7:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Bill Simmons?

  And I was just thinking about how much we cared about college basketball when I was in college. Like, we were talking about, it was the, it was St. Patrick's Day and I was on a thread with my college buddies and like one of my great sports members in college was Princeton and Georgetown.

• 7:45Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:46Bill Simmons?

  On St. Patrick's Day and we were just at a party watching that and the entire campus was locked in on that game. Like, we all watched the Leitner shot game together. We really cared about Kenny Anderson on Georgia Tech and what Shaq was gonna do on LSU and just, and Leitner was like a, a college god and UNLV Larry Johnson just showing up and being like, it seemed like he was like 25 and just kicking ass. We cared about all these people. So them being in this movie with Bobby Knight, with Patino, with Bayheim, with Tark as like these funny characters, like it really meant something back then.

• 8:21Chris Ryan?

  Well, we also obviously naively believed in like the power of these institutions to recruit these players just

• 8:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 8:27Chris Ryan?

  like based on the reputation alone. And one of the things that I remember so clearly about like my college basketball fandom back in Philly was like, when a kid would go to a school that was kind of on a little bit of a downswing, it's like, no. Like Mark Makin's gonna revive Temple.

• 8:43Bill Simmons?

  Right, so and so's coming.

• 8:43Chris Ryan?

  This guy's go, can you believe that this guy's going to LSU? Like, this is amazing. And we were with, short of like, we weren't like pounding recruiting newsletters or anything, but we were like very aware when a big time freshman would come into a school and how that might change everything.

• 9:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Shaq and Chris Jackson, who then became McMatto, but those guys being in LSU together was like a huge deal.

• 9:08Chris Ryan?

  Or even Penny going to Memphis, but the fact that this movie was so explicitly broadcast as being about recruiting and about bringing these guys in, and it was very obviously that gonna be like, this is like UCLA, you know what I mean? And there was a bunch of real coaches, real players were gonna be in it. It was like, I think you were almost led into believe like, this is gonna be basically a movie version of my college basketball fandom. And it wound up being like, hey.

• 9:30Bill Simmons?

  But it was directed by the guy from The Exorcist.

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  And this whole thing is about as, is about as morally upright as New York City was during the French Connection.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, at that point, just back to the Shaquille O'Neal thing, at that point, there was just so much interest in him.

• 9:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Like, in a way that, I don't know, I mean, I guess LeBron, right? Like, in terms of.

• 9:53Bill Simmons?

  All those college, like Fab Five, Shaq.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, but there was.

• 9:56Bill Simmons?

  Leitner, those guys were like massive stars.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  And Shaq didn't do the thing that a lot of players do, where they play four or five years in the league and then they go, you know what? I want to be a multimedia star. I wanna rap and I wanna do all of that stuff after they've gotten their foot, feet wet in basketball. No, Shaq got into our cultural sphere and was like, I'm gonna do all of these things and you guys are gonna deal with Shaquille O'Neal as an entertainment force for like the rest of.

• 10:26Bill Simmons?

  Took backlash for it.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Right, he did, took a lot of backlash.

• 10:28Bill Simmons?

  We were on a text, started talking about that and I was, I was saying how, I thought it took a while for Shaq to become. Kind of, he was pretty polarizing. Cause he was trying to, he was trying to be in movies, he was trying to rap. He was doing commercials and there was this attitude of like, you haven't earned any of this yet. Like, win a playoff series. What is this guy doing?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  What I'm saying is, that was a testament to the fact that you could become a real deal superstar.

• 10:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Off college basketball.

• 10:54Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Like, and you could become like this complete household name.

• 10:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Based on what you did in college basketball, like a Christian Laettner did, or Patrick Ewing did.

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  Chris mentioned Mark Makin. I was like, I was invested in Mark Makin. I really liked his game. But there was like 50 of those dudes. That year Kenny Anderson was with, uh, Dee Scott, who was the third guy? Brian Oliver?

• 11:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Lethal F and three.

• 11:17Bill Simmons?

  We love that team. I remember watching a March Madness game late night with those guys. They're on the west coast hoping, you know, and what do I care about Georgia Tech?

• 11:25Chris Ryan?

  And before we started recording, you mentioned the Nolan Richardson, 48 minutes or 40 minutes of hell or whatever.

• 11:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Chris Ryan?

  These teams all had like weird identities.

• 11:33Bill Simmons?

  Some based on the coach. Like Knight in Indiana was the best version of that.

• 11:36Chris Ryan?

  Like, it would be like there were the teams that ran this very smooth, like, like incredibly elegant offenses. Then there were the like slam their hands on the court defensive teams. And there were the run and gun teams. There were the teams where you're like, man, like.

• 11:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're definitely cheating. Tark, whoever Tark was coaching.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  The prep school killers from Duke.

• 11:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  And then like the, like the, the UCLA, Ed O'Bannon, the O'Bannon brothers with Toby Bailey and Cameron Doller and all of these different guys. It was, it was like a legitimate, there was a whole landscape of stars to choose from in college basketball.

• 12:12Chris Ryan?

  And they were there for three or four years.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  And you and Obie Duke was kind of that and then, uh, in the Weber timeout game. The Laettner shot. There are all these like beats. Hank Adder's dying was like a, probably the biggest sports story that.

• 12:25Chris Ryan?

  Fab five? Is that 90?

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  Fab five started in 91 and 92.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:29Chris Ryan?

  So this comes after Fab Five, right?

• 12:31Bill Simmons?

  I, I got, well, I'll say, I have a Fab Five thing for this, but, uh, we also have Friedkin directing.

• 12:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:38Bill Simmons?

  Which was a big deal for the movie nerds. And I was like becoming a movie nerd, but didn't really fully understand the impact of how weird that would be to have this guy who did The French Connection and The Exorcist. We just knew he was a good director. Didn't have a shitload of history.

• 12:52Chris Ryan?

  But obviously has a pretty, uh, Dim opinion of humanity. You know what I mean? Like, I think he's like, we are all basically like corrupt hustlers.

• 13:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but Love Basketball, there's this crazy backstory with him where he was this massive Celtics fan and had a chance to buy the Celtics in the end of the, end of the late seventies. Do you know this whole story? There's this guy, Irv Levin, who ended up switching franchises with John Y. Brown.

• 13:18Chris Ryan?

  Friedkin could have been schism.

• 13:19Bill Simmons?

  Irv Levin, John Y. Brown owned the Clippers, Irv Levin owned the Celtics. Irv Levin didn't want to own the Celtics anymore because he couldn't deal with Red Auerbach. The fans were mean to him because he didn't live in Boston. And Friedkin was this huge Celtic fan. He's like, I'll, I'll let you buy one third of the team and you can run it. And Friedkin was like a famous director. There's, you can read this, he tells the whole story and he's really thinking about, should I do this? And then ultimately decided not to do it. They switch franchises. That's how the Clippers end up moving to LA. John Y. Brown sells and we get Larry Bird.

• 13:52Chris Ryan?

  Did you ever meet Friedkin?

• 13:54Bill Simmons?

  No, but I, I had no idea until I did the research what a massive fan he was and it's why Cousy's in this.

• 13:59Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:00Bill Simmons?

  Cause he was friends with Cousy, like he asked Cousy for advice and then spoiler alert, Cousy wins the movie. Like this is an all time incredible Bob Cousy.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  But he's also, he's like a natural actor.

• 14:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And he has the free throw scene. Uh, CR, is this a Nick Nolte movie, a JT Walsh movie or a Shaq movie for you?

• 14:17Chris Ryan?

  It's a Nolte movie.

• 14:18Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 14:19Chris Ryan?

  I think the, uh, the two things in my mind that I keep turning over about what ifs with this movie are what if somebody different played Pete Bell and what if Ron Shelton had directed it? I think if Shelton directs it, it probably has a lot more humor.

• 14:30Bill Simmons?

  More fun.

• 14:30Chris Ryan?

  And there's a little bit more warmth to it. And I think Nolte is perfectly cast because these coaches do have this kind of like irascible, never happy vibe to them. Like you never saw Bayheim smile. You never see Tom Izzo really smile until the end of the season. Like these guys are always screaming, they're always coaching. And Nolte really brings that out. Yeah, I don't know what it would have been like if Redford had been Pete Bell or something.

• 14:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, in a weird way, it's almost the most realistic possible version of this.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  It's interesting because he's obviously doing his Bobby Knight thing, right? In which he shadowed Bobby Knight.

• 15:07Chris Ryan?

  He shadowed him, yeah.

• 15:07Bill Simmons?

  No, you know what it is?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  What?

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  It's Bobby Knight crossed with Jack Cates.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Oh, there you go. Ah, this sucks. But, but there's something else. Give my girlfriend the high hard one? But. Said I'm here.

• 15:20Chris Ryan?

  Ah, Jesus fucking Christ.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Jerk off loser like you. But there's something else that we never got to see from Bobby Knight. Every time we saw Bobby Knight, he was either being like, you know, kind of a rascal, like very humorous. Um, picking at people. Or, you know, being a guy who was right on the edge of being too intense and then obviously crossed over that edge. Later on. But they do something in this movie where they show you times where Pete has to humble himself. Where he has to like contend with the fact that he doesn't have a handle on his team anymore. He has to kind of ask his ex-wife for some ass a little bit and get rejected. Like they kind of knock him off the perch of all powerful college basketball coach.

• 16:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  And that is why the character works. Cause like.

• 16:07Bill Simmons?

  Plus, you can just walk around, apparently in this part of LA where the university is, just have a walk back home to your house. There's no people anywhere. What part of LA is this? Where is this?

• 16:17Chris Ryan?

  It's like something that's like, it's UCLA, but it looks more like USC, but it also looks like Louisiana.

• 16:22Bill Simmons?

  It's a giant arena that has no parking lots and no parking and just houses right outside. And no people.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  The interesting thing is, you probably could walk home, if you're the coach of UCLA, you definitely can't walk home. If you're the coach of SC.

• 16:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Right? So you definitely don't want to be walking around.

• 16:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Down there. But I always thought it was supposed to be UCLA because of the colors and all of that, but they're on SC's campus.

• 16:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, one of the things with this movie, and it was a big part of the marketing, and Friedkin talking about it, and just in general, it was like, we are going to do basketball correctly. We're going to have real players playing real games. We did all this shit. We had Patino coaching a team against Nick Nolte with the players. Everything was like. Boom. Same thing with Bobby Knight. There's all these stories about Bobby Knight taking it too seriously. They filmed it in Indiana in front of a crowd of 6,000 people and they're like, we are now elevating this sports movie. And it doesn't totally work. It turns out there's still some good stuff and actually just structuring sports movie scenes.

• 17:23Chris Ryan?

  I think basketball's the hardest sport to shoot.

• 17:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 17:25Chris Ryan?

  I just think over and over again with, you know, white man can't jump works because it's two on two. I think full court, five on five basketball is so difficult. It's why the angles like, it's like when they change the angle in an actual game, you're watching like an NBA game. You're like, please just go back to the, as soon as they're like, here's a cool baseline shot of this. I'm like, no, I want to see.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Coach's angle.

• 17:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And it's like, I think that that is, whether it would have been Freakin or Scorsese or Coppola or PTA, like five on five hoops is just incredibly difficult to capture.

• 17:58Bill Simmons?

  But that's why some of the seventies stuff, I mailed you a white shadow pickup basketball scene yesterday. Some of the seventies stuff, they just didn't overthink it. They were just like, hey, wag camera, let's just watch some guys playing. And then they, as soon as they tried to get fancier, Hoosiers has some good stuff and some bad stuff.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  The thing that I like about you is when you have an agenda, that agenda is all encompassing.

• 18:19Bill Simmons?

  I like the seventies basketball footage.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  You love white shadows so much.

• 18:22Chris Ryan?

  He kinda wants to do white shadow instead of blue chips.

• 18:24Bill Simmons?

  He does. No, it's now it's too dated. It's like 50 years. But now it's like Coach Carter, we had that Finding Forrester, Coach Carter era of basketball where they went back to the wide shots.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that. You got back into the, you went from white shadow to Coach Carter.

• 18:41Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, those were the basketball movies.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Like a DEI thing you did.

• 18:44Bill Simmons?

  No, they went, they went backwards though, and they stopped being like, we're going to be right on the court. We're going to go, here's the wide shot again. And then The Way Back, I think, did a good job.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Oh, The Way Back is like, you know how I feel about that movie. That's a completely underrated sports movie. I'll say this.

• 18:58Bill Simmons?

  It's properly rated because we're doing it this year on the rewatchable.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Oh, right. I'll, I'll say this. This movie was attempting to do something that I think they, I do agree with you. They overthought it. Cause they're trying to shoot the game from the coach's perspective and put us right on the bench where you can see that the team comes out, they're playing with a lot of energy and then the game is getting away from them. And you can, you watch the coach just unable to control the fact that he just doesn't have the talent. And you're supposed to be able to see that and it just doesn't quite work. But every time I watch this movie.

• 19:33Bill Simmons?

  Too frantic.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Something always dawned on me, you watch so many basketball movies where they're playing basketball. Nobody is sweating, nobody looks like they're into it. This does have the feeling because

• 19:45Bill Simmons?

  Competitiveness.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yes, of the competitiveness of that, the fact that they're actually playing basketball at a high level and trying to beat each other. So when the drama comes and it looks like, uh, his team is overwhelmed, that kind of does work. But the basketball itself doesn't work that well.

• 20:02Bill Simmons?

  Wide screen helped it a little more during the, uh, square TV era when this was rewatchable. Combined with how they shot it, it was really hard to follow the basketball and then you'd watch like Teen Wolf.

• 20:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:12Bill Simmons?

  And you'd be like, man, these, these basketball scenes are great.

• 20:15Chris Ryan?

  My favorite basketball scene in this one is probably the Indiana game because I find it very easy to like, kind of navigate Bobby Hurley on the court. And I feel like it, that, that was the one where maybe it's just because I was so familiar with Bobby Hurley at the time.

• 20:28Bill Simmons?

  Really missed his game. I liked his game.

• 20:29Chris Ryan?

  But it's like that, that kind of point guard.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  Car accident.

• 20:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Bill Simmons?

  Like, his car accident's kind of underrated. I think he would have been a good pro.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Little swaggy, confident, right playmaker, great shooter.

• 20:42Bill Simmons?

  Tough.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Steal the ball, like was an all time favorite college.

• 20:45Chris Ryan?

  He coaches Arizona State now?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:48Chris Ryan?

  And in any case, he just directs traffic in a way where you're kind of like, oh, you're right. Like there's a pick and he's going to go over there.

• 20:54Bill Simmons?

  Old school.

• 20:54Chris Ryan?

  That stuff is good, but they don't actually even flash the scoreboard that much.

• 20:58Bill Simmons?

  They don't.

• 20:58Chris Ryan?

  I mean, Western gets their asses kicked most games of this movie, except for towards the end. Do you know what I mean? Except for that very last game.

• 21:06Bill Simmons?

  I have a lot of thoughts on that basketball stuff.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  One more thing about the basketball. Do you know what the best basketball in the movie is to me? The practices.

• 21:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  The practices to me.

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  And the coaching in the practices, yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  And the coaches in the practice.

• 21:18Bill Simmons?

  Put your leg behind him when he's spinning around. I, I like all that stuff.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Like all of that stuff.

• 21:22Chris Ryan?

  Gets his hand right up on Ricky Rose's butt cheeks.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's like right, right there.

• 21:25Bill Simmons?

  Get out of here Ricky!

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Right over the front of the rim, Butch. Unlock the left hip. Take, take your jersey off, right? You go with the blue team, like all of that stuff. The practices are the stuff to me that like actually grounded the movie and being actual college basketball and authentic. You know what I mean?

• 21:39Bill Simmons?

  When I tried to recruit Van for The Ringer and he's like, I want 30K and a gym bag and a tractor. I was like, get out of here Van! Take that.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  You don't deserve to wear.

• 21:48Bill Simmons?

  The two days later, he was working for us. It was like, like it never happened. Never understood that part of blue chips. With the, with the pay stuff. So the movie kind of shifted, especially as, as in the last 10 years, people like, these guys gotta get paid and that whole thing. By 2020, the Esquire was writing, Shelton and Friedkin seem to be foreshadowing the everyone sells out influencer culture of the 21st century.

• 22:14Bill Simmons?

  Interesting idea. I don't know if I a hundred percent agree with it, but it does foreshadow something. I don't know if it was intentional. Cause I really think they were just in the moment.

• 22:21Chris Ryan?

  I think they were saying the quiet part loud, which is like, these guys deserve to get paid. This is a multi-billion dollar business and the players deserve to get paid.

• 22:28Bill Simmons?

  But we did this in the seventies though, with one on one and with a fast break. Cause those are the same premises. Like let's, how can we cheat to win basically in college basketball?

• 22:36Chris Ryan?

  Sure. I, I think also like the, there's, there's an argument to be made that a lot of what Happy says is like, kind of makes sense. Do you know what I mean? Like where he's just like, the collectives will take care of these people. You don't have to know about it. Like Happy kind of is.

• 22:51Bill Simmons?

  Let's, let's do it now.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Which is, which is why the gambling stuff is in there with Happy. Because if it's not, then what Happy is actually saying.

• 23:00Chris Ryan?

  But even the gambling stuff now is like almost quaint. Tony shaving points in a victory to miss the line is like, ah, well.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, it, it, but it's still, that at least still has enough of a stench to it. Um, that it is actually affecting, somebody's giving less than what they should be competition wise. You're right.

• 23:19Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  But when Happy has the gambling stuff only because Happy is making so much sense. When he's talking to Coach Bell, that he wouldn't be villainous enough.

• 23:30Bill Simmons?

  Just talk about Happy.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  I love Happy.

• 23:32Bill Simmons?

  You love the pool. There's just the random women in the pool for no reason.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  JT Walsh does something so crazy. Like it's so swaggy. JT Walsh, Walsh goes out on his diving board. As he's dressing down Coach Pete and he's just bouncing on the diving board. He's like, he's like, he's like, who are you to talk to me? Fucking make it work. I'm bouncing on the two Playboy Playmates.

• 23:57Chris Ryan?

  What does he say about them when he introduces them to Pete? He's like, they're both huge fans of the program.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  I thought the movie could have easily taken a he got game turn right there for Coach Bell.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  The problem with this movie is Happy is by far the most interesting character in the movie. Like, he has that one scene, he's dressed up to play tennis.

• 24:13Chris Ryan?

  What do you think Happy does?

• 24:14Speaker 02

  That's a good question. Like, you think Happy's in Hollywood in some way? Is he?

• 24:18Chris Ryan?

  I think he probably made all his money in.

• 24:20Bill Simmons?

  I feel like he's like a film producer.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's like some kind of.

• 24:23Chris Ryan?

  But he has a lot of time to worry about Western basketball.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, he plays, he's a tennis player too.

• 24:28Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 24:31Bill Simmons?

  If I ever got divorced, I'm just turning into Happy. He's just gonna be like dressed to play tennis all the time, doing phone calls while bouncing on the diving board.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Run the Harvard Wesley collective.

• 24:41Bill Simmons?

  Two cougars at the pool, and I'm just trying to boost that pole cross.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Them weren't no cougars. You could go, those weren't.

• 24:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, the ones he introduced to Coach, those are, those.

• 24:53Chris Ryan?

  Those were 25 year old women.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  What are you talking about?

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  Those were cougars. Are you nuts? Those were in like their 40s.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  She looked like Christie Brinkley. What are you talking about?

• 25:00Bill Simmons?

  Late 30s?

• 25:01Speaker 02

  No, Bill, no, no.

• 25:03Bill Simmons?

  Which ones are we talking about?

• 25:04Chris Ryan?

  The women in the bar that he's like both big fans of the program.

• 25:07Bill Simmons?

  Alright, you're right.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  They're definitely not cougars. Yeah, don't argue white women with me. Don't do that. Um, but, but I'm, but I'm saying, Happy is the man. Happy is the one, hey, is there somebody you can call to tell me whether or not, you know, if I leave school and my mom, the mom will lose the house and job? Calls him, hey, he's the coach, you're the coach, get him to play. His mom's got a house with a yard. I'm like, talk your shit, Happy. Get out there and stop acting like a bitch.

• 25:33Bill Simmons?

  He didn't know how to be in a motion offense.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  No, he didn't. He needs to be in a different offense.

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  He needs to be in a 1-4. What the fuck's going on there?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Where he can handle the ball and dish to other people.

• 25:42Bill Simmons?

  You know what's really good is motion offense.

• 25:44Chris Ryan?

  It's so funny to go back and wa- watch this movie and listen to all that terminology and just be like, you almost have PTSD from basketball practice of guys yelling that out like, it's like 1-4, 2-3. Yeah, like, like boxing one, and now it's all like flare screens.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Watching people run a three man weave and all of that stuff.

• 26:02Bill Simmons?

  So Noelty's having, he's coming off the resurgence when he cleaned up a little bit.

• 26:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Bill Simmons?

  Another forty eight hours down and out Beverly Hills, like he's Cape Fear.

• 26:11Chris Ryan?

  Tides is happening.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Prince of Tides.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  Prince of Tides. He's, he's a pretty famous star. So they billed it as a Nick Daulty movie and they made a big deal. He shadowed Bob Knight. He modeled Pete Bell after Bob Knight. So we had that. We had the Shaq and Penny stuff. And I gotta say, I think Shaq's good in this movie. Shaq takes a lot of shit for his acting. I think he's like borderline stealing scenes when he's in there. I love every time he's in there.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:35Bill Simmons?

  He's really funny.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Very funny. He's very funny. They let Shaq kind of be Shaq in the movie.

• 26:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  He's a bright spot, which is good because every other athlete that acts in the movie is fucking terrible.

• 26:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 26:46Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I thought Penny was okay in the home sixteen.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Shit, no.

• 26:49Bill Simmons?

  And I am.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Like it, it, one thing that I learned, that I, not learned, one thing that sparked my brain while I'm watching is, is athletes as actors has come really, really far. And it's probably because these guys are so used to being on camera now. They're on camera in many different ways.

• 27:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a good point. Like Anthony Edwards in Hustle.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, like they're just used to be.

• 27:11Bill Simmons?

  They're performers.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  It's, it's better and they didn't get as many reps.

• 27:14Bill Simmons?

  I like that. That's a good theory.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Back in the day as they do now, but there's some rough, rough athlete acting in this movie.

• 27:22Chris Ryan?

  It's also like a really kind of.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  Dr. J was the nadir.

• 27:24Chris Ryan?

  It's a brave.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  Fish and Save Pittsburgh.

• 27:26Chris Ryan?

  Choice for Penny and Shaq to do it. Honestly, for all of the people who participated in this movie to do it, because it's a pretty dim portrait of college basketball, right? Like.

• 27:37Bill Simmons?

  I mean, the craziest thing is they let Indiana use the uniforms in Bob Knight. I just have no idea what the NCAA was thinking with that.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  And nitpicks, if you're gonna let Indiana do it, then why do we have to get fake teams everywhere else?

• 27:49Chris Ryan?

  Western Texas or Texas State or whatever.

• 27:51Bill Simmons?

  It was like, hey, we're gonna do, we're gonna do a movie about, uh, digital media and the corruption and terrible stuff. Can we use all the Ringer studios and all your logos? I'm like, sure, go ahead.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Your colors.

• 28:04Bill Simmons?

  Do you want to put Craig Horlbeck in it? Like, I, I just don't understand why they would even participate in this.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  I will say, Tony is a good actor.

• 28:11Chris Ryan?

  But I think he's an actor, isn't he?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  He is an actor. Um, I know him a little bit. He, he is, but he's also-

• 28:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, here we go. All right.

• 28:18Chris Ryan?

  He's dropped something. I know Tony from Bullshit.

• 28:21Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  But he's actually a, a actual, real basketball player.

• 28:25Bill Simmons?

  Anthony C. Hall, right?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's a, he's a real basketball player.

• 28:28Bill Simmons?

  He was the only one they cast because he actually could act.

• 28:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, so we have Patino Knight, Raveling, Cousy Bird, talk about the legend in a second, Tarkanian. Some of the players, Alan Houston.

• 28:44Bill Simmons?

  Um, George Lynch, Wex Walters, Greg Graham, Chris Mills. Our guy Rick Fox.

• 28:51Chris Ryan?

  Come on, Calvert-Cheney, say his name.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  Cal Chaney.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Cal Chaney in this Washington Bulls.

• 28:55Bill Simmons?

  So there's a lot of people that it's this glimpse. And I, I could have done this for probably an answerable questions later, but I'll do it now. I don't know where the fuck the Fab Five is. Like Jalen, Jalen not being in this personally offends me.

• 29:07Chris Ryan?

  Have you ever talked to Jalen about this movie?

• 29:09Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I wish we could almost like call him and find out.

• 29:12Chris Ryan?

  We should make it Call Jalen Lewis instead of Call Russell.

• 29:15Bill Simmons?

  I, I don't, like, he's right there. He's as famous as any player they used, and he would have been perfect. And honestly, he could have played Tony.

• 29:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Bill Simmons?

  I feel like Jalen could have acted.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably, yeah.

• 29:26Bill Simmons?

  Um, maybe he didn't want to do it.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Kind of the same story, like you go up to Detroit instead of going up to Chicago. Like, yeah, you know what? When I did, in doing the research for the movie, they say that Kevin Garnett is in the movie somewhere. I cannot fucking find Kevin Garnett in the movie.

• 29:41Bill Simmons?

  He's too young.

• 29:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he would have been like fifteen years old.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  They say he's in the movie.

• 29:45Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he, maybe he has a high score.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:47Bill Simmons?

  Geert Hammack is in the movie, though.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Oh!

• 29:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, remember Geert?

• 29:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  From LSU.

• 29:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:52Bill Simmons?

  Um, so the backstory, Ron Shelton developed it in nineteen eighty-one for Time Life Films, bounced around the whole decade. Ends up at Twenty First, uh, Twentieth Century Fox. Script goes in turnaround and then Wet Men Can't Jump hits and they're like, whoa, this movie. Paramount Pictures acquires it, buries it, and then Sherry Lancing, the famous Sherry Lancing.

• 30:16Chris Ryan?

  Who was married to Friedkin at the time or dating him?

• 30:19Bill Simmons?

  There might have been some romantic something. Gets Friedkin because Shelton can't do it because he's writing and directing Cobb, which is an insufferably bad movie. Like, if you want to have a bad two hours, watch Cobb.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I have tried over and over and over.

• 30:34Chris Ryan?

  Watch Adolescence and then watch Cobb.

• 30:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  I've tried so hard to like that movie.

• 30:38Bill Simmons?

  They and everything's perfect about it, except the fact it's unlikable and not fun at all to watch it.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Such like, I've tried so hard, like Cobb was on like a couple of months ago. It's just, it's not a watchable movie.

• 30:50Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't work. So that's why he didn't do it. Basketball scenes filmed at Frankfurt High in Indiana. And Friedkin was talking about finding basketball players who could act. Because real actors just don't work in basketball movies. They kept changing the script and then eventually did the Pete vs. Bobby Knight. Last game and they could not convince Bobby Knight to basically throw the game and he fuck, he was telling his guys what to do on defense and fucked up. Two different versions of the ending before they finally got the.

• 31:22Chris Ryan?

  The alley-oop.

• 31:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but they said it was like. Just full games, play pickup as hard as you can. We're filming everything and then they had a couple of set plays at the end and that was it.

• 31:33Bill Simmons?

  Thirty-five million dollar budget, made twenty-six million. A rare loser of money for the rewatchables, but I bet it made it back in DVD and all that.

• 31:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's still, I feel like it's still around in the culture and it's still just referred to a lot.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it beat its box office for sure.

• 31:48Bill Simmons?

  Our guy Raj, what do you think?

• 31:49Speaker 02

  He didn't fuck with it.

• 31:51Chris Ryan?

  I think he liked it.

• 31:53Bill Simmons?

  Three stars?

• 31:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:54Bill Simmons?

  What Friedkin brings to the story is a tone that feels completely accurate. The movie's a morality play, told in the realistic, sometimes cynical terms of modern high-pressure college sports.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  I have a question for you guys.

• 32:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Is the nineties the best sports movie decade?

• 32:14Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's my sports movie decade.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Blue Chips, The Program, White Man Can't Jump, Above the Rim, Tin Cup, Rudy, Necessary Roughness, Little Big League, He Got Game, Rookie of the Year, Hoop Dreams, Jerry Maguire, Any Given Sunday.

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  Varsity Blues, ninety-nine?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like you're looking at a, a complete, it's not just, because some of these movies are like, super laudable.

• 32:33Bill Simmons?

  Maguire's in there, too. It probably is, it's like, it's like the-

• 32:36Speaker 02

  I mentioned Jerry Maguire, yeah.

• 32:37Chris Ryan?

  They're definitely the most-

• 32:38Bill Simmons?

  It's like the sons of the Rocky era, basically.

• 32:39Chris Ryan?

  The ones I revisit the most. I don't know if there's, with the exception of Maguire, it's not really, but like, a movie like, say, Rocky or Moneyball that kind of transcended out of sports movies to become like, a critically acclaimed film as much? I don't know.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  There's not a movie that-

• 32:54Bill Simmons?

  I think the nineties were the best because they made the most of them, they learned from all the mistakes from the other generation, but then, the model kind of worked. Like, this is my friend Mike Tolan, they ma- he made like, seven of these. Like, he, he made Varsity Blues, Co- Coach Carter, Summer Catch, like, he just kept making them over and over again because it worked every time. You'd make them for fifteen million and they'd make thirty million in the box office. I think that, the money kind of shifted against it eventually, but I just think they made like a shitload of them.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  I also think that-

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  So I think you're right, would be my answer.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Sports culture was at a point to where there were more things to litigate.

• 33:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  So they were just, it, you, you, the underdog story is something about sports that will always work, but when you get to the nineties, now you're talking about marketing, you're talking about-

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Agents, like, some of these, some of these movies are about sports culture.

• 33:46Bill Simmons?

  But you know it changed.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  What?

• 33:48Bill Simmons?

  Documentaries come at the end of the two thousands.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:50Bill Simmons?

  That's, when, when the sports docs came in, and the content was immediately as good as a lot of these sports movies, and doing the same themes, and some of them, it's like, I'd rather watch the great documentary of this.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  What actually happened.

• 34:02Bill Simmons?

  I'd rather watch The Last Dance than a Michael Jordan movie.

• 34:04Chris Ryan?

  Or I'd rather watch YouTube highlights of this happening because everything was filmed anyway.

• 34:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it just, it was just less access and, and- I think that the territory was just ripe.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Which is why I still, like, I loved air. I loved air.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  I did too.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And I loved air because I'm like, huh. I want to know, air could have been done as a documentary.

• 34:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  But I want the dramatic version of all of that shit happening.

• 34:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  So, anyway, I was just, when I, when I was doing research and I looked at all the movies, I'm like, wow. Like, this is a very, very deep decade for the sports movie.

• 34:38Bill Simmons?

  I used to, um, when I had my own site, I would, I would always write about sports movies. And then when I got to ESPN, I would do reviews every time. And, and it got pretty dark in the mid 2000s. They were kind of running out of ideas.

• 34:50Chris Ryan?

  Like after Friday Night Lights or whatever.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  We moved into like this kind of gridiron gang era of these like specific ideas they're trying to do. And there'd be one big star. What was that movie with Josh Lucas was another one.

• 35:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh.

• 35:02Bill Simmons?

  They get one star for the poster.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  That was Baton Rouge.

• 35:05Bill Simmons?

  One star for the poster. They'd kind of cheap out on everyone else to try to make it for a certain amount of money.

• 35:11Chris Ryan?

  There were a lot of movies like.

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  Same movie you'd already seen 10 times.

• 35:13Chris Ryan?

  Clearly gonna be an inspirational story rather than like Slapshot or this.

• 35:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 35:17Chris Ryan?

  Something where it's like, oh, you know what? I just like watching dudes curse while they play sports.

• 35:21Bill Simmons?

  Um, let's take a break and then we'll do the categories.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Loom, by Atlassian. It's always so frustrating, driving to work, being really excited to do a podcast. And then these guys that I'm doing the pod with take shots at Bob Cousy in Boston. That's frustrating. It's also really frustrating when you start feeling stuck at work with too many unnecessary meetings. And luckily there's a simple solution for that. Use Loom video messaging. It can simultaneously record both your screen and yourself. Share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague and everything in between. Plus, add Loom AI to your meetings for instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom today at loom.com. L O O M dot com. All right, this is a fun one. What's the exact perfect age to see this movie?

• 36:11Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna say like fourteen, fifteen, when you're a college basketball junkie, but I don't know if fourteen and fifteen year olds are college basketball junkies anymore.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  I went with, I went with thirteen.

• 36:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Twelve or thirteen. I went a little bit younger. Um, but now, if we're talking about now, I'm actually not sure.

• 36:33Bill Simmons?

  Forty-five?

• 36:34Speaker 02

  It might be a little older, yeah. But for me, I, I saw it at the perfect age.

• 36:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  And I was like twelve or thirteen.

• 36:39Bill Simmons?

  I would've said sixteen in nineteen ninety-four.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, oh Shaq!

• 36:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's basically what I was, yeah.

• 36:46Bill Simmons?

  Most rewatchable scene? Possibilities. Pete Bell's first scene.

• 36:51Chris Ryan?

  Awesome.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  Fantastic. Comes back in two times, just yelling at them, comes back. "The dumbest team I've ever coached!" Um, it's some good Nolte. It's a good way to start a movie.

• 37:02Speaker 05

  Every time we get ready to play, I just wanna throw up. I'm goddamn sick of watching you guys play. There's not one of you, not one of you, that's learned how to win. We got hammered the last four games, and it stopped right now!

• 37:19Speaker 05

  If you keep playing the way you're playing, we're gonna get an ass beat again tonight.

• 37:24Speaker 05

  So depressed, I don't even wanna talk about it. I'm through fighting, you sons of bitches!

• 37:32Speaker 05

  You're the dumbest team I ever coached.

• 37:37Speaker 05

  You guys think of something.

• 37:39Chris Ryan?

  It's also like an interesting gambit. Nolte's such a vulnerable, uh, actor. He really doesn't need big glory moments, and in fact, seems to hunt the opposite.

• 37:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:50Chris Ryan?

  When you think about all of his characters, like, like Kate's, his character in, in Prince of Ty, Prince of Tides, this. He's just a punching bag, man. And when he comes on screen, you're like, oh, this is gonna be cool, he's gonna like, give them a motivational speech, it's an anti-motivational speech, and then like, just the, the way that, you, you contrast him with Patino.

• 38:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 38:11Chris Ryan?

  Pete's hunched over, Patino's standing tall and is like,

• 38:14Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 38:15Chris Ryan?

  "You're a great official, that's why you're the best."

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Right. He's like a smooth, "Hey, I love you, I love you."

• 38:20Chris Ryan?

  And that was like peak Patino then.

• 38:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Pete's wearing every loss. Next scene, Cousy shooting free throws. Wow.

• 38:27Chris Ryan?

  You're the only person in America who makes this the rewatchable.

• 38:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh my god. Well, let me give you some backstory. Watched an interview with Bob Cousy yesterday. He said Nolte suggested this because Nolte was kind of a jock. And Nolte's idea was you will do the scene, you shoot a free throw and you miss, I'll get the ball, then I'll shoot. We'll go back and forth because he kind of wanted to show off his free throw shooting. And Cousy said he made 21 in a row and they filmed it. So in the movie, he makes 10 straight, including a lefty.

• 38:55Chris Ryan?

  And Nolte's like, don't you ever miss?

• 38:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and that, which was ad lib because Nick Nolte was getting pissed because he thought, when am I going to get to shoot my free throws? But the whole scene's good too because he's like, you got horses. What you need is thoroughbreds, but Cousy could barely say thoroughbreds because he had the French accent.

• 39:12Bill Simmons?

  But then we get the two reasons I'm incapable of cheating. One is-

• 39:17Chris Ryan?

  Bob Cousy had a French accent?

• 39:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Bob Cousy is French. He's a French immigrant. That's why he had that weird, he couldn't say L's and R's.

• 39:24Chris Ryan?

  I thought that was always just like a Boston accent.

• 39:26Bill Simmons?

  No, he's like this French, then the Boston, that's why there were like certain-

• 39:30Speaker 02

  When did he come to America?

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  His parents were like French immigrants.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  But like, when did he come to America?

• 39:36Bill Simmons?

  He probably born there or came earlier. I can't remember, but yeah, he was French accent.

• 39:40Chris Ryan?

  How about that?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  I didn't know that. You can learn more about that watching the Celtics documentary on HBO.

• 39:46Chris Ryan?

  His character, you don't even have to really think about it as Bob Cousy.

• 39:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's allegedly named Vic, but you-

• 39:52Chris Ryan?

  But that whole character of like this kindly, kindly figurehead. Who's kind of like, ah, what? I don't know. I don't know. You know what I mean? But is like, we're, we're a good program, but it's like, you're guys are fucking corrupt.

• 40:03Bill Simmons?

  He's doing the Tom Hagen.

• 40:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  It's like, ah, we went to the matches, have no idea what's happening.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  And you feel the worst for him, you feel the worst for him when Pete Bell goes off on his thing?

• 40:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  And they go back to Cousy and he's just putting his hands on it because the AD's got to go too. They're going to get rid of everybody and he's just trying to be cool.

• 40:21Bill Simmons?

  Wait, so you guys are telling me Bob Cousy hitting 10 straight free throws during a scene?

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I can't beat anybody with banners. I need players. I need horses.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  You got horses. What you need are thoroughbreds.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Well, everybody in the country is buying these kids out of high school, giving them cars, money under the table, God knows what.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  Don't you ever miss?

• 40:48Speaker 03

  That's the idea of the game, put the ball in the hole.

• 40:52Bill Simmons?

  Isn't rewatchable for you? The guy was like 70.

• 40:54Chris Ryan?

  I'm sure he was.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  Fucking legend. Said the crew was going nuts after. What? Crew was going nuts.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  I wish J.J. Reddick was here right now.

• 41:02Bill Simmons?

  The crew was going nuts.

• 41:03Chris Ryan?

  You should start saying that about yourself, like when I was interviewing McShay. Oh my God, Sir Rudy was going nuts. Everybody was applauding me.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, Cousy tells the story that the day before they filmed the scene with Shaq and he missed like 14 of 15 free throws.

• 41:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but Cousy can't fucking dunk.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, Cousy can't do shit. Like, so what are you talking about?

• 41:21Bill Simmons?

  Cousy, listen, you saw what he could do. He's the best basketball player in the first 15 years of the league. How dare you? Go hang out with J.J. Reddick.

• 41:31Bill Simmons?

  Multiple MVP. Eight-time champ.

• 41:34Chris Ryan?

  They applauded him.

• 41:36Bill Simmons?

  The crew applauded.

• 41:37Chris Ryan?

  He's an American, he's a French-American hero.

• 41:39Bill Simmons?

  The crew applauded Bob Cousy.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  He just said Shaq was shooting free throws he couldn't. Bob Cousy showed up Shaquille O'Neal.

• 41:46Bill Simmons?

  He literally says that in the interview. He said the crew reacted because Shaq was so bad the day before.

• 41:52Chris Ryan?

  Oh my God.

• 41:54Bill Simmons?

  It's on YouTube. We can run a social video right now. Bob Cousy will say this in a YouTube clip.

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  Next scene.

• 42:06Bill Simmons?

  So my favorite part of this movie is when he goes recruiting.

• 42:09Chris Ryan?

  It's awesome.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  That's, yeah.

• 42:10Bill Simmons?

  This is the best 15-minute stretch by far. I love seeing Butch McCray in Chicago. I love the gimmick of the other coaches there at every stop.

• 42:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Gossit.

• 42:19Bill Simmons?

  Gets getting like the red, the red carpet.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Some.

• 42:23Bill Simmons?

  We get to see real Penny Hardaway highlights, him just kicking ass in some Chicago gym.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Some guys really willing to take some smaller roles. Ed O'Neal is in like three scenes.

• 42:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Robert Wolf is in one scene.

• 42:35Chris Ryan?

  Alfred Woodard.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Alfred Woodard's one scene, maybe two.

• 42:38Chris Ryan?

  Is this the origin story of Arliss?

• 42:40Bill Simmons?

  You might have been bad, Will.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I haven't thought about that show in a long time.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  I thought Gossit was great.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Fantastic, one scene, uncredited.

• 42:48Bill Simmons?

  This is like after Toy Soldiers. Like, it wasn't like he wasn't red hot.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, he had already won an Academy Award, yeah.

• 42:53Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying Toy Soldiers, I got a little worried about Lou.

• 42:56Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of awesome to, if you know.

• 42:58Bill Simmons?

  We did it on rewatchables, I love that movie.

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  It helps to know a little bit about college hoops and recruiting at that time period or whatever, but like. He comes out of that office and you're like, I know who this guy is. He's the dude who runs this Catholic school. He always has like a fucking awesome player.

• 43:13Bill Simmons?

  Definitely smacked the kid.

• 43:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but he does look out for their best interests and he knows all these guys and for whatever reason Pete and him are good, you know?

• 43:19Speaker 02

  When he comes out and he like, he positions this as essentially a slave auction, right?

• 43:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  You can tell that he's having fun with it, but he has a cynical enough opinion of it to keep these guys in line. And he can read and write that whole thing. It's, it's, it's perfect.

• 43:37Bill Simmons?

  Alfred Woodard sucking a cancer stick at one point there, CR.

• 43:42Chris Ryan?

  Maybe has the line of the movie. When, when Pete's like, what's he gonna become? And she's like, a millionaire?

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. She wants a job and a house.

• 43:51Bill Simmons?

  Then we go to see the legend in Indiana. Why are you grunting?

• 43:55Chris Ryan?

  I'm grunting because.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Is he worried about the, he knows where, he knows where this is going. He like, he's like, he knows where it's going. You can't help yourself. He, he's grunting because he, the same feeling I just had. Just get it off your chest. Do it.

• 44:07Bill Simmons?

  First of all, the only movie he's been in.

• 44:09Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm. You know where they filmed it though?

• 44:12Chris Ryan?

  In French Lick.

• 44:13Bill Simmons?

  His house.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  French Lick, okay.

• 44:15Chris Ryan?

  Nice house.

• 44:16Bill Simmons?

  You know what else was filmed in that house?

• 44:17Speaker 02

  What?

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  The greatest commercial of the eighties.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  The commercial, yeah, where they became friends.

• 44:20Bill Simmons?

  That was the same drive, Pete drives down the same driveway that Magic drives down in the limo for the Converse commercial, which was the day that they became friends.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  They became boys.

• 44:28Bill Simmons?

  I thought Larry's not terrible as an actor.

• 44:31Chris Ryan?

  Uh, they, I don't think their eye lines are matched up. So at one point like Pete's like looking over here and talking to Larry Bird and Larry Bird's like, hey, coach.

• 44:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Hey, coach, how are you?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Larry has enough aura, like the kids say aura, to just kind of Larry Bird his way through any scene.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  So when you see Larry Bird and Larry Bird is like keeping it like a hundred percent real with him, just, you know, tell me what you want, you want, it's, it works.

• 44:55Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Larry Bird in 94 was still just going out into the hot Indiana sun and getting, getting shots up? Or was he?

• 45:03Bill Simmons?

  Um, I had something for this later, but the, the, the short answer is no. He did like two back surgeries. There's no way. He's like, I'm just gonna go out and shoot some pickup. I have like.

• 45:12Chris Ryan?

  Get my own rebounds.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  Three surgery repaired herniated discs. He's gonna go shoot some, get some shots on.

• 45:19Chris Ryan?

  My own free throw misses.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  Um, then we go see Neon in Algiers. Give us the Algiers scouting report.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Um, well.

• 45:27Bill Simmons?

  Cause it seems hard to get there.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Well, it's West Bank, New Orleans. It's not as hard as they made it seem.

• 45:31Bill Simmons?

  Okay. It seems like they're going to like Cuba.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Jungle cruise. They made it seem, but we laughed at that, cause you know, in Louisiana, when people go to Louisiana in a movie, they always make it seem like you gotta ask an alligator directions.

• 45:47Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  When you're getting around the state.

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  So it's not like that?

• 45:49Speaker 02

  No, it's not. It's West Bank, New Orleans, so you do have to like, I don't know that you have to go through the swamp.

• 45:55Chris Ryan?

  The bayou, yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, to get, to get there. There are places like that, but they're further south in the state.

• 46:01Bill Simmons?

  I, listen, don't spoil this for me. I like this movie gimmick.

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  It's like the deepest recesses of America.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  You need, you only, only one guy can get you there. Yeah, with silk, and you gotta get through that and Coach Bell is all that. Can I ask one question about the recruiting, uh, visit with, uh, with Bell, with Ricky Bell? Uh, no, no.

• 46:23Bill Simmons?

  Ricky Rowe, yeah.

• 46:25Chris Ryan?

  I have a lot of Ricky Rowe thoughts.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Was, was, was that race? By his father?

• 46:30Bill Simmons?

  The First Baptist Church, Second Baptist Church?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Well, did I detect some racialisms?

• 46:34Bill Simmons?

  The Second Baptist Church more black was the inference.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Southern Baptist.

• 46:39Bill Simmons?

  Southern Baptist.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Cause I was like, I always thought that he was just, but then I watch it now with my race eyes. And I was like.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  And I was like.

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  It's a good video gimmick.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  I can find it in anything. Race eyes.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  Like infrared race goggles.

• 46:57Chris Ryan?

  Van watches Bob Cousy make free throws with race eyes.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Race eyes. They're trying to make Shaq look bad with this. Yeah, exactly. So like, what, was he, was he being racist?

• 47:07Chris Ryan?

  I think that there was some undertones. I don't really know a lot about.

• 47:09Bill Simmons?

  Indiana has like the greatest history with this.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  The most KKK.

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  Jim Beaver really good though, is Ricky Rowe's dad.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 47:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, yeah, I think there was a whiff of something.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  I fucked with Ricky Rowe the most though.

• 47:21Bill Simmons?

  I like this game.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Ricky Rowe was cool, just wanted girls and money, man.

• 47:25Chris Ryan?

  Ricky Rowe, we lost him to an ACL. Think about what modern medicine could have done for Ricky Rowe.

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  He's on the tractor right now, wondering what happened.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Wonder what happened.

• 47:32Chris Ryan?

  Ricky Rowe misses his whole career and Bead's still out there getting 35 million.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Ricky Rowe's probably in the Proud Boys right now.

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Niana Algiers.

• 47:42Chris Ryan?

  Ricky Ro. Was Ricky Ro a chance?

• 47:44Bill Simmons?

  Ricky Ro just got pardoned.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  It was really easy to spot him. He was 6'6".

• 47:49Bill Simmons?

  Ricky Ro is now the Secretary of Defense.

• 47:51Chris Ryan?

  He was the one shooting baskets on Pelosi's trash can.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  He's totally rise there, but coached 520, you get 400 for signing your name.

• 48:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that was all, it's all lark for him.

• 48:05Bill Simmons?

  I like all the Shaq scenes. I like when he brings, the next one was when he brings Shaq to Mary McDonald's kindergarten class or first grade class.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  That's fun.

• 48:13Bill Simmons?

  Can he play with the kids?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  How gigantic he is, how childlike he is. And the Shaq basketball scene in Algiers is just fantastic. He's playing in a basketball shack.

• 48:23Chris Ryan?

  In a barn, yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  In a barn, like.

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  But somehow it's like seven NBA players are there. There's a lot of questions about that pickup game.

• 48:30Chris Ryan?

  They're playing like five on five half court and just exclusively throwing him alley oops.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Bill Simmons?

  And at one point he tries to block a shot and then gets the ball and then dunks it.

• 48:40Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  It's like, what are the rules here? No takeout at all?

• 48:43Chris Ryan?

  Algiers rules.

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  Uh, so how far is Algiers from New Orleans? I don't think you gave us enough.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Algiers is New Orleans.

• 48:51Chris Ryan?

  It's like, it's like Brockton, you know, it's not that hard to get there.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Algiers is a neighborhood.

• 48:56Bill Simmons?

  So the big lesson is it's not nearly as hard to get there as they made it.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, on the west bank of New Orleans, you take a ferry across the river to get there.

• 49:02Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  My favorite thing about the recruiting trip for Neon is that for about 40 years, if you had a scene in New Orleans, you could either use Suzie Q or Baby Please Don't Go. And those were the only two songs you were allowed to play if anybody.

• 49:16Bill Simmons?

  That's such a good point.

• 49:22Chris Ryan?

  It's an awesome song.

• 49:23Bill Simmons?

  What other songs could have been used?

• 49:24Chris Ryan?

  House of the Rising Sun.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  House of the Rising Sun is a good one, but at this point, they would have dropped like Bling Bling or some classic Cash Money, some Juvenile or some shit like that to let you know you're in New Orleans.

• 49:35Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna do this later, but the, the lack of hip hop in this movie when it came out.

• 49:40Chris Ryan?

  You don't think Billy Freakin was rocking to Inmatic at the time?

• 49:42Bill Simmons?

  I have some missed opportunities later, but it's.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  There's not a lot of hip hop in White Man Can't Jump though.

• 49:47Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying by 94, we had some options.

• 49:50Chris Ryan?

  It's more art.

• 49:51Bill Simmons?

  We had options in 94.

• 49:53Chris Ryan?

  We had options.

• 49:54Bill Simmons?

  Next scene, JT Walsh lays it out for people. You're a better coach when you're pissed off. My money is untraceable. CR, just, you wanna cook on this? I know you love Happy.

• 50:05Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I just love, I love his like brazenness in this. And I love how like they position this character. He's not doing anything. He's like, everybody is a cheater. I'm just gonna cheat better than everybody else. When he brings those girls up to him and he's like two big Dolphins fans.

• 50:22Chris Ryan?

  But I have like a, I, I just feel like Happy is essentially invents collect, NIL collectives, right? Like he's, he's like a precursor for that. And he's just like friends of the program.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  We owe them this money.

• 50:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  These athletes generate millions of dollars for the university. What do they get? Nothing. What do you get? You get a multi-year contract. You get a six-figure shoe deal so your team can be a walking billboard. And that is all legal. And then you get another six figures for that lousy TV show.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Get out of my face.

• 50:54Speaker 03

  We owe them this money.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  We owe it to them. We owe them this money.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  Can we just give him the Ruffalo Hannah Rubinek Partridge overacting award right now? And do we throw him into the category?

• 51:09Chris Ryan?

  It's up there. I had-

• 51:10Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand. I mean, it's so good. He's just going for it, but it is an overacting extravaganza.

• 51:17Chris Ryan?

  The only person competing in, with him is the assistant coach who's just like-

• 51:20Bill Simmons?

  Freddie?

• 51:21Chris Ryan?

  No, not Freddie. The guy was like, Tony's my guy.

• 51:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that guy.

• 51:24Chris Ryan?

  Tony is my guy, man.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Shut up, Freddie. I, there's, my favorite JT Walsh scene of all time-

• 51:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Is in Outbreak.

• 51:33Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  That's my favorite one. Where he's talking to the people. He's only in it for the one time. He was like, was anyone, there was no other way. You're with the president. But this is, to me, the most JT Walsh, of JT Walshiness that exists.

• 51:48Bill Simmons?

  You wanna go breakdown?

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Breakdown is, to me-

• 51:51Bill Simmons?

  It's like a, like a stripped down JT Walsh?

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Stripped down JT Walsh. This is the most JT Walshy that JT gets. Love JT Walsh.

• 51:58Bill Simmons?

  Do you think in any of the scenes, he should have dressed like Lieutenant Markinson?

• 52:01Chris Ryan?

  I had that for later.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  Okay, great.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  We owe them this money. We owe it to them.

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  I like the montage when everyone gets paid off.

• 52:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:12Bill Simmons?

  Butch's mom gets a job in a house.

• 52:13Chris Ryan?

  Corner office.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Ricky gets a tractor. Ricky gets a gym bag with money. Neon gets a Lexus, but makes the point that he didn't ask for it.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Didn't ask for it.

• 52:22Bill Simmons?

  We're playing some cool music.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  Neon's the only pure solo in the movie.

• 52:26Bill Simmons?

  Fun one. Uh, next one, Butch is homesick. We talked about that earlier.

• 52:30Chris Ryan?

  I like that scene.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  Happy telling Pete.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  I own you.

• 52:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:38Bill Simmons?

  I bought one of your boys, coach.

• 52:41Bill Simmons?

  Um, I own you, Pete, you're mine. This is a minute after he says, I didn't break any rules, you did. And then he's like, by the way, I own you. I shaved points. Pretty sure you.

• 52:50Chris Ryan?

  So does Happy shave points or is he just aware that Tony did shave?

• 52:54Bill Simmons?

  He said he bought one of his kids.

• 52:56Chris Ryan?

  So Happy's just like getting a little greedy there.

• 52:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So he's like a booster, but he's also shaving points?

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Like Happy's all.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  Worst booster ever.

• 53:03Chris Ryan?

  You know what? For Happy, the action is the juice. He needs a little fucking taste of everything.

• 53:11Bill Simmons?

  So we go right into the point shaving game, which I, is my favorite part of the movie. Western Uver State, 1991.

• 53:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  What a clean program here, man. We worked hard to keep this program clean.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Guarantee you didn't cover this spread that night. It must've been heavy action in Vegas. Somebody got rich.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  It's the worst case of ball handling I've seen in the two years I've been here. Look, he was a freshman. Freddie is making freshman mistakes. Got a bad leg, too. Don't forget that. All night, all night mistakes, all night.

• 53:45Bill Simmons?

  No signs at all that this game might've been shaved as we see Tony just throw the ball to the other team over and over again and look at the clock to see how the time is going. I don't know how they.

• 53:56Chris Ryan?

  Do you think this is a better point shaving scene or the one in the gambler?

• 53:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Chris Ryan?

  I think it's

• 54:02Bill Simmons?

  Gambler's

• 54:02Chris Ryan?

  The gambler's

• 54:03Bill Simmons?

  Gambler's a little more

• 54:04Chris Ryan?

  So it is cool how like they use video footage to like to start to like look at how he let

• 54:09Bill Simmons?

  I like seeing the video because that's too

• 54:11Speaker 02

  So this is the best scene in the movie. I know this is the most rewatchable scene in the movie, but this is the best scene in the movie.

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  You hate Freddy.

• 54:17Chris Ryan?

  I hate Freddy.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Freddy's such a narc.

• 54:19Bill Simmons?

  Well Freddy wasn't there. He's just being a dick.

• 54:21Chris Ryan?

  I'm at Oklahoma. We did things the right way in Oklahoma.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  The entire time Freddy doesn't have, he doesn't have any skin in the game here because he didn't recruit Tony. He's not hanging out with Tony.

• 54:30Bill Simmons?

  It's like, look at this kid. He's just throwing it to the team.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Worst ball play. I bet the, I bet the people in Vegas went crazy that night and he's pissing this fucking guy off. They've just spent all of his time praising Tony and it just builds and builds and builds and builds and builds until it explodes. That's the best thing in the movie to me.

• 54:48Bill Simmons?

  Tony was my guy, alright?

• 54:50Speaker 02

  My guy!

• 54:50Bill Simmons?

  My guy!

• 54:51Speaker 02

  My guy!

• 54:52Chris Ryan?

  It's also funny now because when you watch like Mind the Game and they're like, oh yeah, that was the third quarter of a February game against Toronto and I read on the back screen like the assistant coaches are like, I think I remember this game. It's like, it happened last year.

• 55:06Bill Simmons?

  And you won.

• 55:07Chris Ryan?

  Were you writing a novel? What do you, why don't you remember this?

• 55:10Bill Simmons?

  It's a good kid, man. It's a good kid.

• 55:12Chris Ryan?

  He is a good kid. He plays acoustic guitar, you know?

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:15Bill Simmons?

  And then, then Nick goes to go see him, Pepe. And we get the kid cut he pursued happiness where for best needle drop. All of a sudden Hendrix and all along the watchtower. It's the one time the movie gets supercharged by a song.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  And all those, those songs are so college.

• 55:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:30Chris Ryan?

  It's also cool because like that's the time when you realize like it feels more like a campus because he goes from the gym to the guy's housing over there and it's like, oh yeah, you could just run across here 15 minutes.

• 55:40Bill Simmons?

  How do you feel about Pete's performance in this scene? Son, you took the purest thing in your life. You corrupted it. For what? Like he's just

• 55:46Chris Ryan?

  Talking about himself. I think that that's the whole way we're supposed to write about it.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  But then Tony stays on the team?

• 55:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. He can't get rid of Tony. Tony's gonna go fucking tell everyone. I wish you would kick me off the team.

• 55:57Bill Simmons?

  But that's a more interesting scene.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  What do you mean? There was more interesting scene if.

• 56:02Bill Simmons?

  Like Tony going, am I off the team? And Pete's like.

• 56:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, he can't take him off because he's more guilty than Tony.

• 56:09Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I, I wanna see that in the scene. Like Tony actually has leverage over Pete. Cause.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  I think the year before. Pete would have kicked Tony off the team, but I think that Pete.

• 56:19Chris Ryan?

  He's in too deep.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's frustrated that he kinda has to shut up and swallow this.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  The big basketball scene I'm throwing in. Um, I enjoyed Bobby Knight yelling at the refs. I agree with your Bobby Hurley point. Um, the last play is so terrible and out of.

• 56:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it sucks.

• 56:36Bill Simmons?

  Just what we're watching.

• 56:36Chris Ryan?

  Has there ever been a game winning alley-oop like that? I know like the NC State thing happened, but like.

• 56:42Bill Simmons?

  I, I watched this scene more for the nitpicks and I can't believe the music sound choices with this. The music and the sound of this scene, it's such a fucking fuck up. The crowds sound bad. I don't know what the, there's like this weird droning synthesizer scene. And I went back and I looked at all my favorite 1994 like hip hop rap songs. If you just put Holler If You Hear Me in here for four minutes, this, this scene's amazing.

• 57:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:08Bill Simmons?

  And instead it's like he's, he's just got this weird droning synthesizer.

• 57:12Chris Ryan?

  Or maybe the Randy Newman, The Natural score.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, did that too. Or Short Shot by The Beasties was the other one I was thinking like, you need like, this is fun. We're watching people play basketball. I need to like be tapping my leg as I'm watching it.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  I think that they're going for high drama though.

• 57:27Bill Simmons?

  I disagree with the choice.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get it. Yeah. I mean, but you know.

• 57:31Bill Simmons?

  Like Above the Rim was like, we know what we are. We, we're gonna have a really fun basketball scene here and there's gonna be good music.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  But that was street ball and this, and that's like supposed to have that raw energy or whatever. This is supposed to be like a more of a symphony of basketball.

• 57:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just didn't agree with it. And then Pete's final press conference would be the last scene.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go with.

• 57:49Bill Simmons?

  Ed does the SVP CR.

• 57:51Chris Ryan?

  He invented it. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you. Coach, what is up with Neon's new Lexus?

• 57:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:59Chris Ryan?

  He's like, no, it's not a car. This is a fine automobile, you know?

• 58:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  It'd be a hell of a deal.

• 58:04Chris Ryan?

  No, it's a nuclear surfboard.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  You guys asked me to win and I gave that to you. It's about money. It's the goddamn money. Happy does a great meltdown. I've become what I despise.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  I've become what I despise.

• 58:23Bill Simmons?

  I cheated my profession.

• 58:27Bill Simmons?

  Cheated myself.

• 58:32Bill Simmons?

  I cheated basketball.

• 58:38Bill Simmons?

  Those two words I didn't think had ever come out of my mouth.

• 58:42Bill Simmons?

  I didn't think I'd ever be able to say.

• 58:53Bill Simmons?

  I quit.

• 58:59Bill Simmons?

  I cheated my profession. I cheated myself. I cheated basketball. I quit.

• 59:03Chris Ryan?

  This is kind of the basketball version of the, um, of the now imagine she's white scene.

• 59:12Chris Ryan?

  It's like where he gets like all the way to the end. He's like, I quit.

• 59:20Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for most rewatchable?

• 59:21Chris Ryan?

  The press conference.

• 59:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 59:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  The press conference is the most rewatchable, but I want the, the Tony scene is the one that I'm always so gleeful to watch whenever I see the movie.

• 59:31Bill Simmons?

  I love the point shaving scene.

• 59:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Bill Simmons?

  I love the point shaving scene of Bob Cousy and intense straight free throws. Fucking man.

• 59:37Chris Ryan?

  Also cool, the way they shoot the point shaving is I think Nolte's in the back and they don't really, it's not even in the focus. It's the two coaches up front and Freddie talking shit.

• 59:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  It's just Freddie makes that scene. Freddie just like grading on the other coaches.

• 59:50Chris Ryan?

  Freddie's just like, if I was here, I would have noticed this, by the way, the first time.

• 59:53Bill Simmons?

  Throwing them by the other team. What's he doing? What's the most 1994 thing about this movie? Uh?

• 59:59Chris Ryan?

  I have a good one for this.

• 1:00:00Bill Simmons?

  What do you got?

• 1:00:00Chris Ryan?

  It's the sportscaster guy who's like, it's time to tell Pete Bell to take a hike.

• 1:00:08Chris Ryan?

  Like early jungle room.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Chris Ryan?

  You know, like.

• 1:00:11Bill Simmons?

  Early seats.

• 1:00:12Chris Ryan?

  That guy's like, he's probably the actual sports, like broadcaster for the local news. And they're like, you can have 22 minutes after the college games to do like your.

• 1:00:23Bill Simmons?

  He's like Rob Fugazaki?

• 1:00:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And, and he's like, okay.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  I love Rob. What's his name?

• 1:00:27Chris Ryan?

  But it's early takesmanship. He's, he's working on it.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  And he also ruffles feathers when he, uh, interviews Pete Bell on the court.

• 1:00:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  And then Pete Bell curses him off. Don't mean to ruffle feathers, coach. Good luck in the second half. I like that guy.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  Right now, that guy's out around the horn saying goodbye to everybody.

• 1:00:45Bill Simmons?

  Young Shaq and Young Penny I'd put for 1994.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Skinny Shaq is definitely the most 1994.

• 1:00:50Bill Simmons?

  That's the most 1994 thing, but I want to shout out VHS tapes and crappy TVs for coaching staffs. Just how like digitally now, he'd be like, let's find that game, bubba, press it up, it would be a plasma.

• 1:01:02Chris Ryan?

  I was like, when Pete goes over to Jenny's house the first time after they lose to Patino, and he pours himself a glass of the good stuff and immediately goes to game tape, I was like, this is Bill. This is what Bill would love to do every night is go home, pour a glass of the good stuff.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  It's Rossello.

• 1:01:17Chris Ryan?

  And watch a little bit of.

• 1:01:18Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe you got bumped out by my around the horn joke.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  No, it's great.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  No, you got bumped out for a split second.

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  I'm just saying.

• 1:01:24Bill Simmons?

  You didn't realize you were a big around the horn guy.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  I've been watching it in years.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  Two points for you.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  Mute.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  What's aged the best?

• 1:01:35Chris Ryan?

  I got Tony flunking TV. Really like that. I always loved the classes that they would come up for, for college hoops. And Jerry Tarkanian saying Butch McCray couldn't make it at his school academically.

• 1:01:47Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  Um, you know what's aged the best? It's weird. So this movie is supposed to be at UCLA, right? It's their colors.

• 1:01:54Chris Ryan?

  I mean, it's technically, yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  Technically.

• 1:01:56Chris Ryan?

  It's a gesturing towards it, yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Right. It's actually UCLA that broke college sports.

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Bannon.

• 1:02:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, the Bannon, yeah.

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ed O'Bannon sued and that lawsuit, you know, made it all the way up to the Supreme Court and then ushered in the NIL era.

• 1:02:12Chris Ryan?

  Was Tyus Edney on the O'Bannon teams or is that later?

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  He was.

• 1:02:15Bill Simmons?

  I always enjoyed Tyus Edney.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Tyus Edney was definitely on there. He got hurt that year.

• 1:02:18Bill Simmons?

  I have a one of what's aged the best off of that what's aged the best.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:22Bill Simmons?

  When sports movies had to use Western.

• 1:02:24Chris Ryan?

  A Bobby Harley assist there.

• 1:02:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, when they had to use like Western University, big state. They had to use these fake college names. There's two Western universities because the other one is in a one on one with Robbie Benson.

• 1:02:36Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:37Bill Simmons?

  Same thing. And I think they might even have the same colors.

• 1:02:39Chris Ryan?

  So what is Western Texas is Patino's team? So he's Texas. What does he coach?

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  It was like, no, it was like Texas Western or Western.

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  Texas Western, I think.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  It used to be a real, you know, obviously.

• 1:02:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  I really like some of the music in this movie with the.

• 1:02:56Chris Ryan?

  It's Dan Morrison, yeah.

• 1:02:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's good.

• 1:03:02Bill Simmons?

  The Ricky Rose outdoor hoop. I wanted to shout out. Went the thing underneath that rolls back, just nice little touch. The phrase friends of the program. That's become a big podcast phrase all over the place. I don't know if it started with this movie, but I noticed that.

• 1:03:22Bill Simmons?

  I like whether it bends the rules or not, doesn't bother me nothing because it ain't my rules. Thought was a good quote.

• 1:03:30Bill Simmons?

  Using brooms as fake shot blockers ban.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Loved it.

• 1:03:35Bill Simmons?

  Always. I thought, I just thought a lot of the touches with the coaching the players was really high level.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  All of that stuff really worked.

• 1:03:41Bill Simmons?

  I really liked that part.

• 1:03:42Chris Ryan?

  It's also like, it feels very real when, I mean, obviously because they were actually playing games that they were just filming. But Patino and Knight coaching.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Chris Ryan?

  Felt very real, like it felt like they were giving like actual instructions.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  And the coaching stuff in the movie is actually, they didn't really lean into it that much. But the coaching stuff is actually really good because.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  They were coaching against each other and it was like, don't guard this guy, don't guard that guy. Then you hear the other guy trying to adjust off of that. It was like a little deeper look into like the scheme and strategy of the game.

• 1:04:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Bill Simmons?

  It was good basketball nerd kind of stuff.

• 1:04:15Chris Ryan?

  Even down to like when Nolte's, when Pete's like, um, I'll go into the Indiana locker room and give Bob Knight our game plan. Cause it doesn't matter. I was like, fuck yeah.

• 1:04:26Bill Simmons?

  Rick Patino in the closing credits of this movie is Richard Patino. I just wanted to shout that out.

• 1:04:31Chris Ryan?

  Do you think he was thinking, maybe I'll move into acting.

• 1:04:33Bill Simmons?

  I am.

• 1:04:35Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, like kinda awesome in this movie.

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I have him and Larry Bird and Bob Cousy all being awesome in a sports movie is what's the best. There's a locker room sign in the Pete Bell locker room that says, what you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here when you live here. That I just want to flag for later for the one more thing. Here's my number one though. I almost feel like this should be a new category because we had this last week with Nicole Kidman. Asking if she should study neurosurgery.

• 1:05:06Bill Simmons?

  Jerry's like, Nicole, we're good. Just show up and get your scenes on time and don't wear heels because you're already taller than Tom. This research, Nick Nolte wrote a 200 page novel about Pete Bell to tap into his character's psyche.

• 1:05:19Chris Ryan?

  It's all right, man.

• 1:05:20Bill Simmons?

  And gave it to Friedkin and Friedkin's like.

• 1:05:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was okay.

• 1:05:25Chris Ryan?

  You gotta get the green light before you write the 200-page novel.

• 1:05:28Bill Simmons?

  So is this a new rewatchables award? Maybe it's conditional, the Nick Nolte's 200-page Pete Bell novel award for most ridiculous commitment to a movie?

• 1:05:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Bill Simmons?

  Like, that's fucking insane.

• 1:05:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Bill Simmons?

  He wrote a 200-page novel about Pete Bell?

• 1:05:41Chris Ryan?

  Can we get it, though? Would you put it out on Ringer Books?

• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  I imagine it's not good.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  It might be awesome. Freakin' just might have had too much on his plate.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  What's better, that or Nicole Kidman wanting to take some neurosurgery classes for Days of Thunder?

• 1:05:56Chris Ryan?

  The response to Nicole Kidman, her being like, I really want to get into like...

• 1:06:00Bill Simmons?

  So maybe that's the category. Craig, what should that category be? Nick Nolte or Nicole Kidman?

• 1:06:05Speaker 06

  Why can't we do both? It's like overacting. Let's just start compiling.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'm gonna mark that one down. Uh, what'd you have for great shot or do CR?

• 1:06:13Chris Ryan?

  Just the push-in shot when Pete's giving his confession at the press conference and it kind of goes over all of the audience.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  I think the neon basketball scene for some reason. In Algiers. It's just like deep recesses of America. Deep recesses of black America where they play aggressive, uh, life or death basketball.

• 1:06:33Bill Simmons?

  Watch out for those alligators. You get eaten, just go into this game.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  Time because Silk and Pete get there just as they're playing. So they know what time they gotta get there, what time the lions are out.

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  Dennis Thieves' Benihana Award for scene setting and location is either there. But I really like Butch's gym in Chicago.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  Oh, that was great, yeah.

• 1:06:49Bill Simmons?

  Those gyms with the, where you could run laps around the top. They had a few of those in Boston. They have some in L.A.

• 1:06:54Chris Ryan?

  They have like courts where they have dead spots. It's like, oh, you can't shoot from the left elbow. That one's a dead spot.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  To your point, that basketball actually looks good because they're shooting it like they're watching it from above.

• 1:07:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Bill Simmons?

  No, that's the best basketball scene in the movie, probably.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  And you can watch Butch get busy. And you can see, and man, I gotta say something, something else about this movie that really ages well to me, just, it's just like, how fucking awesome these guys were, man.

• 1:07:22Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:07:23Speaker 02

  In their youth, just watching.

• 1:07:24Bill Simmons?

  It's a great, what's age the best?

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Everything that Penny could do. Like a young.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Thought the same thing.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  Ridiculously dynamic Penny Hardaway, who was that far above the rim, who could handle the ball like that, who was that smooth? I mean, people don't remember him now, but fuck, man.

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  We remember him. I honestly feel like he was a 101. I haven't seen a tall point guard like that.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Who could really play the game.

• 1:07:48Bill Simmons?

  Who was so athletic.

• 1:07:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:50Bill Simmons?

  He was like basically a six eight shooting guard who was a point guard. I don't even know who that is now.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  And unselfish.

• 1:07:56Chris Ryan?

  Was Penny the first Prop 48? Wasn't there a big, didn't he have like a big Sports Illustrated cover about? It was like Prop 48 and it was like how he was gonna go to Memphis? Yeah, I can't remember. There was definitely an SI cover with Penny in, when he was at Memphis.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he was first team all NBA in 95. He was like 21 years old. This was somebody that, it's basically like whatever Ja Morant is three years ago.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Bill Simmons?

  Um, or Edwards last year. That's, I mean, they made, they made the finals in 95.

• 1:08:25Chris Ryan?

  I don't want to jump on prestige sequel prequel. But sequel with Penny coaching, cause he's coaching Memphis now.

• 1:08:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Butch McCray?

• 1:08:33Chris Ryan?

  Butch coaching now?

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  You, we, we are of the same brain. That's the sequel to the movie.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  It's not bad.

• 1:08:39Chris Ryan?

  Bush's boys, you know?

• 1:08:42Bill Simmons?

  The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for best character name, which is turning into my favorite category.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Neon Boudot.

• 1:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Can I just make a case for Butch McCray?

• 1:08:52Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:08:53Bill Simmons?

  Um, Butch McCray, just a great name, could be really anything. Could be like the bad guy in American Gangster, could be the lead cop in a movie.

• 1:09:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Bill Simmons?

  Could be like a musician. I, I don't, there's just a lot to play with with that.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  What year was this movie written?

• 1:09:09Bill Simmons?

  Ninety.

• 1:09:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, it was written in the eighties.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  That character was white.

• 1:09:13Bill Simmons?

  Butch McCray.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Interesting.

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  And they, and when the movie, almost certainly, when the movie got made or like whatever.

• 1:09:21Bill Simmons?

  They need to urban it up a little.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  They urbaned it up. They wanted, they got, they want to bring Penny into it. Then they added the scene with, uh, uh, Louis Gossett Jr. Addressing the fact that his name is so white sounding. That character was white.

• 1:09:35Bill Simmons?

  In general, Butch, great name.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  Butch.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  Great sports name over there. And then Ricky Rowe, I think is solid too. But yeah, Neon Boudot is, is the classic. Uh, let's take one more break, then we're coming back with, uh, CR's Flex. All right, CR, what do you got?

• 1:09:49Chris Ryan?

  I'll go Vincent Chase here, and I'm just gonna say despite the two natties, I'm sure Pete Bell was a good coach. As a recruiter, what is the shit with the lamp and the chair and the grandma in Butch's room? Like, does anybody get sold by that? Like, oh, wow, what an offensive mastermind.

• 1:10:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:05Chris Ryan?

  Maneuvered two toddlers and an 80-year-old woman with a cigarette. Uh, so he's drawing up that bullshit. It's pretty obvious Ricky is gonna want the bag. He tells him in the first place.

• 1:10:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Chris Ryan?

  And then he asks so indignified by it, like, he's just so furious about it.

• 1:10:19Bill Simmons?

  It's absurd.

• 1:10:20Chris Ryan?

  And then finally, like, it seems like his big wrinkle as a coach, once the team is put together, his game plan is to throw two guys at Calvert-Cheney.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Chris Ryan?

  And it's just like, all right, well, maybe, maybe your time had passed as a, as a basketball scholar.

• 1:10:33Bill Simmons?

  Also, maybe Penny Hardaway should have been in the 1-4.

• 1:10:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, if you adjust to the talent.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, adjust to the talent. He's, he's unhappy. He's out here. His mom wants to keep the house and job. Maybe change your offense a little bit to fit the guy.

• 1:10:46Chris Ryan?

  In shambles right now. He's trying to run this corner, you know?

• 1:10:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, dude, if you watch Penny Hardaway at that age for five minutes, you'd be like, I'll run whatever fucking offense you want, dude. What do you want to do, bro?

• 1:10:56Chris Ryan?

  The offense is you throw alley-oops to Neon. How about that?

• 1:10:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, how about we'll set you some picks and just go to the basket?

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  I have a feeling that Pete Bell got a little Tibbs in him.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Chris Ryan?

  He was a defensive-minded coach.

• 1:11:07Bill Simmons?

  To stand in the corner?

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, just got a little my way or the highway, you playing 90 minutes a game type situation.

• 1:11:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but the thing is, is that Patino calls him out in the first game where he's just like, these guys aren't, aren't in good shape.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Chris Ryan?

  So it's like, if you're not in good shape and you don't like to, like, have sophisticated offense, what are you doing?

• 1:11:23Bill Simmons?

  The way they had it, they made it seem like he had the same credentials as Bobby Knight did. Like, he'd won multiple national championships.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  Which is another reason why, oh, I, I have this later in nitpicks, we can get to it then, but if you've got two national championships, you having one losing season is not gonna make people...

• 1:11:38Chris Ryan?

  I think he's had a couple that were, like, not good, though. I think the whole Tony era has not been that good.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Right, but like, it's college, right? It's college, right? So like, you watch Indiana go up and down for like a decade. If Bobby Knight's brought you two national championships, it's, I'm just saying, like, normally that guy's job is not gonna really be in that much jeopardy.

• 1:11:57Bill Simmons?

  2025 blue chips, Tony's just betting the under on his player props.

• 1:12:01Chris Ryan?

  I was gonna make that joke, but I wasn't sure if it was appropriate.

• 1:12:04Bill Simmons?

  Under two net rebounds.

• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  The Butch's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film. It's clearly the point shaving subplot and the coach is having no idea.

• 1:12:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Bill Simmons?

  When we watched the video and the guy has 25 turnovers. And then there's been rumors about it for the three years since, like they're all blindsided.

• 1:12:20Chris Ryan?

  You think the Raptors staff had that meeting about Jontay? Not Jontay.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Not Lee.

• 1:12:25Chris Ryan?

  My god. Jontay's not in discords talking about his own unders.

• 1:12:30Bill Simmons?

  And then Happy being a huge booster in support of the program, but then also buying one of the kids for a point shaving thing. It's just, it's a bridge too far. What's age the worst?

• 1:12:41Bill Simmons?

  In the opening credits, it says Penny Hardaway, but there's quotation marks for the Penny.

• 1:12:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:47Bill Simmons?

  I just don't like it.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  We didn't know. To your point, we didn't know.

• 1:12:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Just go Anne for me Penny Hardaway then.

• 1:12:52Chris Ryan?

  Or if you're gonna do that, do it for everybody. I have Richard Patino.

• 1:12:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I didn't like that.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I'll go and then you guys can take some. Nobody would know who Neon was? This is an era where we actually had a college top 100 infrastructure was into place. And it really like the Fab Five is like from that moment on, we had the camps. This is when they're making.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  They give you so much exposition as to why you're not supposed to know.

• 1:13:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz he was in the military.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  Because he grew late, he went to Juco.

• 1:13:26Bill Simmons?

  They said he was in Desert Storm. Is Neon like 25?

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  He's got to be at least 26 years old, at least. He's gotta be, for everything that they said, cuz he went to a junior college. And then he went to the army and then he's gotta be at least 26 years old, at least.

• 1:13:41Chris Ryan?

  Seems like he's pretty well versed in the Green Knight. It's like, that's culturally biased.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13:45Bill Simmons?

  And then off of that, like, wouldn't Sports Illustrated be crawling around this team? Like, what happened here? He got Butch McCray, he's got some 26.

• 1:13:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but isn't that literally what happened with Michigan? Where it's just like, how did these guys all decide to go to the same school?

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  Same time.

• 1:13:58Bill Simmons?

  College basketball is huge back then. Neon coming out of nowhere as a 25 year old, like, I just feel like that would have been a major story.

• 1:14:05Chris Ryan?

  There was nothing more exciting than like a cool freshman class going to a school at the same time. Like, I think people would have been like, awesome, Pete got his shit together.

• 1:14:12Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for what's age the worst?

• 1:14:14Chris Ryan?

  I think starting your press conference referencing 900 million Chinamen, probably, probably not the best move.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  That was, they were, they were, some coach did that though. Yeah, that was, that was based on something.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  I have that too, but you know what age the worst about that to me? Is the Chinese not caring about basketball.

• 1:14:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, that's right. That's right.

• 1:14:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, good one. You took off your race size.

• 1:14:36Chris Ryan?

  Put the hoops side back on.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  The Chinese not caring about basketball aged super poorly when you, when, when he's trying to make that point.

• 1:14:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Neon's joke to Jenny and Pete when he's like, I see why you left the bitch. I think that probably would have landed off a little bit.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they would, they would have cut that one. I loved it though. I thought it was so funny.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  Like what, like what is he talking to? How is he talking to her like that?

• 1:14:56Chris Ryan?

  And finally, Nick Nolte getting the John Belushi white guy dancing in Baptist church award for.

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:02Chris Ryan?

  Dancing in Baptist church.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  Good word. Oh, and that's the list. Anything bad?

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  That was, my, my was, was the, the Chinese like not caring about basketball. It's just.

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  My, uh, my other biggest ones, Butch not being able to run the motion offense is just absurd. Uh, Mary McDonnell, we didn't talk about her. She's coming off Dances with Wolves. Everyone was in love with her from that movie.

• 1:15:26Bill Simmons?

  She's 41 when they make this movie. They give her a hairdo like she's like the person on the right in The View. She looks like a hairdo of like a 59 year old. They dress her, they dress her like a, hold on, I'm not done.

• 1:15:43Chris Ryan?

  They dress her?

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Go, go for it.

• 1:15:45Bill Simmons?

  They dress her like a grandmother.

• 1:15:47Chris Ryan?

  She's a second grade teacher or whatever.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's a, she's a.

• 1:15:49Bill Simmons?

  She's 41 and divorced. She's that, Mary McDonnell can't get some, like her only hope is Pete Bell coming over after a couple of drinks.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  She's a, are you saying that she's undesirable in the movie?

• 1:15:58Bill Simmons?

  I'm saying they made her look undesirable and I don't appreciate it. I think she was cute. I think she would have been feeling herself a little bit. She's a divorced lady. She's not dressing like she's like your Aunt Stella.

• 1:16:09Chris Ryan?

  Do you think she just loves the game? Do you think she just loves hoops and wants to be a part of the program still? Like the purity of basketball.

• 1:16:15Bill Simmons?

  But it was, she's, she's presented as the moral compass of the movie.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  It seems like Josiah's dad was trying to hit.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  Markey, Mar, Mar, Marcus Johnson.

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  It seems like he was trying to, when he was talking about getting the drinks and the wings, he seemed like he was kind of putting it down a little bit. Maybe he was trying to snake old Pete Bell right there. Go get some wings later. We go.

• 1:16:36Chris Ryan?

  I wonder if that was a little subplot.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Little subplot, the whole thing.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  You know what? I'm not gonna have that drink actually.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna, yeah, she has a one.

• 1:16:41Chris Ryan?

  Um, the only other thing I was gonna say is what changed the worst is just, uh, the shame people feel, cause people don't feel it anymore. They would have just denied and denied and denied. Like at this point, like Pete Bell having like a crisis of like his, his moral, moral morality and everybody feeling bad that, that this thing had happened and like there, nobody does that anymore. They're just like, eh, I'm just gonna just say I didn't do it.

• 1:17:05Bill Simmons?

  I mentioned Bob Cousy as Vic.

• 1:17:09Bill Simmons?

  I just would have called him like Bob Cruzy. Bob, Bob Losey.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  What about Le Bob Cousy? Since he's French.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  Uh, what's age the worst? It's, it's, God bless Dicky V, but the Dicky V scenes forty seconds too long. It's like, we get it, Dicky V's at the game. It's just guy, he's, eh, eh, baby, he's listening to all the players.

• 1:17:29Chris Ryan?

  You would have wanted, or Packer?

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  I would have cut that.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  Dicky V was such a fucking huge star.

• 1:17:34Bill Simmons?

  I get it. I would have cut it. Um. Pete Bell's coaching style of just screaming at everyone and having no basketball technicianship at all.

• 1:17:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:45Bill Simmons?

  And also like yelling at people he's trying to recruit and I just didn't really understand it.

• 1:17:49Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Freddie is the actual brains behind the operation?

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, Freddie's probably the one.

• 1:17:53Chris Ryan?

  They got him from Oklahoma to install the one four.

• 1:17:58Bill Simmons?

  You know, I really wanted you being my wingman for the Mary McArdle part. You know what? You just fucking abandoned me. They dressed her like a seventy year old. I needed your, I needed your help and instead you just sided with Ciara.

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  Can I be honest with you?

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  She still looks hot to me though.

• 1:18:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  I still think she, especially the part where she goes, you want to little take a little play a little one on one? I'm like, I don't want to play a little one on one.

• 1:18:19Chris Ryan?

  You're mad at me today because I made fun of Cousy earlier.

• 1:18:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, I didn't appreciate that at all. Divorce lady, I don't know. I just feel like she'd be breaking it out a little bit more.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  Okay, what, what's the hottest she's looked in the movie to you? Was it Dances with Wolves?

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  Dances with Wolves looks great.

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  What the fuck are you talking about?

• 1:18:35Chris Ryan?

  She won the Oscar.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  She's good in it, but she, what? She's good, Craig, you gotta put Dances with Wolves. She's like, she's very, it's, it's very earthy. I didn't know you were into the whole.

• 1:18:47Bill Simmons?

  I just think she's, she's good in that movie.

• 1:18:49Chris Ryan?

  She's a beautiful woman.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  She's gorgeous.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  That's my point.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. And she looks good in the movie though. I think she looks good in the movie.

• 1:18:54Chris Ryan?

  She dressed her like a fucking grandmother. You want her to dress like Roxanne from Basic Instincts?

• 1:18:57Bill Simmons?

  Somebody who's a divorce lady. Put a blouse on and a pair of jeans.

• 1:19:02Speaker 02

  Okay. Like she's out there still trying to.

• 1:19:05Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  Like market that thing.

• 1:19:07Bill Simmons?

  Fine.

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:08Bill Simmons?

  Whatever. Um.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  So Pete calls Happy to see if Butch can keep his stuff.

• 1:19:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  Which is a very cool scene on paper.

• 1:19:19Chris Ryan?

  Because now he works for Happy.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  He it shows that he's powerless, that Happy's calling the shots.

• 1:19:24Bill Simmons?

  Do they do this is I have this in a what's age of words. Do they do too much to make us just not like Pete? Pete is not a hero in this movie. He's.

• 1:19:32Chris Ryan?

  But that's the whole point of the movie.

• 1:19:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I think that's why we have such complicated relationship with this movie. Cause it's like, I don't even think I really like Pete.

• 1:19:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think that what you're supposed to get from Pete is a sense of helplessness to the changing landscape of college basketball. And that scene where he has to humble himself in front of Happy and call Happy about one of his guys. It's supposed to reiterate the fact that he's completely, his hands are off the steering wheel.

• 1:20:01Bill Simmons?

  Great. You're a spineless loser. Why am I rooting for you in the final game?

• 1:20:04Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of like, um, when Bobby Knight was winning, his antics were like, unique and charismatic. And when he was losing, he was a brute and a bully. It's a context thing where it's like, as soon as Pete starts losing, it's like, oh, look at like this loot, like, look at this guy. He can't keep control of his temper at all.

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  Last what's age of words for me, Ricky Rowe, just ask for 50K in the tractor. What's 30K? This is fucking major program. They won three titles.

• 1:20:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  I I thought my number starts with a five.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  The 30K is a weird number. Yeah, 30K is a weird number.

• 1:20:37Chris Ryan?

  Maybe that's like what his dad needed to pay off the bill on his like farm or something.

• 1:20:41Bill Simmons?

  You're in.

• 1:20:41Chris Ryan?

  Big combines are moving in.

• 1:20:43Bill Simmons?

  Fifty's hundreds at this point. It's like, I go for 50K, 75K or 100.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  Ricky.

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  30K.

• 1:20:48Speaker 02

  Is taking that 30K straight to Heidi Fleiss.

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my. Oh, definitely.

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  I I don't I I don't.

• 1:20:54Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna get to that. It's a, that would be $63,000 today. It's not a lot.

• 1:21:00Bill Simmons?

  Ricky should have spent some of that 30K in a blouse for Nick Dolphy's ex-wife.

• 1:21:04Speaker 02

  Oh, Ricky could probably hit that.

• 1:21:06Bill Simmons?

  Ricky could get in there. He's got a pair of jeans. Uh, what's your flex category choice, Ben?

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  What is the best, I've made up a new one. What's the best possible starting five you could create? From the actual cameo that are in-

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  Fantasy GM.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  A fantasy GM, the best possible starting five you could create? From the actual basketball players that are in this movie.

• 1:21:28Chris Ryan?

  So wait, what they actually wound up doing in basketball?

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:21:31Chris Ryan?

  Or just within the reality of the film?

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  No, no, no, not the reality of the film. But the guys that are in this movie, what's the best?

• 1:21:38Bill Simmons?

  Do we get to Shaq and Penny?

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I'd do Shaq, Penny, Bobby Hurley, Calvert-Cheney, I think.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  So Bobby Hurley?

• 1:21:44Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I think it's Penny, Alan Houston, Shaq are three of the five, have to be.

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  Penny, Alan Houston, Shaq, and then?

• 1:21:51Bill Simmons?

  Probably Calvert-Cheney, cause he was really good in college.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  You run Penny at the two and put Bobby Hurley at the one.

• 1:21:57Chris Ryan?

  Pre-car accident Bobby Hurley was fucking awesome.

• 1:21:59Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I want Penny to have the ball.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  So then you put Penny at the one, Bobby Hurley doesn't make it?

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  Plus Penny can't play in the motion offense.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  So then do you put, cause Ricky Rowe was a real player too, what's his name?

• 1:22:10Chris Ryan?

  Matt Nofer, he was in that.

• 1:22:11Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, George Lynch was really good in college.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  George Lynch, super dope.

• 1:22:15Bill Simmons?

  So probably George Lynch, Houston, Penny, Shaq, and Cal Chaney. And you just have the one center of the three, and you just have athletic, at, long athletes everywhere. It's a pretty awesome team.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's no real power forward.

• 1:22:28Bill Simmons?

  Hurley is sixth man?

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 1:22:29Bill Simmons?

  Hurley is sixth man. You don't need a power forward with Shaq.

• 1:22:31Chris Ryan?

  Shaq, yeah.

• 1:22:32Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  I, I don't mind Ricky Rowe off the bench, though.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  Just to stretch things out.

• 1:22:38Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  Cause you don't have much shooting, you don't, if you don't have Bobby Hurley, you don't have much shooting in that team.

• 1:22:41Chris Ryan?

  I don't think Ricky's a great locker room guy, cause he's trying to fuck everybody's girlfriend.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that is true.

• 1:22:47Bill Simmons?

  The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford, how to take a word. I think we're all lingering in the same way, Blue Chips 2 should have happened. I don't know what part of the Butch McRae neon experience that should have happened? Whether it should have been like a late 90s? Or like what we were talking about where Penny's, Butch is a coach? In the late 2000s, but Blue Chips 2, I'm just, you have my interest.

• 1:23:11Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Blue Chips 2 now would be, these guys have an ex-player pod?

• 1:23:16Speaker 05

  That'd be amazing. What a great idea.

• 1:23:22Bill Simmons?

  It's them, it's Neon, it's Butch and Tommy Alter as Tony Amaker.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:23:28Bill Simmons?

  It's the three of them.

• 1:23:30Chris Ryan?

  My hottest take is based on Ricky Rowe.

• 1:23:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:34Chris Ryan?

  I think he's probably like just a stick man, but the way he kind of instantly brings up girls and is always talking about girls, I feel like if it keeps going on, that's the kind of guy who finds himself in Bangkok talking about wanting to be the girl who's fucking him.

• 1:23:53Chris Ryan?

  Like if you can't ever satiate that.

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:55Chris Ryan?

  And then he blows his knee out, you know, it's just like, he just keeps plumbing the depths until he finds himself drinking chamomile tea in Bangkok.

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  But it's Butch on the other side. They're at their team reunion.

• 1:24:09Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you know, sometimes I want to be the girl fucking me and I'm the guy fucking like me.

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  Sometimes I get an Indiana girl to watch.

• 1:24:17Chris Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 1:24:19Bill Simmons?

  That's great. He was so horny in this movie. You have a hottest takes, Ben?

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Casting what ifs? I don't really have any other than, um.

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  Oh, I do have a hottest take, I'm sorry.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  This movie is a good movie directed by Freakin'. It's an all time great movie to me if Sheldon directs it. It's an all, it's an all time, it's like, he had, he knew what tone that he wanted to go through. He knew the way he wanted to tell the story. There's.

• 1:24:49Bill Simmons?

  And he makes it more fun.

• 1:24:50Speaker 02

  He makes it more fun. There's a glitch in the movie, a small kernel of self righteousness that doesn't really work and kind of drags the movie down a little bit. It does, it's so, I think if Sheldon directs the movie, it's one of the great basketball films.

• 1:25:09Chris Ryan?

  Piggybacking off that, what do you think if this is the third of the Sheldon Costner sports trilogy?

• 1:25:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting. Different coaching style. I don't think he's as much of a yeller.

• 1:25:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  Probably adopts more of like a, like a Jim Bayheim.

• 1:25:24Chris Ryan?

  But you could see Costner like being like, I run a clean program and then like getting corrupted by somebody.

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's good. Maybe he has a little no way out energy.

• 1:25:35Bill Simmons?

  People are coming to get him. Little edgy. Yeah.

• 1:25:37Chris Ryan?

  We could have got Hackman to play Happy. Yeah.

• 1:25:40Bill Simmons?

  I'll tell you this. Hackman was happy. If Coster's in this movie, Mary McDonald's dressing a little. Like that. Yeah, she's. Running back. She's getting a little more spark every time Coster's coming over. Yeah. Uh oh, coach, wanna have a, wanna have a drink? Um, casting would have nothing except for, um, Friedkin wanted Nick Nolte only for Pepe. And Nick Nolte wanted to work with Friedkin since the 1970s.

• 1:26:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:02Bill Simmons?

  When he didn't get a Chris Ryan favorite, Sorcerer.

• 1:26:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Bill Simmons?

  Danny McBride Award for playing yourself. We don't necessarily get to give this out that much.

• 1:26:13Chris Ryan?

  Richard Pitino?

• 1:26:15Bill Simmons?

  It could be Richard Pitino, it could be Bobby Knight. Tark was good. Could be Tark. Who would you give it to?

• 1:26:19Chris Ryan?

  Pitino.

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay, I agree. Best that guy or J T Walsh? We're moving on. Okay. Even though he's not a that guy anymore. I saw. Well, Craig just gave a whole monologue a couple of episodes ago about how.

• 1:26:28Chris Ryan?

  Oh, we overrate.

• 1:26:29Bill Simmons?

  We overrate that guy.

• 1:26:30Chris Ryan?

  The 11th age guys.

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  His generation doesn't know J T Walsh is. Marcus Johnson too, but what about Silk Cozen? He has like multiple All NBA's.

• 1:26:38Chris Ryan?

  You're, but J T Walsh is like one of the great actors of.

• 1:26:41Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I'm just trying to cater to Craig's generation. What about Silk Cozen?

• 1:26:46Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, as a slick.

• 1:26:47Bill Simmons?

  As slick?

• 1:26:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the guy who's, brings him to, to, yeah, that's a good one.

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  Like he's also in White Man Can't Jump. What about your guy, Anthony C. Hall? Anthony C. Hall is another one, like. The assistant. Now, the real answer is the assistant who's like, not Tony, that's, that's my guy.

• 1:27:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:03Bill Simmons?

  That's one of those guys. I didn't even know what that guy's name is. I don't know. He's one of those guys. I don't know that I've seen him in anything else. What else has he been in? Or maybe I've just seen him in this. Yeah. Dion Waiters Award. Incredible candidates for this. Happy's Two Blondes. J T Walsh.

• 1:27:20Bill Simmons?

  Lou Gossett, Larry Bird and Bob Cousy. Larry Bird and Bob Cousy. No thought that it could be Shaq?

• 1:27:25Chris Ryan?

  You know?

• 1:27:25Bill Simmons?

  No, he's in it too much.

• 1:27:26Chris Ryan?

  Nothing for Alfred?

• 1:27:28Bill Simmons?

  Alfred too. I guess she's qualified. You're right. She's, she's in multiple scenes, but yeah, she makes it.

• 1:27:32Chris Ryan?

  She's in two scenes and she has like one of the best lines in the movie.

• 1:27:34Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Or. I think it's Lou Gossett. As much as I love Cousy, but I think Cousy's in it too much. Cool. Yeah, if Shaq's in it too much, Cousy's in it too much. Cousy's in like four or five scenes. Gossett comes in hot. He's great. He's basically like the officer in A Gentleman Guy. Um, and he's out. Yeah. In three minutes.

• 1:27:53Bill Simmons?

  Recasting Couch Director City.

• 1:27:58Bill Simmons?

  I would like to, like Pete Bell, I would like to talk this one out a little bit more. Whether Nolte was the right guy. He's too close to Bobby Knight and Jack Katz. Like, I almost can't separate it.

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Well, that's what he's doing. He's going for the quintessential college basketball. I think the image of the college basketball coach, even though Hurley's brother at UConn is kind of flipping it back to that Dan Hurley. I think the image of the college basketball coach has kind of changed.

• 1:28:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:20Speaker 02

  But at that time, remember, this was, what's your man from Temple?

• 1:28:24Chris Ryan?

  John Chaney.

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  John Chaney. So this was John Chaney and all the rest of these guys, these really overbearing personalities. And, you know, Bob Knight, I think he was trying to get into that.

• 1:28:34Chris Ryan?

  I think that-

• 1:28:35Bill Simmons?

  The Costner thing intrigued me.

• 1:28:36Chris Ryan?

  Nick Nolte is the perfect actor for this version of Pete Bell. If you want Pete Bell to be, you could, you could talk me into like, this is where Norman Dale goes and it's Hackman playing this and he's always had like control over the program and he loses it. You could talk me into a Pacino kind of playing a Patino Calipari type-

• 1:28:58Bill Simmons?

  Pacino hams it up too much.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, he goes crazy.

• 1:29:00Chris Ryan?

  But I think that Nick Nolte is perfect for this version of Pete Bell, but Nick Nolte is the reason why people are like, eh, Blue Chips is okay.

• 1:29:07Speaker 02

  Could Lou Gossett play Pete Bell?

• 1:29:10Chris Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, did you go, do you go black coach there?

• 1:29:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  Or do we have to wait till after the Million Man March to make that happen?

• 1:29:23Bill Simmons?

  No, we had some real, we had some big ass black coaches in the nineties. I don't think it would have, I just think they wanted him to be Bobby Knight and they decided Nick Nolte was the, Nick Nolte was closest to Bobby Knight.

• 1:29:34Chris Ryan?

  Do you think, uh, this movie works as an LA movie? Like, I, it's cool, like, when he's like-

• 1:29:41Bill Simmons?

  Not at all.

• 1:29:42Chris Ryan?

  And the, and the weather, the weather couldn't be better.

• 1:29:44Bill Simmons?

  No, I almost feel like it should have been at like an SMU type school and put in like Texas.

• 1:29:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  They, they were talking-

• 1:29:50Chris Ryan?

  And Happy's like an oil guy. Yeah.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  They, they were talking specifically about, uh, which is another thing that kind of, you know, aged a little poorly. Specifically about the rise of Big East basketball and how all the television had moved over there. But that's really, that, that kind of aged pretty poorly too. But that's really the only thing that's regional about the movie. Like, it had, it's not California culture. There's like nothing that goes on. They don't lean into it.

• 1:30:14Chris Ryan?

  They're playing a lot of non-conference games, you know?

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Right. Can I give you one more recasting? Just from the era, because it's Shaq and Penny, right? Third star has to be white because it's Indiana. Could this have been Leitner?

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 1:30:29Chris Ryan?

  It could have been.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  If you're really trying to capture this air and you get Shaq Penny and Christian Leitner as Ricky Rowe, it's a more interesting movie.

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  I'll be honest with you. I bet Shaq wasn't fucking with that.

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Shaq's like, he's out.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:42Bill Simmons?

  Get that kid from Indiana instead.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  Uh, oh, Craig's up with the flex category. What do you got, Craig?

• 1:30:49Speaker 06

  Um, I'm gonna tweak the art imitating real life and it's just Pete Bell berating his team at halftime was an exact reenactment of the SDSU head coach after they were down.

• 1:31:00Speaker 06

  Time to UNC.

• 1:31:03Bill Simmons?

  We should mention, we're taping this on Friday and we're taping in the morning because Craig's like San Diego State. We might be playing on Friday if we win the play in. It's gonna probably be late. I think it's at one o'clock and then Tuesday. Would they lose by 25?

• 1:31:18Speaker 06

  27, but they were down like 38 at one point.

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So Craig cost San Diego State the thing. Half ass. It's your fault. Half ass internet research.

• 1:31:30Bill Simmons?

  Shaquille O'Neal nominated for a Razzie Award for worst star. That hurt my feelings. Shaq's good in this movie.

• 1:31:35Chris Ryan?

  That seems inappropriate.

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  They were just being assholes.

• 1:31:37Bill Simmons?

  Freakin says, well after they made the movie, was weak at the box office. It's hard to capture in a sports film. The excitement of a real game with its own unpredictable dramatic structure and suspense. I couldn't overcome that. Completely disagree. Sour grapes. Make a better movie. Lots of sports movies has worked.

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

  Fuck you.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Bill, you are all one today, right?

• 1:32:01Bill Simmons?

  It's more even rewatchable, so it's more heated. Apparently Freakin didn't want Shaq to be too tall, so he had like shoes that had like tiny quarter inch soles.

• 1:32:12Chris Ryan?

  It's probably like a framing thing.

• 1:32:13Bill Simmons?

  And then boots for other people because he was like too much taller than everybody else and uh.

• 1:32:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's that funny scene where he's just like at 6'6" and Penny's like, I'm not 6'6" and Shaq's like, I am 7'4".

• 1:32:24Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  But if you, if you look at that one scene where it's Shaq, Nick Nolte and Mary McDonald, if you look at the way that they, they shot that.

• 1:32:32Bill Simmons?

  They have to frame it, yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  They have to frame it in the right way.

• 1:32:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  To like have him a little far, he's standing so far away from them and if not, it looks.

• 1:32:40Bill Simmons?

  Shaq's final college game came against Indiana and Bobby Knight and Matt Nova. Indy beat LSU by 10 in round two of the tournament and eventually went to the final four and lost to Duke and Coach K. That was Bobby Knight's last final four.

• 1:32:55Speaker 02

  Love Dale Brown. We had some real studs come through and we couldn't get to the final four, man.

• 1:33:00Bill Simmons?

  Dale Brown, not, not opposed to maybe sliding something under somebody's door. That has some dollar bills in it.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Dale was with it.

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  Dale, Dale, he had a.

• 1:33:10Bill Simmons?

  Dale might have thrown a pair of car keys at somebody.

• 1:33:12Speaker 06

  That's a good example of when Chris Jackson went to LSU, I was like, how's, how did that happen?

• 1:33:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  I mean Shaq, he got in on Shaq early.

• 1:33:20Speaker 06

  Was Chris, Chris, Chris Jackson was from the Northeast, right?

• 1:33:22Speaker 02

  He's from Mississippi.

• 1:33:23Speaker 06

  Oh, he's from Mississippi.

• 1:33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Bill Simmons?

  He was like an all time scoring prodigy.

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  Fucking ridiculous, yeah.

• 1:33:28Bill Simmons?

  Uh, the gym that they use for Butch McCray in Chicago was Mount Carmel High School. And then I, I like this, the crew, including Shaq, stayed at the Howard Johnson's in Lafayette, Indiana for two weeks.

• 1:33:41Speaker 06

  Remember the Howard Johnson?

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're gonna, we're gonna try it again.

• 1:33:45Speaker 06

  Oh, great.

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna go for, if this has not worked yet, we're gonna call Rasillo. And we're gonna see if this works.

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  He's gonna pick up now because I called him out for his low answer percentage.

• 1:34:00Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:34:02Speaker 06

  It didn't even ring. He's got you on like straits of voicemail.

• 1:34:06Speaker 02

  He does.

• 1:34:07Speaker 06

  Call Rasillo again. He might be on do not disturb. A second one might go through. That's not weird at all.

• 1:34:14Bill Simmons?

  You think that's possible?

• 1:34:15Speaker 06

  If there was no ring, he's probably on do not disturb.

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  He's probably do not disturb because I'm lifting.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  Grinding tape.

• 1:34:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, a ring for Rasillo.

• 1:34:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Speaker 06

  Finally.

• 1:34:33Bill Simmons?

  We're doing rewatchables. You finally picked up.

• 1:34:38Bill Simmons?

  I'm with Van and CR and we're doing blue chips and we need your take on blue chips without any prep at all.

• 1:34:47Speaker 04

  Um, the white guy knew exactly what he needed.

• 1:34:55Speaker 04

  Like he was so, I remember being like, this guy had a plan. He was the most, most ruthless about the ask. And, and Nolte was just like, that's what Nolte gave. Up on life.

• 1:35:12Speaker 04

  I saw it at the theater. I remember I like walked home from campus or actually one of our rich kids had a car was as a freshman, which you weren't supposed to do. But rich kids always figure out a way to stay ahead and went to the theater. I'll just never forget like, because the funny thing was like Shaq got it. Of all the people Shaq understood what it was really about and Nolte was just shattered when fucking French lick wanted, wanted all sorts of benefits.

• 1:35:39Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it. Great cameo. We're so glad to talk to you.

• 1:35:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, when's this post? I'm gonna send it to my friends.

• 1:35:45Bill Simmons?

  Monday.

• 1:35:49Chris Ryan?

  And the hang up. And the hang up. That's great.

• 1:35:52Bill Simmons?

  All right. What a category. Love that.

• 1:35:55Chris Ryan?

  Completely redeemed the idea.

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:58Bill Simmons?

  We knew it had high potential.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  Was that the first successful execution of it?

• 1:36:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, producer Craig, call again. Maybe the second time will go through.

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  That tells me something about Craig, by the way.

• 1:36:10Bill Simmons?

  Apex.

• 1:36:10Chris Ryan?

  Keep calling over and over.

• 1:36:13Bill Simmons?

  Never give up.

• 1:36:14Chris Ryan?

  DM them over and over.

• 1:36:16Bill Simmons?

  Apex Mountain. Nick Nolte, no.

• 1:36:20Bill Simmons?

  Cheating in a basketball movie? What else you got?

• 1:36:23Chris Ryan?

  No, cause like the white man can't jump like when he's like, when he's not cheating, but he's like.

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  He's hustling. That counts. He's hustling the game above the rim. Like, uh, him playing terrible in the last game until he gets called out because Bertie.

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:36:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good one, actually.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:41Bill Simmons?

  Mary McDonald, no.

• 1:36:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  Bob Knight, no.

• 1:36:46Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:36:48Bill Simmons?

  Alfred? Alfred team coming right off season in the brink? And they win the title?

• 1:36:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Keith Smart shot.

• 1:36:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, eighty seven.

• 1:36:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:57Bill Simmons?

  Flunking TV in college.

• 1:36:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:37:00Bill Simmons?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:37:00Chris Ryan?

  Not done again until nineteen ninety six when I did it.

• 1:37:04Bill Simmons?

  Rick Fox.

• 1:37:05Chris Ryan?

  Very brief.

• 1:37:06Bill Simmons?

  In a really nice run here of this than Eddie and then he got game.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  He got game.

• 1:37:12Bill Simmons?

  And Oz.

• 1:37:13Speaker 02

  Oz. He was making a way as a really serious actor.

• 1:37:17Bill Simmons?

  Who do I need to fuck in here to get high? Never forget Rick Fox saying that on Oz. You remember?

• 1:37:23Speaker 02

  Oz.

• 1:37:24Bill Simmons?

  Oz was a.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  Crazy shit.

• 1:37:25Bill Simmons?

  Did we just say what that's when everyone will know I'm about to retire when we do the one for us.

• 1:37:30Chris Ryan?

  Last nine months of your deal. We just did the Oz rewatch?

• 1:37:33Bill Simmons?

  Oz, four seasons of Oz.

• 1:37:35Speaker 02

  That'd be the scene.

• 1:37:36Bill Simmons?

  It's like, oh, this is it. Bill's done. Point shaving movie scenes? You're still going gambler.

• 1:37:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it also it's just so crazy because like, you know, he's got the tennis pro or the tennis kid betting on the game for him.

• 1:37:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  Shaq and Penny, no.

• 1:37:52Chris Ryan?

  Oh, wait.

• 1:37:52Speaker 02

  Shaq as a.

• 1:37:53Chris Ryan?

  What are we talking about?

• 1:37:53Speaker 02

  Shaq as an actor?

• 1:37:55Chris Ryan?

  Were you saying sports betting scenes?

• 1:37:57Bill Simmons?

  Point, point shaving and a basketball game scenes.

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:38:00Chris Ryan?

  Cause I was gonna say Uncut Gems is like my favorite.

• 1:38:02Speaker 02

  Uncut Gems is one too.

• 1:38:03Bill Simmons?

  But some point shaving though.

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  If we're just talking about taking a dive in a sports movie, what about?

• 1:38:08Bill Simmons?

  That's Longest Yard.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  But what about the end of Color of Money, though?

• 1:38:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 02

  That's a fucking crushing one.

• 1:38:16Bill Simmons?

  So Shaq and Penny, no, but Shaq as an actor.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  Shaq as an actor.

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  I think hundred percent, yes.

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think that is the best.

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  I think Shaq would admit that.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  Bob Cousy is an actor, hundred percent. Richard Pitino is an actor, definitely.

• 1:38:31Chris Ryan?

  Bob Cousy as a.

• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

  Algiers. Algiers is the hardest location to get to in America, definitely.

• 1:38:38Chris Ryan?

  It's like Burning Man.

• 1:38:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That's it, unless you have any other apex.

• 1:38:43Chris Ryan?

  Uh, college basketball movies?

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  I had that as a, as a question, too.

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I still, I'm still partial to the ones in the seventies.

• 1:38:50Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:38:50Bill Simmons?

  Even though I wouldn't say Fast Break is age great from a political correctness standpoint.

• 1:38:55Chris Ryan?

  Nicholson directed?

• 1:38:57Chris Ryan?

  Is he, Drive, he said, is he a coach in that one? Or is he just an ex-player? That's in the 70s. I just, I saw that come up the other day.

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  This is probably my favorite college basketball movie of all time.

• 1:39:09Chris Ryan?

  Mine too. I mean, it's like basically our generation snapshot. And we get to see all of our favorite players.

• 1:39:14Speaker 02

  What about recruiting scenes? Apex Mountain for recruiting.

• 1:39:17Chris Ryan?

  I still like when Brad Pitt goes to Chris Pratt to get him to come to the A's.

• 1:39:22Speaker 02

  Oh, in Moneyball?

• 1:39:23Chris Ryan?

  He's like, he's like, I'm gonna move you to first base.

• 1:39:26Bill Simmons?

  And I would go Gene Hackman going to see Jimmy Chitwood and then doing the, I don't care if you play or not. Fucking bold move by Gene, our guy.

• 1:39:33Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna say that, you know, even though, I'm gonna say that the recruiting scene at a, at Tech in He Got Game is pretty special.

• 1:39:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh, with the Jill Kelly and Chacey Lane?

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Bill Simmons?

  They're listed IMDB in that movie.

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Bill Simmons?

  Cruz or Hanks?

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  Hanks.

• 1:39:57Speaker 02

  Hanks, yeah. You like Cruz, I got Hanks.

• 1:39:59Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:40:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  You wanna say our guy, Tom?

• 1:40:05Chris Ryan?

  Tom, I never would have believed ever would have been in any way part of.

• 1:40:09Bill Simmons?

  A college.

• 1:40:09Chris Ryan?

  A collective.

• 1:40:10Speaker 02

  He's just, he's too.

• 1:40:11Chris Ryan?

  College hoops. Like, he's five, six, like.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  Tom is interesting for Happy.

• 1:40:18Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:40:19Bill Simmons?

  Doing like a Les Grossman?

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  A Les, like, Tom is interesting for Happy as the fucking, like, evil Jerry Maguire type.

• 1:40:28Bill Simmons?

  Scorsese or Spielberg?

• 1:40:29Chris Ryan?

  Scorsese.

• 1:40:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

• 1:40:34Chris Ryan?

  The guy who delivers Neon's Lexus.

• 1:40:37Speaker 02

  That is Philip Seymour Hoffman.

• 1:40:39Bill Simmons?

  I think he would have been an unbelievable Happy.

• 1:40:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:43Bill Simmons?

  Craig, you got one more flex?

• 1:40:45Chris Ryan?

  I have two flexes?

• 1:40:47Bill Simmons?

  You, you don't need it to do it if you don't want to.

• 1:40:49Speaker 06

  Uh, I, I would just wanna pile on on Cruz that I just imagining Cruz in the paint trying to teach Neon footwork is just all time.

• 1:40:57Bill Simmons?

  With wearing like six inch boots disguised as Nikes?

• 1:41:01Speaker 06

  Neon picking him up so he can dunk?

• 1:41:04Bill Simmons?

  I think if Cruz had the Jerry Maguire energy as Pete Bell and it's a completely different movie, I'm not sure I'm against it as a movie. Him doing the speech at the end?

• 1:41:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, where he's just like, I'm a completely broken man.

• 1:41:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Chris Ryan?

  It needs to be Cruz now, like old Cruz maybe, young Cruz.

• 1:41:19Speaker 02

  Old Cruz maybe, yeah.

• 1:41:20Chris Ryan?

  Old Cruz maybe.

• 1:41:21Bill Simmons?

  Tom Cruise isn't old.

• 1:41:23Chris Ryan?

  I know, it's me, he's telling anedarmus.

• 1:41:26Bill Simmons?

  Picking nuts. So, no conference tournament for Western U? That before Penny and Shaq get there? Season's just over, there's not like, oh, we're in the quarterfinals next week against so and so? Just regular season and we're out? Was this like the fucking, like, Nescac?

• 1:41:45Chris Ryan?

  Generally speaking, they miss a couple of times on like, just references to real college basketball. I think they like, talk about the NIT, it's like, oh yeah, we had a good season, we were in the NIT.

• 1:41:54Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:41:55Chris Ryan?

  You guys would have been really disappointed if you were in the NIT.

• 1:41:57Bill Simmons?

  I feel like the last game of the season would have been a conference tournament game.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  The basketball stuff in the movie, in terms of the

• 1:42:03Bill Simmons?

  It's weak.

• 1:42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, the actual, like, what would really happen and how things, where they just expect you to go along with what they're saying.

• 1:42:09Bill Simmons?

  Cause then there's another part, they're recruiting Neon, and they're recruiting all these guys, and then Neon comes to LA to get tutored by Pete's ex-wife. And we have no idea what time of the year is, and then he passes the SATs in a week. And then all of a sudden, he's in class, and it's like.

• 1:42:26Speaker 02

  Well, she, well, she, she peeps the fact that he could pass it at any time that he wants.

• 1:42:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it still takes a couple of weeks to get it back. Is this August or is it September? Is school going at this point?

• 1:42:36Chris Ryan?

  When's, who starts at Halloween?

• 1:42:39Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:42:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it's just, I just had, I was left with some questions.

• 1:42:43Speaker 02

  They were getting recruited in the summer, cause after the season, or?

• 1:42:48Bill Simmons?

  They're getting recruited when their freshman year starts in September, they're getting recruited that spring? Like, everyone has committed already?

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  He goes right to, well, yeah, they, so, I mean.

• 1:43:00Bill Simmons?

  You, I mean, you know where you're going.

• 1:43:02Speaker 02

  There's still a couple of players that would be holding out, but for the most part, those guys would

• 1:43:06Bill Simmons?

  And then their season's over, and then he goes to Chicago, but Butch McCray's high school is still playing? Like, there's a lot of timeline stuff, that's tough.

• 1:43:12Chris Ryan?

  Maybe that's AAU, you know?

• 1:43:14Bill Simmons?

  Um, Western University's name is the Dolphins?

• 1:43:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  The fuck is that?

• 1:43:22Bill Simmons?

  You're in LA, you're the Western University Dolphins?

• 1:43:25Speaker 02

  Wait a minute.

• 1:43:25Bill Simmons?

  What are you doing?

• 1:43:26Speaker 02

  It's at the beach, they got mad dolphins.

• 1:43:28Bill Simmons?

  They're not near the beach. We don't see the beach once in this movie.

• 1:43:30Speaker 02

  I know, but it's like-

• 1:43:31Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like where US, UCLA is.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  But they would, you would think that they, you could have the Dolphins, it's on the coast. Maybe the Dolphins-

• 1:43:37Chris Ryan?

  What's Pepperdine's team?

• 1:43:39Bill Simmons?

  I can see Pepperdine, at least you're in Malibu, near the water.

• 1:43:42Speaker 02

  They could be the Malibu Dolphins.

• 1:43:43Bill Simmons?

  Western University Dolphins?

• 1:43:45Chris Ryan?

  I think generally speaking fictional sports teams are really bad at picking like the names.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  Again, I'm right here-

• 1:43:50Chris Ryan?

  Pepperdine is the Waves. The Waves.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  The Waves.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  Which is also Pepperdine Waves.

• 1:43:52Speaker 02

  It says Waves, yeah.

• 1:43:53Bill Simmons?

  Again, I'm always here as the sports movie consultant.

• 1:43:56Speaker 02

  I got you.

• 1:43:56Bill Simmons?

  That's an easy email where I'm like, don't name them the Dolphins.

• 1:43:58Speaker 02

  Are there any, any sports, like colleges that have the dolphin moniker? That have the dolphin mascot? Anybody using the dolphins?

• 1:44:06Bill Simmons?

  Probably not. Maybe that's why they did it.

• 1:44:09Speaker 02

  Got the Dolphins. Doesn't bother me that much, but I guess I see one.

• 1:44:12Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Jacksonville University has Nelly the Dolphin as their mascot?

• 1:44:17Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:44:18Chris Ryan?

  And the College of Mount St. Vincent, so.

• 1:44:21Speaker 02

  Julio, Julio.

• 1:44:22Bill Simmons?

  Another nitpick. Ed O'Neill just has pictures of all the recruiting violations?

• 1:44:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, uh-

• 1:44:28Bill Simmons?

  Here's a picture of Neon getting a car, here's like, he just happens to-

• 1:44:31Chris Ryan?

  And he has like enemy of the state zoom in technology on his laptop computer.

• 1:44:35Speaker 02

  First of all-

• 1:44:36Bill Simmons?

  It's 1994, we didn't even have like the internet yet.

• 1:44:39Speaker 02

  He's a local reporter-

• 1:44:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Who's made it his goal to take down the school that is the most beloved thing.

• 1:44:48Bill Simmons?

  This guy's house would be burned down.

• 1:44:49Speaker 02

  This guy doesn't exist in Baton Rouge.

• 1:44:51Chris Ryan?

  How do you would have had this guy killed?

• 1:44:52Speaker 02

  Like the one-

• 1:44:53Bill Simmons?

  Everyone hates this guy.

• 1:44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, this guy doesn't exist. The one guy, like if there's a national reporter-

• 1:44:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:58Speaker 02

  I don't know, maybe he works for USA Today or something like that, I don't know, but if there's-

• 1:45:00Chris Ryan?

  No, he's supposed to be Plasky, right? He's supposed to be like a LA, big LA guy.

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  If, if there's a national reporter who's doing this story, that's one thing, but if there's a guy who's doing at WBRZ, WAFB, who's making it his fucking job or at the, the, the advocate in Baton Rouge to take down an LSU coach, he's like living in hell the entire time he's walking by.

• 1:45:21Bill Simmons?

  Probably doesn't get on Around the Horn. Probably stays local.

• 1:45:27Chris Ryan?

  Picking nit. Uh, when Freddie says, uh, under the table recruiting is his version of personal health. It's just like, take it down a notch, Freddie.

• 1:45:36Speaker 02

  What are you doing, Fred?

• 1:45:38Chris Ryan?

  You're a fucking college basketball coach.

• 1:45:40Bill Simmons?

  I think Freddie got hired by Oklahoma State three years later and was fired within 18 months.

• 1:45:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Bill Simmons?

  Just for being a shitty coach.

• 1:45:46Speaker 02

  Picking nit, so they could get Indiana's rights to be in the movie for Bobby Knight and Indiana to be.

• 1:45:55Chris Ryan?

  But not, with that Kentucky.

• 1:45:57Speaker 02

  Kentucky or like any of the other teams.

• 1:46:00Bill Simmons?

  And not the NCAA, cause it ends up being the NCAA.

• 1:46:03Speaker 02

  What the fuck is up with that? Like you have Bobby Knight and Indiana. The movie is actually 10 to 15% cooler if you have.

• 1:46:11Bill Simmons?

  All the schools.

• 1:46:11Speaker 02

  Richard Pitino and Kentucky and all of these other schools.

• 1:46:14Bill Simmons?

  I think Bobby Knight was so powerful at that point that they probably asked him, he's like, yeah, fuck it. I'll get it done.

• 1:46:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:46:20Bill Simmons?

  Just like crossed lines and didn't get permission would be my guess.

• 1:46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:25Bill Simmons?

  At the end. First of all, there's a bunch of young kids playing pickup basketball at 10 at night outside.

• 1:46:32Chris Ryan?

  A possibly unanswerable question I had for you.

• 1:46:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're, they're just outside at 10 in LA. And none of them know who Pete Bell is when he comes over to help them with some, some coaching. We've already established this is the most important guy in this whole universe. None of them know who he is, and I don't know why they're playing basketball that late.

• 1:46:48Chris Ryan?

  Also furthermore, if you were like watching Ben practice and like a random guy came out and just like stopped the game and was like.

• 1:46:56Bill Simmons?

  He would think he was like an alcoholic.

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  Four months. That's the nit.

• 1:47:00Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:47:00Speaker 02

  The, the, them playing out there, I don't know what time it is, but them playing out there.

• 1:47:04Chris Ryan?

  After a basketball games, it's probably close to like 10 o'clock.

• 1:47:06Speaker 02

  Them playing out there just speaks to the greater ills of society. We all need to kind of come together and help the children. But.

• 1:47:15Speaker 02

  You better not get your dumb ass off the basketball court trying to teach me how to shoot.

• 1:47:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  Like get off the court.

• 1:47:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, in 2025, this guy wanders onto the court and his pants are down by his ankles and probably takes a shit. And that's the end of the movie.

• 1:47:34Bill Simmons?

  It depicts.

• 1:47:35Chris Ryan?

  I know, you just nailed it. Thanks.

• 1:47:36Bill Simmons?

  Thank you. My pleasure. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV all black cast are untouchable. This is the, would have been the easiest layup for an eight-episode streaming air show from 2012 on. And it's probably better suited for a streaming show, I would say.

• 1:47:52Speaker 02

  So I have a pitch.

• 1:47:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:55Speaker 02

  So it's an early 2000s pitch. It's a, it's a sequel.

• 1:47:58Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  But it's not with Penny. The pitch is actually Pete Bell's return to college basketball, right? In the 2000s, Neon is his assistant coach. He's just got finished playing and they're coaching against the dirtiest coach in college basketball, who is now Ricky Rowe.

• 1:48:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  Like Ri- like Ricky Rowe.

• 1:48:20Chris Ryan?

  Ricky Rowe is tractors for everybody.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  Ricky Rowe, Ricky Rowe is the Louisville Rick Pitino.

• 1:48:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Speaker 02

  Girls, hoes everywhere.

• 1:48:28Bill Simmons?

  Not even girls anymore. He's past girls. He's paying guys to come over.

• 1:48:34Speaker 02

  Ricky Rowe is running the dirty program. Pete Bell has a beef with Ricky Rowe. Ricky Rowe's on top and he's coming back into college basketball with Neon to clean up college basketball.

• 1:48:47Bill Simmons?

  Or couldn't that be 2025 Butch McRae versus Ricky Rowe?

• 1:48:51Speaker 02

  Could be.

• 1:48:51Bill Simmons?

  Neon as the assistant.

• 1:48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, could be.

• 1:48:54Chris Ryan?

  And now the guy who's like, Take a Hike, has like a podcast and it's really influential in college.

• 1:49:00Speaker 02

  The podcast.

• 1:49:01Chris Ryan?

  Take a hike.

• 1:49:01Speaker 02

  The podcast is called Take a Hike.

• 1:49:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03Speaker 02

  Where he talks about everybody who needs to get fired.

• 1:49:05Bill Simmons?

  It's like, today I have Tate Frazier on. Talk about, uh, the final eight.

• 1:49:10Speaker 02

  Tate, tell us why, uh, St. John's coach, Richard Pitino, needs to take a hike.

• 1:49:18Bill Simmons?

  Take a Hike, presented by State Farm. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byram Mayo, Chris Berman, Barney Cousins, Tony Roma, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Lakes, or Wilford Brimley and the firm?

• 1:49:34Chris Ryan?

  I'm bringing back JT Walsh.

• 1:49:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:49:36Chris Ryan?

  He's in the movie, so we can bring him back. And I'm bringing back JT Walsh as Markinson. When Pete Bell calls him out at the press conference, he goes, I don't want a deal and I don't want immunity. I want you to know that I am proud neither of what I have done or what I am doing. Gets up and nickel plated.

• 1:49:58Bill Simmons?

  That's the last scene of the movie?

• 1:50:00Chris Ryan?

  And then the take a hike guy is like, looks like Western got the death penalty.

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man.

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  That's so fucked up.

• 1:50:15Bill Simmons?

  No, then we need, that's where you need, like, Tom. How do we get drunk Tom Cruise in there for the next scene?

• 1:50:26Speaker 02

  Oh, my god.

• 1:50:29Bill Simmons?

  Like, if he was the Ed O'Neill part, when he comes in.

• 1:50:32Chris Ryan?

  No, Tom Cruise is koozie.

• 1:50:34Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Poor Markinson, bro. He had so much on his mind, man.

• 1:50:39Chris Ryan?

  There is no Markinson. Markinson doesn't exist.

• 1:50:41Speaker 02

  If Markinson doesn't exist, he takes.

• 1:50:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm neither proud of what I did. Oh, my god.

• 1:50:49Speaker 02

  Shit.

• 1:50:51Chris Ryan?

  Happy was way more like Colonel Nathan Jessup than he was.

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  Maybe he was Markinson, yeah.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  I was workshopping something where when they're in Algiers, they run into Nell for two seconds. They're looking for the gym and she's like.

• 1:51:05Bill Simmons?

  They're like, this lady's crazy. Let's get away.

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  Oh, she's in the woods?

• 1:51:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she's in the woods. She's in the woods in Algiers with the alligators. Uh, just want to ask her, who gets it?

• 1:51:16Bill Simmons?

  Tough one.

• 1:51:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  Cause I, it seems like the obvious answer is Nolte, but he's, he's going so far that.

• 1:51:24Chris Ryan?

  I think, I think I'd probably go Shelton screenplay and just because he's probably the best writer of movie, sports movies ever.

• 1:51:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I'd probably go JT Welsh, but I don't really feel like anyone deserves an Oscar.

• 1:51:36Speaker 02

  Not really, but if you had to give one, it'd be the script.

• 1:51:40Bill Simmons?

  Probably an answerable questions. Why wasn't Jalen Rosen? This was my number one. I don't really have any other ones. We've already covered everything.

• 1:51:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, we have a bunch of them.

• 1:51:49Bill Simmons?

  What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? Pete Bell's ring, which is, his championship ring, which is prominently shown over and over again, I think would be a good one. But for me, it would be Tony's number 44 blue Western jersey.

• 1:52:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:04Bill Simmons?

  During the point shaving game. I just think it would be a great thing to have in the house.

• 1:52:07Chris Ryan?

  I'd like one of those, uh, TV VCR combos and then all the game tapes.

• 1:52:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh, all the ones?

• 1:52:13Speaker 02

  Fucking fantastic.

• 1:52:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And I would also honestly love. B-roll like extra footage that Freakin had of just the practices and games that.

• 1:52:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that should just be on YouTube, those games.

• 1:52:24Chris Ryan?

  Watching, watching the Bobby Hurley, Calvert-Cheney Indiana.

• 1:52:27Speaker 02

  Like how, like how they actually were getting down and going crazy.

• 1:52:31Chris Ryan?

  That has to exist.

• 1:52:32Bill Simmons?

  That's a fun rewatchables category. If this footage existed, how much of it would you watch on YouTube? I think I'm in for over an hour of the game footage.

• 1:52:39Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Watching Hurley, just watching Hurley in the Indiana uniform is so surreal.

• 1:52:45Chris Ryan?

  It's kind of like, oh, I, I look pretty cool.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  It did, it did.

• 1:52:48Bill Simmons?

  Do you feel like that point guard style is just gone now? That, that point guard with the head up, pounding the ball, who's always looking, who's always ready to run like the perfect three on two.

• 1:52:58Chris Ryan?

  Set so fast.

• 1:52:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's just.

• 1:52:59Speaker 02

  It's, it's morphed a little bit. It's, it's kind of gone, but I see it in some players.

• 1:53:07Bill Simmons?

  Ronnie?

• 1:53:09Speaker 02

  You're hating on him. He had 17.

• 1:53:11Bill Simmons?

  He had 17 yesterday.

• 1:53:12Speaker 02

  He had, he had, he had 17. Alright, Stephen A.

• 1:53:14Bill Simmons?

  Cause now it's like, but the point, the type of point guard now is like the Darius Garland type would be the type in this, the opposing guy in the movie.

• 1:53:21Chris Ryan?

  You know who has a little bit of this is, is new Scoot?

• 1:53:23Speaker 02

  I was about to say Scoot. Scoot, like Scoot has a little bit of that.

• 1:53:26Bill Simmons?

  Thanks for that, CR.

• 1:53:27Speaker 02

  Scoot's coming along.

• 1:53:28Chris Ryan?

  No, but it's like, it's more like a maxi type.

• 1:53:30Bill Simmons?

  Russell and I have so much Scoot stock. It's like our brokers are like telling us to offload it right now.

• 1:53:36Speaker 02

  Scoot's coming along.

• 1:53:37Bill Simmons?

  Double down.

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  You think, Reed Shepard used to be a guy that would be like that, but Reed Shepard's a little too silky. He can do a little bit too many things.

• 1:53:44Bill Simmons?

  The Zouattine Award for what happened the next day. I'm bringing this back just for this movie. We talked about, I just think we have to go through the three guys.

• 1:53:51Chris Ryan?

  Well, they do the title cards, right?

• 1:53:53Bill Simmons?

  We find out Ricky Rowe injured his knee and works on a farm. Tough beat.

• 1:53:57Speaker 02

  Karma for him.

• 1:53:58Bill Simmons?

  They made him somehow the least likable guy in a movie with a point shaver and a, a booster who's shaving points and paying off players and Pete Bell who's not likable.

• 1:54:08Speaker 02

  Racist, horny.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  At least his dad, like asshole, like they, his character.

• 1:54:13Bill Simmons?

  I think Ricky Row is, like, he welcomed all racists.

• 1:54:16Speaker 02

  I think Ricky, I think Ricky Row.

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  He would have had sex with anybody.

• 1:54:18Speaker 02

  I think Ricky Row, I think Ricky Row, I think Ricky Row was cool, but they didn't give his character and his family.

• 1:54:22Bill Simmons?

  Good handshake with Shaq at one point?

• 1:54:24Speaker 02

  And his, his family, they gave his, they gave them like no dimension.

• 1:54:27Chris Ryan?

  He also really does not have much of a role on the team as they kind of, I like, they're, they, they don't, there's not a lot of Ricky Row footage we get outside of him shooting in the yard.

• 1:54:36Bill Simmons?

  That, that was kind of the last era for the Ricky Row type guys, those, that kind of six, seven, six, eight.

• 1:54:41Chris Ryan?

  Matt Harpring type dude.

• 1:54:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It peaked with Austin Crozier in the 2000 finals and then.

• 1:54:47Speaker 02

  Ah, he was getting busy.

• 1:54:48Bill Simmons?

  Slowly went down.

• 1:54:49Chris Ryan?

  Gordon Hayward is the last gasp.

• 1:54:53Bill Simmons?

  Butch, I just think it's the actual careers the guys had, except Neon would have been like five years older, getting into the league. But same kind of, I think, arcs. I think Shaq, I think Neon might make it all NBA.

• 1:55:05Speaker 02

  Neon's playing Shaq.

• 1:55:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he's, he's, he's Shaq in personality, even when he walks out there after all of this stuff has happened and he goes, "Coach." And you think he's about to say something profound? Like, "You really changed my life."

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:18Speaker 02

  Getting me out of the jungle of Algiers, snakes everywhere, alligators, all of that.

• 1:55:21Bill Simmons?

  Fucking Noah was yelling at me.

• 1:55:22Speaker 02

  Is that the whole deal? And he goes.

• 1:55:24Chris Ryan?

  Long Legs is behind me.

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  Right. He goes, "You like my spin move?"

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:27Speaker 02

  And then, you know, that's, that's who Shaq is.

• 1:55:31Bill Simmons?

  Coach Finstak, what were best life lessons?

• 1:55:34Chris Ryan?

  I guess if you're gonna cheat, don't act ashamed of it. You know what I mean? Like, it, that's sort of what comes along with all of this.

• 1:55:40Speaker 02

  Mine is just fucking cheat. You know, just fucking cheat, dog.

• 1:55:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:55:45Speaker 02

  Stop acting like a bitch. Cheat, get the wins, like, nobody cares. You coach, now you coaching in the Midwest somewhere, kids and whatever, just cheat, man.

• 1:55:56Chris Ryan?

  Do you think Jenny and, and, and Pete get back together?

• 1:56:01Chris Ryan?

  Seems like not.

• 1:56:02Speaker 02

  I mean, if she.

• 1:56:03Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Marcus Johnson, I think he circles back.

• 1:56:05Speaker 02

  I mean, I mean.

• 1:56:06Bill Simmons?

  After he quits, I think he's coming by with a bottle of wine.

• 1:56:09Speaker 02

  Call twice. Well, like, the, the reality is, like, who's gonna fucking want her, CR?

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  I think she should move.

• 1:56:16Speaker 02

  Fucking mess.

• 1:56:16Bill Simmons?

  Why didn't she move after the divorce? Get out of there, start your life somewhere else.

• 1:56:19Chris Ryan?

  She's a teacher in Los Angeles.

• 1:56:20Bill Simmons?

  If she moves to, move to, like, wherever, move to Anaheim.

• 1:56:24Speaker 02

  She takes her, she takes some.

• 1:56:26Bill Simmons?

  Get away from this guy.

• 1:56:27Speaker 02

  She takes her some fucking pride in herself and the way that she looks in her appearance. Maybe she can actually get a man, because she's not gonna get Marcus Johnson looking like that.

• 1:56:33Chris Ryan?

  He's messing with you.

• 1:56:35Speaker 02

  She's gonna have to be MD Jet Beauty of the Week.

• 1:56:38Bill Simmons?

  Go to a store that sold clothes from the last 10 years.

• 1:56:41Chris Ryan?

  Does he want Neo? Does Bob Cousy's character have a massive heart attack when his entire athletic program is brought to its knees?

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:48Bill Simmons?

  He's got the football program, it's fine.

• 1:56:50Speaker 02

  They're dirty too.

• 1:56:51Chris Ryan?

  The football program gets outed at the press conference.

• 1:56:53Speaker 02

  Happy says, a linebacker, and they buying people friends of the program.

• 1:56:59Bill Simmons?

  My Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson is, go wide on the basketball scenes. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. We like to see basketball from a certain perspective, and don't overthink it. Best double feature choice.

• 1:57:12Chris Ryan?

  I think White Man Can't Jump just because, no, you know what? I'm gonna go Above the Room.

• 1:57:16Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good. I'm going with the program.

• 1:57:21Bill Simmons?

  I have One on One with Robbie Benson, I would watch that first. It's also Western University. It's basically the same things, but it's the 70s perspective on it. It's a, it's a really good movie.

• 1:57:33Speaker 02

  One on One with Robbie Benson?

• 1:57:34Chris Ryan?

  Robbie Benson, big, big moment now.

• 1:57:36Bill Simmons?

  Out of all the 70s basketball movies, which I obviously have loved and seen a million times, I think it's weirdly aged the best. It's got Seals and Croft as the soundtrack. Annette O'Toole, soon to be seen in 48 Hours, is the love interest. It's got good basketball scenes, and, uh, I don't know, Robbie Benson can kinda hoop, like, for real. He's, he's like a little Austin Reeves-ish.

• 1:58:01Bill Simmons?

  Okay, man, check it out.

• 1:58:02Chris Ryan?

  Should San Antonio just put a contract on the table for Robbie Benson?

• 1:58:06Speaker 02

  Very youthful-looking 70-year-old guy.

• 1:58:08Chris Ryan?

  He's in Severance now.

• 1:58:09Bill Simmons?

  Man, some 70s babes in that movie, too.

• 1:58:13Speaker 02

  Like who?

• 1:58:13Bill Simmons?

  Like, for real. No, there's like, uh, let's get the lead character laid scene.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:58:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think you'll like it.

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20Bill Simmons?

  Who won the movie? Tough one.

• 1:58:22Chris Ryan?

  I'm gonna say Nolte.

• 1:58:25Bill Simmons?

  It defines the movie, his performance defines the movie. For me personally, Cousy wins it, but I actually think.

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  Are you fucking kidding me?

• 1:58:31Bill Simmons?

  Cousy's amazing.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  Like what?

• 1:58:33Bill Simmons?

  Cousy's amazing.

• 1:58:34Speaker 02

  What are you doing, Bill?

• 1:58:35Bill Simmons?

  Ten straight free throws. The camera's rolling. Fucking A. Was there a better, was there a better athletic moment in a sports movie in the 90s?

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  Like.

• 1:58:42Bill Simmons?

  Ten straight.

• 1:58:43Speaker 02

  Bill, Shaquille O'Neal is fucking.

• 1:58:45Bill Simmons?

  Larry Bird is shooting free throws in this movie.

• 1:58:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, like it, like Penny looks.

• 1:58:50Bill Simmons?

  Said, the heart wants what the heart wants.

• 1:58:51Speaker 02

  You're joking, you're joking.

• 1:58:52Bill Simmons?

  I said, for me, Bob Cousy wins the movie because I love seeing the Cousys in this movie. Not, not Mary McDonald's costume designer? No. Uh, I actually think.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  Shaq wins the movie to me.

• 1:59:01Bill Simmons?

  I think Shaq wins the movie.

• 1:59:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03Bill Simmons?

  I think all these years later, I think this movie's a huge win for him. Yeah.

• 1:59:06Speaker 02

  It's the only time he's really been hyper, he, he can charisma his way through anything, but the only time he's been really competent in a movie to me is this one.

• 1:59:17Bill Simmons?

  All right. Producer Craig had never seen this movie. Really? Let's get the take.

• 1:59:22Speaker 06

  Also, not to outdo Cousy, but Ricky Ro hits like four straight jumpers on a dirt road, so.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  He just, Ricky Ro is just fucking, they real shots.

• 1:59:29Speaker 06

  Um, by the way, the sequel to me has to be, Nolte goes to like, or Pete Bell goes to like Montana State, builds a team the old school way and then ends up meeting Western in March. As like a 15 first two seed.

• 1:59:43Bill Simmons?

  Fred is coaching them. He's Dylan Westdylan style.

• 1:59:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, that would be awesome, but um, I love this movie. I, uh, this is an early contention for top five rewatchables.

• 1:59:54Bill Simmons?

  Wow. Wow. Wow.

• 1:59:57Speaker 06

  I thought it was just like. A really great nostalgic look at a, at an old era. It takes a lot of swings. I think honestly, most of it works. I think all the, the Pete Bell, the Pete Bell stuff plays for me. The romanticism plays for me. I, as I was watching, I just like jotted down six bullet points is what I wrote down watching. One of the great opening sports movie scenes ever. Fantastic pace for a movie where, you know, a lot of it takes place in offices or in like homes in the Midwest. Happy has the most, what's age the best and worst speech of all time. Uh, I think it's the best basketball in a movie ever.

• 2:00:31Speaker 02

  Hmm, interesting.

• 2:00:32Speaker 06

  I think.

• 2:00:33Bill Simmons?

  Heard the case made.

• 2:00:34Speaker 06

  I think it's the most refreshing cameo, old school cameos that kind of also represent an era that's it. Like Jim Bayham just sitting in the background. It's just, that'd be like if Damien Chazelle made a football movie today and it was like, oh yeah, Kyle Shanahan's in it, Malik Neighbors is the main character, Drake May's in it for a couple scenes, like, something that wouldn't happen today. Don't get built mad with only a couple scenes.

• 2:00:55Bill Simmons?

  Right, I seen Drake May the star, what happened there?

• 2:00:58Speaker 06

  I also wrote down Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jenny Bell, greatest ex-wife of all time, and Bob Cousy, you'd sooner believe that Cousy was an actor they taught to play basketball than the other way around. Cousy's very good.

• 2:01:10Speaker 02

  Cousy's very good as an actor.

• 2:01:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's also a shot at his form though, I gotta say. It's a little Stanley from The Office, not gonna lie.

• 2:01:18Bill Simmons?

  What, uh, were you surprised by the ending?

• 2:01:21Speaker 02

  Don't ignore that. Address it.

• 2:01:24Speaker 06

  No, I think you, I think it needed to happen. I think, um, it's one of the only sports movies I can remember that doesn't end on the big game and the actual games don't really have too big of an impact on the movie.

• 2:01:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:36Speaker 06

  It's impressive that the basketball is so good, considering that the basketball's not that essential to the film, and it doesn't end, I mean, the end of the movie is the first game of the season, which I can't remember when that's happened. So I thought the ending really worked for me. Also, you guys didn't, did you guys do a better title? I think there's a better title for this movie.

• 2:01:53Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 2:01:54Speaker 06

  I think it's Friends of the Program.

• 2:01:58Speaker 02

  Friends of the Program is good, but then it reorients the movie around the Friends of the Program, and not really the players, which is what the movie is essentially about.

• 2:02:07Speaker 06

  What about Where the Dolphins Swim?

• 2:02:11Speaker 06

  Did they say blue chips in the movie?

• 2:02:13Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 2:02:13Speaker 06

  I feel like they should have. It's the rare time when I think they should have said, like, we need to get some blue chips on this.

• 2:02:18Speaker 02

  But I'll be honest with you, this, the title of this movie is how I understood what that meant.

• 2:02:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think I'm good with the title, but I like Friends of the Program is pretty good.

• 2:02:27Speaker 02

  They should make a movie.

• 2:02:28Speaker 06

  The recruits would be good.

• 2:02:30Speaker 02

  They should make a movie called Friends of the Program that's oriented around, like a movie about Happy and those types, would be super duper interesting.

• 2:02:37Bill Simmons?

  I think you needed an extra scene that then set up the title. Where if you have, if they're going like, we need to get guys in the top 10. We need top 10 recruits again. And then you call it top 10 and it's like, we got three top 10 blue chippers or the blue chippers, something. Somebody says that at some point. I'm down with that.

• 2:02:57Speaker 06

  I also just like when great directors make movies that are outside their typical, what you would expect of them. Like, I almost wish there were prerequisites, like in college where, where directors had to make every kind of movie before they could choose a major. Like, the guy who just made The Exorcist doing a basketball movie is really cool. And I think, I think it's why visually it is a little bit more unique than typical sports movies.

• 2:03:19Bill Simmons?

  It's not just The Exorcist that he made, Craig. He also made Cruisin'.

• 2:03:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:03:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:24Chris Ryan?

  So this is, we haven't done French Connection, so this is our third freaking?

• 2:03:30Bill Simmons?

  I think there's a fourth one.

• 2:03:32Chris Ryan?

  We haven't done To Live and Die in L.A. yet.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  I love that movie.

• 2:03:36Bill Simmons?

  Auditioning.

• 2:03:38Speaker 02

  I'm not, I'm just saying I love it. I mean, you know.

• 2:03:39Bill Simmons?

  Out on 4K Blu-ray. Well, you know, Mulaney's kind of bringing it back with the Netflix show.

• 2:03:45Chris Ryan?

  I know.

• 2:03:46Bill Simmons?

  He, he basically ripped off the opening credits.

• 2:03:48Speaker 06

  You don't think Jenny Bell is, is apex mountain for ex-wives in a movie?

• 2:03:53Speaker 06

  She, she basically gives up her personal life to crush tape. She lets you come over after the game to blow off steam and drink, and she recruits students for you for free.

• 2:04:02Bill Simmons?

  It's weird, cause.

• 2:04:04Speaker 02

  She, I mean, she's basically doing everything for him except giving up the pussy.

• 2:04:08Chris Ryan?

  She does more than Freddie.

• 2:04:09Bill Simmons?

  It would take too long to get her clothes off. She's wearing like five different pieces of clothing.

• 2:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Shirt, a sweater, jacket.

• 2:04:20Speaker 02

  She's still so involved. He can ask her for anything except for physical effects.

• 2:04:24Speaker 06

  She's going out to dinner with him?

• 2:04:25Speaker 02

  It's like they're still married.

• 2:04:25Speaker 06

  She's making Google eyes at him still?

• 2:04:27Bill Simmons?

  It's the era of the wet blanket sports movie girlfriend slash wife.

• 2:04:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:31Bill Simmons?

  For like, it's starting with Adrian.

• 2:04:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:34Speaker 06

  She's not a wet blanket, though. I don't think Jenny is.

• 2:04:35Bill Simmons?

  No, they try not to make it the wet blanket, but then at the end, when she's super disappointed in Pete.

• 2:04:39Speaker 02

  Oh, she definitely becomes a wet blanket after a while.

• 2:04:42Bill Simmons?

  She wet blankets it up, but she's kind of justified because she's the only person with a soul in the movie.

• 2:04:46Chris Ryan?

  I was gonna ask you, we didn't really do Big Kahuna Burger, Craig, but, uh, would you like it if like, basically everybody from work went to the same restaurant every night?

• 2:04:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 2:04:58Chris Ryan?

  And I, I walked in one night with like two ladies.

• 2:05:01Speaker 06

  Craig, she's a friend of these guys are fans of the fantasy pod.

• 2:05:04Chris Ryan?

  These guys, these gals love hyphens.

• 2:05:08Speaker 06

  They got first in their fantasy league.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  If we were all at the bar together, who would be the person that walked in with two ladies on their arms?

• 2:05:14Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Brian Curtis.

• 2:05:19Bill Simmons?

  That's always the answer.

• 2:05:22Speaker 02

  It's a friend of the program.

• 2:05:23Bill Simmons?

  A friend of the program.

• 2:05:23Chris Ryan?

  Hello, media consumers.

• 2:05:25Bill Simmons?

  Craig, really glad you liked that movie. Don't forget, people listening, we're coming to Boston for a sold out show and we're doing a first ever rewatchables film festival at the historic Coolidge Corner all weekend. Friday, March 28th through the March 30th. We're gonna make a couple of appearances.

• 2:05:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:42Bill Simmons?

  But we're playing all the hits, man. We, we, we're showing Heat, we're showing The Town, we're showing Good Will Hunting, we're showing, uh, Friends of Eddie Coyle, a couple of old school ones, The Verdict.

• 2:05:52Speaker 02

  So these are all Boston based movies?

• 2:05:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, they're Boston or heist movies.

• 2:05:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:56Speaker 02

  Are you guys gonna be showing the, uh, H. Will Max Doc documentary of murder in Boston? That'll be good for the.

• 2:06:01Bill Simmons?

  Not showing.

• 2:06:01Chris Ryan?

  We're showing, uh, all, all seasons of Oz.

• 2:06:06Bill Simmons?

  All the Rick Fox episodes of Oz. Just for Rick Fox.

• 2:06:10Chris Ryan?

  I want to say to the people of Boston, if there is in fact any pickup basketball happening around 10:00 PM, Bill is happy to come and coach.

• 2:06:18Bill Simmons?

  10:00 PM.

• 2:06:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:21Speaker 02

  Or have Bob Cousy shoot free throws, so you guys can be amazed.

• 2:06:24Bill Simmons?

  My, uh, my dad is incredibly pumped for The Verdict.

• 2:06:27Chris Ryan?

  How many of the movies do you think Dr. Bill's gonna see?

• 2:06:31Bill Simmons?

  Over under is four and a half.

• 2:06:32Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:06:33Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't have a lot going on. He got, got the new puppy, Celtics are away.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  What kind of dog?

• 2:06:38Bill Simmons?

  Got, got another Golden.

• 2:06:40Speaker 02

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 2:06:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Guess what? It might have been a mistake because he's 77 and the dog wakes up three times a day. He's got scratches all over him and he's like, I don't know if we should have done this. But yeah, Coolidge Corner, um, one of my favorite, do you ever actually live there?

• 2:06:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I lived in Brooklyn.

• 2:06:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:56Chris Ryan?

  For, for a year.

• 2:06:57Bill Simmons?

  The best. So we'll see you. Visit Ringer, theringer.com/events for showtimes. Ticket information. You've never been to Boston, man?

• 2:07:05Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 2:07:06Bill Simmons?

  You been through it?

• 2:07:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, little bit.

• 2:07:08Bill Simmons?

  You know what Boston hasn't appreciated? Your shots. Your shots at the city.

• 2:07:12Speaker 02

  At the city?

• 2:07:13Bill Simmons?

  The little, the needles.

• 2:07:15Speaker 02

  I'm sure that Boston is a, is a.

• 2:07:16Bill Simmons?

  You would love Boston.

• 2:07:17Speaker 02

  Is a fine place.

• 2:07:18Bill Simmons?

  Boston would love you.

• 2:07:19Speaker 02

  I just have to keep you honest, man.

• 2:07:21Bill Simmons?

  I believe it.

• 2:07:22Speaker 02

  Because the agenda is so crazy.

• 2:07:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know what? Today you guys went too far with Bob Cousy. I said he won the movie for me. I said he won the movie for me.

• 2:07:30Chris Ryan?

  When I said Nick Nolte, you looked at me like, what a cock. I can't believe you're saying that, yeah.

• 2:07:35Bill Simmons?

  No, I just think Shaq clearly wins the movie.

• 2:07:37Speaker 02

  Bob Cousy makes like, and by the way, the free throws, even though he's shooting them, you know, it, it's impressive, but come on, man.

• 2:07:44Speaker 06

  The free throws did not impress me at all. Is that bad? They didn't even cross my mind.

• 2:07:47Chris Ryan?

  Also, Cousy maybe not a great scene partner. He's not letting Nick Nolte shoot, you know?

• 2:07:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm done with this podcast. See you later.