Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast NBA Lottery Karma Rankings, Jaylen’s Future, and a Blistering Wolves-Spurs Series With Nick Wright About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Nick Wright to check in on the Celtics by reacting to Jaylen Brown’s controversial Twitch stream and discussing a possible Giannis trade (3:02). Then, they preview the rest of the Timberwolves-Spurs matchup and discuss LeBron’s Ringer Top 100 NBA player ranking before ending with their 2026 NBA Lottery Karma Rankings (31:58).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Nick Wright
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
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Transcript 19,234 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Speaker 01 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
0:37 Speaker 02 I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.
0:57 Speaker 01 Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
1:36 Bill Simmons? The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables. On Monday, we did There's Something About Mary, which is also on Netflix. It was me and CR and Sean, the OG crew, had a great time. Lot of fun discussions. You can go check that out on Spotify, on Netflix, wherever you get your podcasts. For next week, just giving you the heads up now, we did Tropic Thunder. So that is coming on Monday. I think it's on Netflix. I'm pretty sure that's why we want to do it. It's a pretty easy movie to find. Almost 20 years since it came out and a really fun one to revisit. So that's happening. If you like narrative podcasts, we put up the last episode of Legata. That went up on Tuesday.
2:21 Bill Simmons? If you missed it, please go check it out. Great one to power walk, driving the car with. Really, really good. Really proud of this one. So check that out whenever you have a chance. Coming up on this podcast, the one and only Nick Wright is here. We're going to talk about the San Antonio Minnesota series. We're going to talk about my Celtics and what the hell happened and what's happening with Jaylen Brown? Does he even want to be a Celtic? We're going to talk about LeBron. Are we evaluating him correctly in the Ringer? Nick was upset that we, we probably weren't. A lot on the San Antonio Minnesota series, which we both feel like something really crazy might be happening there. And then last but not least, I do this every year. Usually we do it on a Sunday, but the lottery is on a Sunday this year. Zach Lowe is going to be at it.
3:07 Bill Simmons? So instead we're doing the lottery karma rankings today. And that was the last part of this podcast, trying to figure out who should win the NBA lottery? Just for make karma standpoint. So that is all coming up next. We're going to take a break and then Pearl Jam. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's been a wild playoff run, not over yet. FanDuel wants to bring you closer to the court to make all of that action come to life for you, the basketball fan. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, plays during NBA postseason. Build a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action. Right after tip off, whatever you want. That's the whole point of live betting.
3:51 Bill Simmons? Download the FanDuel sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut.
4:32 Bill Simmons? All right, we're recording with Nick Wright about an hour or so after you did First Things First. I like when you're a little groggy. I feel like I have an advantage. You know, you've basically played a whole game. Now you're doing a doubleheader. This is good for me.
4:46 Speaker 04 Correct, which is why, you know, I have a light rule that if I'm potting after 6:00 PM Eastern, I drink red wine while I'm doing it. But I really, I need to be, have, you know, all my sensibilities to be able to combat whatever stuff you throw at me. So I have a big glass of pink lemonade, a backup bottle of water. I'm going straight sober to deal, because I don't know how you're, I don't really know the state you're in. The Celtics, who I picked to win the title, and I know now you're like, ah, they weren't ever gonna win the title. You thought they could maybe win the title. They're out, and so I don't know how you're doing.
5:28 Bill Simmons? Terrible.
5:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, excited. I mean, the Lakers are still playing. The Celtics are at home.
5:36 Bill Simmons? It's a catastrophe. I woke up at 4:00 in the morning, and I was just lying in bed staring at the ceiling. And I just woke up. I went for a power walk at like 7:30 in the morning. Was walking around, was talking to my dad. Two days after the game, still furious at everybody. My dad, this is the maddest he's ever been after a series.
5:55 Speaker 04 I mean, Ron Harper Jr. Not gonna save the season, it turns out. I, I, so, I'm, here's the thing I think I'm most stunned by.
6:05 Speaker 04 You could argue of every-
6:07 Bill Simmons? I didn't know who we were leading with this.
6:09 Speaker 04 Sorry, were you sorry?
6:10 Bill Simmons? No, it's all right, go.
6:11 Speaker 04 You, you could argue of every contender in NBA history.
6:17 Speaker 04 There was not one better prepared for, oh shit, our best players out for game seven. What are we gonna do than this year Celtics?
6:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
6:28 Speaker 04 Who had 65 games of that scenario. So I don't under, I didn't understand that from Missoula, the starting lineup. And I, how do you grade four years of Missoula? Year two, crush everyone en route to a championship? And every other year horrifying defeat as huge favorite?
6:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Did you see the numbers? It's like plus 500, plus 900 and plus a thousand, I think were the three, something like that.
7:00 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so it's, it's real, it's, and so I don't, you know, and, and then, and you, and you did a very, I feel like you don't want them to break up Tatum and Brown, but you acknowledging that it might happen, really helped the conversation get going. So it was journalistically, I respect it, even though it caused pain for you, but I think Jaylen Brown, I think Jaylen Brown, I think there is a very interesting trade where Atlanta sends a bunch of stuff, including Milwaukee's own pick, back to Milwaukee. Atlanta gets Jaylen Brown, who would fit with them perfectly.
7:39 Bill Simmons? Who's from there.
7:39 Speaker 04 And Giannis goes to Boston. That probably makes more sense than Giannis for Jaylen Brown straight up because why, why would Milwaukee necessarily want to do that? That I think for Boston's a really interesting possibility here.
7:51 Bill Simmons? I have it in my notes. I mean, we, we hinted at it on, on the Sunday pod. As we were doing the Sunday pod, Zach and I, Jaylen was doing this Twitch stream.
8:02 Bill Simmons? It did not go over well with the fan base. I'll just say that.
8:06 Bill Simmons? Look, he's, it's a free country. You do what you want, but over and over again, the theme from him this year has been, this has been the most fun season he's ever had.
8:14 Speaker 04 Time of my life.
8:15 Bill Simmons? This is, and even the game seven stuff of. That was the pace we should have played all along. I liked how, I liked the style we had that game. And it's just very, it's becoming very clear to me and I think to a lot of other people that he wants his own team. And that's fine, but I think we can accommodate this. The trade you mentioned is the most logical trade because you left out one thing. They also have a almost $28 million trade exception. So they can trade with Milwaukee and they can also take a contract back and actually save Milwaukee money because they got under the tax this year. They can actually go over the tax, right? So they have Karma for one year left, like 22. You could just take that as part of the trade and absorb it.
8:58 Bill Simmons? Or you could take my, hey, did you not like the Miles Turner experiment? We'll take him off your hands. He fits in that thing too.
9:06 Speaker 04 The trade, who has the trade exception?
9:07 Bill Simmons? The Boston does. Boston does.
9:09 Speaker 04 Okay.
9:09 Bill Simmons? So Boston could basically get Giannis and a year of Karma.
9:14 Speaker 04 Yep.
9:14 Bill Simmons? Send Jaylen out, send a pick to Milwaukee and then Atlanta sends, you know, Reese, Shay, Dyson Daniels and whatever that pick is.
9:23 Speaker 04 Well, so yeah, and the thing is it's super valuable in this regard. Cause we'll see what that Atlanta pick, you know, we're, I know talk lottery later. They have potentially a really good pick this year. But since they have Milwaukee's 27 pick, Milwaukee being able to get that back and be like, all right, next year we're gonna suck. And reap the benefits of it before we get going. And I think Jaylen would be great with Atlanta. I think that would, I, I think that would.
9:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah, if you have him and Jaylen Johnson, you bring McCollum back.
9:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's something.
9:56 Bill Simmons? Here's, here's, were you a wire guy?
9:59 Speaker 04 Yeah, of course.
10:00 Bill Simmons? So I used to do this thing when I had my column back when my fingers worked about Durant and Westbrook. About wondering if, if the stringer Avon thing was gonna happen and bring them down.
10:11 Speaker 04 Yep.
10:11 Bill Simmons? Right? And I was writing about this and it really did not go over well with, I think either of them or anyone in OKC. But the whole point was like the balcony scene in the wire. Where Avon comes back, but Stringer's kind of been running the show and they start side eyeing each other a little bit.
10:28 Bill Simmons? My fear with the Celtics season was that they were, it was a little like the wire thing, where Stringer was running the show, in this case, Jaylen. Tatum comes back, like Avon, it's like, okay, guys, we're a partnership again, but Stringer got a taste of running the show. I didn't really fully think until that Twitch stream that this is kind of what Jaylen wants. So I want them to stay together, but maybe this is just how the league goes.
10:52 Speaker 04 So I want to talk about the Twitch stream for a minute.
10:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:56 Speaker 04 Okay, so, because I find Jaylen to be, both of these guys, Tatum, I find, I found Tatum's openness and vulnerability in his recovery process, one of the most remarkable and endearing things from a star athlete I've ever seen. Him flatly saying before the New York game, yeah, you know, I, it's in my head, but I need to get over it, like being back on the court, like, I thought it was stunning his approach there, and I thought his recovery that obviously hit a wall here at the worst time was remarkable.
11:34 Bill Simmons? Well, and then I would also add, just him traveling with the team everywhere and being, kind of needing to be on the team and to be involved and watching them and being a part of it, other guys just would disappear, he didn't.
11:46 Speaker 04 He's the blueprint now, I think, for how you deal with something like this.
11:50 Bill Simmons? I agree.
11:51 Speaker 04 Jaylen, I find fascinating, because I truly believe if all 450 NBA guys took an IQ test, I bet Jaylen's in the top couple percent. I think Jaylen is a very thoughtful and guy, and a guy who's off-court causes, I think, are really important and does, like, he does, he's a smart, thoughtful guy.
12:16 Bill Simmons? Well, and also, the stuff he does in the city of Boston is the highest possible level of an athlete's relationship with the city. That's another thing you have to think about if you're trading him.
12:25 Speaker 04 Right, so all of that is like, true. And here's what's also true. He has some of the like wildest takes I've ever heard. Like the, the, the part of the Twitch stream where it was, yeah, there was basically a conspiracy against me from the league because I've criticized the refs. Like, are you serious?
12:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
12:49 Speaker 04 Yeah. And where he's like, yeah, the refs confirmed it to me because before the game, they said, we're watching. My buddy, that's not because you criticize them. It's because the other team's like, hey, he pushes off. So they're letting you know they flagged it to us. Him, the, the fact that he is that smart and yet thought it would go over well to be like, yeah, I know I've won a championship here and been to six conference finals. But the year where my running mate was out with the torn Achilles and we flamed out a 3-1 lead in round one, best year ever. Even if you feel that way, that ain't going to go over well. And then the decision to do it and to do it with those three dudes just standing there.
13:33 Speaker 04 Like, none of it made any sense. It was, and so I'm like, I know he's a smart, thoughtful guy, yet he's doing this, which is.
13:43 Bill Simmons? Well, so, but you have to flip that around. So why is he doing it?
13:47 Speaker 04 Correct.
13:48 Bill Simmons? And he is a smart guy. And I think that's, my takeaway after that was, he's probably okay with moving on. And you, you forgot to mention with that thing about the best year of his career. This is my dad. I was talking about, my dad was like angry for my dad, but then started talking about how the NHL lottery is tonight. And if the Maple Leafs fall to six, we get their pick. So he, he's moving on. But, uh, but my dad was like, we won the title two years ago. We were one of statistically the best teams of all time. We ran through it. He was a huge part of it. He won finals MVP and conference finals MVP. How is that not the most fun year of his career? My dad was like, I just don't understand. Like, I would love for him to explain how this was.
14:33 Bill Simmons? And Jaylen was saying like, look, everyone counted us out. There was this adversity. They were calling us the Gappy or Celtics and we banded together. But the way the season ended, there's no way that could be your most fun year.
14:46 Speaker 04 Correct. And it'd be one thing if, you know, if Scottie Pippen said, hey, 94 was the most gratifying year of my career. I was always number two. Every, Jordan won every award always. And in 94, we overachieved. We had a great season. We won a round. That'd be, that'd be one thing.
15:09 Bill Simmons? I think that would also be insane.
15:11 Speaker 04 I, well, it would, I, I understand that, that you probably wouldn't say it, but I would get it more than if Scottie had in 93, one finals MVP. And, and people thought he was awesome. Like, it was.
15:26 Bill Simmons? Well, how about, let's say you get hit by a bus tomorrow and you're recovering for nine months. And as this is happening, the first things first has to revolve around Wiles.
15:35 Speaker 04 That's what I said.
15:36 Bill Simmons? And all Wiles is doing is like, this is the most fun I've ever had doing TV. People would be like, whoa, he must hate Nick Wright. What's going on?
15:44 Speaker 04 That is, that's the exact comp. I said, I said, I do, the podcast I do, what's right with Nick Wright, the one plug.
15:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
15:52 Speaker 04 I know. Well, I, so I do the, that podcast with my son.
15:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
15:56 Speaker 04 And I said to, I said that to him this morning. I was like, if I got, you know, pneumonia and was in the hospital for two months and you had to hold down.
16:05 Bill Simmons? You're on a yacht, you're in the antivirus, you're on a cruise ship.
16:08 Speaker 04 Exactly.
16:08 Bill Simmons? You're stuck in a cruise ship for six months.
16:10 Speaker 04 And you're doing the pod without me. And I keep seeing these clips of you saying to the producers, boys, I don't think the show's ever been better than right now. I'd be like, what the fuck? Like buddy, like I'm trying to get back. And so, but that's what it was. And you said throughout the year, and I think it's right. He was like 10% too happy about how it was going.
16:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he almost needed like a crisis consultant to say, hey, every three weeks, don't forget to talk about your brother JT. And how great it's going to be when he comes back. But you could feel it in the playoff series because they did slow down. They did play a different style. I was talking about on my podcast, every one I did, I was like, I don't really like how they look. I don't, something's different. We're not using the bench. And this is, you know, some Missoula stuff. But like I said on Sunday, I think they were using that Sixers series as a tinkering lab for the Knicks series, not realizing Philly was going to blossom into this. I mean, Philly might not win another game in the playoffs. This might, this might've been a five day Philly run that is just this crazy blip.
17:19 Bill Simmons? Right?
17:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, that's game one was obviously a disaster.
17:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you knew they were going to lose.
17:25 Speaker 04 Right, that's the thing. I, I, I think they can win the series, but they were drawing dead to win that game after the 3-1 comeback. We'll see what they look like in game two. They also might be when, if Embiid's healthy, that's a legit, really good top four guys. Like Paul George playing the way he is, Embiid, Maxey and Edgecombe, that's legit. They don't have a bench, but they, they have those guys. Here's my question for you on Boston before we get to the stuff you wanted to get to.
17:52 Bill Simmons? Well, I have, and I have a Yanis thing we should talk about too, but go.
17:55 Speaker 04 Okay, let's do, because obviously the hot button thing is the threes, all the threes, all the threes.
18:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
18:03 Speaker 04 Do you think that, that while, when our pal Daryl did that against the Rockets? And did it, or did, I'm sorry, did that against the Warriors with the Rockets? What was underlying all that was, we're the underdog. We need, we are not, they have more talent. We need to add more variance to the equation.
18:28 Speaker 04 Are the Celtics underselling their position in the Eastern Conference by adding so much variance to these playoff series? Should that be the strategy if you make the finals against the Thunder, but not the strategy in round two last year against the Knicks?
18:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
18:47 Speaker 04 Or round one this year against a Sixers team without Embiid? Like, it felt like an underdog NFL team that's like, we're onside kicking every time back in the day, or we're going for trick plays, but you're not the underdog.
19:00 Bill Simmons? Right. They're doing five wide receiver every down, never running the ball ever.
19:04 Speaker 04 And so that's my question for Missoula. Like, can you throttle it down when you have the better team and then throttle it up when you do need to add the variance because the other, because you're overmatched? And he's just never done it. It's just all gas at all times.
19:21 Bill Simmons? In 24, it made more sense because the players they had were so good. They had Horford and Porzingis and Drew Holiday.
19:27 Speaker 04 Yep.
19:28 Bill Simmons? Three guys who weren't on this team. They, it felt like they had to do it a little more with the math before Tatum got back. But when Tatum got back, I think they were trying to change it a little bit. And yet the habits in the games didn't reflect it. They shot, in game two, they shot 53s, I think. That was with no Embiid. I was just, the coaching strategy stuff, and it's weird because, like, I think Missoula's a really good coach. I, I just think he kind of whiffed on the series, but I, I don't think it was, doesn't make me think they should fire him or anything. I just think he, I think he misread it because I think the way to beat the Sixers, especially those first couple of games without Embiid, is like, you just gotta stop maxi. Like, we have all these wings.
20:09 Bill Simmons? You have, you know, Kugel, you have Walsh, Shireman, let's throw Derrick White on him. Oh, let's just not let him go get going ever. And instead, they're like, hey, I wonder if Vucevic can hop out in time on these threes? It's like, I, I can tell you right now, he can't. It's definitely not happening. Um, so yeah, but your bigger question is, do they need to game the math like this? We saw it in San Antonio, Minnesota last night. We're taping this on a Tuesday. You know what's really nice sometimes are like 12 foot Julius Randall, you know, bang into the body shots just to keep going. You know, it's really nice for Philly. Like Embiid just getting nice, easy eight to 10 footers and you need a balance of that and they lost the balance.
20:53 Speaker 04 And there is one last thing before we do your Yanis thing.
21:00 Speaker 04 Three is worth more than two.
21:03 Speaker 04 But a one point lead, the difference between trailing by one and leading by one in a playoff game is 10 miles wide and the difference between leading by one and leading by two is six inches wide. So when you, when you had six possessions in a row, down one point in the fourth quarter of a game seven, I don't give a shit if I can be up two. I just want to be up, I just want Philly to have the ball. I want Philly to be like, oh no, did we blow it? And, and it's what we have seen and I just think teams have screwed that up and I think,
21:43 Speaker 04 I am, I'm stunned Boston lost the way they did and it does make you wonder, like you said, that Yanis would fix a lot of this just by virtue of the fact he ain't shooting threes.
21:54 Bill Simmons? Easy points and fast breaks. The problem, I went back and I watched that fourth quarter again and the shots were actually good shots. No, I could see, like Jaylen had a couple of two pointers that he just made all year. They were like 12 footers. Now,
22:09 Speaker 04 The one where I forget who, someone falls down.
22:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
22:12 Speaker 04 He's shooting it right inside the free throw line.
22:15 Bill Simmons? Pritchard in the corner. I would bet my life on that shot. He missed it. So you can go into the summer and be like, oh, we, we usually make those shots, but they lost the series in game two and game five. That was when their style went sideways. So the Yanis piece, which I did a whole thing about it. I don't know, maybe six weeks ago, talking about my fears for trading too much for him because I think he's going into his 14th season. The track record is terrible. It's basically like, just even guys doing 23 and 10, there's like four of them ever. Not to mention he's been injured in some capacity, I think every year for the five of the last six, something like that.
22:55 Speaker 04 Since the title, at least three of the years, major.
22:58 Bill Simmons? Lot of miles and then you think about big guys with, you think about Dwight Howard, the second part of his career. You think about Shaq, the second part of his career. Like, big guys, they don't necessarily age in the greatest ways. So I don't think he's worth as much as we, we thought a year and a half ago. Where it was like, oh my God, you trade everything for that guy. I don't think that's the case. I don't think teams are going to approach it that way.
23:23 Speaker 04 But you would trade Jaylen Brown straight up.
23:25 Bill Simmons? I think that, my point is, I think the Celtics have enough to get him without gutting the entire whatever. Because I think his value's dropped.
23:33 Speaker 04 Especially because, here's the other thing, the reason why I think the Celtics have enough to get him. Because a Shingun package looks less attractive today.
23:45 Bill Simmons? No question. How about Evan Mobley is, looks less attractive than it did a year ago. He's the same guy he was a year ago.
23:52 Speaker 04 Right. And so the, like, who you're competing with and how that now, Atlanta, putting together the package we're discussing and cutting Boston out, I guess is interesting if they decide that's the move they want to make.
24:06 Bill Simmons? That's gonna be this Sunday, and we're talking lottery a little bit later. Sunday, if Atlanta gets into that top four, they're out of the, I'd rather have the top four pick than Jaylen. I think it has more trade value.
24:17 Speaker 04 Oh, interesting.
24:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah, there's no question. Jaylen's making 60 million a year and you could have Cam Boozer or, I love Caleb Wilson. I actually have Caleb Wilson higher on my board. I'll show, I have a board. No, I don't. But my, my fake board, you have those guys for 10 million a year on a rookie contract versus paying Jaylen 60. They'd be irresponsible to trade that pick for Jaylen, I think.
24:40 Speaker 04 The, so yeah, I mean, I feel like.
24:44 Speaker 04 I feel like four is where it's interesting. I think top three definitively has like this intense value. I don't.
24:53 Bill Simmons? No, you, you, you're gonna get on board with Caleb Wilson.
24:58 Speaker 04 Okay. All right.
24:59 Bill Simmons? I think he's, I think he is higher than four on multiple teams' boards already.
25:04 Speaker 04 No, but that's what I'm saying. It's I'm what I'm, I agree with you on that. I, I don't, I'm not as in love with Boozer as everyone else. I think if the draft goes.
25:13 Bill Simmons? Do you do the thing I do when you're watching the playoffs and you try to imagine the guy in the game you're watching? I was trying to imagine him in the San Antonio Minnesota game last night. I was like,
25:21 Speaker 04 well.
25:21 Bill Simmons? All right, I could see him guarding Randall.
25:24 Speaker 04 I mean, I know this is gonna sound pretty dumb or obvious. You know who Cam Boozer reminds me of? Guy named Carlos Boozer, his dad. Like, the guy that is going to have a really solid.
25:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
25:39 Speaker 04 12-year NBA career.
25:41 Bill Simmons? I think he's a better passer.
25:42 Speaker 04 The, sure, the game's changed, but my point is, a, a guy who, I think of all the top prospects, Cam probably has the lowest bust potential, like the least likely to be a bust.
25:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
25:57 Speaker 04 But I think he's also the least likely to be an MVP. Like, and so that's why I'm not as high on him maybe as other guys.
26:03 Bill Simmons? I would take Caleb second. Now, I'm, I've reserved the right to change my mind in three more weeks.
26:07 Speaker 04 So you'd go DeBansa, Caleb Peterson?
26:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
26:12 Speaker 04 Peterson's interesting.
26:12 Bill Simmons? I think Caleb's gonna be unbelievable. That guy, the same thing with Castle was similar. Where it's just like, the guy's too competitive. He's too athletic and he's too competitive. Those guys always win. We see it. Doesn't matter what team it is, what draft, like, he's got that. I know what that is. And he's like a combination of like Sean Kemp and Chet. I think he's gonna be really special. So I'd, I'd be careful passing on him. But yeah, for the honest thing, if I'm Atlanta, now if I'm in five, six, seven, eight, nine, now I could really think about the Jaylen thing. Cause you think like now I could have, cause Jaylen Johnson, as much as I like him and I voted for him all NBA, he's, he's
26:53 Bill Simmons? kind of a 1B. I'm not sure he's a 1A. You could feel it in that playoff series. It's not like, hey, clear out guys, I got this. He's not, that's not the type of player he is.
27:02 Speaker 04 No, he's, his.
27:06 Speaker 04 Ceiling is like a better offensive Iguodala, right?
27:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah, like is it like a better Jaylen Williams? Like that's like
27:14 Speaker 04 Yes, a guy who can do everything is a winning player, you know, can def can definitely be a key part of a championship team. But if he's your best player, you've got no shot.
27:27 Bill Simmons? No shot.
27:27 Speaker 04 Just no, no shot of winning a title.
27:29 Bill Simmons? So what would you give up? How, how much would you, how crazy would you get for Yanis?
27:35 Speaker 04 For if I'm what team?
27:37 Bill Simmons? Pick a team.
27:38 Speaker 04 I, I mean, I think for Boston.
27:39 Bill Simmons? If you're Miami, would you gut everything you had and all your picks?
27:42 Speaker 04 I don't know what that achieves. No. I know because I don't know what that achieves. If I, now all of a sudden Yanis is just in Milwaukee South. Like I.
27:51 Bill Simmons? I mean, the Knicks would have been the one that were like, fuck it. We have a window. We gotta do this. But the Knicks are gonna make the finals, I think. I don't, I don't see anybody stopping.
27:59 Speaker 04 And also I don't love any of the Knicks trades.
28:02 Bill Simmons? Right.
28:02 Speaker 04 Like the, because they traded their picks. No, I.
28:08 Speaker 04 If I were Detroit.
28:12 Speaker 04 Would I give up? A, you know, I haven't done the trade machine on them.
28:17 Bill Simmons? It's that's you're looking at Dern and all your picks, basically.
28:22 Speaker 04 Would I give up Dern and all my picks?
28:24 Bill Simmons? And I don't even know if Milwaukee, if that, if that's changing my destiny.
28:28 Speaker 04 Right. If that, if Milwaukee wants it. I think the easiest trade is going, would be, the reason I think the Celtics are very live here is because it's so easy.
28:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
28:38 Speaker 04 He, Jaylen and Yanis make the same amount of money. You can, you, you have a third, if you need a third team, Atlanta makes a ton of sense at like, there's just.
28:48 Bill Simmons? By the way, you can't cut out New Orleans. New Orleans might be like, we've always loved Jaylen and all of a sudden they're in it.
28:53 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
28:54 Bill Simmons? They're capable of anything.
28:55 Speaker 04 Um, yeah, they are. That's when we do this lottery karma thing. I've got something on that.
29:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
29:02 Speaker 04 The, so I, but no, I agree with you that Yanis is right now the fifth best player in the league and oddly.
29:12 Bill Simmons? Does not have the fifth trade value.
29:14 Speaker 04 No, not at all.
29:15 Bill Simmons? And I think there's teams that are, would maybe be like, we're good. Like OKC, San Antonio. I don't think those teams would trade for him.
29:25 Speaker 04 Well, let me, hold on. So that's an interesting, San Antonio's an interesting one.
29:29 Bill Simmons? I think, I think they're, they're, they love their culture and their young guys. I don't think they, I think they'd obviously love to win the title this year, but I don't think they'd feel like the season was a failure if they lost. And they're looking at the long runway, you know?
29:42 Speaker 04 Not the season's a failure, but let's just, let's just say. Minnesota beats them in six and Fox struggles in the way he did in game one throughout the series.
29:53 Bill Simmons? Then Fox is the fall guy after the series.
29:55 Speaker 04 Yes. And added bonus. Wimby.
30:02 Speaker 04 Gets pushed around a bit, like I, he did in game one.
30:05 Bill Simmons? You mean Wimby shoots five for 18 and, and short arms every big shot down the stretch like a, like that?
30:13 Speaker 04 And, and gets, you know, physically pushed around. Like that's the thing for Wimby is A, he was exhausted at the end of that game.
30:22 Bill Simmons? Falling down all over the place. Yeah.
30:24 Speaker 04 He's not used to playing big minutes and, and so he's doing all that. B, Gobert is strong as hell and Nasri and Julius Randall were strong as hell and they were pushing him around. If, I do wonder if San Antonio loses in bad fashion. If they feel like we're, listen, we're not abandoning our future or our plan and we're keeping Harper, Castle and Wimby, but. De'Aaron Fox, another contract and a bunch of our picks for Giannis. So, you know, so there isn't such a heavy offensive load on Wimby and oh yeah, by the way, we just become, you know.
31:03 Speaker 04 A better defensive team than OKC like that. That's something I would think about. I would.
31:10 Bill Simmons? I'd be more excited to just play Carter Bryant more next year and ride this out and. I would, Giannis feels like a panic move to me. Like that, like Sam Presti to me, I always say, what would Sam Presti do? That is a, Sam Presti would not do that. He would probably, he would probably look at the Harper situation because we all love Harper. We're going to expound on him, but as like, okay, Fox, Fox was our training wheels. Now we gotta send Fox off. Let's get like another scorer in that spot. Maybe somebody with a little more size and think about it that way. We, we gotta take a break. I want to talk about San Antonio, Minnesota. And, uh, and I think you and I are feeling similar about this series.
31:54 Speaker 04 Perfect.
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33:19 Bill Simmons? Inc., NMLS 910457. Learn more at paypal.com/paymonthly. The Minnesota Timberwolves, who were such giant underdogs for the series and for the finals that Nick Wright has a story for us from his trip to Vegas.
33:39 Speaker 04 Well, okay, so I, so I went to Vegas to see the Benavides fight.
33:45 Bill Simmons? Who is one of the scariest boxers we've had in the last 20 years.
33:49 Speaker 04 Unbelievable.
33:50 Bill Simmons? He broke the guy's face on Saturday night.
33:52 Speaker 04 No, he's, he destroyed his, he broke his orbital. The guy, the guy we fought, Zerto, had never been knocked down, much less knocked out, was a total warrior and Benavides just annihilated him. And I, by the way, I had Benavides by knockout, nice little ticket with my buddy Nick Schulman, the world's greatest poker player.
34:11 Bill Simmons? It's a no brainer. That's like an automatic bet.
34:15 Speaker 04 And, but so I'm in Vegas Saturday morning. And I'm on my way to the sportsbook, or I'm at the sportsbook to bet Benavides.
34:27 Speaker 04 And I, and I see the championship odds.
34:33 Speaker 04 And I see the, you know, OKC minus 125, whatever they were at the time, Spurs, the Lakers at 28 to 1. And then 28 to 1.
34:44 Bill Simmons? Well, that's because the California people come and they bet the Lakers.
34:47 Speaker 04 But that's still important context for what I'm about to say. Then I see beneath the Laker, the Lakers who play OKC and Luca is injured. Are 28 to 1. Minnesota is 200 to 1 Saturday morning. Orlando was 400 to 1. This was 12 hours after Orlando played the worst half of basketball in television history. There's never been a televised half of basketball worse than what they did. They're not even gonna make.
35:15 Bill Simmons? Can we count fictional shows for that?
35:17 Speaker 04 Four of 37 is worse than anything.
35:20 Bill Simmons? Saved by the Bell probably had a word. Yeah, Saved by the Bell or Fresh Prince. We probably had a word, yeah. We need a fictional basketball.
35:26 Speaker 04 So I'm like, Orlando's 400 to 1. I'm like, what the, I was like. So I'm staring at it. I'm like, hold on. I watched, speaking of Giannis, Giannis suffered this same injury Anthony Edwards did. He missed seven days, came back for game one of the finals
35:46 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
35:46 Speaker 04 and averaged 35, 13 and 6. I was like, I think Anthony Edwards might come back sooner than people think. I think that there is just always this weird specter of injury looming over Wimby. I was like 200 to 1.
36:02 Bill Simmons? Has to be mentioned. He's seven foot seven. At any point, he can get hurt.
36:06 Speaker 04 Correct. I was like, it's 200 to 1. So I'm like, I had one in poker the night before. So I'm like, I think I'm gonna put like a thousand bucks on this.
36:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
36:17 Speaker 04 I'm texting my buddies. All of a sudden, a couple of my buddies want in, want in. And they're like, hey, see if they'll take $10,000 on it. And I'm like, okay, my guess is they
36:31 Bill Simmons? This is an amazing story.
36:32 Speaker 04 I was like, my guess is they won't, but I'm not sharp action. Like, you know what I mean? It's not like they're like, oh, this, like, I come to Vegas to play cards. They see my history. I win a little in poker. I spill it off playing blackjack at 4:00 in the morning. They don't think all of a sudden I have like, you know, I have inside info.
36:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah, vacuum, vacuum blackjack when they're vacuuming under you. That's giving your money away.
36:56 Speaker 04 They see on their cards, they're like, my God, we've got this guy $1,200 in packs of Newport's over the last year.
37:03 Bill Simmons? And he's in the vacuum hours.
37:05 Speaker 04 So, so I walked to the window and I'm like, hey, oh, in the Derby. And people are betting the Derby. It's a couple hours before the Derby.
37:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
37:13 Speaker 04 Um, and I say, I'm like, hey, I'd like $10,000 on the Timberwolves to win the title. And the lady pulls it up and she's like, oh, she's like, I'm gonna have to get a manager.
37:23 Bill Simmons? You should have said 9,000. I don't think, I think once it gets to five figures, they get freaked out.
37:27 Speaker 04 No, well, what she said was, any ticket that'll pay out more than a million, which 5,000 would have paid out a million because it's 200 to 1.
37:37 Bill Simmons? Right.
37:37 Speaker 04 We have to get a, get permission.
37:40 Bill Simmons? Oh, Jesus.
37:40 Speaker 04 I'm like, okay. So I'm just sitting there. People are betting the horses. Ladies like, I think they'll, she's like, I'm sure they'll take at least 5,000 of it. So I'm texting my buddies because we're gonna split this ticket four ways. Like I, you know, here's what it is.
37:54 Speaker 04 I don't know. Five minutes later, guy comes. He's like, you're good. They printed the ticket. So I have in my possession on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
38:05 Bill Simmons? This is unbelievable.
38:06 Speaker 04 10,000 to win 2,010,000. They were 200 to one. It's been three days. What are they on FanDuel right now, Bill?
38:17 Bill Simmons? They're 35 to one.
38:19 Speaker 04 35 to one.
38:20 Bill Simmons? Great investment.
38:21 Speaker 04 The ticket, right now, the ticket's worth $65,000. I mean, I would never hedge. I'll never sell it and it'll probably lose. But that's, it was just mispriced. It's like, it's just a mistake.
38:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah, see.
38:34 Speaker 04 Just a mistake.
38:35 Bill Simmons? You could at least try to hedge that with OKC. Like, there's moves you can make.
38:39 Speaker 04 Well, I'll tell you another thing that you will laugh at me about. I have, not from Vegas, but from, you know, a gambling app. The day before the playoffs started, 100, a thousand dollars just of my own money, 150 to one on the Los Angeles Lakers title. So I just need a Lakers, Lakers, T Wolves, Western Conference Finals, and I am free rolling. Um, but I, I was watching last night and I swear, like the, watching Minnesota play so well and then almost blow it. And then champagne have a shot. Cause I now think Minnesota's gonna win the series.
39:22 Speaker 04 And had he made that shot, I think they would have lost in five.
39:26 Bill Simmons? Right.
39:26 Speaker 04 I think it would have been such a stomach punch.
39:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
39:30 Speaker 04 Um, yeah.
39:31 Bill Simmons? So, look, the Celtics had an awful loss on Saturday. My daughter turned 21.
39:39 Bill Simmons? I don't like to apologize to my listeners that often. I really regret not studying the Minnesota, San Antonio thing way longer.
39:48 Bill Simmons? The Edwards thing's a great point. He, it was basically the same. He came back in nine days. They said it was gonna be 14. He was really only, on paper, probably only missing game one. But the thing I realized last night, I was watching and I was kicking myself. Um, I was trying to think of 21st century Hall of Fame fuck you basketball teams. Just teams that just have fuck you. All, everything they're doing, the way they're carrying themselves, everything. And I think the three I had were the pre-Mel A Pacers. Which ended up the fuck you spilled in the crowd, but that, the way they carry, that first month before the fight, they looked like they were gonna win the title and they looked like a more dangerous, scarier version of the 04 Pistons.
40:31 Bill Simmons? The 07 Warriors in the, in the we believe season. Ironically, Stephen Jackson on both of those teams. And I think the 2020 Heat had it too. And it was interesting because when, that was the series, I screwed this up a pod before where Dragic got hurt, but there was something about that Heat team that they were just, they carried themselves like dragon slayers. Like, do you watch Survivor?
40:52 Speaker 04 What? No.
40:52 Bill Simmons? Oh, there's this Survivor contestant coach. Who tries to, he calls himself the dragon slayer and he tries to carry himself like a fuck you guy and it always backfires on him. There's certain teams that actually carry it and can do it.
41:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:06 Bill Simmons? And I watched Minnesota, the stuff they said after the game where Shannon's like, "I'm gonna fucking drive to the basket and Wemby might block some of them. I'm gonna keep coming." And he can either block them or I'm gonna score, but I'm never gonna stop coming to the basket. It's like, I think that's exactly how you have to play San Antonio. Keep coming.
41:25 Speaker 04 Right. And you can't, because here's the thing. A blocked shot does not kill a possession as much as a shot clock violation because you won't put anything up.
41:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you might get the ball back.
41:38 Speaker 04 One of the biggest shots of the game last night was after a blocked shot. I think it was Conley, the corner three. Shout out Mike Conley, by the way. He'd be, the Rockets could have had him. They probably saved their season. Um, the, I am, I would add maybe to your list, the grit and grind Grizzlies who one time-
41:58 Bill Simmons? That's another great one.
41:59 Speaker 04 Didn't, they didn't have their best player for a game-
42:02 Bill Simmons? No, they had Tony Allen.
42:03 Speaker 04 -seven because he punched someone in the head in game six of a series.
42:08 Bill Simmons? That's a great one.
42:09 Speaker 04 So the-
42:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah, the 2011 Grizzlies. I apologize. That's the perfect ad for this.
42:15 Speaker 04 And so I, here's the thing why I feel so good about Minnesota. I don't think they played great yesterday. They were awful from the free throw line.
42:25 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he was mad after the game.
42:28 Speaker 04 They were awful from the free throw line. McDaniels was in foul trouble the whole game, so he couldn't do all his shit.
42:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
42:36 Speaker 04 Ant was just getting back into the flow of it. You could see it, but he ran out of gas at the end and almost blew it.
42:42 Bill Simmons? And he only played 25 minutes.
42:43 Speaker 04 Right. And they still, and by the, at some point, I think, IO is gonna take those Bones Highland minutes. And Bones Highland, he hit the one three, they took it off, but he's 0 for 6. Like,
42:59 Bill Simmons? And you left out two other things. They have, nobody believes in this energy. Like, they're like a football team. This is like watching an NFL playoffs. They, Finch, what he said after the last series, where he's like, "They wanted to play us. Like, that's, this is what they wanted, and that really made us mad." And now this series, same thing, where the Spurs, huge favorites, the darlings. That's one. The other is, you don't really realize it sometimes till you're watching it. The Spurs are gonna need Carter Bryant to come back and actually play real minutes, or they're gonna lose the series. Because Minnesota has a physicality advantage with Randall and with Edwards and, and to me, San Antonio last night, three guards, Vassell
43:43 Bill Simmons? and Wemby, it's not gonna cut it. They're not big enough.
43:47 Speaker 04 Well, and, and-
43:51 Speaker 04 There's, there's two, there's two other kind of, and I'm not like a X's and O's guys, guy, but there's, it's very obvious. There's two things that jumped out to me before the series and now after watching game one. When, when Gobert's on the court, he really is gonna give Wimby trouble on offense. However, him being on the court fully unleashes Wimby on defense because Gobert's never gonna be anywhere but by the basket. So Wimby can just play pretty safety and block everything. However, when Gobert is off the court, they can mitigate Wimby a bit because they can go five out and they can go five out and, and because everybody can shoot. So that's the first.
44:36 Bill Simmons? Well, and then also multiple physical guys that can come in. You just want to beat him up. He's 22. He's never been in, played 10 straight weeks of playoffs like this.
44:46 Speaker 04 Zach, I listened to Zach today. Zach said last night was the third most minutes he's ever played in any game in his career. It was 40. What in 46? It was 40. And at the end, he looked a little, the final possession, Derek Harper gets the rebound, gives it to Wimby. Wimby gives it right back to him. Like I, no, he was gassed and then didn't.
45:11 Bill Simmons? Remember the Denver, the Saturday game against the back and forth with Joker? Same thing happened. He got gassed in the OT.
45:17 Speaker 04 Right. The game of the year and by overtime, he's out. He's just out of it. And you are, how many elbows to the ribs? And he had those bruised ribs, which at the very end of the year, is he going to have from Gobert, Randall and Nasri?
45:35 Bill Simmons? How about how many guys going full speed, driving into him, knees hitting his legs, elbows, push offs? I think their whole game plan is to beat the shit out of him.
45:46 Speaker 04 Which, which is why winning, which is why they couldn't blow that first game, Minnesota. Like they couldn't have done all that and then lose.
45:54 Bill Simmons? Well, that's my, my five game rule where it's like, if you lose that game, now you basically have to win five games in a seven game series. You're not gonna win. You have to win.
46:02 Speaker 04 And, and so I, and I just think, and that I'm gonna say one other thing that I think is like psychologically just true.
46:13 Speaker 04 And this is a problem, probably for a lot of Kevin Durant teams, to be totally honest. The best teams take on the personality of their best player, whether he wants them to or not. Like the, my, my team, the Kansas City Chiefs, you know why there's never any bulletin board material? Because Mahomes is the most boring press conference there's ever been, and everyone just falls, falls in line.
46:36 Bill Simmons? Brady was like this too.
46:38 Speaker 04 The, right, Brady, there, the, the Thunder, Shay is kind of a unique personality. I don't want to say corny, but whatever it is, he's got his own thing. Everybody's like, you know what? We're doing group photos, we're doing group commercials, we're, we're, we're doing that. Ant is so goddamn fearless.
46:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
46:59 Speaker 04 And confident that not only does the whole team take on the personality, you know who I think it is great for? Is Gobert. Who Gobert's just like, man, I've just been a fucking punchline. Everybody make me, my own team, when I was in Utah, it seemed like sometimes my own teammates didn't like me. The, I, the, the Inside the NBA makes fun of me, Draymond chokes me, I don't get the respect, and now.
47:26 Bill Simmons? I started COVID.
47:28 Speaker 04 Right, yeah, well, that was, I mean, that wasn't great. That was, that was not great. And now I, like, it's like, I've got the toughest crew, and guess what? Joker, come deal with me. Wimby, this is, this is for, Gobert's gonna be in the Hall of Fame. And this is the
47:49 Bill Simmons? Everyone's in the Hall of Fame.
47:50 Speaker 04 Could be, the, what'd you say?
47:52 Bill Simmons? Everyone makes the Hall of Fame now.
47:53 Speaker 04 I, right, I understand. Uh, but four-time defensive player of the year.
47:57 Bill Simmons? He's gonna make it.
47:58 Speaker 04 This is the moment where he can really puff his chest out and doing it against, like, I don't know if Wimby's his protege, but, you know, this, they're both French, like, he's known him since he was a kid, like, I don't know, I think Minnesota's dangerous.
48:14 Bill Simmons? There's a little big brother, little brother thing to that. Like, when you know somebody when, you know, when, when they were 12 and you were 25 or whatever it is, like, you're always gonna kind of see them that way. What you just described with the Gobert thing with Ant, it's one of my favorite basketball things. The best one ever for this was Bill Laimbeer, who ends up on a team eventually with Mahorn.
48:37 Bill Simmons? And then Isaiah, who was probably the toughest guy of the eighties, even though he was six foot two and that whole team. And then all of a sudden, Lambert's like, by 1990, Lambert's like, I think I can fight Charles Barkley and gets like, he's throwing actual punches with Barkley. He's clotheslining dudes. That, that, you know, when you, you could do that when you have those guys around you. And then in the early nineties, those guys weren't around him. And what happened? The Knicks, they come in, the Riley Knicks, and they basically just snatched their souls like a boxer.
49:06 Speaker 04 But it's, it's so authentic from Ant, Jaylen, and Julius Randall. Those guys are like, we're badasses and we're gonna beat up, that it is infectious for everybody.
49:20 Bill Simmons? Randall and the Joker fight, it seemed like Randall was gonna, or they're near fight, it seemed like Randall wanted to fight everybody in that. He definitely has it. It's a tough team.
49:29 Speaker 04 Yeah. And so I just, I don't know, man. I am.
49:32 Bill Simmons? So here are my concerns.
49:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
49:34 Bill Simmons? Can they ramp up Edwards' minutes enough? They're relying on Zombie Mike Conley, who played a good game six and played decent minutes for them yesterday, but old guys in a series always makes me nervous. What's gonna come, is Io gonna be able to come back and actually play? The Shannon thing, what he brought to the table in DiFrenchenzo's place, I kinda liked. Like, just, it just felt like another relentless guy who just, all he wanted to do was ball and get to the rim. San Antonio, three-point shooting's always gonna make me nervous with them. The youth and the inexperience, including the coach. And then, uh, the fact that they need Carter Bryant, who's a rookie, I don't even think he's 20 yet, but they're actually gonna like genuinely need him in
50:18 Bill Simmons? this series. And then the big thing is Fox, because Fox killed them yesterday. And I felt like they didn't want to bench him because they didn't want it to become a story, but they should have. And they should have played Harper down the stretch. I don't, not gonna say Harper's better than Fox, but Fox was so bad in that game. And it's gonna be a story now because he knows he'll be the fall guy if they lose.
50:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, the Fox thing's really disappointing. I've, um, I lived in Houston when he, uh, we've talked about this a bit. My son was a, a big time, uh, high school and then college basketball player. And so they, I was in a lot of the same AAU events as Darren Fox.
50:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
50:59 Speaker 04 Uh, and he's a little, just a little bit older than my son. Uh, I mean, I watched him score 40 points in the first half of a running clock AAU game. I've never seen anybody like him on the court. And so I've always, I rooted for him in Sacramento.
51:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
51:14 Speaker 04 I've always liked him.
51:17 Speaker 04 But he is the fulcrum of this series because I, I don't care about Harrison Barnes' experience. Harrison Barnes is not a key part of the rotation. Luke Cornet has experience. He's a backup center. The only guy with playoff experience that should be on the court in crunch time is Fox.
51:35 Bill Simmons? That you would trust, yeah.
51:36 Speaker 04 And if he's not, if he's not up to it, it's such, you're gonna have moments like the end of last night. Can we spend a minute talking about the very end?
51:46 Bill Simmons? Also, he's going against Mike Conley instead of Io. What happens if Io comes back? Like this should be, that should have been the easiest game in this series for you.
51:55 Speaker 04 What did you make of the final possession for San Antonio?
52:01 Bill Simmons? Young team, I'm calling timeout. A lot of times I like to let the clock go in that situation. I think you do it if you have an older team, experienced team, like if you're the Knicks. Young team, I'm calling timeout. And I, and I didn't think champagne shot was going in. Even though it was wide open and it was the best possible shot they could have gotten in kind of that, you know, Harry Carey kind of situation. Um, I would have called timeout, but I, I, I don't, I, it's like, it's like staying on 12 and blackjack. You kind of have to decide, is this who I am with this moment? You can't just be like, every time I do something differently. So that's apparently what they do.
52:40 Speaker 04 So I, so I, I have two takes, I guess.
52:46 Speaker 04 If I'm Mitch Johnson and I see Harper get the rebound and throw it to Wimby. The moment I see that, no, the moment I see that Wimby has now just passed it back, timeout.
52:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:58 Speaker 04 Like if he threw it to him and Wimby's ripping up the court, like, all right, you know what? Win or die with what this guy decides to do. Either way, it's an important moment for him. But once he gave it back, I'd be like, okay, let's talk it over. My other, I normally think down to go for the three because overtime, like try to get the win. It felt to me like, because the one time I, I am a bigger fan of playing for overtime is when the other team has just absolutely melted down.
53:32 Bill Simmons? Well, and also has a guy on a minutes restriction who's their best guy.
53:35 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah. I mean, I know Castle had fouled out, which works against it.
53:39 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
53:40 Speaker 04 But it, just like when, when LeBron hit the three in game three against Houston. It was 100% that if Houston did not win in regulation, they were losing in overtime because it was such an emotional devastation that you were there. Minnesota was up seven with a minute and a half.
53:59 Bill Simmons? Doesn't matter though.
54:01 Speaker 04 That, I, I don't give a shit. I, there are certain things that you just, you.
54:06 Bill Simmons? You know, you know it every time, especially if you're in the building for that.
54:10 Speaker 04 Right. If you blow it, if you're a big underdog that had a game one and then lost it. But, and it goes to overtime, you're, it was.
54:19 Bill Simmons? Pritchard missing the three in the corner, I knew we were gonna lose. Game was over.
54:24 Speaker 04 And so I just, I wouldn't have hated a timeout draw. And the other thing is this, here's the thing a timeout allows for you to have.
54:34 Speaker 04 If you are, like you're saying, San Antonio, trying to win and also trying to win next year and like develop something.
54:44 Speaker 04 A good moment for Wemby either way.
54:46 Bill Simmons? Right.
54:47 Speaker 04 Hey, man, drawing this up for you, win or lose.
54:50 Bill Simmons? We know you're five for 18 and they're gonna put Rudy Gobert in now that we called timeout.
54:55 Speaker 04 All right. So that's a fair point. That's a fair point. Keeping Gobert off the court.
54:59 Bill Simmons? But this is the issue with them is who is your, I'm going to create a good shot going downhill for us on our team. And the answer is it's Dylan Harper, who's 19 years old. Even in that moment, when he got the rebound, five years from now, he's gonna know in his head exactly how much time is left and he's off. He gets that. He doesn't throw it to Wemby. He's just going because he knows like, I have eight seconds. I gotta go. He's 19. He was like, hey, oh shit, there's seven seconds left. And you could see it the way, that's the problem with relying on young guys.
55:28 Speaker 04 By the way, I think I've been calling Dylan Harper Derek Harper.
55:31 Bill Simmons? You did it once. Listen, listeners of this podcast are used for, used to old guy, things like that. So it's fine. I have a really important question for you about this series.
55:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
55:43 Bill Simmons? Who do you think OKC wants to play after they watched that first game?
55:48 Speaker 04 What a great question.
55:52 Bill Simmons? I was thinking about this all day and I don't even have an answer, but I think they would want to play Minnesota because San Antonio was such a weird matchup for them. But after watching that game, I think I'd be afraid of the fuck you with the Minnesota team.
56:08 Speaker 04 Man, it's going to feel, if Minnesota wins this series,
56:15 Speaker 04 it will feel a little team of destiny-ish and we assume Ant will be by the end of it in the best, like the healthiest he's been. That team I would want nothing to do with.
56:28 Bill Simmons? How about the, how about the run of beating Joker and beating them to the point that Shams is on SportsCenter the next day going, they'll take calls on everyone on the team except Jokic. That's round one. Round two is we've, we've cut the legs out of this Wemby juggernaut that everybody was just assuming it was gonna be. Then round three, you beat the back-to-back potential champs who've just won, I think 140 games in two years or whatever it is.
56:56 Speaker 04 Yep.
56:56 Bill Simmons? And then round four, you beat the Knicks. It's about as good of a run as you're gonna have.
57:01 Speaker 04 Certainly would be as good, if, it would be as, as good of a run to a finals as we've had in.
57:10 Speaker 04 Since Dirk's.
57:12 Bill Simmons? Dirk in 11 or Hakeem in 95. Hakeem in 95 is the all-timer.
57:17 Speaker 04 The, oh yeah, and they, because they're the 6th seed, but this team is a 6th seed too.
57:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
57:21 Speaker 04 Um, and by the way, Hakeem in 95 also ended with the Knicks.
57:25 Bill Simmons? Well, here's, here's the other question. Well, answer that one and then I have a second.
57:28 Speaker 04 95 ended with the Magic. Sorry, go ahead.
57:31 Bill Simmons? So you, who do you think they're rooting for?
57:33 Speaker 04 I think they, as crazy as it sounds, because San Antonio owned them, I think they'd want, I think at this point, they'd rather play San Antonio.
57:42 Bill Simmons? Who do you think the NBA is rooting for?
57:47 Bill Simmons? Cause I think you could make the case, it's better for the NBA if Minnesota wins this series. Because Wemby's already gonna happen. Wemby's inevitable.
57:56 Speaker 04 It makes.
57:57 Bill Simmons? Minnesota elevates Ant.
57:59 Speaker 04 Yeah, and it gives, I, I, I think that is true. And I think there is, there is a authenticity and charisma to Ant that is just infectious.
58:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
58:11 Speaker 04 And that is impossible not to be drawn to. And it is, I also feel like Minnesota winning it gives a lot of fan bases hope. Because Minnesota is not a, like, considered, they're just smartly put together. Like, it's like.
58:34 Bill Simmons? They did get a number one pick in the draft.
58:36 Speaker 04 Yes, Ant's a great, great player, don't get me wrong, but they don't look at him like an alien like Wemby.
58:42 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
58:42 Speaker 04 It's not like OKC, it's like, oh, well, yeah, they have a billion picks and pulled off this heist. It's like, no, actually, we had a smart GM, we just lost, the most improved player in the league, we left our team, we lost him and had to replace him in Nikhil Alexander Walker, and we were fine. So I think that is, I think Minnesota winning it, I also, again, as your audience, as I just told them, you know, I have a half a million dollar worth of equity in it. So I, so I guess maybe I'm a little warped.
59:13 Bill Simmons? It's an awesome story. I, I could not believe, sometimes I watch, like, you know right away with a playoff series, Orlando, Detroit, it was just clear they were even.
59:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:23 Bill Simmons? And you could watch game one and like, oh shit, this is gonna be a good series. Boston, Philly, game three was the game that worried me, then Embiid came back and messed them up for a game, but game three, even though the Celtics won, it's like, ah, they seem. Really comfortable against us like this is a bad, bad sign. And I think that game yesterday, I don't think it was a fluke. Castle fouling out, you can point to Fox was terrible. No Carter Bryant, those are three things they can fix, but I, I agree with you. I think Minnesota could absolutely win this series and it gun to my head, I think I would pick them.
59:58 Speaker 04 Yeah, I, listen, I, I think it is.
1:00:02 Speaker 04 Minnesota was like plus 800 and then the ant news came down and they were down to like plus 400. And then right before tip off was down to like plus 350.
1:00:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:00:14 Speaker 04 And now, right now, I think they're like plus 160. And the only reason I don't think it is even is because it's already, they started as such dogs. It hasn't totally, fully overcorrected, but I, I think.
1:00:29 Bill Simmons? Plus 176 right now.
1:00:31 Speaker 04 Okay, plus 176. So it's.
1:00:32 Bill Simmons? That's, that's, that's fair considering they have three home games left. The guys come back, we gotta take a break and we have two more big topics. All right, pretty good NBA playoffs so far. In case you didn't know, I'll playoffs long, I'm looking at the slates, sharing my favorite picks on Twitter. I almost hit everything last Friday and ended up Tatum gets hurt in the third quarter and doesn't hit his points rebounds over, which he was very close on everything else hit. This is what happens, but this is also why same game parlays are so excited to do. I'm posting my picks on Twitter, usually on for the Wednesday games and then maybe Friday over the weekend. So I'll be looking at San Antonio, Minnesota, putting some sort of pick.
1:01:15 Bill Simmons? I really think Minnesota every game is a live underdog because they are absolutely convinced that they can beat San Antonio. So stay tuned for that pick. When I bet, I bet with Fanduel, a brand I trust. Easy to build your NBA bets on Fanduel. You know, you're getting great odds payouts on your parlays, many boost options and you're going to get your winnings instantly. Fanduel.
1:01:36 Bill Simmons? Play your game. This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetraes. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT with a deep understanding
1:02:21 Bill Simmons? of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. All right, I want to do lottery karma rankings with you, but you wanted to do LeBron and the Ringer 100 quick, so go ahead, you have the floor.
1:02:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, I don't know how quick. You're gonna have to cut me off.
1:02:44 Bill Simmons? Nah, make it kinda quick. I know where you're going with it.
1:02:47 Speaker 04 I, I just have a request to the founder, CEO, and president of The Ringer to convene an emergency ranking session and be like, hey, real quick, everybody, I just want to do a status check. Do we still think all the old guys are better than LeBron? Cause all fucking year I've had to look at this and see, oh, Steph Curry's better than LeBron, that's cool. Kawhi, he's obviously better than LeBron. Kevin Durant, oh my God, he's clearly better than LeBron. James freaking Harden, better than LeBron. I'm looking at it and I don't know. I, I live in New York City. I saw Steph Curry yesterday at the Met Gala.
1:03:29 Speaker 04 Kevin Durant, I didn't see him, but I know what he's doing, hanging out somewhere, ruining a locker room via Twitter. Hey, Kawhi Leonard is winning, your, our buddy Pablo Pulitzer. James Harden's going three for nine in the game seven and LeBron's throwing goddamn alley-oops to his son in the same game he hit a series clinching three. And I gotta say, see, he's not a top 20 player in the league. Give me a break. Can LeBron please be the highest ranked old guy, please?
1:03:58 Bill Simmons? Well, we do the list every month and it's a snapshot of where everybody is at that moment when we do the list and I'm sure he'll be much higher when we do the list again. I think we need to add another list though, which by the way is always great content, but we have the Ringer 100 that's over here. So somebody like Embiid is not going to do well in the Ringer 100 because he plays 30 games a year. Like at some point you gotta durability has to become a huge part of the ranking.
1:04:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:04:23 Bill Simmons? I think we should start a list of best guys, if I know I'm getting them 100% healthy for one playoff series. What's your list?
1:04:34 Bill Simmons? And then LeBron moves up really high on that list.
1:04:38 Speaker 04 I think by that metric, first of all, I hear what you're saying about durability really matters. Not for the Ringer's favorite child, Steph Curry. He can miss 35 games. Nobody cares. He's gotta be top 10. Not neither in or there.
1:04:51 Bill Simmons? Fair.
1:04:51 Speaker 04 If that were, if that were the list,
1:04:55 Speaker 04 what you said exactly, I think LeBron right now is still a top eight guy. What you said, you get him fully healthy.
1:05:04 Bill Simmons? I think he's 14 to 15 range, but you could talk me into 10, 11, 12 just because how fucking smart he is.
1:05:12 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:05:13 Bill Simmons? And like that Houston series, and I should have probably talked more about on this pod, but Houston was so disgraceful with the whole everything.
1:05:21 Speaker 04 It was also brutal. It was, I mean, I was so mad about this. It was the two critical moments in the series were Friday nights, which are terrible for TV shows and pods.
1:05:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you're right.
1:05:33 Speaker 04 Game three, the steal in game time three is a Friday night and then the masterpiece in game six is a Friday night. So it's just bad for content, but it was, I, I understand.
1:05:45 Bill Simmons? How many times have we seen him just do that to a team where it's just like, Jordan would do it with like his prowess. LeBron kind of will do it with his prowess, but his brain and he just kind of unlocks the other team and you give him a team like that messed up Rockets team with no point guard and a weird coach and I'm not sure the chemistry was great and it's like fucking red meat for LeBron.
1:06:08 Speaker 04 No, yes. And that's why, and so that's why I like, is Cade Cunningham better than LeBron right now? Yeah, sure. Of course. He's Cade Cunningham. He's first team All-NBA. Got it. But Cade Cunningham and Jaylen Brunson and Tyrese Maxey, all these guys who are better than LeBron, even I would say so, could not have after a game and a half just been like, oh, here are the fatal flaws of Houston and now you can't win. And, and I am going to, I am in, I'm going to be in such full control. I'm creating memes with little kids on the bench.
1:06:52 Speaker 04 I'm mortifying Shingun in front of his teammates saying, everyone else can complain about me flopping, but not you. All your teammates can, but not you. I'm doing all of this and it is juxtaposed to one of his primary rivals of the era. The story around him being, wait, he's on an underwater treadmill during game three?
1:07:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:07:18 Speaker 04 Wait.
1:07:19 Bill Simmons? It's tough.
1:07:20 Speaker 04 The, the team, and I like Katie a lot, but oh yeah, as it turns out, him, you know, him shit talking his team actually bad for chemistry. And it did kind of hurt the locker room.
1:07:31 Bill Simmons? No, we learned, we learned on an ESPN.com feature today that the young guys in the team are used to criticism. So it didn't bother them as much as you'd think.
1:07:39 Speaker 04 In that same.
1:07:40 Bill Simmons? I would have fucking hated him after I read that and I'm playing basketball with him and I've been like, fuck this guy.
1:07:46 Speaker 04 Dude, of course, but also that feature was wild because that feature also said internally, the Rockets view Reed Shepard with Steve Nash upside. You know what Steve Nash could do early in his career? Dribble and pass like, like even, and so I, so yeah, I mean, I'm glad I got that off my chest.
1:08:07 Bill Simmons? I'm glad you did too. And I do think we should have a, I know I'm getting you 100% healthy for this playoff series list. I think would be good. I don't know what number he'd be, but he'd be, I don't think I would have him as high as eight. But he'd be okay. Okay, Lottery Karma Power Rankings, let's go. I first wrote this column in 2007, back when my fingers worked. I had more things on there.
1:08:31 Bill Simmons? But basically, the concept is who should win the lottery? And we have four chances. They do the lottery for the first four picks.
1:08:38 Speaker 04 Yup.
1:08:39 Bill Simmons? The big questions, I used to have more questions, but for Karma, number one, is your team overdue to win the lottery?
1:08:48 Speaker 04 Great.
1:08:49 Bill Simmons? So like Utah's never moved up. That's a team I would say is overdue. Indiana, I don't think has ever had the first pick. That would be another one.
1:08:57 Bill Simmons? Has the team's big picture game plan
1:09:02 Bill Simmons? made any sense? So Sacramento, for instance, paying the luxury tax for one of the worst teams in the league and not having a future, they would count as not making sense.
1:09:12 Speaker 04 Like the Bulls.
1:09:13 Bill Simmons? The Bulls.
1:09:14 Speaker 04 Not making.
1:09:15 Bill Simmons? Well, the Bulls actually makes sense because they're like, we just, we just want to cheap out every year and our fans are going to pay for tickets.
1:09:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, I don't know if Io was that expensive. He probably could be useful.
1:09:25 Bill Simmons? Seven million a year, it was too pricey. Got to cut that out.
1:09:28 Speaker 04 Kobe White had a playoff moment, but go ahead, sorry.
1:09:31 Bill Simmons? This one's a big one. Did they handle last season with dignity?
1:09:38 Speaker 04 Oh, that's going to be a tough one for teams this year.
1:09:41 Bill Simmons? For a few of these. Number four, did they ever make you say, why can people divorce their spouses, but they can't divorce their teams? If any of these teams that we have made one of their fans say that to another fan, we have to measure that in the Karma Rankings. Then finally,
1:09:59 Bill Simmons? do you honestly believe the Karma Gods would feel bad for this team? Is our fifth one. That doesn't happen all the time. But I think Indiana would be a good case of, oh, man. They were in game seven of the finals and their best guy blew out his Achilles.
1:10:15 Speaker 04 So is that the full list of rules? Because I have a question.
1:10:18 Bill Simmons? Those are just five questions, kind of thought starters to think about.
1:10:23 Speaker 04 Is there any factor of it would be catastrophic for the league if this team won it?
1:10:31 Bill Simmons? It's a good ad. I think I used to have it. Catastrophic in the, so you're talking OKC specifically?
1:10:38 Speaker 04 Yes. Yeah, it normally would not apply.
1:10:41 Bill Simmons? So we have that covered. I'll give you the categories because we have that covered. And I'll just give you my list and you can, you can be my conciliary for the list.
1:10:50 Speaker 04 Love it.
1:10:51 Bill Simmons? First category is no karma points whatsoever. So big goose egg. OKC is our first team. They're in the 12th spot right now. They have a 1.5 chance to win.
1:11:04 Bill Simmons? There's also a scenario where OKC gets in the top four and Indiana gets, stays in the top four. AKA the Clippers apocalypse. Where they would
1:11:15 Bill Simmons? follow up by some sort of ruling the next day. But yeah, OKC's had the, in the last 20 years, second, second, fourth and third. So they've had some lottery. I give them no karma points at all. They're really good. They're probably going to win the title again. They don't deserve to get a top four pick. The other one I have in there, and tell me if I'm right. And I say this.
1:11:37 Bill Simmons? With advanced apologies to the Maverick fans who loved Luca and did not want to trade him.
1:11:44 Bill Simmons? They got Cooper flag last year. And I think that was the makeup call for the horrible trade. Nico got fired. They just brought him Messiah you, Harry.
1:11:54 Bill Simmons? Things are okay. Kyrie's going to come back. I think they used up all their karma points last year with the flag thing, but I'm willing to accept other arguments.
1:12:02 Speaker 04 Nope. It, it's, I, I have no other arguments, but I think. I don't think they used up the karma points for the flag thing. I think they had karma points even after winning the flag.
1:12:14 Bill Simmons? So you think they have residue karma points?
1:12:16 Speaker 04 I think they did.
1:12:18 Bill Simmons? What happened?
1:12:19 Speaker 04 And then I think Nico Harrison said, and I quote, "I hope people are seeing the vision now."
1:12:26 Bill Simmons? Extinguish the karma points. Okay.
1:12:28 Speaker 04 And then they were like, "You gotta be kidding." This guy. So no, so I'm with you. They're out.
1:12:35 Bill Simmons? All right. So they have the eighth spot. They have a 6.7% chance to win. 45.2 for top four. No karma points for them. No. By the way, they're gonna, they'll get the 7th, 8th pick. They're gonna get a great guard. They'll, they'll get somebody really good. All right. Next category is a small vial of karma points. Charlotte, who's in the 14th spot, 2.4% chance to move up, but they've picked Khan was the third pick, Miller's second, and LaMelo's third. They don't really need another top four pick.
1:13:07 Speaker 04 They don't need another top four pick. You do give them credit, though.
1:13:10 Bill Simmons? For the dignity of the season. They really put together a smart team.
1:13:15 Speaker 04 And the.
1:13:17 Bill Simmons? Well, I mean, a smartly constructed roster. Yes.
1:13:22 Speaker 04 Trying to set me up.
1:13:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:13:26 Speaker 04 And also the fact that those guys, if you redrafted, they made smart picks.
1:13:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they went three for three. You could argue Halliburton for LaMelo, but nobody would have taken Halliburton third in that draft.
1:13:38 Speaker 04 Nobody would have taken that at the time. That's a, that's a different type of thing. So yeah, so they made the right pick in those.
1:13:43 Bill Simmons? So they get a little karma for how well they've run the team the last couple years.
1:13:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:13:47 Bill Simmons? Next one is Miami, who's in the 13th spot. They're not going to win anyway.
1:13:53 Bill Simmons? They haven't picked higher than 10 since 2008. They did get the decision and all the stuff with LeBron. I think they're still dining on the karma points from that. I had them at zero karma points just in general. But Bam scoring 83 points on the tanking Wizards, I think they won karma points for that. So I'm going to give them a little vibe.
1:14:13 Speaker 04 I was so hoping you were going to go there.
1:14:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:14:17 Speaker 04 That is correct.
1:14:17 Bill Simmons? They get points for that. So if they get in the top four, it'll be like, oh, it's because of the Bam 83.
1:14:22 Speaker 04 It is because they said, oh, you're going to shamelessly tank, are you, Washington?
1:14:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:14:30 Speaker 04 Well, we are, we're going to scarlet letter you.
1:14:32 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:14:32 Speaker 04 We're, we're going to show you there's a penalty for trying to lose basketball games.
1:14:37 Bill Simmons? And then unapologetic afterwards.
1:14:39 Speaker 04 Unapologetic. And the penalty is roughly, and again, this off the top of my head, the 374th best scorer in the history of the NBA is going to score 83 points on you.
1:14:51 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:14:52 Speaker 04 And you're just going to eat it.
1:14:53 Bill Simmons? So I'll give them a little karma for that.
1:14:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:14:56 Bill Simmons? Memphis in the sixth spot, 9% to win, 37.2 for top four.
1:15:04 Bill Simmons? So Ja was the second pick and Triple J was also a top five pick.
1:15:10 Bill Simmons? They also took Kevin Love five and Thabeet two. From 95 to 2002, they picked 63422264. They've had 12 top six picks in the last 30 years, the Grizzlies franchise.
1:15:25 Speaker 04 12 top six picks?
1:15:27 Bill Simmons? In the last 30 years. This is their second teardown slash rebuild in seven, eight years. Sorry, Chris Vernon, it's true. Karma points for
1:15:37 Bill Simmons? wasn't their fault, Ja flamed out. Everyone would have taken them second and I don't know what they really could have, what, what they really could have done differently. So they get points for that. They're one of five teams that have never made the finals. And recently LeBron crapped on their city. And I think they get points for all three of those things where if they won one of the top four picks, I don't think people would be that upset. So I'm going to give them a little vial.
1:15:59 Speaker 04 Can I give them a little extra?
1:16:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Okay. We can move them into the next category if you want.
1:16:04 Speaker 04 I would like to rep for Memphis for a moment.
1:16:07 Bill Simmons? Let's hear it.
1:16:08 Speaker 04 So my sister-in-law lives in Memphis. I go there a lot.
1:16:15 Speaker 04 LeBron's comments really, really like hurt the feelings of folks in that city. In a way that I thought was a little too much, but it really bothered them. There is a, it's a very, yes, it is a very tough city, but it is a prideful city. And they did everything they could to really support and love the Ja Grizzlies. And through no fault of the, in my opinion, the organization and certainly the fans. Ja screwed the whole thing up. And
1:16:51 Bill Simmons? So you're, we'll move them higher. Okay. You're selling me.
1:16:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, I would like Memphis to have another shot at this. And so, yeah, I would like to
1:17:00 Bill Simmons? All right, we'll move up. So we'll revisit a little bit later. So that list was just Charlotte and Miami. You know, the, the thing about the LeBron comments, it was like the, it was almost like a sucker punch. It was like somebody punched them from behind as they're just walking down the street and they just woke up the next day like, what happened? LeBron punched you in the back of the head, but what? Why did he do that? Like, there was no warning at all.
1:17:25 Speaker 04 And listen, as it turns out, cause I then, you know, followed that story probably closer than most. Man, NBA guys really do hate that hotel.
1:17:34 Bill Simmons? That's it. It all comes down to the hotel. That's all that matters. Just build a four story Mandarin and you're good.
1:17:41 Speaker 04 It's just the hotel.
1:17:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it's it.
1:17:44 Speaker 04 About LeBron, he was golfing, he was trying to make people laugh. He should have just really focused his, his critique on just the hotel. It wouldn't have hurt as bad. So, yeah.
1:17:54 Bill Simmons? I, I didn't mind it because I think LeBron's, one of his issues over the years, like, I don't feel like we see the real LeBron in some of this stuff. Like, authentic LeBron that I'm sure he's actually like versus what's presented to us. And I thought in that golf video, it's just, I think that's what he's like. So I was like, this is, I wish he did more of this, but then he ended up, you know, making an entire city feel terrible for a week.
1:18:17 Speaker 04 Everybody got mad at him. Yeah.
1:18:19 Bill Simmons? All right. Next category is soup cup of karma points. So Milwaukee is in the 10th spot, 3.0%. Top four would be 13.9. Ironically, they get the worst of their pick or Atlanta's pick, or the Pelicans pick that goes to Atlanta.
1:18:33 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:18:34 Bill Simmons? So I don't even know how to do the karma points here because if they go into the top four, Atlanta takes the pick anyway. I'll give them a little though.
1:18:43 Speaker 04 They need.
1:18:45 Bill Simmons? Ideally, both of them to go in. Yeah, they need both picks to go in. So.
1:18:48 Speaker 04 They need both. So they, so they need a lot of help. Here's, yeah, I, I'm fine with them not having a ton.
1:18:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
1:18:56 Speaker 04 And here's why.
1:18:58 Bill Simmons? What's here? Go.
1:19:02 Speaker 04 Everyone in the media has landed on geez Yanis enough already ask for a trade move on it all the pressures on Yanis when everyone I think acknowledges yes it's best for Yanis to move on it's also best for Milwaukee to move on from Yanis it's best for both parties and there is it so there should be just as much if not more pressure on the party that actually has to execute the trade to be like you know what Yanis we're gonna move on from you but they don't want to be a bad guy and everyone's like well of course you don't want to trade Yanis
1:19:42 Speaker 04 I'm demanding it and Yanis is like well I don't want to be a bad guy either so I just think pardon me the organization hasn't been great also Jimmy Haslam bought you know bought into the team a karma is not coming his way anytime soon so yeah they don't need any extra karma
1:19:59 Bill Simmons? I forgot about the Jimmy here so we could move them back then that's fine
1:20:02 Speaker 04 yeah put them where you had Memphis
1:20:07 Bill Simmons? yeah the Yanis Milwaukee thing was like the benevolent version of the Justin Baldoni Blake Lively lawsuit that finally got settled neither one wanted to admit that they were the one that wanted to settle it which is basically where we are with the Bucks okay next one is Sacramento
1:20:23 Speaker 04 I was very curious where you were gonna have
1:20:26 Bill Simmons? fifth spot 11.5% they had the fourth pick in 22 Murray they had second and 18 Marvin Bagley one pick ahead of Luca and then
1:20:38 Speaker 04 Luka said Luca's a big market guy can't do
1:20:41 Bill Simmons? Sacramento wasn't big enough market can't take him gotta take a more loyal worse player
1:20:46 Speaker 04 one of the craziest takes I've ever heard
1:20:50 Bill Simmons? it's like how could Sacramento fans feel worse about this how about this podcast interview from eight years later and then Fox was the top five pick so from 2009 to 18 they picked 4575786852 and I'm just tired of this team and this franchise but the karma points and this is why they're in the soup cup their fans this 20 year run for them just for the fans only there has to be like a significant amount of karma points like this is 20 years of just ugh
1:21:25 Speaker 04 they've never had the number one pick right
1:21:27 Bill Simmons? never had it Oh, and no, they had it once. Never nervous Purvis.
1:21:33 Speaker 04 Oh, okay. So yeah, that was late 80s.
1:21:36 Bill Simmons? Eighty nine.
1:21:37 Speaker 04 Um, so they haven't had the number one pick in 35 years. They've certainly been bad enough to get it.
1:21:43 Bill Simmons? Um, there's six teams that haven't had the pick. Denver, Miami, Utah, the Hornets, the Lakers and the Pacers.
1:21:51 Speaker 04 The Lakers not having ever had the number one pick and having had nine number one picks on the team in their history is
1:21:59 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:21:59 Speaker 04 just bananas.
1:22:00 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:22:01 Speaker 04 Um, yeah, I'm fine with that for Sacramento.
1:22:03 Bill Simmons? Okay. Now for a special part of today's episode where we unpack a six pack. Or rather, six of the biggest things happening on and off the court during playoff season. Brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA and a superior light beer. I had a couple of them last weekend and uh, it really is superior. Let's get started. Here's my six pack. Six possible trade candidate fall guys for round two as round two evolves here over the next two weeks. Who not only um, might, might take some of the blame for a playoff loss, but also it would open the door for them to potentially
1:22:43 Bill Simmons? uh, be trade bait to improve a team. Uh, I'm going to rank from one to six for the six pack. Number one, Jared Allen on Cleveland because if Cleveland cannot get by Detroit, that will mean they probably have to decide between Mobley and Jared Allen as their quote unquote big. Maybe you could trade one of them to either um, change the, change the team, get somebody like Giannis. If you put Moby on the table or just trade Jared Allen for somebody who's a little bit cheaper. But I think Cleveland would have to decide between those two guys because over and over again, it would have been the same story with them. That's one. Number two, De'Aaron Fox, which Nick Wright and Todd talked about on the Tuesday pod.
1:23:21 Bill Simmons? Um, if he just cannot rise to the challenge against a Timberwolves team that has Zombie by Conley and I had to soon move who's um, battling injury. Um, if he can't. Figure out a way to really impact that. He would be a potential guy. Maybe they turn him into a shooter or somebody with more size. Number three, Nas Reed. I don't know if anybody and the nobody believes in us Timberwolves would even be on the trade block, but this would be the one guy you would maybe think about because for what he's making and doesn't play a ton of minutes and you have Gobert and you have Randall and maybe you could flip him into more guard help or something else, but I'm not even sure I really believe in this one. Number four, Evan
1:24:06 Bill Simmons? Mobley, for all the same reasons I mentioned with the Cavs. Number five, Karl Towns on the New York Knickerbockers, just because if they somehow blow this Sixers series, I assume there will be a fall guy in the Knicks and Giannis trade rumors and he's the logical person that would be in a trade. I actually like the way he's playing in the playoffs, but had to mention him. And then number six, I have Isaiah Stewart on the Pistons, who reasonable salary, he's making like 15, really good advanced stats, could probably be the starting center for somebody. And maybe you see that his usage gets yanked around on Detroit with Durant, sometimes they get smaller. Maybe that's a piece they would want to put in a trade to get the much needed
1:24:49 Bill Simmons? second scorer they have. So Kate Cunningham doesn't have to shoot 35 times. Honorable mention, Austin Reeves as a sign and trade. Just had to throw him out there in case the Lakers decide, maybe we do want to keep LeBron. Anyway, that's it for today's six pack. So now you can go grab your own six pack of Michelob Ultra. Plus, Michelob Ultra has given you a chance to win exclusive prizes, including courtside tickets and more. Enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra, superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Courtside 25-26, no purchase necessary, open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2025, ends on June 30th, 2026.
1:25:32 Bill Simmons? Multiple entry periods, see official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines and prizes and details. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary.
1:26:03 Bill Simmons? 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.
1:26:25 Bill Simmons? Next one is Brooklyn. I didn't really know where to put Brooklyn. 14%, they're in the third spot. Top four, 52.1. They've only had one top three pick really in the last 20 years. Derek Favors, number three.
1:26:44 Bill Simmons? Karma points for building the 2024 Celtics inadvertently. Karma points for really trying to make a legitimate run with Cap Space and KD and Kyrie. They trade everything for Harden and they get hosed. I'm going to give them demerits for, I just think they're incredibly poorly run. I don't understand just about anything they do. And so I kind of put them here. I'm willing to be talked out of it.
1:27:09 Speaker 04 Sean Marks, he just needs a 13th or 14th year and he'll nail it.
1:27:13 Bill Simmons? What, this could be the year? He might have figured it out for others.
1:27:16 Speaker 04 So I, so I agree with you in that I do want to give credit for the fact that Brooklyn twice in the last 15 years has been like, we are going.
1:27:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we're going all in.
1:27:30 Speaker 04 We, we want to win the title.
1:27:32 Bill Simmons? We're brazenly going after the title.
1:27:34 Speaker 04 So I want to give them credit for that. I want to give them non-credit for the fact that they had five first round picks last year, and I don't know who any of them are. I live, I want to, I.
1:27:45 Bill Simmons? You're not a Nolan Traore guy?
1:27:48 Speaker 04 I want to give them non-credit for the fact that the first year that they had Kyrie, KD and Harden.
1:27:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:27:55 Speaker 04 I got pretty good season tickets to the, to the Nets.
1:28:02 Speaker 04 And midway through the year, they were a good team. And midway through the year. My wife said to me, next year. Do you think? It'd be better if we just spent the money on 10 good Knicks games? And I was like, really?
1:28:20 Bill Simmons? I mean, you could say five, five good games.
1:28:23 Speaker 04 Right. And she, and it was, and it's not like she's a, you know, a huge fan of anyone on the Knicks, anything like that. And she was like. It just feels so much more fun there. Like here. Nobody's really into it. They had KD, Kyrie and Harden. They had no fans like they, and so.
1:28:42 Bill Simmons? Well, you know, when it even gets worse. The Liberty games are fucking awesome in the exact same arena.
1:28:48 Speaker 04 It's same arena. My daughter and I went to win the Liberty, the clinching game for the title.
1:28:53 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:28:53 Speaker 04 It's electric.
1:28:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:28:55 Speaker 04 So that does work against them. It would though, they do have to get a superstar to have any chance. Of getting any type of attention there. So yeah, a little bit. I mean, they've gone for it. I just don't. I don't think they're well run.
1:29:09 Bill Simmons? All right. So I'm going to keep them in this category.
1:29:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:29:12 Bill Simmons? We'd all be better off if they just moved to Seattle and we didn't have expansion. Next category is a salad bowl of karma points. You might, you might disagree with this. I have Golden State here, 2.0% 11 spot, top four, 9.4%. They did have Wiseman as the second pick six years ago and Kaminga number seven. Those were their last two really good picks last 15 years. This is just about. This is where you're gonna get mad. Yeah, I don't want to see Steph just be on shit teams for the next three years of his career.
1:29:40 Speaker 04 I'm not gonna get mad. I totally agree with that.
1:29:42 Bill Simmons? Let's get him one more good guy.
1:29:44 Speaker 04 So I, I'm. Steph, so I don't know what category is bigger than salad bowl.
1:29:49 Bill Simmons? There's two more categories. There's.
1:29:51 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:29:51 Bill Simmons? Oh, no, this is, this is the second to last category.
1:29:54 Speaker 04 Okay. Steph individually. His karma deserves the biggest. What works against him and brings it to this just second tier is the team, no, the team being so smug in that we've got one of the 12 greatest players of all time. He's still awesome. Let's try to win while also preparing for a post staff life. It was the same shit. I'll never forgive, never. The Cavs in 2018, when Kyrie wanted out and they could have had Paul George and the owner, Dan Gilbert was like, well, no, we need a post LeBron life. And so we need a pick that turned into Colin Sexton.
1:30:39 Speaker 04 And they got little Isaiah Thomas to that trade they did with Boston.
1:30:43 Bill Simmons? That was your guy though, LeBron.
1:30:45 Speaker 04 What do you mean?
1:30:46 Bill Simmons? Cause he was gonna leave after the year and they're like, we'll do the trade if we know you're staying and he would have committed.
1:30:52 Speaker 04 I understand. And guess what? Whether he was leaving or not, you know what you should try to do when you have peak LeBron James? Win the title that year. Instead, they were like, no, we have to be okay afterwards.
1:31:02 Bill Simmons? He could have waited one more year and then gone into Lakers in 2019.
1:31:06 Speaker 04 He could have done all those things.
1:31:07 Bill Simmons? A two-year window. He's been like, I'll sign a one-year extension if you do this trade.
1:31:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, he could have done all those things or the Cavs could have just made the better. First of all, it would have been the better trade.
1:31:16 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:31:16 Speaker 04 Second of all, planning for a post of a future post your all-time legendary players dumb. So I hated what the Warriors did with Curry, like this not maximizing those young players for win now guys. So he deserves extra karma.
1:31:34 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:31:35 Speaker 04 The organization deserves less, so leave it where it is. Also, a little, a tiny douse of negative karma for Draymond having the audacity to be like, yeah, you know, Steve Kerr held me back. What? What? Are you, are you now?
1:31:54 Bill Simmons? I think he only did that to get talk show segments out of it.
1:31:58 Speaker 04 Well, he got it.
1:31:59 Bill Simmons? He got, there was content all over the place.
1:32:01 Speaker 04 Ringer favorite Austin Rivers and Draymond, they might, they might be meeting in Temecula soon. They're, they're, they're going after it, but it was, but so go ahead. So you're, I'm fine with where they're at.
1:32:10 Bill Simmons? Next one, Chicago. Top four for them is 20.3%. They're in the nine spot, so 4.5 to win it. They've picked, uh, fourth in 2020.
1:32:23 Bill Simmons? They had a stretch from 99 to 08, 144273291.
1:32:30 Bill Simmons? They've been the cheapest big market team in any sport. If you think the three biggest markets are New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
1:32:37 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:32:37 Bill Simmons? They've been the cheapest of anybody other than the Sterling Clippers. It's been 28 years since Michael Jordan retired. Their fans deserve better and all of those are reasons they should have karma points. Conversely, do the Reinsdorf's deserve?
1:32:52 Speaker 04 This is way.
1:32:52 Bill Simmons? Where do we put this?
1:32:54 Speaker 04 This is way too high for Chicago.
1:32:56 Bill Simmons? Can you blame the fans though? So you would put them where Sacramento is basically?
1:33:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:33:01 Bill Simmons? All right, I'll move back.
1:33:02 Speaker 04 I don't blame the fans, but listen, Bulls fans, there are also Bears fans. You just got Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson. You got, you got a hockey team, you got two baseball teams.
1:33:13 Bill Simmons? That's their attitude. They've just moved to the Cubs and they've moved to the Bears and the Bulls, they just assume are going to go 42 and 40 every year. And that's the NBA team they have.
1:33:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, and so the Reinsdorf's don't deserve it.
1:33:25 Bill Simmons? All right, so we have Golden State, moved Memphis into this category, Utah.
1:33:29 Speaker 04 Thank you for that.
1:33:30 Bill Simmons? Fourth spot, Utah, 11.5% top four, 45.2.
1:33:35 Bill Simmons? Last 15 years, they picked fifth last year, fifth and 14, took Dante Exum and Kanter in 2011. They have never moved up in the lottery ever, and they bastardized the sport to the point that they finally had to actually change the lottery rules into this 321 thing. I think they got karma points for that. They're the catalyst.
1:33:54 Speaker 04 Why?
1:33:54 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they're the catalyst for changing the lottery in a good way.
1:33:59 Bill Simmons? It took them before the All-Star break to do it.
1:34:02 Speaker 04 This is a little bit of you love Danny Ainge and want good things for him. I mean, this is.
1:34:08 Bill Simmons? No, Danny Ainge deserted us and took our, took our best assistant.
1:34:12 Speaker 04 All right, so maybe they, I mean,
1:34:17 Speaker 04 here is why they, the fans of the Jazz deserve, do deserve good lottery luck.
1:34:25 Speaker 04 The fact that the team that quite literally for all of NBA past, present and future is going to have the hardest times signing free agents in perpetuity, has never moved up in the lottery, seems like a sick joke.
1:34:44 Bill Simmons? Although Salt Lake's red hot right now.
1:34:46 Speaker 04 You know, I, I do believe it is.
1:34:49 Bill Simmons? They have a hockey team.
1:34:50 Speaker 04 I, I.
1:34:50 Bill Simmons? Might get a baseball team. It's really cool to go there.
1:34:54 Speaker 04 I believe, you know, there are.
1:34:56 Bill Simmons? They have reality shows.
1:34:57 Speaker 04 Wyoming is sick, is super hot right now, too. You know where, you know what demographic? It's not super hot around.
1:35:05 Bill Simmons? NBA players?
1:35:05 Speaker 04 NBA free agents, 27-year-old NBA superstars, not very often being like, hey, guess where I just got a spread? Salt Lake. And so I, they need some luck there. So.
1:35:19 Bill Simmons? All right. So keep as is. So Golden State, Memphis, Utah in this category. I have Atlanta via the New Orleans pick. So they had a good season. They did win the lottery two years ago. So they lose points for that. Top four, 29.3% chance to move up, 6.8 for the seventh spot. And the case for them for karma points, they built a really fun team. They did a good job for the most part. They have fun nucleus. It would be fun if they got one of these guys. And I think this is around the right area for them.
1:35:49 Speaker 04 So when you first told me we were doing this, my gut was I was gonna say Atlanta should be number one.
1:35:58 Bill Simmons? Oh, well, let me give you the other two teams then.
1:36:00 Speaker 04 Well, no, but I'm gonna, but I know, I think you have it right. I know because so my gut was it was such a savvy trade with Joe Dumars and New Orleans just to get this pick. It them having the guts to finally move off Trey Young, the fact that they, you know, CJ had this moment, all that worked for him. And then what kept sticking in my head was, yeah, but they took Zachary Rissache number one overall. So they probably third is a good spot. So we have two teams left, two karma teams left.
1:36:35 Bill Simmons? Two karma teams. One is in the same category. The Washington Wizards.
1:36:40 Speaker 04 All right.
1:36:41 Bill Simmons? First spot.
1:36:42 Speaker 04 Shout out Joe House.
1:36:42 Bill Simmons? 11.5% to win. Uh, no, that's not right. They're in the first spot, 14% chance to win.
1:36:49 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:36:50 Bill Simmons? 52.1 for top four. They picked Sar two years ago, number two. They got the six pick last year with Johnson. They've had 12 top six picks in the last 35 years. Since they made the 1979 finals, they have five playoff series wins in 47 years and they've never made the conference finals. And their fans are in about as dark of a place as it gets. And they're probably upset that they couldn't even win this.
1:37:17 Bill Simmons? So I have them second.
1:37:19 Speaker 04 And Anthony Davis is talking as if he's never gonna play a game for him.
1:37:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's, he's on Redfin in every NBA city. Look at it, houses. They have a pool. Is there an eight bedroom place in Portland?
1:37:32 Speaker 04 Figuring out where he's gonna be, um, they're also about to have the Trey Young experience, which I don't think is enjoyable.
1:37:43 Bill Simmons? Can I tell you something about Trey Young? I think we've all blocked it out of our mind. I was just looking this up randomly the other day because I was looking at Yanis stuff. The Hawks won two games in the 2021 conference finals.
1:37:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:37:57 Bill Simmons? That, that series was four to two. Now Yanis missed a couple of them, but if you go back and look at the box scores, they, they look like two eight seeds compared to now.
1:38:07 Speaker 04 It was, but it was two, Yanis got hurt in game four.
1:38:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:13 Speaker 04 So it was, it was two, two with Yanis out for the rest of the series. Atlanta, it was gonna be, you know, Chris Paul was gonna be a champion is what was gonna happen.
1:38:27 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:38:27 Speaker 04 If Atlanta wins that series, um, yeah, it was two, two in the conference finals. It's remarkable.
1:38:32 Bill Simmons? I think the 2020 and 21 seasons, 50 years from now, people are gonna be in basketball reference like, wait, what? What's going on here?
1:38:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, 20, I think, I think people will probably remember 20 is probably the final title for the greatest player of all time. It's neither here nor there. Um, Atlanta, what's working against Atlanta is, or I'm sorry, what's working against Washington? Pardon me. The, um,
1:39:01 Bill Simmons? The shamelessness, the embarrassment of being scarlet lettered by Bam?
1:39:04 Speaker 04 I mean, they have, well, they have just been, but their fans don't deserve, it's not on their fans. All right, I'm fine with them being there. I, they're, they're.
1:39:14 Bill Simmons? Would you put Atlanta over them?
1:39:16 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:39:17 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:39:17 Speaker 04 I would put Atlanta in the second spot.
1:39:19 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:39:20 Speaker 04 And I love who you have number one.
1:39:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah. So this is the last category, a swimming pool of karma points. Indiana, 14%, they're in the two spot, top four, 52.1. An amazing wrinkle where they only keep the pick if it's top four. They could drop to five or six, otherwise it goes to the Clippers. Little similar to, I don't know if you watched Survivor, but Devon's flipping the coin to basically try to stay in the game. It's kind of what they did with that pick. They, they flipped the coin and if it comes up heads their way and they get a top four pick and they get Zubots and they get Tyrese Halliburton coming back.
1:39:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:39:59 Bill Simmons? Like they're, they're probably going to be like the number two favorite in the East.
1:40:03 Speaker 04 Well, yeah, and they, if there is ever an acceptable reason to throw a season away, it was them. It's like, hey, we, they, we made a finals the year before that. They made the conference finals the year before they made the finals.
1:40:22 Bill Simmons? We made the finals and our best guy risked everything to play in game seven. Took a chance and the worst possible outcome happened and ruined our next season.
1:40:31 Speaker 04 Ruined our next season and so we snap recalibrated. We're not, we didn't tear it down. We just took a gap year.
1:40:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:40:41 Speaker 04 And we also, also didn't they? They had their pick only because of a trade. They made a trade during the finals to get their pick back. So they, they did that with like a little, maybe a little premonition of what was to come.
1:41:01 Bill Simmons? That came across conspiracy bills desk last summer.
1:41:05 Speaker 04 What?
1:41:05 Bill Simmons? Why did they make that trade during the finals? Was it like Halliburton protection, like getting protection in blackjack or something?
1:41:12 Speaker 04 It's, it was, it's crazy how it happened. It was days before the guy gets hurt.
1:41:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:41:17 Speaker 04 Um. They're well-run, they have a plan and it is, it's not quite the 03 lottery where Jerry West is sitting there. I either get LeBron James or nothing.
1:41:35 Bill Simmons? It's the all-time, it's the all-time either or. Although now, now we know LeBron would have been out of there in 07.
1:41:41 Speaker 04 Maybe they, no, can I tell you something? Not only would LeBron not have been out of there, they would have a 30-foot, a 30-story, seven-star hotel.
1:41:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:41:51 Speaker 04 With what that's downtown would have been if LeBron was there. Um, the.
1:41:57 Bill Simmons? The Memphis montage.
1:42:00 Speaker 04 Indiana being like, alright, they're gonna be watching the lottery just knowing
1:42:08 Speaker 04 if three teams move up, we're screwed.
1:42:12 Bill Simmons? If they come up five or six, it's over. And then if you're, so the best thing they have going for them is the Clippers would benefit from this, which would, I don't know if the league would be doing backflips that the Clippers got the fifth pick in the draft.
1:42:26 Speaker 04 So.
1:42:27 Bill Simmons? And then could if, let's say a ruling came down, they decided the Clippers did all this stuff. Could they then just say, you don't get the fifth pick, that's gonna be part of the penalty?
1:42:35 Speaker 04 I don't know. But so I think Indiana, Indiana, I don't, they don't have to get the number one pick, but they've gotta stay in the top four. So I like them, I like them being number one on this.
1:42:49 Bill Simmons? Alright, so I'll recap. No, from no karma points to a swimming pool of karma points.
1:42:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:42:56 Bill Simmons? OKC, Dallas, Charlotte, Miami, Milwaukee, Sacramento, Chicago, Brooklyn, Golden State, Memphis, Utah, Washington, Atlanta, Indiana, having the most karma points. That's a good list.
1:43:11 Speaker 04 It's a good list.
1:43:12 Bill Simmons? Congratulations, Indiana.
1:43:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, congratulations, Indiana. Good luck, Atlanta. Memphis, I hope this made Chris Vernon and everyone happy that there was, you know, some, somebody repping for Memphis. Um.
1:43:25 Bill Simmons? What does Conspiracy Nick think would be the fishiest outcome? Last year, we hit the fishiest outcome when Cooper Flag went to the Dallas Mavericks. I think it's Golden State getting a top-four pick would be the one that would make me go, oh, yeah, if I was running the league, that's what I would have done.
1:43:41 Speaker 04 All right. So let Golden State, Golden State certainly is the one that's best for the league.
1:43:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:43:47 Speaker 04 There's no doubt about that.
1:43:50 Bill Simmons? Like them just getting the Bansa?
1:43:53 Speaker 04 The.
1:43:53 Bill Simmons? Who could play right away for them?
1:43:56 Speaker 04 What about, what about this one? And I don't know, again, I don't know if they would do it, but maybe they would. What about Brooklyn getting a top four pick and using that?
1:44:07 Bill Simmons? Oh, for Yanis.
1:44:08 Speaker 04 As a trade for Yanis.
1:44:09 Bill Simmons? Hmm.
1:44:10 Speaker 04 Like that is.
1:44:11 Bill Simmons? Well, here's the thing with Brooklyn. They don't have their pick next year. Cause Houston can swap it.
1:44:17 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
1:44:17 Bill Simmons? It's part of that weird deal they made. So they actually have to be good next year. So yeah, Brooklyn would be another one. I'm not sure they're anxious to help out Brooklyn.
1:44:24 Speaker 04 No, that's probably true.
1:44:25 Bill Simmons? Dallas could be the other one. It's like, hey, you owe us for the rest of the Luca trade. We know, we know you promised us one lottery, but it was actually two. Two lotteries to send Luca to Los Angeles.
1:44:37 Speaker 04 Just so you know, I just clicked sim lottery on Tankathon. And the result was Milwaukee moved up to one. So that goes to Atlanta.
1:44:48 Bill Simmons? Wow.
1:44:49 Speaker 04 And the Clippers moved up to two and that goes to OKC. That would not be great.
1:44:56 Bill Simmons? That's what just came up?
1:44:57 Speaker 04 In, in the one that I just did.
1:44:59 Bill Simmons? Oh, my God.
1:45:00 Speaker 04 Milwaukee to it that goes to Atlanta is one, the Clippers, which goes to OKC at two, Washington, three, Utah, four, poor Indiana drops to five and it goes to the Clippers.
1:45:13 Bill Simmons? Oh.
1:45:14 Speaker 04 Then.
1:45:14 Bill Simmons? Gambit of emotions for the Clippers.
1:45:16 Speaker 04 Gambit of emotions.
1:45:17 Bill Simmons? OKC moving into the top four of this lottery would enrage people.
1:45:23 Speaker 04 I, it would be a catastrophe.
1:45:25 Bill Simmons? I was on the air when Cleveland won the 2014 lottery and I kind of melted down for like a minute.
1:45:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, I remember. I remember.
1:45:34 Bill Simmons? I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This is the third time in four years that they won the lottery?
1:45:39 Speaker 04 Um, real quick. Is it weird to you that it's on a Sunday?
1:45:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I hate it. I hate it.
1:45:46 Speaker 04 It's supposed to be Tuesday night or Wednesday night, right?
1:45:50 Bill Simmons? Well, they're gonna have, so it's a 12:30 game. Lottery after the, or 12:30 Pacific, 3:30 Eastern game. Lottery and then the next game.
1:45:59 Speaker 04 I don't like that at all.
1:46:01 Bill Simmons? I don't like it either. I liked when it was the middle of the week and we could get content out of it, but.
1:46:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:46:06 Bill Simmons? All right, Nick Ray, I took enough of your time. This was a true pleasure. Thanks for doing the karma rankings. Thanks for talking basketball with me. It was great to see you as always.
1:46:15 Speaker 04 Oh, you know what? You as well. I'll tell Kevin Wilds. How about this? I'll tell Kevin Wilds you say hello and you tell Joe House, who I've never met, but in my head we're friends, I say hello.
1:46:25 Bill Simmons? All right, we'll do that.
1:46:26 Speaker 04 All right.
1:46:26 Bill Simmons? Great to see you. Thank you.
1:46:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, bye.
1:46:29 Bill Simmons? All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Nick Wright. Thanks to Gahow and Eduardo as well. Don't forget about the new rewatchables we put up. There's Something About Mary. Don't forget about Legata. Finally ended. The conclusion, the last seventh episode of the series is up and you can rip through all of them now. I'm going to be back on Thursday with one more podcast. Can't wait.
1:47:11 Bill Simmons? Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam
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Previous Part 2: Cleveland Survives, Knicks-Sixers, and Whaddya Do for Denver, Houston, and Atlanta With Zach Lowe Next Five NBA Playoff Takes, Plus David Letterman’s First-Ever BS Pod Appearance (We Did It!!!) Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated