An NBA Holiday Mailbag and the Jokic Scare With Rob Mahoney

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss Jokic’s injury, the Clippers’ resurgence, and more before jumping into an NBA mailbag to answer some questions (3:15). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Rob Mahoney Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Isaiah Blakely, and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes. Yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FTIC.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. It was a special episode. Me and Chris Ryan and Sean Fantasy, I made a list of my 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century. So from 2001 all the way through this year, the movies I'd watched the most, the movies that I just thought were the most rewatchable. I had a little goofy criteria and I just bounced the list of CR and Sean, who were horrified, they were delighted, they were confused. It was a very fun podcast. So if you like the rewatchables, I would highly recommend that one. I would also recommend the Music Box series, season two, wrapping up on HBO, on HBO Max. We had our last one that ran, it was called Happy and You Know It.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  It's about the wacky world of kids' music, which is really something. It's directed by Penny Lane, who did our Kenny G documentary that everybody loved a couple of years ago. So we've done Jeff Buckley, Whiz Kid, Counting Crows, and then Kids Music's the last one. You can find all of them on HBO Max, super easy to queue up. I could do a long monologue about why Drake May is the MVP, but maybe I'll save that for Thursday, so Joe House can make fun of me. But as you're debating this over the next couple of days, just remember that Drake May has run for 400-plus yards and 35 TDs on top of everything else he's done and all the advanced metrics and the fact that there could be a one or a two, or worst case scenario,

• 2:10Bill Simmons?

  a three seed and Matt Stafford is gonna be a six seed in the NFC. Not to sound like a Pats homer, but I just can't believe after last night that Drake May is not the prohibitive favorite. I guess he's like minus 350 on FanDuel, but come on, what are we doing? Give Drake, sorry Drake May's schedule wasn't quite tough enough. You're the MVP or the MVP. Coming up next, Rob Mahoney is going to join me. We're going to talk a little NBA stuff at the top, like Joker getting injured, a little topical stuff, but we're really going to go right into an NBA mailbag. I had a bunch of really good questions from everybody. As always, you can send me an email at [email protected]. So Rob's coming up. We're going to do a mailbag, and it's going to keep going and going. A couple of really good questions in there. So

• 2:55Bill Simmons?

  stay tuned for that. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam right after we take this break. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field, but getting a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a touchdown. You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team. So don't settle for just any insurance when it comes to getting help you need. State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  All right, Rob Mahoney is here. We are taping this Tuesday, early afternoon Pacific time. There are some NBA games tonight. So if anything that gets mentioned over the next hour plus, if it becomes seemingly stupid about 10 hours from now, don't blame us.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  That could be the only reason, you know?

• 4:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's the only reason. Yeah, we're never going to be stupid, ever. We're going to do a mailbag. You have no idea what questions are coming. I want to hit some topical stuff really soon. First, Joker gets hurt.

• 4:25Bill Simmons?

  It I it's pretty sad. I feel like I'm a internet doctor guy. But when I saw it, I'm like, looks like a hyperextension. We're fine. Like, I didn't really totally panic. But you just never know with the ACL. I did realize he's my number one. Oh, no. So and so got hurt guy in any sport who's not a Boston guy. Just the most upset I could possibly be for a non-Boston guy potentially being injured. I was like, I I I went through the death spiral of, oh, my God, no more league pass with the Joker. No more playoffs with the Joker. I don't get the random nights where he might put a 50, 15, 17 up. And I I just got really sad. I I I just couldn't. I didn't realize how much he meant to me, Rob.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I mean, this time of year, there's always a little despair in the air, you know? We've gotten through the thick of the holidays. We're rounding the corner into New Year's. But I agree with you, losing him as a league pass entity, losing him as it seemed like he was kind of stampeding, maybe into the forefront of the MVP race with how well he's played lately.

• 5:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Plus, the Nuggets, despite all their other injuries, seemed like they were going to be competing for the title. And I assume still will when he comes back. But yeah, they've just been getting absolutely smacked with this stuff. And he and Jamal Murray were already doing about as much as two humans in their positions could like reasonably be asked to do. And yeah, now I guess it's just Jamal Murray and Jonas Valanciunas. Congratulations, Jonas Valanciunas. You now have to carry the Denver Nuggets.

• 5:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God. I am excited for his little renaissance that we're gonna have here. So they're 22 and 10 heading into tonight's game. They're the three seed. Houston's 20 and 10, LA's 20 and 10, and Minnesota's 19 11. Realistically, if he misses, let's say, they said four weeks.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that's five. Let's let's say he misses 16 games. And let's say they get smacked in those games. We're gonna actually find out how truly valuable he is. And we already know the answer. So let's say they go five and 11. I think they could fall as low as six and they're fine. I don't want to see any part of the playing game. I don't need the extra miles. So I think they stay in the top six. I think his MVP case gets hurt. Because now he's his games will be in the mid 60s, and that's going to be a little tough to compete against Shay. The biggest thing to me out of all of this is that it feels like the Spurs now could get a death grip on the two seed.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:45Bill Simmons?

  And I think that matters because after we get past the six and even I'm including the Lakers in the six, a team I don't even really like. But once you get in that seven, eight, nine, 10, that's a gonna be a relatively easy first round series. Phoenix will be frisky.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  If they're in there. But is there a seven, eight, nine, 10 team you'd be afraid of in a two, seven?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Not particularly. I would say Phoenix is the team that as you were kind of penciling in the top six and whether Denver's gonna be safe there. Denver's lead on the Suns is not so solid. I would feel great about them not being in that mix when Jokic comes back. So I think it's completely in the cards that the Suns could catch up and worm their way into the top six during this stretch. You would think when Jokic comes back, the ship gets righted a bit. But you're right, it does throw everything for a loop a little bit. It's gonna mess up the standings. I mean, forget the MVP part of that conversation as far as Jokic gaining ground or losing ground. He just might not be eligible by the time he comes back for the award at all. And so the conversation might be functionally over. It's just, it's such a loss to miss out on all of

• 7:48Speaker 01

  that stuff amid everything else going on in the NBA. The Nuggets have been one of the most enjoyable teams, one of the most enjoyable stories. As you said, Jokic, just a joy to watch. And now we don't get that.

• 7:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And especially coming off the Christmas night game, which was one of his opuses.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Good lord.

• 8:02Bill Simmons?

  Just an all-timer. Here's, here's with Phoenix. I, listen, they've been a great story. They've certainly surprised me. I thought that their over-under was 31. I thought they're going under. Their schedule is about to ramp up and they have a, they, they really haven't had to go to the East, I don't think at all. I'm not even positive they played an Eastern Conference team on the road yet. So we'll see in January when they get through like they, you know, they have like Miami, Detroit, New York, Brooklyn, Philly, Atlanta, all in a row in mid-January.

• 8:35Bill Simmons?

  They play, they basically play all of the good East teams in January. So we'll have, I think, a little bit better feel. So anyway, the Spurs being able to potentially lock down a two seed.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:46Bill Simmons?

  I thought they were gonna be good. I did not have that one on my bingo card. Quick other stuff before we get to the mailbag. Kawhi, since I disparaged the Clippers last week and said they were beyond hope, there was no fix.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:58Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi was like, actually, there's one fix. What if I turned into Kawhi Leonard again? Was not expecting that. I don't know if you saw any of what he did to Detroit on Saturday, but it was out of control and really kind of made me rethink Detroit, which I want to get to in a second. I'm going to take this game to game. I'm not going to say we've turned the corner with the Clippers. But they are like 100 to one to win the division and I don't think it could be ruled out. They're like 10 games back. That division's so wonky. I don't trust a single team in that division. So I was like, all right, what if Kawhi just is healthy the rest of the year? Maybe, but I would, I would kind of bet against the opposite. What do you think?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I take your point. I mean, betting the Clippers 100 to one to win anything is some real sicko shit. And I salute you for it.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  But it's, look, it's been nice for just to have a pulse for that team. And if it has to be Kawhi defibrillating 55 points into them in order to get the team breathing again, so be it. That's wonderful. I'm with you that that's not exactly the kind of thing that can be easily just repeated over and over and over. The good news is, I mean, they're on a nice little winning streak right now and he's doing that sometimes, but they're also still missing guys. Like they've, they've still been shorthanded and they're figuring it out in ways that they just weren't a month ago. And so I will take any version of the Clippers that feels mildly competitive after the completely lethargic start to the season they've had.

• 10:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it looked like they had completely quit on themselves, on Ty Lou, on everything and now.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  On each other. Like they, they look like they were just having a miserable time out there together. And that seems to be changing if nothing else.

• 10:31Bill Simmons?

  The other thing that happened, it's a small one, but Brook Lopez just looking like an NBA player again. He was completely washed and now all of a sudden has unwashed himself. So worst case scenario is at least a trade asset to them. There's some moves they could make too. They could, there's contracts they could patch together if they wanted to go get somebody.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  We might need the unwashed All-Stars, the unwashed Mount Rushmore. How do you, how do you turn back that particular hands on the, like those particular hands on the clock? I don't know.

• 10:56Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Al Horford's trying to play his way into the list right now and it's like, we've still don't, we don't admit your application yet. Lopez is the best example this year of that. All right. Next quick thing. Cleveland, another team that just seemed like they had no outs, no answers and no fixes. The only fix was, well,

• 11:18Bill Simmons?

  What if everyone's just healthy? We just got to see everybody playing together. What would that look like? And they're not even 100% healthy yet, but they had their four guys against the Spurs. And they had a really nice win. And actually kind of looked like the Cavs again. So I'm just, I'm just marking that.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  This might be my greater skepticism. Everything else we've talked about, it's like, okay, I can see the Clippers. A win over the Spurs is a huge deal for any team at this point, which is really a testament to San Antonio. It's just been so bleak, such a drag in Cleveland all season. And you're right that they haven't been healthy and getting guys back will of course help them naturally. But I don't know. I, I think there just might be something a little busted there that's never going to be quite right again. And the, the sooner maybe we acknowledge and accept that, the better.

• 12:02Bill Simmons?

  So I was 97% there with you on that. And I, I'm probably still in the nineties. I thought it was a good sign. They played well against the Spurs because that's the kind of team that four weeks ago would have killed them. I'm just kind of monitoring it. Next one. LeBron, the All-Star voting came out and LeBron was seventh. And I was trying to figure out, is the league trying to rig this? So he's not in the top five so they can officially move into a new generation? Or will the league now have to rig this to make sure he's in the top five? Because they don't want to have a game with, without LeBron in the All-Star game? Because he's not going to get in as a reserve. What would be your bet? If you had, those are your two options.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Those were the two options. Is it rigged or is it rigged?

• 12:47Bill Simmons?

  The league's like secretly exciting, excited this can happen and they can move some new people into the, into kind of the limelight? Or the league's like, holy shit, we can't have the All-Star game without LeBron. We gotta fix this.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  I, I mean, the, from a league standpoint, an All-Star game with LeBron is better than not, right? Like it's, it's not really that important for the NBA as a league body to have the most representative sample.

• 13:09Bill Simmons?

  Everyone hates the game, I guess is the most important thing.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  So at least have LeBron James in it, like.

• 13:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Not the spotlight on him at all times. I think that would be a net positive. So if, if there is tampering afoot, if there is some funny business being like happening, I would think it would be putting the thing, like the thumb on the scale as far as getting LeBron into the game.

• 13:27Bill Simmons?

  Mike Bass is going to send me an email now.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Did you think it was weird?

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  I think you were kidding, but just wanted to make sure you know, we don't tamper with the All-Star ballots.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Tell that to Zaza Pachulia, okay? Like, we've all been here, we've been seeing this happen in real time. I did think it was interesting, not funny business, but just interesting that Shay, who is maybe this, like, not maybe, consensus top two player in the world, fourth in the Western Conference in All-Star balloting, and kind of feeds into the larger conversation we are having, have been having about Thunder dominance, about the appeal of that team, about Shay as a star, and kind of like what he can be in terms of, you know, a face of the league or representative of the league. Like, I love Shay. The idea that you would vote for anyone over him this season feels dicey, but I guess if you're gonna vote anyone, it would be Steph and Luka, so maybe it's not so crazy?

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Steph and Luka seem like just penciled in by casuals and everyone else alike. Shay should be penciled in, small market. Jokic should be penciled in, but maybe people are a little tired of him. And then Wemby is the oddity. It would just seem like those would be the five guys, if you're just doing a ballot. But, all right, last thing really quick. Pistons, and I've been, I've been watching them lately, trying to study them and see what they're missing. Getting a little competitive with the Celtics in the East, too, like with the Jason Tatum comeback, who we might be going against. To me, they are, we're talking about all these different trades with teams. This is clearly the team where there's one easy fix for them that would make them go up a level. You felt it in that Clippers game.

• 15:03Bill Simmons?

  They had nobody who could guard Kawhi. It's really like, all right, I guess Ron Holland, I know you're only 20, but you might, you might be our last hope here. And it's the same thing when the Celtics played them, when Jaylen Brown was somebody that gave them a lot of trouble, too. These bigger physical forwards, I just don't think they have matchups for. They're playing Tobias Harris 28.4 minutes a game, Javante Green 18.3, and Holland 20.8. Those three guys, 33%, 34%, 24% from three. So 70% missing, basically. They're 27th in made threes, 24th in, in percentage.

• 15:40Bill Simmons?

  There's just a Michael Porter Jr. thing looming here now for me. When I think like, what do they need? Well, they need a bigger physical forward who can also take some pressure off Cade. Cause when you watch them, it's all Cade every play like he's the only. So it's like, well, what if you just replace Tobias Harris with whatever this version of Michael Porter Jr. Is? Are they a better team? Also, he's been in big games. My answer would be yes. And I just thought there's something there. Do you see it?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  I mean, they're definitely a better team with Michael Porter Jr. I just want to stop down hard right now. If the problem is that they don't have someone to guard Kawhi Leonard and Jalen Brown, the answer is not Michael Porter Jr.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, but, but this is the problem though. I don't think the guy exists to trade for.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:24Bill Simmons?

  I went through all the things and it's like, all right, who's the stopper? The veteran, that, that guy's not in the league unless they wanted to roll the dice with J. Mon Green.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  I'm, yeah, I'm also less concerned about that particular kind of stopper because I, I do think against most people, the combination of a star and Ron, Ron, uh, and Ron Holland can fake it.

• 16:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  And I, I want the shooting more. I want the stretch more. I want, you know, the dynamism, if it's Lowry Markkinen, or if it's in, in Michael Porter Jr.'s case, someone who can plausibly guard not even bigger wings so much, but like has power forward size. And when, you know, at his most motivated can be a factor on the glass, can be a factor as a second rotation guy defensively. All that stuff is really important and just gives you wrinkles beyond what you would ever get from Tobias Harris. And so it's like, the more you can kind of expand on that role versus a guy who stands in the corner and kind of, kind of spaces things for you, but even then not really, the better off they're going to be. It's just a matter of like how aggressive that Detroit wants to be this season. And the more that they get pressure from teams like the Knicks, I think the more inclined they're going to be to, to make a move this season.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, right now there are no man's land in that position because they're not getting enough offense from it. But they also can't stop the other wings. So either they have to trade for somebody who can stop the wings, but I don't think that person exists. Or you try to upgrade the offense. I had, I did come up with a fake trade and this ties into the mailbag. A guy named Jake Colley wrote in, "I had a dream that my Pistons traded Jaden Ivey to the Timberwolves for Dante Di Fincenzo. I view this move akin to the Giddy for Caruso trade and made a whole case for it." And I was like, "Oh, that's a fun trade." Well, you could even take it a step further and give the Wolves get Ivy, Detroit gets MPJ and Di Fincenzo, and Brooklyn gets Harris is expiring and Rob Dillingham and a bunch of picks.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  It would have to be a bunch at this point.

• 18:11Bill Simmons?

  Maybe two firsts. Yeah, like two firsts?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  MPJ's been really good. And I think to the larger point of this conversation, he's the kind of player who is useful to a pretty wide variety of teams, like the-

• 18:22Bill Simmons?

  Golden State too.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And so you could see a bunch of contenders thinking they are a Michael Porter Jr. away, or would be contenders thinking they're a Michael Porter Jr. away. And so I would think the market on him could get pretty interesting if Brooklyn wants it to be.

• 18:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and they should want it to be because he's playing a little too well for them. They're a little too frisky tonight today. It's amazing though. I thought he was, and I said this, I hated the trade when they did it. I thought he was a negative trade asset last year because of the contract and his health. Just didn't trust it, but he's morphed into this different person. And now it's like he's got this year, expiring contract next year. He's playing great. 40 million is tradable in this new apron era for you can patch some stuff together. So-

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Crazy to think about, but true.

• 19:06Bill Simmons?

  All right, we'll take a quick break and then we're going to do the mailbag. Hey, in case you didn't hear, the video from this podcast will still be on Spotify in 2026. We love having video podcasts on Spotify, but we were also running video on YouTube and that is going to change starting on January 11th for this podcast because we are moving the video from YouTube to Netflix. So, starting January 11th, Sunday night, right after the three NFL games, that third playoff game's going to end on Sunday night. Cousin Sal and I will be going live. It will be on Netflix and you will be able to watch it as a video podcast on Spotify. We have a bunch of sports podcasts going that week and then a bunch of

• 19:47Bill Simmons?

  other podcasts going at the end of the month, including the Rewatchables, which will be on Netflix by the end of January. We're going to try to time it to a lot of the movies that they have on Netflix. So you can watch the movie on Netflix, then watch the Rewatchables episode about it. So stay tuned. Netflix, January 11th, this podcast, the video will be there live. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets.

• 20:29Bill Simmons?

  Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines, prizes and details. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family.

• 21:11Bill Simmons?

  It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic. The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Now playing in theaters nationwide. All right, Rob, NBA Mailbag. Got some good questions. These are more on the serious side. I only have a couple of wonky ones for you. These are more just pure basketball stuff. This first one's from Jody Zink, who listened to Legs and I discussing the most improved player award and what the purpose of that is. He said, my suggestion, what if we made it the breakthrough award for best performance by a player who averaged less than 15 minutes per game the previous season?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  My counter to that is, why can't we have both? Because the breakthrough award is basically the where the fuck did you come from guy.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:58Bill Simmons?

  Right? Most improved, I think, is different.

• 22:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think that's like Michael Porter Jr., Jalen Durin. It's guys like that who are at one level and then they showed up the next season and were just at a completely different level. It's like, whoa. Whereas like, I don't know, is A.J. Mitchell most improved? Like, he didn't play last year.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  No. But see, I would say maybe Michael Porter Jr.'s not most improved. Like, he's in a role.

• 22:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm just saying, guys like that.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  I see what your point, though. Like, he just got more shots, more minutes.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  He's kind of, weirdly enough, for a guy who's already been a champion and been around for a while, kind of on his own A.J. Mitchell trajectory. It's just like, in a spot, with a role, with the kind of usage he's never quite had before, and he's making the most of it. But...

• 22:41Bill Simmons?

  So is Durin, like, more of your type for that award? Like, what do you go for? What's your fancy for the most improved?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I go back and forth, because there's so many things that are weirdly off limits. It's like, we can't pick players who were drafted too high because they're supposed to be good. We can't pick guys who are just kind of progressing along naturally because that's assumed. And so we end up just giving it to like, okay, who's scoring more points this year?

• 23:03Bill Simmons?

  You give it to like Jalen Johnson. It's like, oh, he's five points higher, he's averaging a 25, 10 and 9, it's six.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I would say the argument for someone like Jalen Johnson is he's doing things that go above and beyond that kind of expectation, right? The jump he's made as a playmaker, the jump he's made kind of tying the team together, albeit a pretty broken team at the moment. But the role he's filled for them, I wasn't sure he was ever going to get to that level. And so that's been kind of an exciting turn. I like the idea of splitting the award, though. And the NBA used to have comeback players, so why can't we just have a breakthrough player instead?

• 23:34Bill Simmons?

  I like more awards while also simultaneously getting rid of the clutch player award, which is the dumbest award anyone's created in this sport. Breakthrough this year, Nemea Cada, Reid Shepard, Cam Spencer, and A.J. Mitchell. All guys who did not play 15 minutes a game last year, and were actually under 10.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:56Bill Simmons?

  And this year have jumped up. Like, Cada's playing 25 minutes a game, he's 10 and 8, he's got a 20 PER. Shepard's 25 minutes a game, he's been huge for Houston. Cam Spencer's been a revelation. He's shooting almost 50% from three. And then A.J. Mitchell, like, there should be an award for the where the fuck did you come from, guys?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yes. Can I raise you Colin Gillespie in that mix?

• 24:19Bill Simmons?

  Colin Gillespie could absolutely be raised in that mix and I apologize to Colin for leaving him out. I'm sorry. I created another word too while we're here.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Please.

• 24:30Bill Simmons?

  The Powerball Ticket Award for the non lottery pick rookie who looks like he's been an awesome steal.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:37Bill Simmons?

  I just like, I like awards and I, as you know, I love all NBA. I love all this stuff. I really cherish my vote. Because it's a snapshot of everything that happened in the season. And when we're looking back 30 years later, I want the snapshot to be accurate. And one thing that would be cool is like when Desmond Bain is the 30th pick and is just kind of awesome right away. And it's like, whoa, they really struck oil with this. So the Powerball Ticket Award, Hugo Gonzalez with just a massive lead right now. I don't even think, was he 31st or 30th? I can't even remember if he was end of the first round or what, but out of all the non lottery guys, he's the one that if there was a redraft, I just feel like he'd be a top 10 pick. I don't know. Is there anybody else you'd have outside the lottery?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  You like the Powerball ticket. I can tell.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  I mean, look, you're speaking my language. My only argument is don't we give this award multiple times every week on the podcasts that we create? Like, isn't this what we do is just honor these guys constantly all the time?

• 25:31Bill Simmons?

  Podcast content award? Yeah, maybe.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  I mean, Ugo is definitely a great pick. I'm trying to think if there's anyone else even in the running this year. Ryan Kalkbrenner has definitely had his moments.

• 25:40Bill Simmons?

  Kalkbrenner's in there.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  He's, he's kind of faded a little bit, honestly, as far as his contention for this hypothetical award. Will Richard in Another World might have been in contention, but also has sort of faded. I, I think it might be who goes to lose at this point.

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  Who goes like minus 650 on FanDuel. Last award I would have is the, and I don't know who to name this award after. So maybe you'll have to help me. The, we're sorry, we marked your, we're sorry we mocked your seemingly horrific trade. Our bad. Award. And the nominees would be Brooklyn traded for Michael Porter Jr. The Giddy Caruso trade, I think there was a lot of people with Chicago, like, what are you doing? Maybe the Derek Queen trade? He's tailed off a little lately. That's still gonna end up being a top three pick.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  I don't think anyone was really bagging on him so much as just the parameters of the deal.

• 26:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then finishing last in the voting, the Luka trade. I think that's the, that's, that's the last one in this.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay, that's fair.

• 26:36Bill Simmons?

  Because we're still mocking it.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  As we should be.

• 26:39Bill Simmons?

  But I think that Porter Jr. Trade is the leader in the clubhouse. So I don't know what GM we named that after, like a GM that did something nuts. And then all of a sudden it wasn't nuts a couple of years later.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Accidentally struck some gold. Or, I mean, honestly, in fairness to them.

• 26:53Bill Simmons?

  Potentially struck gold.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  I mean, that's turned out to be quite a nice deal for Brooklyn, honestly. With, not just with the way Porter has played, but with the pick that they're getting in, in exchange. Like Cam Johnson's been good, but hasn't exactly blown the doors off when he's been healthy in Denver so far. So I think it's worked out pretty nicely for the Nets, all things considered.

• 27:11Bill Simmons?

  Is it weird that I still hate the trade, even though it's been a good trade? I still just completely disagree with the logic behind it. I still feel like Cam Johnson was worth first rounders on himself. And I feel like Denver would have traded Michael Porter Jr.'s contract and attached a first-rounder to get rid of it for the flexibility. You know, and I still don't think they got enough, but it turned out to be a great trade.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  There is a kind of nobility in you being the person like holding on to the pipe under the bridge. As the tornado comes through and twisters, like just holding on, you know? Please, please continue to hold on, Bill.

• 27:41Bill Simmons?

  I still feel like, uh, all right. Next one's from Gray Zabel in Denver. You keep missing the actual most appalling part of the Luka trade. The Mavericks, all caps, gave up a second round pick in the deal. Palenka had the balls to say, actually, this isn't a fair deal. We're going to need more. And Nico thought that made sense.

• 28:06Bill Simmons?

  It's a great point.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  It's a great point.

• 28:08Bill Simmons?

  And how did he get a second round pick on top of everything else?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I mean. How does that, how does that conversation even start? Cause it can't be that, right? It can't be Polinka coming up and being like, okay, we, we really gotta even this out for both sides. I would think it had to have started from some other hybrid deal.

• 28:26Bill Simmons?

  Like he wanted a first and they're like, all right, we'll settle for a second. Like he's trying to Jedi mind trick Nico into thinking, I still don't feel like I'm getting enough back.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Honestly, good negotiating tactic if that's the case, but I, I wouldn't be surprised if it was some other deal that Frankensteined its way into this deal. And so they're like, okay, let's just copy paste these terms that include a second round pick and maybe no one will notice.

• 28:50Bill Simmons?

  I, I wrote down, it's the fuck you touchdown at the end of the 50 to three blowout. When you're just supposed to be running the ball and kneeling and they're like, fuck it. Let's throw another 50 yard bomb here. Give us a second round pick too. Nico's like, fine.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Just wait until that second rounder wins the Powerball award, you know? Then they can really take their victory lap on it.

• 29:08Bill Simmons?

  If, if Nico, if, if you gave him true serum right now, does he feel like he's still in it with this Luca trade?

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  With the way Luca's looked on defense lately? Do you think like after like three drinks over the holidays with his friends? He's like, you'll see with Luca, he's never going to win a title there. Like, I'm sure he goes into that mode, right?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  First of all, I don't think it takes the three drinks. I think he just.

• 29:30Bill Simmons?

  But you think he goes right away?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  I, I think he, look, you wouldn't have done it in the first place if you didn't believe it. And so I would like to think that Nico Harrison is out there with a Bill Simmons level of confidence in the Michael Porter trade being bad about his own resolution, you know, for the Luca trade.

• 29:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, I, the part that really falls apart for him is the Anthony Davis piece where he was like, we needed somebody more reliable from a conditioning and health standpoint. I present to you Anthony Davis. That's the part that I can't believe nobody was in the room like, all right, I get all the logic with the Luca side, but all right. Next on, do you have one more point on that?

• 30:12Speaker 01

  I was gonna say just the fact that the way that's set up now every, for example, Anthony Davis groin injury just feels like such an indictment on the process, on, on every, every step that led to this, like I, we should be over it. I can't be over it. It's a ridiculous trade. It will always be a ridiculous trade.

• 30:30Bill Simmons?

  This is a long one from Mike from Williamsburg, which I assume is Brooklyn. Simmons. I like when the people, they start the email with the Simmons.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do you like to be, how do you like to be addressed? Is Simmons your preferred?

• 30:44Bill Simmons?

  I mean, you don't even need to mention my name. You're sending an email to me, but he gave me the Simmons comma. You love the overrated and underrated properly rated gimmick dating back to pre-grant land before your stubby fingers stopped working. Another instance, so we went from Simmons and then we had the stubby fingers.

• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  I think the overreaction, underreaction, proper reaction gimmick works just as good. And I presented 2025, 26 Spurs as an example. So timely email here.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:13Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio beat the champs three times in two weeks. I get it. It was impressive. First game, OKC shot 24% from three in the NBA Cup semis and lost by two. It happens. They did. It is true. OKC couldn't make a shot.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:28Bill Simmons?

  Second game, Spurs rolled by 20 at home. Good win and they kicked ass. Way to go. You have Wemby and two other top three lottery picks. Plus you got Fox for free.

• 31:41Bill Simmons?

  Weird dig at the Spurs there. I don't know. Like all they did was win by 20. Christmas day, OKC goes 11 for 44 from three and loses by 15. I hope you watch this game because every OKC three was wide open. So in two of those three losses, OKC couldn't hit any threes.

• 32:00Bill Simmons?

  Now he brings in the media.

• 32:03Bill Simmons?

  But if you follow the media, the champions who have just won 108 of 130 games heading into mid-December now need to pray that they don't see the Spurs in the 2026 playoffs. I am going with overreaction, which he wrote in all caps.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:22Bill Simmons?

  From Mike from Williamsburg.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Was that scrawled on a paper? Was that sent in with like clippings of a magazine?

• 32:29Bill Simmons?

  It was like in Times, New Roman 10 point font.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  That's real Wingdings vibes, to be honest with you.

• 32:36Bill Simmons?

  All right, let's talk this out because I did feel like there was a slight overreaction. But I also felt like something meaningful happened. Because

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Okay. Both of those things could be true.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  If OKC is just going to make 24% of their threes, I think there's probably eight teams that could beat them night to night. Like if they're just going to shoot like shit.

• 32:57Bill Simmons?

  You already talked about this game on your pod. I have not talked about the game. The things I noticed, which other people have mentioned, was the the multiple guards at once.

• 33:10Bill Simmons?

  Just good ball handling seems like the right kind of kryptonite for Dort and Caruso. Where it's like, you can do that crazy defense thing on us, but not really this time because we have three guys who can handle the ball or two at all times. It's kind of what Indiana did last year and their guys are better than Indiana's guys, right?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:28Bill Simmons?

  So that makes sense. I think what was interesting about it is it flipped the Dort Caruso thing against OKC. Because if their defense isn't going to matter now, it's like they have to make shots. They didn't.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:39Bill Simmons?

  The next thing was a bigger thing to me and really jumped out because I watched those last two games. The Wemby in the paint against SGA's mid range, I think is a real thing. Did you notice that?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

  Okay. That felt that felt like a real like, how do you stop SGA, the most efficient? Mid range guy we've had in a long time. What would be the best way to stop him? What if we had a seven foot seven guy with his hand up all the time?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, especially Shay is so good at all of the various step throughs and step backs. Like his footwork is impeccable. He's so good at drawing fouls. If you can even take away that fraction of a second when he does get open by making him think that Wemby could get there. I think that changes a lot of OKC's offense.

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  And yeah, it felt like it tilted it just enough that they felt uncomfortable, which I thought you could feel.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  That is the difference. And like that, to me, is why it's not so much of an overreaction. Like I, the Thunder shouldn't really be afraid of anybody at this point. They still are the championship favorites. They're still the best team in the league. I don't think anyone should budge on that opinion. But the Spurs showed like if you are going to beat them, what it takes and it takes making them uncomfortable by tilting them off balance in exactly that way. And in particular, you kind of alluded to the way those factors influence each other. Like if you aren't forcing turnovers, if you're the Thunder, then all of a sudden those Caruso shots, those Dort shots, like they really, really have to hit. And same thing with your offense. If the balance of your offense is always like a little back footed or a little reliant on three possessions in a row, being swung to the weak side corner and Alex Caruso bricking

• 35:10Speaker 01

  all of them, then all of a sudden you have like a little bit of a crisis of confidence. Then all of a sudden you're out of your flow, you're second guessing things, you're not playing dominant dynastic Oklahoma City Thunder basketball. And that is what it takes. And the Spurs, like it or not, seem to be one of the very few teams in the league capable of even nudging the Thunder anything remotely close to that point.

• 35:34Bill Simmons?

  The Dort Caruso thing is the thing I would be worried about if I was OKC because that whole team shot threes a little bit better last year, but I actually liked the shots they got in the Christmas Day game.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  I mean, they're good.

• 35:45Bill Simmons?

  S J was definitely more effective, but they were getting wide open threes everywhere and they just weren't going in. And it made me wonder, do you overreact to this or not before the trade deadline where you have Dort Caruso and Wallace and none of those guys are knocked down, I totally trust these guys, wild card scoring thing, or do they need to play A.J. Mitchell more? Like, is there some sort of offensive wrinkle they would have to fix that?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Well, A.J. missed those second two games. So he missed the game on the 23rd.

• 36:12Bill Simmons?

  They see them in a series. Would he play more over one of those guys?

• 36:17Speaker 01

  I think it's a huge variable because that is the exact person you would go to if Caruso or Dort or whoever in the line, Kason Wallace, like whoever you want to point to on the wing, isn't fulfilling their offensive duties and you need a little bit more juice and the second side creation. Like you would pull the lever and put A.J. Mitchell into the game and he would give you a lot of those exact things without giving up a ton defensively. Like he's a good defender in his own right. So that is the kind of role player they would have off the bench that I think could change those games.

• 36:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Presti's always been careful with trades during this season. And I don't think he would do a trade. I do think if if Murphy became available on the Pelicans, that's the kind of guy that they would have to really think about with all the assets they have, the tradable contracts they have.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:01Bill Simmons?

  And you think about like, all right, we're going against the Spurs. We're in a series now. We're down 3-2 in San Antonio in game six, and I need somebody who can get a fucking shot. Do I trust these guys I have? What was interesting about the three games, and why I don't think it was an overreaction, is it was the first time you started looking at OKC, who seemed like this potential dynasty going, huh, how could this go wrong? Right? And I hadn't thought about that for a while. The other things that jumped out to me, Wemby off the bench, which won't be replicable in the playoffs because he'd be starting. But Wemby off the bench was such a massive fucking monkey wrench. Like, you're hanging with your team with the starters, and it's like, now we're going to bring in Wemby.

• 37:42Bill Simmons?

  Look, I was there. You probably don't remember the 86 Rockets Lakers series.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  You know what? Somehow I don't.

• 37:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, somehow you missed that one. Are you over 40 yet?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Not over 40 yet.

• 37:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so that happened before you were born. So you missed that one. Rockets Lakers was the all-time kryptonite series in NBA history, where the Lakers had won in 85, they'd won in 82, they'd won in 80. They were kicking ass in 86. They were still doing their like Showtime Lakers stuff. And then they just go against this fluke Rockets team, and they got their ass kicked. And Kareem all of a sudden looked like he was a million years old. I wrote about it in my book. Samson Olajuwon, they just ran them over. And it was like, if they had played 20 times, I think the Rockets would have beaten them 18. And it was this real moment where they had to go out and get Michael Thompson next year. It's just a bad matchup. I'm not ready to go there with this yet, but I did think of it. I did think of like, oh shit, could this just be the wrong team?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  I think what it introduced is not that the Spurs are that yet, but that they could be that. That over the next two or three years, when we're all assuming the Thunder are going to be in contention because they're so loaded, what if they do have just the perfect foil sitting right there with a generational player, plus all this depth, plus two All-Star level guards, I guess, three All-Star level guards? Like, that could be the exact design you need. And that would be an incredible turn of events, I think, for all of us, just in terms of watching what the next five to 10 years of basketball look like.

• 39:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the and the Wemby Sampson parallels are there like Sampson was Wemby before Wemby. And if you go back and watch him on YouTube, I was showing my son, I was like, watch Sampson. He's like very Wemby ish. Wemby was taller, but they were doing a lot of the same stuff. All right. Next question. This is from Brad Atkins.

• 39:25Bill Simmons?

  One of my favorite showrunners. Six seasons into his career, what's the most important game LaMelo Ball has played in the NBA? Not how he performed, but how important the game was going into it. So I got this email and I tried to think of it and I I couldn't think of it. I had to look it up. But off the top of your head, do you know?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  It has, it would have to be one of the play in games, I would guess that Charlotte got absolutely smoked by, I want to say the Pacers both times somehow.

• 39:52Bill Simmons?

  You're just, your brain's working better than mine. Yeah, he was in two playing games, neither of which I remembered. They lost in 2021 to the, they were on 30 and 39 Hornets, made the play in and lost Indianapolis 144 to 117. Yeah, LaMelo was four for 14 and he was a minus 35. And then the year later, they played another playing game for the 43 and 39 Hornets. I somehow forgot that they had a winning record that year. They lost Atlanta by 29. LaMelo was seven for 25. And he was a minus 13.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Tough.

• 40:26Bill Simmons?

  Even so, I'm going to say those are his two biggest games so far.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Uh, as a LaMelo Ball apologist, I have no defense. He is simply dug his grave to this point and it is his fault both by his play. But I think more importantly, just his inability to stay healthy to this point in his career for the most part, that has really doomed him on both fronts as far as playing actual meaningful games.

• 40:47Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird one for NBA teams where, and I think they're in this position with him. Atlanta's into a Trey, New Orleans is in it with Zion. And probably Memphis is in it with Ja too. Which is why we've, those four guys have been mentioned a lot of times. But how long do you stick with this asset as it's declining? Cause I think you could argue Atlanta now has stuck with Trey for too long. And I don't think he has trade value anymore. I just don't.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:12Bill Simmons?

  I, I think you would, you're basically looking at a vec. You're going around the league and you just keep coming back to Vivek and be like, man, maybe he'll do it. But other than that, I just think he's been in the league too long. I think we know what he is.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  That's such a weird collection of potential like home run swings too, because they all have something to recommend about them. LaMelo, not just the vision and the creativity, but remains like one of the preeminent draws in the league. One of the very few players who will actually get people and not just people, but young people watching NBA basketball.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  That is a huge and powerful thing, especially for a small market franchise. And I would guess is a huge reason why a team like Charlotte would be so loathe to give him up.

• 41:53Bill Simmons?

  They're better off keeping him.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  If it does work, it will work in a way that will be more important than even a better player, but who's less of a draw would be. And then Ja has some of that too, but has just about the biggest question marks in terms of conduct and decision making off the court and on the court in the league, to say nothing of the fact of the way his game is deteriorating. Trey is probably the most accomplished of those players from a postseason standpoint.

• 42:16Bill Simmons?

  No question.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  And yet, people seem to really dislike playing with him a lot of the time. And just like the reviews are not glowing as far as the Trey Young experience as a coworker. And Zion, I just, has been awesome when he's on the floor. Usually I just have zero faith that he's ever going to be a high leverage star basically ever again. And I would love for that not to be the case, but I don't really see a reason to believe it.

• 42:39Bill Simmons?

  So if you had to rank those four, for who you would be the, the most afraid to trade for, I'd actually have Ja first. Cause the combo of the off the field decision making, but also just physically, he doesn't seem the same. And I don't think he's as explosive and reckless as he was a couple of years ago. And if he's not as reckless, I don't really know what's left.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  It's Ja or Zion for sure. Like I think, I think Trey and LaMelo, for all of their faults are in a slightly different category of. Challenging in their various ways, like you want to build around them and see them grow, but they're just not bringing the baggage to the table that Ja is.

• 43:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm still in on Zion. I would still.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Based on what?

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying to think what actor or actress Zion's like. We're like, oh, maybe this will be the one for them.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Sydney Sweeney.

• 43:27Bill Simmons?

  And it's just like, no, but she's been a couple of good things.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 43:30Bill Simmons?

  Like she was in White Lotus. She was in.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  That was, that was like Zion's like 13 good games of a season, you know, when he's healthy.

• 43:38Bill Simmons?

  I'd have Sydney Sweeney is pretty good.

• 43:42Bill Simmons?

  Trey, I still feel like we've at least seen him succeed, which is more than two of those guys can say.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  All right. So long email about tanking from Chris D that I'll try to cut through, but he basically says, the true drivers of tanking are general managers and owners, and they do it for different self-interested reasons. GMs tank to save their jobs and basically prolong the illusion of hope, which Sean Marks has been the best at. Keep my job. Three years from now, we're going to have all this stuff and you just kind of hope people buy it. And then he said owners tank to save money, which I don't 100% agree with. But he said, losing becomes profitable, especially with revenue sharing. He did write, the NBA is a cartel with guaranteed asset appreciation. Yikes. But he suggested if the NBA wants to eliminate tanking, what if we had an eight-year ownership rule?

• 44:32Bill Simmons?

  If an owner's team fails to finish in the top six in its conference even once over an eight-year period, that owner should be required to immediately sell. Eight years seems low, but I was trying to think like, what, what's the right? Basically, we call this the Vivek rule, right?

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:48Bill Simmons?

  But he did make the playoffs. Two years ago.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:53Bill Simmons?

  Eight years seems like. Maybe it's the right number. If your team can't make the top six for eight years, maybe you should be required to sell. Now, there's probably all these legalities why you can't force an owner to sell, but I didn't mind the rule.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  I mean, it is, it's encouraging regular season competitiveness, which we're all for. But it, does it matter if they're just doing it one time every eight years? Like if they just

• 45:15Bill Simmons?

  That's the

• 45:16Speaker 01

  take the majority of it and then spend on a bunch of veterans for a one last ride just so they don't have to sell their team. Is that worth it for anybody? And frankly, say you are a fan of one of these long suffering franchises. Say you've been waiting for the Utah Jazz to turn the corner and they have refused to in part because they have mistimed their trades or held on to Lowry or whatever you think the sins of the Jazz are. If you've been waiting all this time and then they just go trade for a bunch of Tobias Harrises, like, does that make you feel happy? Does that help anybody if they just have one season where they win 42 games?

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  You're the Stan Van Gundy mid 2010s Pistons. You're like, oh, we made round one.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  I think, I think there is a lot of good reason and dignity and competitive basketball to be played in the middle of these conferences. Like, I'm not trying to poo poo being fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh in a, in a really competitive conference. I'm saying when you go all out and that's all you can do, that's when it gets really bad. If it's, we're kind of building something stably in the middle here and we're waiting for our Pascal Siakam to show up, for example. And then all of a sudden we're, you know, the Eastern Conference champion Indiana Pacers. That's very different than one of these teams, just like trying to go out to satisfy an arbitrary rule. Like, the reason I am cautious about this is because we're seeing the 65 game rule for superstars just feel so meaningless. Like, why would that be the benchmark?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  And the fact that Nikola Jokic is going to be out for a couple of weeks and might be ineligible, that Victor Webenyama might not be the defensive player of the year, even though we all know he's the defensive player of the year. The fewer arbitrary rules, the better, I think, in terms of those kinds of like cutoffs.

• 46:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I almost feel like we could go back to the 55, but you can only have like 10 things where you miss one game and that's it. Where you're basically like just resting or skipping or that, but I don't even know how they

• 47:06Speaker 01

  You want like a, you want a doctor's note, excused absences only.

• 47:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, excused absences. That sounds great. Here's my tanking thing, and I've mentioned this before, I think even going back to Greenland.

• 47:17Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know whether it's top three, top four, or top five, but I just think they should have a rule where you can't be in top three, top four, top five, two years in a row. Even if it was top five, like, like, here's the things that need to stop. There's really only three things that were bad. Cause people talk about tanking, it's ruining everything. It's really only ruined it three times. The process in Philly was outrageous.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 47:39Bill Simmons?

  Right? They were, they picked third, third, first and first, or they ended up with those picks for four straight years. Like, that should never happen. I think we should all agree that that, that was a complete disgrace. Let's never have that again. San Antonio had Wemby. They got Castle number four, and they got Harper number two.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm not sure that should happen either. So even if you had like the top four lottery pick rule, they win with Wemby. They get the fourth pick, but now it goes back to five because you're not allowed to have a top four pick two years in a row. Now you don't get Castle. That changes them a little bit. And then Houston goes two, three, four, three, four straight years.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:22Bill Simmons?

  And it's just ironic that Houston and San Antonio are two of the three teams you'd want to be now, but they threw away multiple seasons to do it. You know, and OKC tried for two years.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:33Bill Simmons?

  It worked out once with Chet. Didn't work out as well the year before when they got giddy. But, um, that seems like an okay fix. Are you okay with that?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  I'm okay.

• 48:42Bill Simmons?

  You can't be in the top four two years in a row.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I am okay with it, but the sound you just heard is every small market GM calling us frantically trying to get this rule banned from all possible existence, right? Cause it's, if, if your argument is the only way your team can get better is through the draft, then you want the, the dedicated consolidated like two to three year window to make that happen. And you, I, I wonder if we did have a rule like this, would the penalty for it just be the tanking teams just end up tanking for seven straight years because they need the every other year cadence in order to make it possible to get a couple of top five picks together?

• 49:19Bill Simmons?

  I mean, we've already benefited the small market teams a lot with some of this apron stuff.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Not untrue.

• 49:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I think they've been really helped out. Um, let's take one more break and then we'll finish the meal back. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions

• 50:07Bill Simmons?

  may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. So we don't just have readers in America, Rob. We go as far as Singapore with Tony. If the Lakers offered Austin Reeves plus every pick they can legally come up with, how many imaginary bonus picks would they need to even get the Bucks to stop laughing in a Giannis trade call? Would they have to have time travel picks? He just keeps going.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  You know, I looked at this because nobody, there's a really interesting thing that's happened with Giannis that I have not mentioned on our podcast and I want to throw this at you.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:45Bill Simmons?

  Because on the one hand, you would think he's one of the best trade value guys we have.

• 50:51Bill Simmons?

  On the other hand, he's been basically available for the last two months and we've seen multiple contenders be like, we're good. We don't want him. And I was trying to think like when KG became available in 07 and he's right around the same age, miles in his career that Giannis is, he might even been two years older. Like, everybody wanted KG. It was like you add KG.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:14Bill Simmons?

  And this is like the perfect guy to have on your team. He fits with everything. Doesn't need a lot of shots. He just, he's a culture guy, makes you better. Everybody wanted him. If the Spurs had made Duncan available at any point from like 08 to 13, I just feel like everybody, maybe, maybe 13 is too late. Maybe let's say 08 to 2010. They're like, you know what? We've won enough titles with Tim Dunkle, Duncan is now available. I think everybody would have lost their minds. It would, people would be like, we're getting Tim Duncan. We were winning titles with him.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  There's something about Giannis that I think holds people off because there's a perception that if you bring Giannis and you have to fit the team around him, he's not a fit into the team guy, which I haven't really heard discussed. Do you see it that way?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  I think there is some of that. It's not even like that he doesn't fit into the team. It's he wants to play a pretty specific way.

• 52:04Bill Simmons?

  That's what I mean. Yes.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Whatever you may say about Kevin Garnett, I think you're right that hyper competitive, but also the mid-range jumper was there, the facilitation was there. Like, there was really no question that he would find a way to fit into most offensive systems with most offensive stars. Giannis, like we've seen, we saw with Dame, like, it's not always quite that easy, even when we think it will be, even when it seems like these pieces should fit together, like Dame and Giannis would, or like Luka and Giannis might. There's a little bit of hesitation because he is a guy who wants the ball in his hands. Like, he wants to be the creative superstar. And if you don't have the pieces to make that work, then I think you have to-

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  Then why would you trade for him?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Exactly. Why, why, what are the teams that are close enough to think that they should trade for him, but not so committed already that they would have to tear down or compromise part of who they are already in order to accommodate everything that it is he wants to do?

• 52:55Bill Simmons?

  Which makes him just a fascinating trade asset. Cause I think he's one of the best 20 players of all time. Like, I can't remember where I have him on my list, but I have him somewhere between 15 and 17. Like, he clearly is. He's 30 and 12 every year. The stuff he's done is all-time, all-time stuff. Like, he's one of the generational superstars of this century. And yet, I think a team like San Antonio would look at it and be like, "Yeah, he might screw us up. We have a good thing with all these guards. We have Wemby. He doesn't really make sense with Wemby." Whereas if you had somebody like KG, and it's like, we could turn Keldon Johnson and some picks and, you know, Luke Cornet and then KG, like, of course we're doing that. Like, we could fit him right in.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:36Bill Simmons?

  I just think it's more like how unique Giannis is as a player and how much the team needs to revolve around the stuff he's good at. So that, that brings me to the Lakers. I think him and Luka are a weird fit. I'm not sure I like it.

• 53:53Bill Simmons?

  Because there's like, look, they could trade Reeves and LeBron, assuming LeBron would sign off for Giannis and Kuzma. And Milwaukee's like, we'll do that. We'll buy out LeBron. Give us all your picks. LeBron will get to go somewhere else. There's a world where that's like a conceivable trade. I don't think it would happen. But then I have my future as Luka and Giannis, which on paper, of course you're doing it. If I'm playing a video game, I'm doing it. But I don't, in real life, is that a weird team?

• 54:21Speaker 01

  So the guy you want with Luka is somebody who's really comfortable screening and rescreening with the patience to play in space when they catch in the middle, who can either like, give him, give him the option as a, as a pop player to attack the basket or be such a dedicated force on the roll that you have to pay attention to him at all times.

• 54:39Bill Simmons?

  So it's like Davis five years ago.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Davis five years ago, or Giannis earlier in his career, frankly, or, or Giannis even at times during the Bucks championship run. Like he tilted in that direction enough for that team to show us that he can do it. And obviously he's one of the best in the world at doing it when he wants to. The question is like, how much does he really want to sign up for that? Because when you play with Luka, you're doing it all the time. Like ask Deandre, ask every big Luka has ever played with. Like that is the job is how much do you want to be rolling to the rim, even when you may never see the ball. And Giannis would be the world's most overqualified role man playing with Luka. And that may come with a championship.

• 55:14Bill Simmons?

  Does he want to do that?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Like it may, it may come with incredible like results, but it's not what top 20 players all time usually do.

• 55:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And same thing for Houston. Like, yeah, on paper, it would make sense to trade for Giannis and they have the right assets, but I'm not sure what you're compromising by doing that. It's just a weird one. That's why I still feel like a team like Atlanta made the most sense. So there's another team coming up later in this. Um, this question is a long one from Tom Day. I'm going to try to skim through it, but I picked it just because I know you'll love it. He writes on Amy Powers podcast, great podcast, by the way. She called Julia Louis-Dreyfus the LeBron of television. Julia rejected this comparison.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  And then instead of listing other basketball comps like a normal ringer employee, Amy just moved on.

• 56:06Bill Simmons?

  That is true. We would have just kept going and badgering Julia Louis-Dreyfus on that one. But he writes, if you were gonna make a JLD basketball comp, isn't it clearly Kobe? Seinfeld is the Shaq Kobe years. They're both all time great number twos on an all time great show team, but they're also beloved by a segment of the fans who claim they were actually the star of the team. New adventures of old Christine carried a mediocre supporting cast to mediocre results in individual glory. The 2006 Emmy is her 2006 scoring title. Interesting. Same year. Veep is the Gasol, Odom, Bynum Lakers. Two Lakers titles, three

• 56:46Bill Simmons?

  Emmys. Neither team or show was quite as good as the Shaq Kobe Lakers or Seinfeld, but HBO made it feel newer and fresher. Then he said, whatever Apple show she's gonna end up on soon will be the Steve Nash Dwight Howard era. Her co-stars will probably be Sheldon from Bing Bang Theory and Sofia Vergara. Jesus Christ. He really went deep on this. He said, bonus, her year on SNL was Kobe versus Jordan, the All-Star game. And he said, her arrested Boeckman guest role was the 08 Olympics. And he's like, I'm staying away from Colorado. Good idea. I really like this. JLD is the Kobe of television with the multiple errors. You seem just confused.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  I love the longevity argument. I love the parallels. It falls apart in one critical way, which is JLD is way better at what she does than Kobe ever was at what he does.

• 57:39Bill Simmons?

  Right. She is.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  She is the Jordan or LeBron, or, I mean, if you absolutely need to stretch it, like, I guess Kareem at three. But just really, I don't know that anyone has ever been a better TV comedian, either gender, any presentation. Like, she is the greatest TV comedy star of our time. Yes.

• 57:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's like her, you, Lucille Ball in the final two. What's interesting is, I think a lot of the Kobe fans would think that was totally justified, that they were in the same swimming pool.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that is life as a Kobe fan. That's what that particular, that particular fandom subscribes to. The problem is, like, I am a Julia Louis-Dreyfus superfan. And I guess if I want to poke holes in one other aspect, if Seinfeld is the Kobe Shaq Lakers, who is the Shaq? Is that like, who is the bigger star or the bigger presence on that show than her?

• 58:30Bill Simmons?

  The reason I liked the Shaq Kobe was because Seinfeld was allegedly the Shaq.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:35Bill Simmons?

  Name Seinfeld. He was the franchise guy and you know, they built the show around him.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Naturally.

• 58:40Bill Simmons?

  Showed up in LA and was the free agent. And then he needed Kobe to, to actually win anything, which is the same thing with, with her role, with Elaine's role in that show.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  I think Elaine's one of the great TV characters of all time.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 58:53Bill Simmons?

  George was. So I don't know who George, George is basically like Robert Horry and Rick Fox and Derek Fisher.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  He's the entire supporting cast.

• 59:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  And then.

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  Maybe him and Kramer or the.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:04Bill Simmons?

  Everybody. And then I feel Jackson's clearly Larry David.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yes, that makes sense.

• 59:10Bill Simmons?

  So I liked all the Kobe and her like career, like the way it moved.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:15Bill Simmons?

  It would be almost like if LeBron had Kobe's career.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause if you.

• 59:19Bill Simmons?

  Would be where I've landed.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  If you mapped her career onto LeBron's.

• 59:22Bill Simmons?

  Or Jordan had Kobe's career.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. That, that, that might be it. Honestly, if, if Kobe were actually Michael Jordan and not just wanting to be Michael Jordan.

• 59:29Bill Simmons?

  Jordan had all of Kobe's moves and like the way the supporting cast moved around him, but it was Michael Jordan.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:35Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'm glad we talked this out. I have another TV. I had to get one weird one for you. And it's funny because you didn't ever watch the show, but you'll have an opinion on the question.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Can't wait.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  You didn't watch The Sopranos.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Have not. I've seen two episodes of The Sopranos.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  Is Meadow's boyfriend catching Vito blowing the security guard at the Esplanade construction site? The most holy shit moment in the history of television? A brief power rankings on the topic would be great. This is from PJ Cantwell. So this got me thinking, what was my number one holy shit moment? Ever watching a television show?

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  I figured you could come, you could come up with three off the top of your head. Here are my five.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:16Bill Simmons?

  And I'll go from five to one.

• 1:00:19Bill Simmons?

  Bernthal getting killed in Walking Dead. I still can't believe they did that. I felt like Bernthal was becoming like a major star and then he was just shot. I didn't know about the comic books.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  A quick question. How do we want to handle spoilers with these potential reveals?

• 1:00:33Bill Simmons?

  Oh, we're spoilers are, yeah, come on.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Jump ahead if you don't want any great TV shows spoiled for you.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  You should be watching these shows.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 1:00:42Bill Simmons?

  Or you should have already watched them. Number four for me is Jack, we have to go back in Lost.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  I think that's a good one.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Number three, before your time, but Kimberly pulling her wig off in Melrose Place. And then it turned out she had a giant alien scar. It was in all. Yeah, she came back. She was, she died in a car accident.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Bill Simmons?

  But then she came back. She seemed a little off. And then at the end of an episode, she went to go to the bathroom, was looking in the mirror and then just pulled off this red wig and had this giant scar. And it was like, oh, my God, it's on. It was amazing. Number two, Omar dying on the wire.

• 1:01:17Bill Simmons?

  Number one, the red wedding on Game of Thrones.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Gotta be.

• 1:01:20Bill Simmons?

  I think that has to be number one, right?

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  That I was worried you were gonna leave it off the list because I know you're not a huge Thrones head. But that felt, that felt like, at least in terms of the last 20 years of TV or so, has to be it, I think.

• 1:01:32Bill Simmons?

  Any others that you would have?

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  I feel like we hit the biggest possible ones. Does this example from The Sopranos actually stack up to this billing?

• 1:01:40Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's, it was, it was a key part of season five or six. I can't remember. It was the key swing thing that determined like six episodes.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Wow. I guess I gotta get caught up.

• 1:01:51Bill Simmons?

  It just, it was more that one, unlike Red Wedding, which was like massively consequential. This was more like a, wait, what just happened? Was like one of those. The ending of The Sopranos, I think, was the more controversial, but everybody knew going into the ending of The Sopranos that something huge was gonna happen. So you weren't, to me, it's more like, I can't believe they just did that.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:12Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe that just happened.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  And like, that's, that's where the red wedding has that DNA. And I think a lot of TV has been chasing it ever since, to be honest with you, to

• 1:02:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  pretty diminished results. We're so jaded to expecting those sorts of reveals now that I think it's really hard to actually pull the rug on people.

• 1:02:28Bill Simmons?

  Mad Men, I was trying to think of the Mad Men ones, and the only one is when that guy got eaten up by the equipment in the office.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, the riding lawnmower might be the only truly shocking moment in that exact kind of way.

• 1:02:40Bill Simmons?

  And then Breaking Bad had some good ones, but nothing like, nothing like Red Wedding. I mean, they had some good, but you were always, were on your toes with Breaking Bad. It was never like, I don't, I have no idea what's going. The Wire had multiple ones.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Even Stringer actually dying was surprising.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Also true. Yeah. For Breaking Bad, I wonder if it's something like the way Jane dies and like Walt's being kind of responsible for it. Or just like the seeded like poison kind of reveal, slow burn over the season. There's, there's a lot of stuff like that, but Breaking Bad loves showing you the clue and then playing it out over like three years. And so is it, is it as shocking as even a guy getting his foot run over by a lawnmower? I would say kind of not.

• 1:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Red Wedding clearly number one.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Gotta be it.

• 1:03:23Bill Simmons?

  There's some Miami Vice stuff when Crockett got amnesia and went bad and he shot Tubbs. But they kind of gave it away in the, in the commercials. So I was expecting it. But Crockett shooting Tubbs was way up there. All right. Glad we talked about this. Mitch from Michigan says, he's been listening to the pod since 2018 and appreciates my knowledge of NBA history. Thanks Mitch. My brother and I are Pistons fans. I told him that Andre Drummond was the worst multi-time All-Star in the 21st century. My brother pushed back with Roy Hibbert or Brad Miller. We need your take. Who's the least deserving multi-time All-Star in 21st century? Just shots fired at everybody.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Bill Simmons?

  So Drummond was a replacement selection in 2018, which I think that even makes it worse, right?

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  So, I mean, because you're, you're electing him specifically for that spot. And yeah, I mean, you're right about the shots fired. Like we're going to be unkind to all of these guys. But Andre Drummond even had his absolute best. You know, getting your All-Star berth off rebounding is kind of a tough beat, I think, overall.

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  Couple other nominees. Caron Butler went to, but I really liked Caron Butler and he was 20 a game and tough juice. But I was surprised he had two. Vucevic had two. Zach Levine had two.

• 1:04:42Bill Simmons?

  I think this is the answer and it was not mentioned in the question. I think it's Adrinas Algoskus.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  You're throwing Z under the bus like this?

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  I am and I love Z and I thought he was a huge part of those later cap. But can I give you the resume though?

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Please.

• 1:04:56Bill Simmons?

  2003. He averages 17 and 7 and 1/2 rebounds on a 17 win Cavs team.

• 1:05:05Bill Simmons?

  And makes 44% of his shots. 2005, they were 42 and 40, 17 and 8.6, 47% field goal, 2.1 blocks.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  We should say.

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  His stats just aren't good.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  These 40, like the 47% kind of numbers, he's shooting exclusively long twos. Like it's not like he's getting easy stuff around the basket to pad the stats. Like he's just shooting mid-range jumpers at this point and also somehow managing to be effective. Granted, a different league.

• 1:05:34Bill Simmons?

  I love, I love how you really, you're thrown off by the Algoskus.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just thinking, I'm thinking about the grand tradition of guys who snuck into the All-Star team a couple of times. And again, in the spirit of throwing guys under the bus, Antoine Jameson seems like a very nice human being. Antoine Jameson is.

• 1:05:52Bill Simmons?

  20,000 points too.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  I mean, and Zach Levine's going to be in this category. I'm sure we can have a fun conversation about him at some point. I just think there are other good candidates beyond the Big Z's and the Brad Millers.

• 1:06:03Bill Simmons?

  The reason I went with Big Z is my answer was because I was trying to time it to that really weird time for talent.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:11Bill Simmons?

  Which was in the league from basically 03 to 06 because so many of the expensive guys flamed out. We missed a couple of drafts, but they were also like demanding you pick the center every year. And there was always two centers on each team and we didn't have enough centers for a few years there. That's how Jamal McGlore got in.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:06:28Bill Simmons?

  The worst one of all time was, rest in peace, but Kevin Duckworth, two times in the 90s, still trying to figure out how that happened. Anyway.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  David Lee, too. Two-time All-Star David Lee. He's fine.

• 1:06:41Bill Simmons?

  David Lee.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Very productive.

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  It's funny, though. I went back and looked at his stats and they were like legitimately good. He was a huge part of that 2013 Warriors, like.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:49Bill Simmons?

  He was like 20 and 10 when, you know, and getting to the line. All right. Next question from Bob Mattson in Milwaukee. Basically, are the Celtics qualifying for the Ewing theory this year with Jason Tatum out and them still playing well? And the answer is just a, just flat out no. They won the title with Jason Tatum. If you win the title, you are automatically ineligible for the Ewing theory. So you can't be mentioned. The whole point of the Ewing theory is they never, you never won a title. The team played better without you. They won the title with Jason Tatum.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  They're also not playing better without him, but lots of guys are playing well above and beyond.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Having the second-rated offense has been confusing.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Shocking.

• 1:07:32Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I don't understand that at all. And I watched this team and I actually really love watching this team.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  But I don't understand how they have the second-rated offense.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Even in watching in real time, I'm not usually sure how it's happening. It's, it's.

• 1:07:46Bill Simmons?

  It's like offensive rebounds and weird threes.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:49Bill Simmons?

  Pull up contested threes and I.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Clearly those things alone go a long way. Plus like the energy of the team goes a long way, but. I am worried about you and what your attachment to this group is going to be like. Are you, do you want Jason Tatum to come back? I know you keep pushing for him eventually in order to.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  He's coming back. It's happening.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm sure he will, but you're, but you're going to miss this version of the team, you know, like you're, you're.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm so much deeper. It's so much darker how into this team, me and some of the other, like, I was creating fanspo trade threads with the Simons contract and trying to figure out the best one and finally came up with Malik Monk. And just any sort of thing where it would save them six million bucks.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:31Bill Simmons?

  As you know, I've always liked Malik. Simons expiring, the Kings can get out of that. They get Malik Monk. We try to rejuvenate him, former six man of the year. Save like six million bucks, gets them closer to the, under the first apron. I'm at that level. I'm making up like the King Celtics trades.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely insane.

• 1:08:50Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't apologize for it either.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  I mean, nor should you. I just, I think. Look, if you, if you were standing on the edge of a cliff and Ugo Gonzalez and Jordan Walsh and one of your children were dangling on the edge and you can only save.

• 1:09:02Bill Simmons?

  Which child?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  I get, well, I'm gonna leave that to you. I'm saying if you can only choose one, I think you would at least think about it.

• 1:09:09Bill Simmons?

  It's gotten to the point where Missoula's been amazing, but he kind of blew the Portland game. He took Kate out with three minutes left to go small for reasons that remain unclear. And Klingon ended up getting the biggest rebound of the game put back and they, they end up losing. They had a couple of dumb turnovers, but just texting angrily with my dad that they blew the Portland game. I'm like, this is great. What a great place to be. Just furious that they lost to Portland. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what? You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault,

• 1:09:50Bill Simmons?

  you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun with Expedia? Save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three, Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. Another Boston question, quick, from Scotty. Ironically, he starts it off. I know you're a Boston homer, but I also think you take your NBA vote seriously.

• 1:10:34Bill Simmons?

  Thank you, Scotty. Do you think Jalen has been a first-team All-NBA guy so far?

• 1:10:41Bill Simmons?

  So I'm slightly the wrong person to ask, not because of the Boston homer thing, but because I don't, I'm not the, I'll put five guards on my team as first team.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  Right. You want actual positions or some semblance of it.

• 1:10:54Bill Simmons?

  At least something like a team. And I, for me, he's been the best forward in the league.

• 1:11:02Bill Simmons?

  And I think for me, it would be Jokic, SGA, Jalen.

• 1:11:07Bill Simmons?

  And then we could fight about Maxey and Brunson, Cade and Luka, two of those five. I personally would have Luka on the second team despite the stats.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  I have Jokic, SGA, Jalen, Maxey and Ant. As my first team All NBA right now. Maxey because of the minutes he's playing and all the stuff he does for that team and the stats. And I just think he's been unbelievable. Ant's just.

• 1:11:32Bill Simmons?

  Ant's at the point now where he, it's kind of like. Prove to me, he shouldn't be on the first team. Like, he's just awesome. He's so good. Like, I just. I remember where Durant and I were arguing about this once when we did all our pods together and I was talking about how somebody was second team and first team. And he's like, but what's the point of the team if I'm one of the best five players in the league? And I'm like, yeah, I guess that's right. And I just don't know how he's not on the team. So what, if you had to knock out any of those guys, who would you knock out?

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Well, let me start with this. Are you treating Giannis as basically ineligible? Cause he's not technically ineligible yet.

• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  On any of the teams yet. Yeah, he's, cause he's. If Giannis is gonna be eligible, then that screws this up.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Bill Simmons?

  Then maybe Jalen gets bumped.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  And you had Jokic on the team.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  I mean, so there may be openings just from Giannis and Jokic being off of it, like not being eligible with the 65 game threshold. And that would, that would create some room, although.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  Do you have to have a big man on your, on each team or you don't care?

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  I don't care. I'm just gonna take the five. Like I. I don't like it because the parameters of how we vote now makes, to me, the MVP ballot look a lot like your first team All NBA. And I would like to, I would like them to feel different. I just think with what we're asked to do, it's basically the same thing.

• 1:12:48Bill Simmons?

  I wish. We had one big.

• 1:12:52Bill Simmons?

  And one like true wing.

• 1:12:55Bill Simmons?

  And one true guard and then you can do whatever you want with the other two spots. Yeah, I just think it should look something like a real team. And I also think it's like to me, right now I have Jokic first team. I have Shen Goon second team and I have Jalen during third team. And I think all those guys deserve to be recognized as all NBA guys.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Bill Simmons?

  Whether Luca can play his way on there, we'll see. But Jalen Johnson, I have as a second team all NBA guy right now, even though they have a slightly a losing record like they're three down.

• 1:13:22Bill Simmons?

  And then for third team, you know, Murray, Murray, Mitchell and Curry, I think all have to be in there. We kind of know who the best 15 guys, if you're, if you're talking bubble guys, the bubble guys right now are Booker and Durant and marketing. And I have towns as a third team for now.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And where, where you had Brunson second team?

• 1:13:41Bill Simmons?

  Brunson second team, but I honestly, if you wanted to do a five minute argument about Brunson versus Maxie or Brunson versus Ant, I don't. You can make the case, right?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I really go back and forth all the time between specifically Brunson, Maxie and Cade Cunningham. Like all, all three of whom influenced the game in slightly different ways, wildly productive. It really is just kind of like a matter of taste. And do you want Brunson's ability to gut out points or Maxie's ability to be like purely athletic or Cade's kind of combination of offense and defense? I honestly waffle with those guys a lot. And I think, I think right now I would probably favor Brunson among the three of them. But ask me again in a week and I might feel differently.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Cade, I'm ready to move Cade up to one. If they stay a one seed or a two seed, that's going to change the conversation for me. Like Ant's like a six seed and, and New York and Detroit are the one and the two seed. I think maybe you think about it differently.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Do you think any other Thunder guys will make it? Do you have Chet anywhere near the conversation?

• 1:14:42Bill Simmons?

  I didn't. I didn't, I had, I mean, Wemby's the wild card, whether he can play enough games.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Bill Simmons?

  The team, my team sucks too much, guys. Avdi and Porter, I think are the two, but their teams just aren't good enough. And there's some guys lingering like I'm in Thompson. Honestly, Fox, I think is at least like played his way close to the bubble with how important he's been for them. Like he carried them when Wemby was out. I think he's been huge in these OKC games. So, and Ananobe is another one that I think as, as a two-way guy, at least has to be thrown into the bubble section.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, I'm trying to think, would I take Fox over Castle? And I'm not saying Castle should be in the mix or like, I think they're both probably a little further down.

• 1:15:30Bill Simmons?

  That's a good one.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  I mean, Castle, like, the energy he plays with is transformative, and I think that's worth noting for sure.

• 1:15:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good one. Well, we'll see. But the, the bigger point is Jalen's been a 30-point game scorer all year. He's gone to, I've talked about this before in the pod. He's gone toe-to-toe with the other team's best guy every game. I, I just think he went up a level and I don't really fully understand it. I've never seen a guy go up a level in year 10. I didn't think, NBA, you kind of know who guys are by year seven, year eight. Year 10 is unusual.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  To be this productive, again, for a team that is a top-five offense and this successful in the standings, like you, you can't discount that anymore. That is, that, those are all NBA credentials. There's no doubt about it.

• 1:16:13Bill Simmons?

  Mike from DC wants to know, why don't we live in a world where Derek Queen's spin move is called the DQ Blizzard?

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  Let's just put that in the world right now.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  Fucking mint it. Like, first of all, we, we need to get the consult, you should have, who, who was the, the emailer who suggested this?

• 1:16:31Bill Simmons?

  Mike from DC.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Mike needs a consult fee. Like, we got it. We got to get it connected on the deal somehow, but this has to happen.

• 1:16:37Bill Simmons?

  Blizzard is great. So I remember, once upon a time, I was pushing hard for PG, for Paul George to change his uniform. Remember to 13? He was doing like NBA columns about it. Just change to 13 and your nickname can be PG 13. And then he did it and his nickname became PG 13. Now I give the world the DQ Blizzard, courtesy of Mike from DC.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  It's honestly beautiful. And we need, we need to be able to just change his name on the jersey. Obviously, there's no 13. There's no like AK-47 possibility here, but just put Blizzard on the back of Derek Queen's jersey.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  Blizzard. Yeah, you could even nickname it.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 1:17:10Bill Simmons?

  All right. Uh, we're, we're near the end here. Andrew Z wants to know, so I have the McKeskey Award for the best American white guy that I've been joking about since I had my column at ESPN, that we needed a best American white guy award. We made, one year, we made a McKeskey plaque for it.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  I've been thinking like, American white guys just aren't getting enough credit for things. You know, like, we really do need another trophy to hand them.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  Hold, hold on to your hat.

• 1:17:37Bill Simmons?

  He wants to know why Domantas Sabonis is not eligible for the McKeskey Award.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  It's a complicated case.

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  Born in Portland, Oregon.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:17:45Bill Simmons?

  Lived there until he was eight.

• 1:17:48Bill Simmons?

  Played center at Gonzaga.

• 1:17:55Bill Simmons?

  Basically, he was gone for 10 years. And if he was eligible, then does he retroactively get like six McKeskeys? So I went through this.

• 1:18:05Bill Simmons?

  He went to high school in Spain. And he plays for Lithuania in the Olympics.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he's eligible.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  So the Olympic qualification does matter to you?

• 1:18:17Bill Simmons?

  I think it does. The combo of that, I so, I think two of the things that have to happen are high school in America. And you have to be eligible for the American Olympic team.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:29Bill Simmons?

  Or at least that's who you play for.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  Marc Gasol also vetoed out.

• 1:18:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just think, and so then the other thing is, could we, could we expand to North America? Cause then that brings in Nash, but it's like, we play candidate in the Olympics. And that's not, now I'm changing the McKeskey. I don't want to change the McKeskey. McKeskey is what it is.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  But it does lead to an email from Matt from Des Moines. Who asked.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  I mean, it would, first of all, lead to an email from Des Moines.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  Are white guys having a moment in the NBA right now?

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  Is this the best white American talent pool since the merger? And I was like, you know what? This is interesting. So we're not including the foreign guys.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  Calhoun, Huff, Filipowski, Herter, Podzemski, Quinton Post, Larabian, Grady Dick. Not even on the final team.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:20Bill Simmons?

  They're like, we're inviting them to the 100 person tryouts.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  Donovan Klingon, Reed Shepard, Luke Cornet, Jaime Jaquez, Alex Caruso, Sam Hauser, Gillespie, Zach Eadie, TJ McConnell, DeFrenzenzo, Duncan Robinson. Not even starting.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:19:40Bill Simmons?

  Christian Brown, Tyler Hero, Reeves, Holmgren, Knipple, Flag.

• 1:19:49Bill Simmons?

  It is a lot. I was, I was surprised when I saw it down. I don't, what do you, is it the shooting? Is it the spacing? What's going on, Rob?

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's always the shooting, you know, it's the shooting, it's the surprising athleticism, it's the feel for the game, uh, it's the competitive savvy, you know, it is all of these things. I, I will say the one part of this that has been striking is the Khan Cooper Rookie of the Year race is now really heating up and those guys are just like, these are real deal star level prospects and where they separate themselves from a lot of the guys you listed who are, you know, nice shooters or nice bigs. It's like, they can do everything. Like these are guys you want to put the ball on their hands and see just how far it can go. I don't know that we've seen many white American players with that kind of profile in a long time. It's been a lot of supporting stars, role guys. Cooper and Khan Knipple feel like something pretty different from what we've had lately.

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  I went back and looked at some of the old McKeskey's, like Chris Kaman won one year.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  A true legend in the game.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  Mike Miller won, like this is a renaissance. Okay.

• 1:20:49Bill Simmons?

  Gabe Halpern Goldstein wants to know why we're barely hearing Philly in the honest trade rumors. Is Daryl just asleep at the wheel?

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  So what's the package?

• 1:21:00Bill Simmons?

  He's, he wonders, could it be Embiid and all their picks? And then you hope Embiid could just get scratched. Could it be Paul George with edge come?

• 1:21:10Bill Simmons?

  You throw in a bunch of picks like they they do have the big contract to put with Yanis.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  They do have the edge cone piece and they do have a bunch of picks and it is weird that they haven't been mentioned at all. If your ultimate goal is could we just end up with Maxine Yanis, we'll figure out the rest later.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would guess probably the reason is because the salary that would be going back, whether it's Paul George or Embiid, like that's those are heavy contracts, not just in terms of the number, but the implications that come with them. And so if you are Milwaukee, you would need a third team to take those contracts or you would just be saddling yourself with that experience. But as far as Yanis on the Sixers, Tyrese Maxey is kind of exactly the sort of player I would want playing with Yanis.

• 1:21:49Bill Simmons?

  I got excited about it.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Maybe we do have to gin up the conversation.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, you also, Daryl is, as I've talked about many times, the classic, I just want to have three stars. I'll figure out the rest. So if he could figure out, I just think Edgecombe has to be in it. I don't know how you get Yanis.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  I thought we were just treating Dominic Barlow as the as the third star.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Quinn Grimes is the third star. I don't know, but I just feel like if he could be, I have Yanis, I have Max, I have two first team or second team all NBA guys, like I'll figure out the rest of the team later. All right, last question. I thought this was a great question. I'm glad you're here for it and it's from somebody whose name is Owl Pacino in Boston. I don't know if that's like his Gmail name or whatever it is.

• 1:22:35Bill Simmons?

  He said, it seems like a near certainty. We're going to name an award after Steph when he retires. And it's probably going to be something boring like the three point contest. I propose something convoluted instead.

• 1:22:47Bill Simmons?

  Steph is the absolute undisputed goat of shooting. You could argue, nobody would ever argue Ray Allen was a better shooter than Steph.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  So why wouldn't the Steph Curry award go to the player who was the most dominant at a certain skill that season? So what player was the best at their skill versus all of the other guys at that skill?

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  He says this season would probably come down to Steph shooting, Wemby shot blocking, or Jokic passing. And then you bet on who had the best skill. He said most memorable winners would include 1958 Bill Russell, 1987 Michael Jordan, who was eight points higher than the next guy's scoring, and 93 Dennis Rodman, who had 18.3 boards. Shaq was next at 13.9. It would get the general public to appreciate certain skills more. I think it would be fun. Keep up the good work.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  I kind of love this.

• 1:23:45Bill Simmons?

  I kind of loved it, too.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Bill Simmons?

  What a great idea. What was the best, most dominant skill of the year?

• 1:23:53Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't it be a really fun thing to figure out? And I don't even know, this year, I would say Jokic's playmaking, but I don't know if playmaking is a skill.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  Might just be his scoring, to be honest with you. Like, he could be in the running in a couple of different ways.

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  Right. So could like SGA's mid-range game? That would be eligible. So I guess they would have to tell us, here are the 10 things that are eligible this year for this award. And it's like, Curry's shooting, SGA's mid-range game, Jaylen Brown's mid-range game, Jokic's passing, Wemby's shot blocking.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Kason Wallace in the passing lanes. You know, like, let's get weird with it. I think there's some real potential here. I also, to tie the convoluted awards together, in the spirit of the Sopranos, whatever moment that I haven't seen is that truly surprised you. I think the Steph double bang against OKC might be the closest thing that the NBA has had to the red wedding. Like, I guess maybe LeBron chase down in game seven might actually be that, but Steph on both sides of it, unfortunately.

• 1:24:49Bill Simmons?

  Wow, that's a good one. What was the red wedding?

• 1:24:53Bill Simmons?

  It's not the Ray Allen shot?

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Actually, that's a great one. I feel like it would have to be the stakes of the playoffs.

• 1:24:59Bill Simmons?

  It's the last 28.2 seconds of the 2013 game six. It's the red wedding.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  The red wedding for Spurs fans. And much like in Game of Thrones, the family bounced back.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Look at that.

• 1:25:11Bill Simmons?

  Came back a year later. All right. So you like this, the Steph Curry Award?

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm very much in favor of it. And I like the long list idea of let's get five or 10 honest

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  10 nominees.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Just truly elite at whatever it is they do. And it can be big or small, but naturally the award I think is going to go to which of these things like mattered the most.

• 1:25:30Bill Simmons?

  And so what's your, what's your number one elite skill right now, 30 games in? So who's the leader for the Steph Curry?

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  Are we treating shot creation as one skill or is it broken up into scoring or passing or whatever?

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  I think it would have to be a little more minute.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like shot blocking, rim protection, that's one. Passing, mid-range game, long-range shooting.

• 1:25:57Bill Simmons?

  Rebounding would be the other one.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  If somebody's like, I have, I averaged 20 rebounds a game this year and nobody else had 12, you're probably winning the Steph Curry that year.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  For the sake of full circling this thing and bring it back to Nikola Jokic being out for the next four weeks. I think it is his playmaking. I think that is the single most irreplaceable and valuable skill that is happening for any team at any level right now. And some of that is because the things that make the Thunder great, for example, are so balanced out between Yeah. five and six and eight different stakeholders who are all really good at what they do. Nobody does what Jokic does. Nobody has that impact on the game. And so if you're pointing at the, the guy who is most like Steph in terms of warping everything around him, I think it's Nikola Jokic.

• 1:26:39Bill Simmons?

  So playmaking would be a skill. I agree. That should be a skill.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Bill Simmons?

  It'd be funny if, uh, uh, rim running finishes, like somebody just won one year because they had like 377 rim run finishes. Compared to like 100 for the next person, but I like this. I, I think there's something here. Congratulations, Al Pacino. Rob Mahoney, thanks for sticking with us for the mailbag.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Thanks, Bill. It was fun.

• 1:27:02Bill Simmons?

  I had a good time. Good to see you. Happy holidays.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Gahal. Thanks to Isaiah. Thanks to Mahoney. And, uh, I hope you have an awesome New Year's Eve. Please stay safe. I am excited to get to 2026. This is, uh, an interesting year to say the least, but, uh, 2026 is looming. Can't wait.

• 1:27:26Bill Simmons?

  Thanks for everything. Thanks for, thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting everything we're doing here at The Ringer. Thanks for supporting this podcast and rewatchables. I will see you in 2026.

• 1:27:48Bill Simmons?

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