Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Game 7 Fever in OKC, NBA Lottery Reform, and a Mega-Mailbag With Rob Mahoney, David Jacoby, and Joe House About this episode Join The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Rob Mahoney LIVE on Netflix to react to the Spurs forcing a Game 7 against the Thunder (1:17). Then, David Jacoby and Joe House hop on to react to the NBA lottery reform plan, talk about the losers of the Cavs' drubbing, and answer some mailbag questions (39:15).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Rob Mahoney, David Jacoby, and Joe House
Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers
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Transcript 22,011 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:18 Bill Simmons? It is Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix. Rob Mahoney is here. We're coming right after a game that I'm frankly shocked by the result. I'm not shocked San Antonio won, Rob.
2:29 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:30 Bill Simmons? I'm shocked that it was a blowout, especially at halftime. It felt like they hung around, hung around, hung around, hung around, and we were gonna have this awesome second half. But my first question to you, so game one of this series, game one of Knicks Cavs, which was that awesome Brunson game, the comeback, and it was just basketball bliss for 20, 24 straight hours. We haven't had a good basketball game since. Cousin Sal's plus Cousin Sal is that nine and a half point thing that he does where it's nine and a half point favorites. We've had seven straight nine and a half point favorites cover, and we just had bad basketball. So what happened? Did we just, we paid all the taxes for those two games and that's it?
3:13 Speaker 02 I think some of the games in this series have been better than the final score. We were at least getting like three really high, like well-played quarters often from these teams. There's just one critical stretch in which one or the other pulls away. But yeah, it does feel like we sold our souls or something. Like we paid a heavy cost. We got the great weekend of historic basketball, and now we just all have to deal with the consequences.
3:34 Bill Simmons? I thought today would be the makeup for all the crappy games we've been watching. But you're right, this is like good, bad basketball because there's so much chess going on. To watch San Antonio do this twice to OKC in three games, basically, I thought, I thought OKC was gonna win tonight, but I thought it was more because of the Castle Fox thing, which I just couldn't. I couldn't get that out of my head how I didn't think Fox looked right the last couple games.
4:03 Speaker 02 Has not.
4:04 Bill Simmons? And he looked bad tonight and I didn't, I didn't think Harper looked good either. And then Harper was awesome today and you think like Wemby had that just, you know, lights out, classic Wemby first half. But Harper was the other piece of it and they were still up seven. And if you had told me they're going to get these two first halves from these two guys, I would have thought they were up 20. Didn't matter. They ended up blowing them out in the second half. So what happened? What did you think the number one thing was?
4:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's the thing. I think based on the first half, it felt like the Spurs were winning, like technically winning, but the Thunder were hanging around, as you mentioned, and they were just like gutting out enough possessions to make you think.
4:39 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
4:40 Speaker 02 Okay, if there's any turn in this game, if there's any change in the momentum, if OKC comes out in the second half and their offense looks any cleaner, then this thing could really break their way. It turned out the opposite was the case, which is the Spurs completely tightened the screws and just suffocated all life out of the Thunder offense. And it's been one of these things that's been flying a little under the radar in these playoffs that the Spurs have just been the single most dominant third quarter team in the entire postseason. And it's a weird thing to think about a young group. We're used to thinking about, you know, the juggernaut Warriors in that capacity maybe, but I think it's an incredible credit to Mitch Johnson. Like the Spurs are so young and a bunch of 20 year olds in like a tough stretch are not going to be able to figure out the tactical adjustments of like exactly how they need to pivot strategically.
5:24 Speaker 02 But you take a break, you let them reset, you give them a couple of talking points and a little bit of film and they come out and they just throw like an absolute haymaker against the defending champions. It was amazing to watch in the third.
5:36 Bill Simmons? And you know, the other thing, what you just said about San Antonio was true for OKC at the end of these halves. And you could feel it coming in the end of this second quarter. They're just like closers in the last three, four minutes of the second. And it's like, oh, they were up four, now they're up 18. What just happened? Or they're down 12, now they're down two. What just happened? And San Antonio kind of rode that off too. I think OKC got it to within maybe three, but then it ended seven at halftime, which I thought was big. So in the third quarter, 20 to nothing San Antonio run. OKC had a seven minute drought.
6:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:10 Bill Simmons? Where they went 0 for 14 at one point. There was one point where they were six for 26 from three. I mean, one thing we learned from them last year. If they're not making threes at all.
6:21 Speaker 02 No.
6:22 Bill Simmons? Anyone can beat them, especially if, uh, if you're home, but, um.
6:26 Speaker 02 And this seesaw has been crazy over the last four games. Forty-five percent, eighteen percent, forty-four percent, twenty-four percent. Like, that is a wild level of like erratic offense when Shay has also just been like really inefficient from the field. And like they, they are reliant on at least one of those things breaking for them to win.
6:44 Bill Simmons? So if I'm, if I'm a fan base here in this game and there's two choices, what am I most nervous about on each side heading into game seven after watching these first six? Cause for me, it would be for OKC, eh, I didn't, J-Dub didn't exactly instill a ton of confidence in there. A.J. Mitchell's just gone. I don't, I don't think we're seeing him again.
7:10 Bill Simmons? And that second creator thing, which didn't bother them in game five, but did bother them in this game. But the three-point shooting would be the thing that made me nervous. For San Antonio, if I'm a fan of them, it's Fox. And then it's just like, which Wemby am I getting? Cause Wemby was the big winner tonight. He had the makeup for the game five, which I still don't know what he was doing in game five. He did the, the, uh, the Van Damme hard, hard, uh, hard foul demand at the end of game five.
7:41 Speaker 02 Put out the hit.
7:42 Bill Simmons? Turned into Martin Cove and Karate Kid. Um, and then didn't talk to the media. God forbid you do that. We need your boring quotes. Um, but basically it was awesome in this game. The Spurs are three and oh, and he's awesome in this series. Is it just that simple for the Spurs? Is that what I would not be nervous about? I'm a Spurs fan. This guy is showing up for game seven. He's the next one.
8:05 Speaker 02 I think what you would be nervous about is he was awesome in this game, but Oklahoma City took away the vast majority of anything going to the basket. They blew up a lot of the lobs going to Wemby, any like straight line hits in transition. They were able to take away. He put up a ton of points because he made a ton of jumpers and. Granted, I would never want to be on the other side of that bet. Like, are you willing to bet your season and your title defense on the idea that he won't do that again? Wouldn't be me. But if you're gonna play like a gamble here of something, you have to give up something to Victor Webbenyama. And late in a series, if you're the Spurs, you just have to get a little used to settling for whatever is left. Right? The other team has schemed away the three best things you have going on every possession.
8:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
8:49 Speaker 02 If what's left is Victor Webbenyama shooting over the top of literally anyone in front of him, both from three, and then we saw him in this game, kind of get to some of those like mid-range into the elbow, into like little turnarounds in the paint. If that stuff is gonna be available to him, I think you're fine with it, but it's not the same as, you know, the 97% accuracy of a Victor Webbenyama dunk.
9:10 Bill Simmons? Right, right. Well, they were doing, one thing I noticed, they were trying to set these little sneaky picks for him that would then send him flying down, not for a lob, but just to get near the foul line.
9:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:21 Bill Simmons? So I don't know, that was the one experimentation thing that seemed like it worked a few times. But I just thought it was such a weird OKC performance. Shay didn't get involved at all in the first quarter. They missed a ton of threes. There were a lot of like Lou Dort threes. I think he took five in the, in the first half and they're playing all those hockey lineups and it felt like he never found a lineup that had the right rhythm. And I don't, what is your OKC lineup that you like the most? And obviously as Caruso and SGA out there, do you like when they go two bigs? Like, what's your favorite of all the options?
9:56 Speaker 02 I do think it has both bigs and it has Caruso and Shay. I think at this point it is Jared McCain. Like, I think JDub is so limited. You know, he is trying to gut out these like quick bursts of playing time that they're giving him. But when he tried to do something with the ball, it just kind of went nowhere. Uh, I don't, I don't expect much more than him being a decoy. We've seen like Isaiah Joe get played out of the rotation. Actually, I think Kason Wallace is a decent option if that's the spot too. He had like a really ballsy game during the
10:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:23 Speaker 02 The really difficult parts of it in particular. And when you're thinking about a game seven, that's the criteria, right? It's like, who is up for making the absolutely brutal relentless play? That's not going to look pretty, that's not going to pan out. That's not like the thing you would script up, but ultimately who can come away with those balls? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna change it and go from McCain to Kason Wallace on that reason alone. I think I want one more dog in that fight if I'm the Thunder.
10:49 Bill Simmons? What's the ideal Thunder final score of a game seven? Is it in the 110s? Is it like a 92 to 85? Because if you're going for like your all defense kind of side, then you're going to see more of Kason Wallace. I thought he was really good tonight. I mean, he had two plays in a row where he just took the ball from the Spurs. He had three threes. Um, I would have wanted a little more from him, but I wonder like, do you just do threes? Rebounds bother Wemby and then just hope SGA gets 30? And you can kind of eke out one of those 99 to 92 type games?
11:22 Speaker 02 I think like game sevens almost always turn out that way regardless of what you want. But all three Thunder wins have been in the 120s, right?
11:29 Bill Simmons? Right.
11:30 Speaker 02 And some of their losses have been among the lowest scoring offensive output games of this entire era in terms of what they're scoring. So it really is a feast or famine thing. And I think a lot of that is Shay who, I mean, he looks so uncomfortable in this game. I, I, I can't remember the last time we saw him settle for this many shots. And there's just like a layered deep, like a layered defensive impact where the Spurs are so good at denying him the ball. And you saw it with Castle, but you also see like Devin Vassell doing it, you know, Shane Penny doing it. Basically, anyone who's cross matched or switched is taking like shaving time off the clock and taking some life out of the Thunder offense right off the bat. Then when Shay does get the ball, he has to chart where Wemby is at all times. He has to be extra careful.
12:12 Speaker 02 And then he ended up with so many like late clock bombs in his hand that he just had to hoist up. It's, it, it really is an uncanny thing seeing a guy who's so used to playing at his own pace all the time, playing basically this entire game on somebody else's terms.
12:27 Bill Simmons? I have no feel for this series at all. I think I've picked five of the six games wrong. And every time I think I have a feel for it, it zags the other way.
12:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:37 Bill Simmons? And this one is like, basically, you just have to guess if Wimby's gonna have an awesome game or not. And if he has an awesome game, it just seems like San Antonio is a better team with the OKC injuries. So he's one winner tonight. Devin Vassell.
12:54 Speaker 02 Fucking love Devin Vassell.
12:55 Bill Simmons? Just for this whole playoffs, you want to pitch it home as a three and D guy, but I almost feel like he's a three and D plus.
13:02 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
13:02 Bill Simmons? Like, he's, he's a level over a role player, but he's not an all-star, but he's in that nice, nice sound. One of the things I love, he should have gotten a tech. It's been a tech all playoffs. They didn't call it tonight, but when he blocked Chet, he shoved him and then talked shit to him, which has been a technical foul this entire year. It's, it's.
13:24 Speaker 02 For 20 years.
13:25 Bill Simmons? Literally the first time this year they didn't call it because I think the refs were after the Tony Brothers massacre that happened in game five. Which I was being really, I had legs on after game five. I was really careful talking about how I felt about the refs because I just thought it was an apocalypse. But after that, it really felt like the refs were like, hey, we want to let the players decide this one. We don't, we're not here. Just do your thing. But that was a classic Vassell play where he brings a lot of fuck you to their, to their team. I really trust him. I trust him as a number four guy.
14:00 Speaker 02 I don't know how many like movement shooters you could say that about, right? These like skinny, like life lanky guys who are running around ball screens, catching on curls and shooting. He's like, how many six, five shooters legitimately play bigger than, than they do all the time in the way that Vassell does?
14:15 Bill Simmons? He guarded Chet tonight.
14:16 Speaker 02 He guarded Chet and, and that's not the first like fuck you block he's had on Chet in this series. He comes up with huge defensive plays. He comes up with big time, like contested defensive rebounds. He, he's like the antithesis of the archetype that frustrates me the most. Like the empty stats, like I put up 18 on jump shots, but I give you literally nothing else is like, those are among the most frustrating players for me to watch. Devin Vassell will give you maybe not that kind of scoring output every night, but he does so many other little things all the time that feel instrumental to a series like this one.
14:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I always call it like, I don't know, he had 13, 14 tonight. It was a loud 13. Right. His points, his performances are loud. I think Castle's like that, too.
14:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:57 Bill Simmons? Castle's one of those guys you look at like, does he have like 30 points? And it's like, no, he has 16. But he's all over the place. He had nine assists, I think, today, too. I think with Fassell, he's been thrown in these trades for two years, right? It's like, oh, Trey Murphy. Oh, well, if he, if they went after Giannis, well, put him in. He's just always the constant because he's making like 25 million a year. He's good, but you can always feel like you do better. I think he's kind of the perfect fourth guy for them.
15:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:28 Bill Simmons? I mean, really, the issue, if you're thinking about upgrades all summer with no matter what happens with them, you know, in game seven and even in the finals.
15:38 Bill Simmons? Fox is going to be the big question. If they lose this Oklahoma series, he's going to be the one everyone points to. And how hurt was he? Was he healthy?
15:46 Speaker 02 Oh, he's clearly hurt. He's like, he can't really move very well at all.
15:50 Bill Simmons? Seems like he has no lift.
15:52 Speaker 02 And, and the Thunder are basically betting like, we don't have to take him off the ball very seriously. Like, we don't really have to respect him in the corner. We don't have to rotate out to him super hard because we don't think he can beat the closeout. If we just put a Lou Dort in front of him, we'll mostly be fine. And they've been pretty much right about that part of things.
16:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he doesn't have that little drive into the lane, that little spin move backwards for that 13 footer. The little 13 foot turnaround just doesn't have the lift anymore. Another winner for the, oh, good.
16:20 Speaker 02 I was gonna say Harper is a huge part of that, too. Like, to the extent that De'Aaron Fox feels expendable, which is a crazy thing to say about a player as good as De'Aaron Fox. I think some of it comes with the fact that Dylan Harper is already so good so quickly. And he's gonna have massive expectations on him at all times, I think, because he's one of these guys who you see him just breaking down the best perimeter defenders in the sport, one after another. And if you can do that, there's always going to be that tension of like, why can't you do more? Especially coming off of a game like game five where he was invisible. Like, you, you would not recognize his presence in that game. You would have to double check the box score to make sure he even played it. And then he comes out in a game like this and he's just in front of everybody, turning the corner all the time, looking super aggressive.
17:04 Speaker 02 And I think he can kind of turn that up whenever he wants to. That's the most terrifying thing about him at this stage.
17:10 Bill Simmons? And seems healthy finally.
17:11 Speaker 02 Yep.
17:12 Bill Simmons? I don't, I didn't feel like he looked like him in two, three, four, and five. He was awesome in game one. He was awesome in this game. Took the spotlight off of, uh, Fox who stunk. Um, another winner tonight. Garbage time. San Antonio put out the triple towers. Olynyk, Bianbo, Plumlee.
17:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, we were waiting.
17:32 Bill Simmons? First time we'd seen that. I didn't even know they would do that. It was almost like in hockey when uh it's like a six two playoff game. And they put out the fourth line with like all the guys can fight and they're just kind of skating around in case anything happens for a couple of minutes. That was the vibe I was getting. Nothing happened.
17:48 Speaker 02 It's a different kind of high drama, but we all escaped unscathed somehow.
17:52 Bill Simmons? Wait, were you surprised how they use Bianbo as like a stretch? Stretch seven? I don't even know if he's a stretch five. He's just 25 feet from the basket for no reason.
18:02 Speaker 02 Given that Bismarck Bianbo is in the NBA in 2026, nothing else can surprise me.
18:07 Bill Simmons? It's amazing. Um, another big winner, NBC. They get a Saturday night game seven. I actually thought their crew, which I think has been pretty up and down because the two Reggie's Reggie and Jamal Crawford feeling it out. But I thought they did a good job tonight. Jamal Crawford. He had a couple of great points tonight. Like when he like JDub had a turnover, like where he fumbled the ball to bounce.
18:30 Speaker 02 I have liked this one too.
18:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And Crawford said, yeah, that's what happens when you're rusty. The hardest thing to come back is your ball handling. I'm like, oh, okay, nugget. I'll take it.
18:41 Speaker 02 It's an incredibly astute point, and we should also say exactly the thing that Jamal Crawford, one of the great ball handlers in history would say. It's like, yes, your thing would be the thing to go. But I do think he's right. Like it is where you feel clumsiest coming back. Or where you see a player like JDub just looking a little out of sorts, a little out of rhythm. Like, how can you ask a guy to jump into a series this competitive and this brutal? Like this was an incredibly physical game. Bodies were hitting the floor all over the place, not in the Zapruder level analysis of flopping kind of way, but in the like, people are getting decked.
19:12 Bill Simmons? No, this was a rugby game.
19:14 Speaker 02 Absolute rugby game, a skirmish and a scrum to get every loose ball. And you're just throwing JDub out there and being like, I guess, see what you can do. It's a lot to ask of him.
19:23 Bill Simmons? That was another reason in the second quarter why I thought OKC was going to come back. Cause once the refs were allowing three bodies on the ground for half the plays. Is that what OKC wants? They have Dort and Caruso and Hartenstein and, and J. Will. Like that, that sounds great for them and they have SGA who's good at navigating that stuff. But it turned out to be way better for San Antonio.
19:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:47 Bill Simmons? I think weirdly A.J. Mitchell is a winner. Thought they really missed his ad lib offense, second ball handler, take the pressure off, off Shaq, cause otherwise you're just looking at Jared McCain, who, you know, who has been, I would say, considering for what they gave up on him, like a revelation in these playoffs, but this was a lot, doing this in San Antonio against a crazy crowd. They really needed him to be awesome in this game and, you know, he's a second year guy.
20:15 Speaker 02 I, I really do respect with McCain though. I mean, he's a crucial ball handler for them right now, as you mentioned, and he will actually go at Wemby in a way that other guys won't. And he'll just see kind of like, if I bump him just enough, can I get a layup up? Can I get something up on the rim? So, you know, Cheddar Hartenstein can clean it up. He's aggressive in ways. They need him to be aggressive. He's just not quite up to the level of doing that as a driver right now. He's clearly a flamethrower shooter and we've seen the, like the Thunder tap into that when they really need it. But they need the ball handling right now more than they need the shooting.
20:46 Bill Simmons? All right. So when we think about game seven, which is two days from now, we've gone every other day and we, both teams are a little banged up.
20:56 Bill Simmons? We've seen the Wemby, you kind of know in the first quarter with him, if he has it or not, from a, I'm all over the place. I have the eye of the tiger or wow, Wemby looks tired. And it's just one of those two worlds. This is a game seven.
21:11 Bill Simmons? It's hard to say who has the most at stake in this game, cause it's a game seven to get to the finals. So technically everybody has something at stake. But Wemby knocking out OKC, be down 3-2, knocking out the back-to-back champs, a team that won, what did they win? Like 132 games in two seasons? And him basically, if they're going to win, he's going to be the best player in that game. And at age 22, I had the four of the seven best games in the series and we won four games to three. And now here we come, New York Knicks, you are now like, I feel like he has the most at stake, even though if it doesn't happen this year, we'll just be like, oh, it'll be fine. It'll happen for him next year. Who do you think has the most at stake?
21:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, Wemby is the most to gain, probably for that reason.
21:55 Bill Simmons? That's what it is, most to gain.
21:56 Speaker 02 Most to gain, but not a lot to lose. Cause you're right. I think right or wrong, we will expect that he has a lot of time ahead of him to be in series and competitive situations like this one. The most at stake, I mean, the Thunder are in such an odd place overall, just in terms of their reputation, like their place in the basketball consciousness. It's like they're defending champions and they get a lot of respect based on that. But clearly they're not the most liked team in recent basketball history. And I wonder if they lose a series like this one, and let's say next season is also a challenging one for whatever reason. Like you can see their story taking a really sharp turn. I, I don't think that's what's going to happen. I kind of do expect that OKC will win game seven. Um, I don't know that we're really in a position to
22:38 Speaker 02 predict anything at this point, uh, given the way this series has gone. But within that, the idea of Shay coming out of the series, shooting like 37% from the field in a, in a round that even though the Thunder are injured, they lose. I could see there being a lot of questions and a lot of interrogation about just like them and the construction of their team and what they should be moving forward.
22:59 Bill Simmons? And there's some, do we have the right team to battle Wemby?
23:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
23:02 Bill Simmons? We just lost to him and that the Spurs aren't even really the Spurs yet. It would open a lot of questions. Definitely a lot more like, oh man, we're already searching for answers here. We just won a kajillion games.
23:13 Speaker 02 I know.
23:13 Bill Simmons? We won the title last year. Now that we have to question ourselves. Um, I think from San Antonio's side, I'm trying to think like ranking dudes who would have to come through. Cause game sevens, they're slower, they're uglier, the more in the rock fight side.
23:30 Speaker 02 Yep.
23:32 Bill Simmons? What we have seen though in recent years is road teams being able to go on the road and winning game sevens, which in the old days, you just won game sevens at home. That's just how it went. And then that started to shift. And now every once in a while, we seem to have these Philly at Boston, Dallas at Phoenix. We have these ones where they're not even just winning on the road. They're killing teams on the road.
23:53 Speaker 02 They're just eradicating them.
23:55 Bill Simmons? With that said, I do feel like the home court has mattered unusually in this series because it ramps up the defense on both sides. The three-point shooters are going to be a little more comfortable at home. San Antonio, for the guys that have to come through, one of Vassal and Champagny.
24:12 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:12 Bill Simmons? I need a four or five-three game for one of them. I need Harper to play like he did today, period. I need Fox not to suck like he did. I don't need him to be good, but you can't suck. You can't go like one for 10. And I need Wemby to be closer to where he was in the three wins than the three losses. What else needs to happen for them?
24:32 Speaker 02 I think they probably need another stretch like they had tonight where they look really good in the minutes without Wemba Yama on the floor. Like this was one of the first times where that really broke for them in this series. They looked confident. They were hitting shots. The ball movement was really good. The energy felt right. And that's an area where like Kelton Johnson has become a really important player for them in this series from an energy standpoint. And as Fox has kind of faded into the background and when Harper was hurt, Kelton was one of the few guys who was consistently driving for them. So I would say he's pretty important for them too, and sort of counterbalancing the upswing of OKC's role players at home.
25:08 Bill Simmons? Well, we have Thunder by three and a half on FanDuel is our game seven line.
25:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:12 Bill Simmons? Today's game seven line or game six line was Spurs by three and a half. And I think the last game was Thunder by three and a half. So it's just basically whoever's home is, that must be the established home court advantage. From a referee standpoint.
25:29 Bill Simmons? So if it's, if they're not calling stuff like they did today, usually I would think that helps OKC, but today it really helps San Antonio.
25:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:37 Bill Simmons? It feels like the kind of game when there's a million fouls is always better for OKC. We'll see who we, who we'll get. Today, we had Zach Zarba. I forget who else, but I'm sure we'll get, James Capers is probably the best ref they have, maybe Mark Davis, but hopefully it's not another Tony Brothers 80 foul situation would be my, my one guess.
26:01 Speaker 02 We simply can't.
26:03 Bill Simmons? But can Dorton Caruso unleash the, you know, the Brews Brothers routine? Are they going to be allowed to do it? Are they going to ramp up their stuff on Fox and Harper?
26:17 Bill Simmons? And does Wemby have it in him this early?
26:19 Speaker 02 Yeah. I think-
26:21 Bill Simmons? Because if he does, we're going to have four days to talk about a Spurs Knicks finals, and it's just going to be a Wemby fest. You're going to have this new, the new generational superstar here, and then you're going to have the most famous team we have other than the Celtics and the Lakers trying to win their first title in 53 years, and it's going to be about as good from a, from a hype finals as we're going to have.
26:43 Speaker 02 Well, it's already been a Wemby fest. I mean, have you been listening to this podcast? Have you listened to group chat? Like, it's, it's all we can all talk about because we're, I mean, games like this are why, you know?
26:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
26:52 Speaker 02 It was a totally different kind of dominance than I think a lot of people were calling for. There was a lot of like, how do you get Wemby closer to the basket? How do you get him attacking more? Turns out he can just beat you this way too on some nights. And if he's going to be hitting step backs against Isaiah Hardenstein, that might just be it. Like, that just might be your season right there. I, I really can't wait for this. I, I do think as far as the OKC like balance of all that physicality and what the refereeing looks like, even if they're giving a lot of leeway on that stuff, I think Lou Dort just has to play less. Like, the self-destructive possessions that we've been talking about with this game, there were like maybe five to seven of those in the first half alone between the hijacking possessions from three, like looking off of swing passes that he should have made and taking his own.
27:37 Speaker 02 He like flopped really badly on defense, like trying to sell a moving screen that then led to a wide open three. There were just so many possessions like that where I think in a game seven, you can't leave anything to chance. It needs to be like a Caruso playing 36 minutes and a Lou Dort playing 10 to 15 minutes. Like, even this felt like too much.
27:58 Bill Simmons? Two for 11, one for nine for three in 22 minutes.
28:01 Speaker 02 Brutal.
28:01 Bill Simmons? Minus nine. Even if you look at all his games in May, he's only scored 10 points once. 6, 3, 10, 6, 5, 8, 0, 2, 7, 5. Eye test wise, doesn't look like the same guy from last year. He's a little bit older and he's like a running back or a tight end who has a lot of miles on him. And he has a team option on him next year that I'm sure is weighing over his head too. Like, you know, he's playing for his next contract and he just has looked out of sorts this whole time. I thought, I've said this before, I thought he was the reason, him and Caruso were the reasons they won that game four in Indiana, which I think if they lose that game, I don't think they win the series. No matter, I don't think we get to a game seven against Halbert.
28:43 Speaker 02 And in George's defense too, like they really didn't need his scoring until this point, right? In the first two rounds, like the Thunder were doing just fine, but like going basket for basket. Shay was scoring at a much higher level. Chet was a more kind of like versatile unlocked offensive weapon. Although he's kind of, he's kind of tilted up as the series has gone on, I think with the offensive rebounding in particular. But they're just, in these games where everything goes to shit for them, they are so desperate for offense. And Lou Dort is, he is contributing to the strangulation that's happening there.
29:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I don't love plus minus, but even in the game the other night, 18 minutes minus four in a game that they won by 13.
29:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:21 Bill Simmons? And then what was he in this last one? Yeah, minus 16 in 17 minutes. I'm with you. I wonder like, this is one of the things, I mean, I love so many things about a game seven. You're just making different decisions than you're doing all year.
29:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:37 Bill Simmons? It's like, you're not there to, you don't care if feelings are hurt in a game seven. It's like, hey Lou Dort, you're going to play eight minutes tonight and that's just how it's going to go. Hey Caruso, you might play 32. We'll see what, what Wemby can pull out of him from a, from a minutes standpoint. I don't really understand his, how he's tired one day and then not tired the next. But when I saw him dressed, what was he dressed like, like a monk today?
29:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:59 Bill Simmons? What was that outfit? It was.
30:01 Speaker 02 I think it was, no?
30:02 Bill Simmons? Throwback to, where did he go to talk to the monks? Tibet?
30:07 Speaker 02 As one does.
30:09 Bill Simmons? Everyone from Tibet with that outfit.
30:13 Bill Simmons? It's really something. All right. So your prediction or you don't want to predict?
30:17 Speaker 02 I think OKC will win. I don't feel great about it. Clearly, the line between these two teams is very thin, but then varies wildly in terms of what the actual margin of victory is. I think for me, the shooting of the role players tilting back OKC's way, as it seems like it just will when they go back home and every other game, the nerves kind of playing into their favor, having been in games like this before, and specifically for Shay, like when it comes down to who do you feel confident will have the lift and the balance in their game in those moments? I do think you tilt a little toward the experience of someone like the Thunder in this case. And I do think that guys like Chet have made just enough of a change over the course of this series. He's been good defensively pretty
31:01 Speaker 02 much the whole way through, but he's finding enough ways to score where I'm like, I can kind of see the whole picture of a Thunder win coming together, even though based on tonight's game film, you would never expect it.
31:12 Bill Simmons? Who do you think the Knicks want to win?
31:14 Speaker 02 I think the Knicks want the most injured version of the Thunder to win possible.
31:20 Bill Simmons? Like a banged up, worn and torn Thunder?
31:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't think, even with how they played in the regular season and the cup with the Spurs and all that, both of the teams, the Knicks and the Spurs, were in such different places then. The idea of grappling with this version of Wemby is such a unique challenge and such a daunting one that I don't think anyone necessarily wants that versus the Thunder are a great team, incredibly formidable defense even still, but you see the state that JDub is in. You see that AJ Mitchell isn't on the floor and you see kind of like what that does to their offense to lack any kind of supplementary options whatsoever. I think the Knicks would prefer that sort of matchup than trying to figure out the Spurs.
32:00 Bill Simmons? I'm leaning OKC as well.
32:04 Bill Simmons? It would be unusual for a team this young to come back from 3-2 and win a game seven against, on the road against the defending champs. But you just made the point. These aren't really the defending champs if J-Dub is just gonna basically not be playing.
32:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:22 Bill Simmons? I mean, at this point, like whatever he was doing tonight, I'd rather just not play him and ride with the guys I have.
32:27 Speaker 02 I wouldn't be surprised if game seven, he plays that like first three-minute blip and then you never see him again. You know, like they try it for a second just to see if there's any more like traction there, but if it looks like this, I don't think he can play much in that game.
32:42 Bill Simmons? Unbelievable stuff. Zach Lowe and I are gonna be going live on Netflix after game seven. So my Sunday night pod this weekend is going to be a Saturday night pod. We're just gonna, just gonna go for it. We'll see how it goes. Before you and I go, Rob Mahoney, the lottery reform thing, House and Jacoby and I are about to talk about that after the break, and I'm gonna give my thoughts to them. But the lottery reform, they really went for it. They did a bunch of stuff. There was one piece that we didn't talk about in the next segment that it looks like the second round is gonna reverse in order from...
33:20 Speaker 02 I didn't even see this.
33:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Now, it hasn't been confirmed in the reporting yet, but it was one of the things they voted on that basically if you have the 16th pick, you'll have the first pick in the second round. My, spoiler alert, my thoughts were, all this sounds great until we end up with the 1993 situation of the Magic winning twice in a row.
33:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:42 Bill Simmons? Do you like this 3-2-1 thing?
33:44 Speaker 02 I like elements of it. I think there are so, there are parts of it that especially in the transition feel super clunky and maybe borderline unfair to some of the teams that are been operating under the assumption of the league as is, as they try to put their teams together. Like the Grizzlies in particular are in such, they get such a raw deal because of the trade that they made with the Jazz, where they had the Jazz's pick. Like, I feel like most of the other widespread overhauls of a system like this in NBA history are usually stationed a couple of years out for exactly this reason. It's like, okay, we gotta let the pick protections expire. We gotta get through this cycle of transactions and then the changes will start. I applaud like a more urgent dealing, but the trade off for that is like, I don't know how you could explain this to the Grizzlies.
34:29 Speaker 02 They're like, oh, I'm sorry. I know you thought you were getting what was going to be like a top five pick from the Jazz potentially in the future, but you're just fucked.
34:38 Bill Simmons? Well, and then the other side of it is like you're Indiana, you trade your first rounder this year that you lose because of the protections. And then you trade your 29 first as well. And then all these rules come in.
34:53 Bill Simmons? And now that 29 first is a much better pick than it was. I feel like the picks that really weren't like from the shittiest teams that were that next level of like playoff teams or French playoff teams. Like if you have like Miami's first round pick.
35:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:08 Bill Simmons? Right. You have Golden State's first round pick or who knows, even the having the Celtics pick in 2029. All of a sudden those picks gained value.
35:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
35:18 Bill Simmons? And, and then the other piece of it where normally like the Celtics had those Nets picks a couple of times. And there was one year when, uh, I think it was the, I can't remember which one of them, but Brook Lopez was just on a heater. And it was like, we're going to get the top three pick from the Nets. And then Brook Lopez was just going nuts for like two straight months. Because the Nets had nothing to play for and they played into a little bit of a later position.
35:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:44 Bill Simmons? Now it's like, you could have a team's pick, they could play into that four to 10 spot. And now you have a better odds of the pick anyway. So I, I don't know. It's, there's, they really, really blew this up. In ways that I don't even know what all the ramifications are going to be. I'm surprised like you that they didn't wait a year. And just say like, maybe even with the top five protection or whatever, you know, and the can't win two years in a row. Why not start that in 2027?
36:10 Speaker 02 We've seen that again with almost every other giant rule change in the league. And I mean, this is going to have, I would think massive repercussions on the trade market in general for exactly what you outlined with the picks, right? Like any mid level team is going to talk themselves into holding on to a pick because it could be immensely valuable under this new odd standard. And so I'm like, I'm cool with that as somebody who like, I like talking about the games more than the potential trades, but I hope the league is okay with the fact that so much of the interest in the NBA is driven by who is the player your team can get. And I just think we're going to see fewer trades as a result of this. Like it's going to really sap a lot of the energy out of, or really the ability for these teams to deal with each other. If it's all just player for player and there's really not a lot of sweetening involved with the picks.
36:54 Bill Simmons? All right, we're gonna, I'm taking a break and then House and Jacoby are coming on. We're gonna do a mailbag, but we talk about lottery reform at the top. More importantly for you, not only can we hear you on group chat on the Ringer NBA Show, but you're going live on Sunday for, uh, for the, the season or series finale of Euphoria. We are not sure.
37:13 Speaker 02 Unclear.
37:15 Bill Simmons? Season finale, series finale, we have no idea, but you're going to be live on our Ringer TV YouTube channel, you and Joanna Robinson.
37:21 Speaker 02 Yes.
37:22 Bill Simmons? Was that hour and a half? How long do we think this show's gonna be?
37:24 Speaker 02 I think it's confirmed. It's over 90 minutes. Uh, so yeah.
37:27 Bill Simmons? Oh, my God.
37:27 Speaker 02 We're gonna be going live at 8:30 Pacific. Come along. Maybe every character will be dead. Maybe we'll be setting up like a weird backdoor pilot season four. I don't know what's going on with this show anymore, but I can't wait to find out.
37:38 Bill Simmons? Is they, they, they can't torture Jacob Elordi anymore because he's been killed off, right? Can they torture his corpse?
37:44 Speaker 02 Spoiler alert, if you're not caught up on Euphoria, it's not going well for Jacob Elordi right now.
37:49 Bill Simmons? Just kidding. Well, it's, it's gone terribly.
37:52 Speaker 02 It's true.
37:53 Bill Simmons? I don't think it could go worse.
37:54 Speaker 02 Correction. It's going very well for Jacob Elordi, who no longer has to be like doing acting in one room by himself on the show anymore.
38:00 Bill Simmons? I know.
38:01 Speaker 02 But for Nate Jacobs, he is, uh, he's having a rough go.
38:04 Bill Simmons? I'm, you guys are bigger, you and Joanna are bigger fans of this season than I was.
38:08 Speaker 02 I think that's true.
38:09 Bill Simmons? My daughter is glass half full on everything. So she's like, no, no, it's good. It's good. I don't think it's been good. And I think you can really feel them filming in different
38:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:17 Bill Simmons? parts of, you know, you just, you know what I like on a TV show? When the best characters are all together for scenes.
38:23 Speaker 02 Imagine it.
38:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah, a little radical. The other thing we're doing this weekend, because I'm on Saturday night with Zach, rewatchables now moving to Sunday and we did, uh, 2001. So that is coming as well. 2001, A Space Odyssey will now be running Sunday night for rewatchables. Rob, thanks for staying up with me. Great to see you. We're gonna take a break, come back with, uh, House of Jacoby.
38:43 Speaker 02 Thanks, Bill.
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40:11 Bill Simmons? Learn more at paypal.com/paymonthly. All right, we're recording this part of the podcast. It is before game six of Spurs-Thunders. So if there's an Artest melee situation or something crazy, we didn't know about it. The lottery reform came in today, guys. The 3-2-1 method. There's going to be 37 balls total. The bottom three teams will get two instead of three. They're calling it the relegation zone. They can't fall lower than the 12th pick, from what I can gather. And I don't know if I like this or not. I like it more than I did a month ago. But I still feel like House's Wizards, for instance, if they, if you had tried the
40:55 Bill Simmons? whole year, how many games would you have won, House? If you'd really tried?
40:59 Speaker 03 Twenty-ish. I mean, with this, with the original roster with CJ McCollum, because McCollum, they went on a stretch where they won five of seven games at the end of December into early January, like, hey CJ, great to see you. Thank you for everything. They literally traded him after that, that stretch of success. But I have a more important question, which is to Jacoby, which is, you know, how many times has he tried the three, two, one method with his wife?
41:26 Bill Simmons? Has he been in the relegation zone? The answer is yes.
41:29 Speaker 03 Definitely been in the relegation zone.
41:31 Bill Simmons? Well, here's the thing. You mentioned the McCollum trade. So one of the benefits of this, I guess, would be that we're going to see less deadline trades and giveaways, and we're going to see less of just Anthony Davis getting traded for nothing, or like what the Bulls did. If I'm the Bulls, like, do I trade the Sumu and I, do I trade Kobe White if it's not really technically going to make me that much worse and I'm going to be in that four to 10 range, which is going to have the most ping pong balls anyway? Are we going to see guys get given away? Are we going to see conversely, teams that are worried about being in the relegation zone, trying to trade for players that will help them? There's all of these ramifications to this that I'm trying to wrap my head around,
42:13 Bill Simmons? Jacoby's. But the biggest thing, and we were all live for this, was the 93 lottery, when they did 66 balls, and they did, it was 11 teams in the lottery. House remembers this. We were both out of college. And it basically was the most simple way you could do it. The worst team got 11 balls, second worst got 10, third worst got nine, and went all the way down to the best of the worst teams was Orlando, who got one ball. They had a one in 66 chance, and they got Chris Webber, who they then traded for Penny Hardaway and three first round picks. And everyone lost their fucking minds. Do you remember this? Because they had gotten Shaq the year before, then they got Webber, and everybody's like, oh my God, how can this happen? And that led to 30 years of lottery reform, Jacoby.
42:57 Bill Simmons? So why wouldn't that happen again with this new system?
43:01 Speaker 04 Well, a couple of things. Number one, that's not the biggest thing. The biggest thing is that they're going to televise it. Like, we were talking about this last time.
43:07 Bill Simmons? Oh, live in person.
43:08 Speaker 04 Like, you gotta remember, like, you know, Jacoby, the TV producer, I've got to put my producer hat on here. Like, this is now a television event. Instead of like them doing it in some back room and then like a host reading it. That, to me, is the biggest thing. It's like, it'll be a really fun thing to watch. Franchises change like right there in the moment. Instead of like, it is a little stale when like Ersin Young has it in a briefcase or whatever. And it's like in this secret room. I like the idea that it's going to happen live on television. It's going to be a television event. The second best thing about this.
43:36 Bill Simmons? Well, hold on. We figured it's gonna, we figured it's gonna be 37 balls and just one pops out and that's it. Like, they're not gonna do the complicated four balls thing. It'll just be one?
43:47 Speaker 04 Yeah, it'll be like, I imagine it'll be like, like watching like the Lotto on like the, the, the five o'clock news when we were kids. There'll be like some hot girl, just like the ball pop up. It'll have like a
43:56 Bill Simmons? Wait a minute.
43:57 Speaker 04 T logo on it.
43:58 Bill Simmons? Way easier to fix, House.
44:00 Speaker 03 Well, here's the thing. Jacoby, uh, the most recent draft was very dramatic. Um, and I know that the, that people knew the results. I didn't know the results. And it, it was, it was live enough for me. I mean, it was very, very, the last five picks, as a fan of, of, you know, the Wizard was, I was on the edge of my seat. I was barely breathing.
44:23 Bill Simmons? That's fair. But that's why we need the actual GMs out there, the people at the most at stake in real time. What was your second favorite thing, Jacobes?
44:31 Speaker 04 Easily. And my pod brother, Chris Vernon, it was not unanimous. The governor's voted 29 approved and one did not. And the Memphis Grizzlies were like, fuck this. I love it so much. And that all has to do with the Utah pick, as we've discussed. But I just, I just love the idea of the Grizzlies are just like, somehow the Grizzlies get screwed no matter what.
44:54 Bill Simmons? Well, the thing is, in a fantasy league, if you change the rules this dramatically for the next year where people have future stuff, there would be a lot of arguments and angry emails going back and forth about, well, I have three first round picks in the minor league draft next year. Now you're changing rules. I mean, this is bullshit. You're trying to screw me. Um, but somehow that didn't happen in the NBA. They did add the top five restricted thing. They did add the, you couldn't win the picks two years in a row, the first pick. So I like that stuff, but, um, I don't know. I, I, I feel like this could lead to some result that we're all completely horrified by. Right? Like OKC having somebody's pick who's the 10th pick and then OKC ending up with the first pick or
45:36 Bill Simmons? just some sort of thing where they're like, oh, this was the worst case scenario and it happened. Cause that's what happened with the Chris Webber thing. I don't mind it though. I don't mind the idea of a relegation zone and teams being humiliated. Right? House's team should have been humiliated the last couple of years and it finally happened with Bam out of
45:51 Speaker 03 Well, they, they were, yeah, they were humiliated.
45:53 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
45:54 Speaker 03 Right? But that's all they're doing was, was responding as rational actors to a system that they didn't create, but they certainly leveraged, you know, the, the opportunity. So we'll see what set of opportunities.
46:06 Bill Simmons? Sounds like we all kind of like it.
46:08 Speaker 04 Well, it's an improvement and they're also like all NBA changes. They're just like floating out ideas to see how the public reacts to it. And this has got like they call, I, I read the thing is called like a sunset provision. So it actually is only in place for until the 29 year.
46:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
46:23 Speaker 04 So they can't change it. If something goofy happens, they're sort of being like, we're testing this. It's a three year test drive and we'll reevaluate in three years, which I kind of like too.
46:32 Bill Simmons? The whole concept of watching your team suck ass for six months and then falling into the relegation zone is really rough. Like, like we really gotta, because there's going to be some fanbases, like if that had happened to Indiana this year. They don't have Halbert and they lose Turner. They have a bunch of injuries the first half of the year. And just by no fault of their own, they ended up bottom three and had two balls instead of three. That's rough.
46:59 Speaker 03 Well, they got the functional equivalent of that.
47:03 Speaker 03 For all of that pain, they got Zubac.
47:05 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah. You're right.
47:06 Speaker 03 They drafted Zubac.
47:07 Bill Simmons? Pritchard's gonna apologize again. I'll tell you this. I'll pass along some, some intel that's been floating around.
47:14 Speaker 04 Ooh.
47:16 Bill Simmons? Apparently the Kings love Akuf, which I don't think is a super secret there at seven. And the Clippers have five and don't need Akuf because they have, um, they have a point guard already. And it would be really easy for them to flip picks and for them to end up with a little extra something, something from Sacramento, which I guess would be some sort of swap or future pick, whatever. They could turn that Zubac pick into the seventh pick, Indiana's 2029 pick, and then something from Sacramento, the best team in the league to trade for, which would make it one of the better trades we've had, right? Just for Zubats, who's like, I like Zubats. I voted for him 13 months ago, but that's an incredible trade. I have to get off some stuff that I forgot to do on Tuesday.
48:01 Bill Simmons? Biggest losers from the Knicks Cavs sweep in the East. I'm just going to read this to you in no particular order. Speaking of Sacramento, did you see this? This was floating around a little bit about Sacramento, the 2026 finals. If San Antonio makes it, it could be Mike Brown against Aaron Fox. 25 Halliburton was the best guy in a finals team. 24 Luca was the best guy in a finals team who they passed up for Barbara Bagley. And then 2023, Michael Malone was the coach of the team that won. House, do you have anyone from Sacramento that could throw the Wizards into this for 27?
48:40 Speaker 03 I saw that.
48:40 Bill Simmons? The Sacramento thing?
48:41 Speaker 03 I really admired it, but you know, the, it only parallels Washington. This Washington franchise, I think the streak is now up to 18 straight finals, 19 straight finals, where a former Wizard is going to participate in, in, in the, the finals. But the Kings are the gift that keeps on giving. That, that's where our focus should be. It's appropriately there. And let's just let them keep doing what they're doing. It's very good for the basketball. It's very good for the, for the narrative. It's very good for our podcasts, like the over under podcast at the beginning, uh, you know, in late October.
49:18 Bill Simmons? The only things we got right.
49:19 Speaker 04 Was Zach Lowe was was the most vicious I've ever seen Zach Lowe.
49:24 Speaker 03 He really was.
49:25 Bill Simmons? Went dark. Was like watching like a TV drama and the cop goes dark and starts doing weird shit.
49:31 Speaker 04 I feel like you guys should be in the relegation zone because of that over under's podcast.
49:35 Bill Simmons? We probably should. I mean, I'd be fine with it. We only get to pick 25 of the teams. Jacob's, we dealt with Sacramento. I think Vivek's a nice guy. I've always run, anytime I run to, he's a super nice guy. I'm not sure he should own an NBA team. I'm pretty sure at this point, but we dealt with him for that Grantland thing we did. When they picked Stauskas, which was one of those mini documentaries that we had, well, I forgot what year was that? Like 2011 or 12?
49:59 Speaker 04 Was it 13?
50:00 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they're 13. They led us in their draft room and it was clear. Nobody wanted to take Stauskas instead, except for Vivek who overruled everyone. It's like Stauskas, Stauskas. And it became this great internet moment and he's just been giving us comedy ever since.
50:16 Speaker 04 There's nothing was better than the, maybe we should play four guys on, on defense thing. It was like, what, what?
50:22 Bill Simmons? Forgot about that.
50:22 Speaker 04 It's like, it's like some things that shouldn't be said out loud, but there was a, they actually came to us for that. They're like, we will give you full access to our draft room. We're like, sure. And that's a being a pretty embarrassing.
50:34 Bill Simmons? I respected it. All right. So Sacramento was a loser. Detroit's GM not doing anything at the trade deadline, which we all killed them on, on every podcast we have, but why not? But I really wonder if they watched that going, fuck, if we'd had one more score. James Harden, who I thought took a proper pounding from everybody the last couple of weeks, but he's four straight trades now where the team that got him probably has real regrets after the trade. What is, what's the equivalent of this house? Like what food order is the, I regret it the next day food order, but it seemed like a great idea at 8:30 at night after three drinks.
51:11 Speaker 03 I'm going to say this with love in my heart. I'm going to say this respectfully. The answer for me personally is Kentucky Fried Chicken. For, for some reason, for some, it just decimates me and I only order it under the circumstances you just described. I'm, if I'm having fried chicken and I'm sober, then I order Popeyes because Popeyes is by far. And then if, uh, you know, Popeyes isn't around, it's Bojangles. I mean, I mean, the South, I'm where I've access. But Kentucky Fried Chicken is everywhere and it does have a tendency to be open till two in the morning, uh, in a lot of places.
51:44 Bill Simmons? Jacobs, you agree with that, that James Harden, the KFC order, four straight teams now.
51:49 Speaker 04 It's really just anything.
51:50 Bill Simmons? Did we ever have James Harden last night?
51:53 Speaker 04 Anything after 11 p.m. is the answer. That's the appropriate answer.
51:56 Speaker 03 That's true. That's true.
51:57 Speaker 04 Those are now being called James Harden's.
51:59 Bill Simmons? The other great James Harden thing, 98 playoff wins now without a finals appearance, which ties him for the all time record with Karl Malone. They're, they're now linked, Karl Malone and James Harden, most playoff wins without a finals appearance. All right. So I'm making him a loser.
52:17 Speaker 03 I want to, I want to push back. Why, why is James Harden a loser as a result of? I mean, there are very specific things you can point to. Once again, several games where his turnovers exceeded.
52:29 Bill Simmons? How about just not running back on fast breaks? Just terrible transition defense that's been the story of his career.
52:36 Speaker 03 That's right. That's right. It's been the story of his career. It's no longer a bug. It's a feature. Plus he's 36 years old. So my, my real quibble with Cleveland and Harden, I thought that trade was successful. I think it made sense. They, they, they couldn't rely on Darius Garland anymore. They went on a run. They, you know, put themselves in the top four seeds of, of the East and they, you know, handled their business all the way up till they, they encountered a team that's just better than them. And, and Harden was important to them, especially in the first two series. They both those series went seven games. I'm not defending James Harden, but what I'm saying is I don't think he's a loser based on what we just saw.
53:18 Speaker 03 He's 36 years old. That, that the franchise is the loser, especially if they extend him. But James Harden was just James Harden to me.
53:25 Bill Simmons? But that's the issue. Jacobs, they clearly have a wink, wink with him. It's already come out.
53:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:32 Bill Simmons? So it's not just like, oh, we've traded for James Harden's expiring contract and we dumped the Garland thing and we'll be way under the tax next year because this money's coming off. He's going to get like a two or a three year deal for like 30 million a year. So they're actually, actually stuck with him going forward, knowing that him and Mitchell as a defensive backcourt isn't great. So I would say that's bad.
53:55 Speaker 04 There was, I also thought it was bad at the end of game one when Brunson just went after him, possession after possession after possession.
54:03 Bill Simmons? Snatched his soul.
54:04 Speaker 04 And yes, that wasn't great. And then after the series.
54:07 Speaker 03 The whole stuff.
54:08 Speaker 04 I know that is, I'm sure, I'm sure Atkinson's gonna, gonna be on this list, but also after the series, when he says, I, I, we are the better team. I was like, oh, I just saw four basketball contests between the two of you and I, I didn't have the same impression, Mr. Harden.
54:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, I, that was superb. I loved him for doing that. He was wonderful. I thought I played great defense. I thought we were the better team. Magnificent. Standing ovation.
54:31 Bill Simmons? Has just some good zags today. Are you gonna zag on Kenny Atkinson being one of the big losers of round three?
54:36 Speaker 03 No, no, I mean.
54:38 Bill Simmons? I don't think he'll ever live that down. I feel like that's gonna come up for the rest of his coaching career.
54:42 Speaker 03 He cannot and he should not, and he shouldn't be a head coach ever again. I mean, I'm still looking for, I'm looking for those timeouts that he held on to in game one. I'm looking for him on eBay. He hasn't put them up yet, but you know, I, I wonder what, what price he could get for those. I think he feels like they, they were valuable to him in some form or fashion because they're still in his pocket. He could, he can't, he can't use now because they, they're out, not playing any more games, but no, that dude is an assistant coach.
55:10 Bill Simmons? The combo of that, the James Harden having to bring him back, being way over the luxury tax again, and then having the Knicks fans completely take over your arena for two straight games, which happened in two straight series, by the way. That was about as rough of a sweep as I can remember. We've had bad sweeps. That was like, Jacob's, what was the worst sweep than that? It was like a soul snatching sweep, right?
55:36 Speaker 04 It had everything you would want because they looked so good at the beginning of game one. And I'm sitting there watching it. I'm like, they, the Knicks had too much time off. Like they're too rusty. This other team has been in battles for two, seven game series. They're a better team. They were so much better for that first half. So they had the, the gut wrenching loss in overtime. Then everything else was just completely outclassed for in game two and game three. Then you had the fan takeover and then you have game four where Mitchell comes out and he's giving it, he's giving it his best in the first half. And the second half, they just didn't, they quit. They just gave up. And you can hear the chants. It was just like, that's pretty bad. I mean, it's also bad that. When they had to come out with like a headline that said like the Cavs are continuing with Kenny Atkinson.
56:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
56:21 Speaker 04 And it was shocking. I was like, oh, oh, wow. I had to read it twice. I was like, oh, they made like an announcement that he's keeping his job.
56:28 Bill Simmons? Well, how's the counter is they finished fourth in the 30-team league. Don't overreact.
56:33 Speaker 03 Well, counter to the counter, they were supposed to win 57 games. They were supposed to match the output of the previous year. And they had to trade Darius Garland, you know, before the trade deadline to, to capture the winning percentage. And there is no explanation other than in and out. I mean, Mobley was supposed to continue to take another step. I mean, here's the thing for me, it's a sour situation. You laid it out BS. Let me ask you guys this. When, let's just look at the calendar, what date before or after August the 1st is the first rumor? That Donovan Mitchell would be interested in playing for a different basketball team?
57:14 Bill Simmons? And is that as exciting for 12 other teams as it was like a year ago? Well, I had my next loser, Evan Mobley, who I think is now a legit threat to be the fall guy. And get sent somewhere because they got to get into the tax somehow. And if they, if they have the wink, wink with Harden, then it's Jared Allen, it's Mobley or it's, or it's, or it's Mitchell.
57:38 Bill Simmons? Jacob's, do you think, could you see yourself at Barclays next year? Eating a $15 Phineas pizza and watching Mobley run high screens with Ben Seraph?
57:49 Bill Simmons? Is that in play?
57:50 Speaker 04 That's not so exciting.
57:51 Bill Simmons? That's not getting it. What if he was running it with Nolan Traore?
57:55 Speaker 04 That's not doing, that's not doing it for me either.
57:57 Bill Simmons? No, you're not, not taking that train down there?
58:00 Speaker 04 I do kind of like Jaeger Jomen. I can't afford to go to Knicks games, so Nets games are in play.
58:07 Speaker 04 It I could, I could, you know what? I could see both, both arguments, right? This was the first series with this core where they were like really healthy. Every other year, there was like, yeah, but Garland was out and you know, and I also kind of feel like Mitchell was compromised against the Knicks, but I don't think that was going to make such a big difference. I could see them saying, let's make some tweaks and not make a huge move this offseason. But I could also see them saying, we've had this core. It has been mildly successful and very successful in the regular season, but not successful in the postseason. Something needs to change. Like I could see both sides of this decision.
58:41 Bill Simmons? How's who says no to Mobley for the sixth pick?
58:45 Speaker 03 Uh, who has the sixth pick?
58:47 Bill Simmons? Brooklyn.
58:48 Speaker 04 No.
58:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, Cavs say no.
58:52 Bill Simmons? You save 50 million bucks. You bring in a guy making about nine.
58:56 Speaker 03 That's a different incentive.
58:57 Bill Simmons? Saves, you save like almost 40 million bucks and then all the luxury tax stuff too.
59:02 Speaker 03 The reason why it's reasonable is because if that team looks in the mirror and you know, drinks some actual sort of honest serum, some truth serum, are they better than the Celtics next year? Do they think they are?
59:14 Bill Simmons? That's why I'd be blowing it up.
59:15 Speaker 03 Do they think that they're better?
59:16 Bill Simmons? I would trade Mitchell if I were them, but I, I just think they have to do something. I think they had their window and this is it. Like the, the East is going to be better next year. I don't see how they're better next year. Pardon a year older. So, um, another loser, LeBron James. I feel like Cleveland was a, like a fifth ring title chase team. I'll go there. You guys are close. I'll take the minimum. Everyone loves when somebody takes the minimum. When Karl Malone did that for the oh, three, oh, four Lakers. It was like, oh my God, this guy just wants to win, man. He'll do anything.
59:52 Bill Simmons? I don't think LeBron's fixing anything if he goes there. It's they, they weren't a LeBron James away from beating the, beating the Knicks and then going into the next round against San Antonio, OKC and winning. And I just think that option's out. I don't see it. You agree, Jecovas?
1:00:09 Speaker 04 I'm fascinated by what LeBron does this offseason because I can't see anything that works, like literally of all the teams, like none of it really makes sense. And the problem is, he is a valuable player, so he should be compensated for his production.
1:00:26 Bill Simmons? What, what's the price though?
1:00:27 Speaker 04 There's no real spot for him.
1:00:28 Bill Simmons? It's not a max price, but is it like 25 million a year, House? What is it?
1:00:33 Speaker 04 30?
1:00:33 Bill Simmons? Two for 50?
1:00:35 Speaker 03 It's whatever the team he decides he wants to spend next year with can afford and fit and have one more great player. I still love, I mean, honestly, I think LeBron is a winner by virtue of what happened with Cleveland. Cleveland's the loser, not LeBron. LeBron wins by not having-
1:00:51 Bill Simmons? LeBron doesn't have to go there.
1:00:52 Speaker 03 And he doesn't have to be coached by Kenny Atkinson. What the, I mean, what are we talking about?
1:00:56 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:00:57 Speaker 03 The, the, the two options to me that are viable, my, A, number one, the one I root for the most is the one that you threw out there, which is Kevin Durant and LeBron going to Golden State.
1:01:06 Bill Simmons? Oh, Durant too? Can we put Davis in the Durant spot? I have Davis in there now.
1:01:11 Speaker 03 You have Davis going to Golden State?
1:01:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:01:13 Speaker 03 So it's AD, LeBron.
1:01:16 Bill Simmons? The Wizards got Butler and Golden State's 27 first. You'll, you're doing that.
1:01:20 Speaker 03 Done, done.
1:01:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you're lucking, you're lucking that thing.
1:01:22 Speaker 03 Done. Take that. I'll take that right now.
1:01:24 Bill Simmons? They figure out how to get LeBron with the mid-level, they bring Davis, they still have the 11th pick, they'll get a good player because this draft's really good. And we get the expendables. I had a fake sign and trade. I don't know if this is possible with the Harden, who knows what the Harden extension is, but could you do a three-way where Durant goes to the Lakers, LeBron goes to the Cavs, and Harden goes back to Houston? And all the money just kind of works? And it's just kind of, it just, Durant's playing with Luca and Reeves, LeBron goes back to Cleveland, but is able to make like 35, 40 million a year, and then Harden just goes to Houston and kind of gives them something they need, which is a guy who can create offense? House likes that one.
1:02:07 Speaker 03 It's kind of funny. It's kind of funky.
1:02:09 Bill Simmons? It's a merry-go-round of old guys.
1:02:12 Speaker 03 The, the problem is, I think LeBron and JJ, uh, the only other, like, there's only a handful of coaches I can see LeBron tying his, his wagon to.
1:02:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but you can't, they're not paying him more than, I don't think, 15 million a year. That's crazy. They gotta pay Reeves like 40. You still want to make the team better. You have a window with Luca now where you have to improve it. I, I just don't. I don't see them doing it. I think another loser is the Celtics, who won a title in 2024 with a 27 year old star and a 26 year old star. And now have twice, two years in a row, lost their team you'd most want to be in the East title. They lose it last year to Indiana. That's like, I'd rather be Indiana going forward with the Tatum injury. And then this year you'd be like, oh, I'd rather be the Knicks. They're gonna have like clearly a three year run. And the Celtics now have to deal with this juggernaut Knicks team.
1:03:07 Bill Simmons? Miami probably getting Giannis, Detroit probably getting somebody else and maybe they miss their window. It's depressing. I don't, I don't need you guys to talk about the Celtics. I want to mention that.
1:03:17 Speaker 03 No, Bill, you, you've not mentioned the Twitch streaming. I mean, we have to. I've never seen someone sort of alone in their house, talking to their computer, jeopardize their future with their franchise. I've never seen anything like this. Like fighting with Stephen A. Like what, I don't understand what's happening. He's like proposing like a neutral site, Stephen A. Debate? What is happening?
1:03:39 Bill Simmons? By the way, I'd be excited for that. Yeah. I was thinking if there was, if there was a Ringer staffer who started to do the Jalen Brown Twitch thing every night and was just kind of dancing with the line night after night, we probably would have had a phone call at this point like, hey, just check it in. You know, I don't know if this is a great idea. Another loser, Messiah Harry, who, can we talk about, he gave up Siakam and Ananobi, who are two key pieces of the last two Eastern Finals teams that we have. And he got quickly RJ Barrett and two firsts in the twenties. Is he in the new Joe Dumars house?
1:04:17 Speaker 03 Hey, well, he lost his job.
1:04:19 Bill Simmons? He got fired for it. But like they win the title because of the Kawhi trade and then Dumars style, everything he does after that is kind of shaky.
1:04:27 Speaker 03 I feel like it was fair for us, you know, the number of years leading up to this most recently completed season to be extremely critical of Toronto and the moves we were making. We were befuddled by them, the, the money they were spending on players. I mean, it's still, you know, Isaiah quickly is this, uh, Isaiah. Quickly is Emmanuel, I know, uh, is, is, is now like the poster child for how you don't do stuff in this, this.
1:04:52 Bill Simmons? You don't want 30 million dollars six men. You don't want 30 million dollars centers. Another loser is Adam Silver.
1:05:00 Bill Simmons? Because the James Dolan finals feud is here. This is going to be so fascinating to see how this works out. I don't think there's a lot of love lost. And I think usually when you have the finals in a location, the owners are usually helpful with the league. Not sure that's happening this time. I have two more. Vivek, Prokhorov, Robert Sarver, and Glenn Taylor have now passed James Dolan in the worst owners rankings in the 21st century. I think Dolan's out of the Mount Rushmore now. I mean, he canted over this team. They made Eastern Finals last year. They made the finals this year. He's out. And I think it's Vivek, Prokhorov, Sarver, Glenn Taylor. Does that sound like the right list, Jacob? Anybody else you'd throw in there? Off the top of your head?
1:05:44 Speaker 03 Pretty good there.
1:05:45 Bill Simmons? Prokhorov was amazing. He doesn't get enough credit.
1:05:49 Speaker 03 Oh, no. Yeah, he was fantastic.
1:05:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we're gonna spend money. We're spending more money than any team ever that a year later. I don't want to spend money anymore.
1:05:56 Speaker 03 Married. He said he would get married if they didn't win the championship.
1:05:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:06:00 Speaker 03 It's like, what?
1:06:01 Bill Simmons? I think actually Glenn Taylor might have been the worst one, though, because he even sold his team for way less than what it was worth. Like, he was just a terrible owner. He even fucked up the sale of his own franchise.
1:06:13 Speaker 03 And then tried to do a lawsuit over it.
1:06:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah, and then tried to sue the guys that bought it.
1:06:17 Speaker 03 A dead loser. I'm wondering, should Prokhorov and Jose be lumped together? Because Jose basically tried to run back the Prokhorov playbook with Harden, Kyrie.
1:06:29 Bill Simmons? Jose just seems like he's loyal to a front office that's not very good for some reason. But Jose at least made runs. Like, if Harden and Kyrie don't get hurt that year, they probably win the title, right?
1:06:40 Speaker 03 All I'll say is Reinsdorf would like a word. He'd like to, you know, some consideration in this conversation.
1:06:45 Bill Simmons? That's fair. Last one is...
1:06:47 Speaker 03 Chicago's a pretty big market.
1:06:48 Bill Simmons? The legacy kit owners, which we always have made fun of being terrible. Legacy kit owners won in '23, '24, and '26. Celtics win '24.
1:07:00 Bill Simmons? 23, the Cronkies, Josh was running the Nuggets and then 26, James Dolan. So there you go for that. All right, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back and have some good mailbag stuff for you guys. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air.
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1:08:23 Bill Simmons? All right, mailbag questions, you can send them to [email protected] . This is from Joe from Waterloo, Illinois. He said, "With the incredible playoff run of these Knicks, we need an updated key to the city rankings." This is for if you win the title, you just own the city and get the key. And he said, "Right now, the rankings in his mind, number one, Josh Allen. Number two, Jalen Brunson. Number three, Auston Matthews. Hockey. Number four, Caleb Williams. And number five, Jared Goff." Who's missing for you, Jacobs, in that one?
1:08:58 Speaker 04 Um, wanna put Geno Smith in there.
1:09:07 Speaker 03 What a phenomenal answer.
1:09:09 Bill Simmons? Geno's for what team? What team was he on?
1:09:11 Speaker 03 This is very funny. This is very funny. Go ahead. The Jets.
1:09:19 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:09:19 Speaker 04 Think about it. Think about it.
1:09:21 Bill Simmons? House?
1:09:22 Speaker 03 Um, I had two guys. Uh, I had Anthony Edwards because, you know, Minnesota deserves somebody and it's, there's nobody on their football team that, that you could point to. I mean, if Kyler Murray turns out to be, you know,
1:09:35 Bill Simmons? Yeah, don't hold it.
1:09:36 Speaker 03 Incredible version, but I, right. Uh, so I, I love Anthony Edwards and then I, I feel like, you know, Joe Burrow could be in the conversation. Cincinnati, the football team has, you know, a long record. I tried to come up with somebody from Atlanta, but I don't, I don't think Atlanta gives enough of a shit about sports.
1:09:53 Bill Simmons? Ironically, it'll be Anthony Edwards when he goes to Atlanta. Um, I had Anthony Edwards as well. I had Joe Burrows as well. I, Joe Burrow. I had Devin Booker because the Suns, even though they've been relevant every decade, have never actually won the title. And then I just put Browns QB TBD.
1:10:14 Bill Simmons? If it ever happens for them, I, I think that's top three. We just don't know who that is. But I, I think right now, I like that Josh Allen won Jalen Brunson too. I think that's right.
1:10:24 Speaker 03 Very good.
1:10:24 Bill Simmons? If Jalen Brunson wins the title for the Knicks, it's an all time, you're a hero. It's a standing O when you walk into a room. It's basically what Ortiz is like in Boston where Ortiz, like even now, all these years later, just walks in, people start applauding.
1:10:39 Speaker 04 I, I want to push back a little bit on Josh Allen.
1:10:42 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:10:43 Speaker 04 Give me Caleb Williams.
1:10:46 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:10:47 Speaker 04 Because it's Chicago, they just live and die with the Bears. They've like never had a good quarterback somehow.
1:10:53 Bill Simmons? They did win 40 years ago.
1:10:54 Speaker 04 The franchise. Yeah, they did. And, you know, and the Bills have a, a history, but I feel like just the big marketness of the city and like, you know, when the Cubs won, what a big deal it was. And, you know, I've been to Buffalo games. I've been to Buffalo a few times. It's a small town. You know what I mean? I just don't know it's going to impact the world the same way that a, a Bears Superbowl win on the back of a quarterback instead of a defense and a running back would be, uh, would be big.
1:11:21 Bill Simmons? When Jacoby says the Bills have a history, that's like saying Lamar Odom has tried drugs a couple of times. Like that's just, the Bills have more than a history.
1:11:34 Bill Simmons? The Bills are the fucking conjuring house. Um, all right. Next question is from Kevin. Jalen Brunson's success is often credited to his strong work ethic and mastery of fundamentals, similar to Jake Shuttlesworth, the father character in He Got Game, trying to instill into his son Jesus at a young age. That would be Rick Brunson. Do you think that Rick Brunson is a real life Jake Shuttlesworth? Jake Shuttlesworth, sans manslaughter?
1:12:04 Bill Simmons? So Jake Shuttle, I thought it was Shuttlesworth.
1:12:08 Speaker 04 I thought it was sans too, not sans, but okay.
1:12:11 Speaker 03 Whatever.
1:12:12 Bill Simmons? Or sans, sans?
1:12:13 Speaker 04 Sans. Sans, yeah, yeah, sans.
1:12:15 Speaker 03 Sans manslaughter.
1:12:17 Bill Simmons? So do you think Jake, no manslaughter, good Rick Brunson thing? Probably he wouldn't love it, but um, I do feel like that's one of the reasons Jalen Brunson is so tough though. You got the feeling his dad was just, it's like a sports movie. It's like, not as bad as Great Santini, but when the whole thing is-
1:12:34 Speaker 04 It's all based on that one video. It's that one video that we have of him dribbling up and they're filming it. And like his dad is being such like a, like a, like a hardo. And it seems like little, poor little Jalen Brunson is not having a good time in that video. Like he's, he's not enjoying, you know, working out with his dad on that sunny day. That video to me was not, I didn't love it, to be honest with you.
1:12:54 Bill Simmons? It's like me and Zoe with soccer, like some of the videos we have. It's Shuttlesworth. I knew I was right.
1:12:59 Speaker 03 Shuttlesworth. The remarkable thing to me with the Brunsons is Rick's role, which is enormous in the, on the, on the bench and in the organization. Cause I think he's had a hand, a steering hand in all of the team building that's taken place over the last three years that put this team into the finals. And he definitely had a hand in convincing his son to take an under market extension. Um, so that they could bring in this, this extra talent. I mean, there, there, it's a fascinating like documentary. At some point after the, this run is over, maybe even after Brunson's career is over. Let's sit down and really talk to the Brunsons about what went down for this time.
1:13:41 Bill Simmons? Well, you left out, they hired Rick Brunson as assistant coach. Before the summer that they were trying to sign Jalen Brunson to make him leave Dallas, which was an old college trick that they would do where you would sign the dad on the college team as you're trying to recruit the kid. So that worked too. I mean, Wes and Leon played all the tricks with building this Knicks team. They were, they were working it. Like they get OG and Inobi, knowing that he's going to be a free agent, but also knowing that he's a CAA client that I have a relationship that they could probably talk him into staying. And this is a relationships business, Chikobs.
1:14:14 Speaker 04 They, you remember they went to Jalen Brunson's playoff games too. They like sat there and just like stared at him while he was on the maps. It was very obviously that they were interested in that. I'm terrified that someone will investigate the Brunson deal because it just really makes no sense on paper unless, you know, perhaps, you know, there's a, there's a tree planting company somewhere.
1:14:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, right. Could be a tree planting company in New York.
1:14:36 Bill Simmons? Mark Cuban, Mark Cuban was really on a heater in the 2020s. He could have Brunson for four for 55 and went low, but somehow lost Brunson, just loses him, right? Then decides to sell the team. He sells right before all the franchise valuations go flying up, sells for way less, sells it to this ownership that then, oh, and by the way, hired Nico Harrison before he sold to the ownership. And then Nico Harrison trades their best player and now he's like, I don't, I can't believe you did that. It's like you, you're the reason they don't have Jalen Brunson and Luka Doncic. You're literally the reason.
1:15:16 Speaker 03 Well, with the extra irony of him thinking that he was going to have some continuing decision-making role, some continuing input role.
1:15:24 Bill Simmons? Which has never happened in sports history.
1:15:27 Speaker 03 Well, not only that, but it's been reported that Harrison was one of the people that immediately put, took a giant knife and stuck it right in Cuban's back on that idea.
1:15:34 Bill Simmons? Really crazy.
1:15:35 Speaker 03 Amazing.
1:15:37 Bill Simmons? Michael from Gower, Missouri.
1:15:40 Bill Simmons? Wants to know if the Thunder, if they win back to back, should retire Kawhi's jersey, considering he's basically the reason this entire run is happening because of the Paul George trade. Are there any other examples of players that never played for a team but had such a massive success that they should have their jersey retired anyway? First of all, it should be Kawhi and Paul George's jerseys together would be the move. I'm not against it. It's, it's the most important moment in the history of the franchise that they did that trade. But I was thinking like a player who's single-handedly caused a title for another team. And the only one I can really think of in the history of the NBA where you can literally
1:16:20 Bill Simmons? say like, thanks to that guy, we won the title, is Frank Selby on the 1962 Los Angeles Lakers. Game seven, end of the game, has a nine footer and if he makes it, the Lakers win the title. And he missed it. Baseline jumper. It's like a 12 footer. And if he, and if he makes it, Celtics lose to the Lakers. We don't have Jerry West like, you know, as the character in the HBO series someday. There's been other moments where it was like, oh, if that hadn't happened, like Manu fouling Dirk in 2006 and, but Frank Selby is the only one where you could say, if he makes that shot, the title changes. But here's my question for you guys. Could teams retire GMs?
1:17:02 Bill Simmons? Maybe not numbers, but the names of GM decisions from other teams that led to a bunch of titles for them. So I'm going to give you four. David Kahn, Minnesota, took Ricky Rubio and then Johnny Flynn over Steph Curry. And could Golden State like have a David Kahn ceremony thanking him for, for what he did? Same thing for Stu Inman, the Portland Trailblazers GM, who took Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Should probably be in the rafters in Chicago. Bob Bass, Charlotte Hornets GM, 1996. The Lakers are like, we'll trade you Vlad Edivatch for the 13th pick. He's like, that sounds great.
1:17:46 Bill Simmons? Vlad Edivatch is really good. And trades them Kobe Bryant and they win five things. And then the last one, this is my favorite. Slick Leonard, the 1978 coach GM of the Indiana Pacers, has the number one pick in 1978. And it's the draft where you could pick Larry Bird and wait a year for him to come into the league. He's playing for Indiana State. Indiana is in such bad shape as a franchise. They had a telethon that year to try to save the team. That's how broke they are. They don't take Larry Bird. They trade back from one to three with Portland for Johnny Davis and the third pick. And then their fans think, oh, they traded back because we're taking Bird. Nope, they took Rick Roby. And then the Celtics got him six.
1:18:29 Bill Simmons? So I, you could argue slick Leonard, uh, the GM. But Jacob's, do you like the idea of retiring GM? Helpful GM.
1:18:36 Speaker 04 I don't, I don't like the idea of the opposing GM. No, no, because it's in the Raptors forever. You're gonna have to like tell your great, what is that doing though? Who was slick Leonard? You have to explain. I like the idea of just like having a night. Like one of my favorite moments in sports history was when, um, the, the Red Sox fans in Fenway were cheered Mariano Rivera.
1:18:55 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah. 2005.
1:18:56 Speaker 04 And he tipped his cap. You know what I mean? It was like one of my favorite moments in sports history because he was so cool about it. He's already a champion and a Hall of Famer and a legend. He had a sense of humor about it. I think it should be a night like that. There would be like one night where it's, it's, it's David Kahn night for, in Golden State. He comes out there at halftime, they do a little ceremony and they, they cheer him.
1:19:14 Bill Simmons? They interview him.
1:19:15 Speaker 04 And they give a gift.
1:19:16 Bill Simmons? So David, you took two point guards in 09. And somehow neither of them were Steph Curry. Let's walk through it. What a great moment for us.
1:19:23 Speaker 04 It feels like a celebration instead of like a permanent fixture inside the arena that's there forever.
1:19:29 Bill Simmons? Jack from Atlanta writes, I'm consistently amazed by Adam Silver's inability to have a feel for public perception of the league. I don't think that's fair, but the playoffs are the most important time of the season. The constant talk among my friends is flopping. Why can't we shame these players for being uncool? Why can't they come up with something to stop this? This has been a topic on a lot of shows. I've been thinking about this a lot and it's weird. It wasn't an SGA moment. It was that moment when, uh, maybe it was AJ Mitchell, whoever was somebody who was setting a screen. And they went flying and they called an offensive foul and the guy said in the screen on the Spurs. Oh, it was, yeah. And then they, they was, yeah, J Will.
1:20:10 Bill Simmons? And then they did the wide shot, the overhead shot of him bumping into the guy and then flailing. And I wonder like, when they added the flagrant, uh, flagrant foul point system.
1:20:22 Bill Simmons? Which most famously came back to haunt Draymond in 2016 when he had to miss game five because he had too many points. Would you guys be cool if they had like a flopping point penalty system where the league just announced the next day, we find SGA one flopping point for third quarter or whatever. And it's just like you get to 15 points, you miss the next game. Like, would people sign up for that? Because I actually think I would. Jacoby's shaking his head no.
1:20:49 Speaker 04 I love it. I absolutely love it. And because in the same way that they upgraded the Plumlee foul, there's some, you know, smart people review the tape. In the moment, you can't, because they do have like a flopping foul, but
1:20:59 Bill Simmons? Right, right.
1:21:00 Speaker 04 Real time, the refs, I mean, if you can't ask the refs to evaluate that in real time. So I think they, they could do some sort of like, even if it's like the two minute report, like we reviewed the tape and, and you know, there's seven foul, I mean flops, even just like public shaming. But one thing I love about what's happening is as a Knicks fan, I've already grown a really strong hatred of both the Spurs and the Thunder. So whoever makes it through, I already have a nice foundation of I fucking can't stand you guys. That's just ready to boil over.
1:21:31 Bill Simmons? Well, ironically Brunson does it too. He's more on Brunson does it on picks and defense really more than offense. SGA does it more on offense. Why are you making a face, House?
1:21:44 Speaker 03 I'm a smidgen confused. I'm a smidgen confused. That's all.
1:21:47 Bill Simmons? Confused with what?
1:21:49 Speaker 03 I mean, I think that Brunson plays pretty physical. And I, I mean, I, the, the stuff on defense and coming off the screens, I'm sure you can find those examples.
1:22:00 Speaker 04 He's a flopper.
1:22:00 Bill Simmons? He does.
1:22:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he tries to sell
1:22:04 Speaker 04 Absolute flopper.
1:22:05 Bill Simmons? Offensive foul picks is his big, his big thing, but it's
1:22:08 Speaker 04 I have a Brunson flopping theory. One of my theories is that he has those little braids, those little twists, because when he jerks his head back, it looks more violent because his hair flies.
1:22:17 Speaker 03 It's a visual tool.
1:22:18 Bill Simmons? I like that.
1:22:19 Speaker 03 I like this.
1:22:19 Bill Simmons? How, so would you sign up for the 15 point flop system? Just get a point?
1:22:23 Speaker 03 Anything that, you know, communicates to the NBA viewing public, us, that the league is taking This seriously is going to be a good thing. I think it would be fine if they just called two flops every first quarter. You know, they had the opportunity during this playoff run, this stretch where it's really become prominent. And we know that the league has the capacity for changing how it calls games over the course of the regular season into playoffs. They allowed more, more physical play and even the rotating referee crews. You could just call flops like I can't think of a game where a flop was called in.
1:23:04 Bill Simmons? They don't call that. They don't call offensive three seconds when the guy has the ball for too long when he's posting up. They call that like three times a year. Remember they added that rule? You can't just slowly post up for 10 seconds and they're like, you can't do it. It's gotta be for Shingun's like the only one that gets called for that. I would love a flopping thing. I think it's a good idea. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family.
1:23:44 Bill Simmons? It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic. The Only Living Pickpocket in New York opens in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles nationwide October 30th.
1:24:46 Bill Simmons? Chan from New York wants to know, if Spurs Thunder are supposed to be the main event, would the Knicks be the Money in the Bank champs waiting in the wings to take advantage of a compromised opponent? This is great, like a great wrestling analogy. Just let these two teams beat each other up and the Knicks are waiting, like the series ends and they're coming in right away. I always get this email about whether Money in the Bank would work in the NBA and the answer is obviously no, but it would be amazing. Like you finish your series and then all of a sudden the next team just comes in, oh, they're cashing it, they're cashing the suitcase. All right, Ha, you're gonna love this one. This is from Joe from far northern Chicago suburbs.
1:25:23 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:25:24 Bill Simmons? Conspiracy Bill, he starts it. Scott Foster's public facing NBA referee profile page, and this is true because I looked it up, lists Shameless and Ozark as his two favorite television shows. I haven't watched Shameless, but Ozark is definitely about illegal money laundering schemes and organized crime. Wikipedia tells me Shameless is about people running scams and committing crimes to get money. How is this possible that he put these two as his two favorite TV shows? It's from Joe.
1:25:57 Speaker 03 Well, he's living vicariously.
1:25:59 Bill Simmons? That feels like a bit at that point.
1:26:01 Speaker 03 It could be, but I, and I hope it's a bit.
1:26:04 Bill Simmons? He should have added Your Friends and Neighbors as his third one. I love that show too. People stealing from their neighbors.
1:26:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:26:10 Bill Simmons? Jacoby's like afraid to talk.
1:26:11 Speaker 04 Oh no, I love Your Friends and Neighbors. I'm so in on Your Friends and Neighbors, that Birch billionaire character. I'm absolutely in love with her. I can't wait for her to come back and ruin our guy's life. I'm in on Friends and Neighbors so hard.
1:26:22 Bill Simmons? On that same page, it says Scott Foster's favorite movie is Braveheart.
1:26:27 Speaker 04 No one's favorite movie is Braveheart.
1:26:31 Bill Simmons? Scott Foster's is.
1:26:33 Speaker 04 No one, he's lying.
1:26:34 Bill Simmons? Liam Manley writes in, I sent this one to you guys. Caruso's 22-point game five has to be top three role player ever, Hori Negudala. So he points out, I created the 42 club.
1:26:49 Bill Simmons? Which was points, rebounds and assists in the playoffs. And if they add up to 42 or above, odds are you're a pretty special player. And it's been pretty reliable over the years, especially because I did 42 exactly because it was the best way to leave out Karl Malone. He's saying, could we have a 21 club? If you average over 21 points, rebounds and assists multiple seasons, you're not a role player. And if you're under it, you are. I, I'm tweaking this to playoffs. And I like the under 21. I wonder if we could go a little lower. I sent you guys a bunch of stats. I have some role player, role player questions for you though. Can you be one of the best four guys on your team and be a role player, Jacoby?
1:27:33 Speaker 04 I'd say you can't be one of the four most offensively productive. Best is a weird word to use because sometimes role players are the best because they're great defenders and great screen setters and you know, assist guys. But I did consider this and I, I don't like the minutes restriction stuff because sometimes role players are like starters that play the entire time. You know what I mean?
1:27:58 Bill Simmons? Bruce Bowen was in 05 to 07, 36 minutes a game, but was clearly a role player.
1:28:03 Speaker 04 Yes, but he averaged like six and a half points.
1:28:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah, six points, three rebounds, one assist.
1:28:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:28:10 Speaker 03 Two eye gouges and one step on the foot.
1:28:12 Bill Simmons? One kick in the balls, two hits in the face.
1:28:15 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:28:16 Speaker 04 I also don't, I don't consider Igudala a role player. Like he was a role player for that championship team, but if you're like a former star and you used to sort of like have your own team, that's not a role player to me. That's sort of like a fading star accepting a new role.
1:28:30 Bill Simmons? So the other case for Igudala not being a role player is he was the fourth best guy on that team.
1:28:35 Speaker 04 In the finals.
1:28:36 Bill Simmons? Curry, Klay, Draymond, Igudala was the fourth best guy at worst. So can you be the role player if you're the fourth best guy on a team? That's a problem with the Caruso role player candidacy because you could argue he's one of the four best guys on this team.
1:28:48 Speaker 04 Well, you could also argue that he's been forced to be one of the four best guys on the team due to injury.
1:28:52 Bill Simmons? Right. And then Michael Cooper was the other one who might've been the fourth best Laker during his whole run, but was a role player. What do you think, House?
1:29:00 Speaker 03 The definitional part of this is where the true intrigue comes in to me because it's hard like, how many rings if we're doing an all time list, you have to have be on a team.
1:29:11 Bill Simmons? I feel like you need two to be like the level one. Yeah.
1:29:15 Speaker 03 Cause that's helpful. That crosses. That means Trevor Ariza is off the list. That means Jason Terry is off the list. That means Kendrick Perkins is off the list.
1:29:23 Bill Simmons? Bill Walton, he only had the one. Yeah, there's. And then it's like, is there a quality threshold? Jacoby just mentioned Nigudala. Like Manu.
1:29:33 Speaker 03 No.
1:29:35 Bill Simmons? I would say Manu. Manu.
1:29:37 Speaker 03 Both.
1:29:38 Bill Simmons? Manu was too good. He can't be a role player. He was like, he's, I think one of the best hundred basketball players of all time.
1:29:44 Speaker 03 Hall of Famer.
1:29:45 Bill Simmons? But if you look at his numbers and how he was used, you could say, well, he's six man is role player, but I just don't think he was. And then do you need the two titles? So that that moves us more. I, to me, like, the best way to figure this out is to look at guys that we know are role players, which is clearly Robert Horry and the Lakers and the Spurs. Interestingly, Rockets, Robert Horry, not a role player, but arguably the third best guy on that team.
1:30:09 Speaker 03 Sure.
1:30:10 Bill Simmons? Um, I like that. Mario Elie, 22 minutes a game, seven points, three rebounds and two assists in their two title seasons. That to me is a role player. Caruso, I think makes it. It's basically 10 and three. The last couple of years playing or whatever.
1:30:28 Bill Simmons? Philly Bobby Jones is a good one. James Posey in 06 and 08 is another good one. We lose Boris Diaw. Steve Kerr, 19 minutes a game, six, one and two. And then Fisher is a great one. 30 minutes a game, nine, two and three. And I guess we have to put Bruce Bowen in. So would you say instead of the 42 club, maybe it's like the 17 club? It's gotta be like 17 and under for points, rebounds and assists. You're an official role player and that can't, and that, right?
1:30:58 Speaker 03 Well, yeah. Let me, let me ask about Ron Harper.
1:31:03 Bill Simmons? It's another good one.
1:31:04 Speaker 03 Ended up with multiple rings.
1:31:05 Bill Simmons? Bulls, Ron Harper.
1:31:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, and, and Lakers, Ron Harper. I mean, it's kind of important.
1:31:11 Bill Simmons? True.
1:31:11 Speaker 03 To both. He ended up with 153 playoff games, five rings, and he's just under 21. He's 11.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists.
1:31:22 Bill Simmons? And was out there in crunch time a bunch.
1:31:25 Speaker 04 I've got one for you.
1:31:26 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:31:27 Speaker 04 JaVale McGee.
1:31:30 Bill Simmons? Did he have how many titles though?
1:31:32 Speaker 04 Multiple titles. Lakers and Warriors.
1:31:35 Speaker 03 Nuggets.
1:31:36 Bill Simmons? Oh, he, that's right. He had the Warriors one. Yeah. And he did kind of play for them.
1:31:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, he played a role. Like, to me, a role player, like, you kind of do one thing. You know what I mean? Like, Ron Harper might be, like, too good, like, at everything, kind of.
1:31:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, maybe.
1:31:48 Speaker 04 That's why I like Caruso. It's like, I'm a defender, and if you leave me open, I'll hit a three. I'll do some energy stuff in transition. Like, I like, like a guy like McGee, because he's like, he's our big backup that comes in and blocks shots, and he's kind of weird, and he rebounds. And, you know, it's like Tristan Thompson on the Cavs. Like, I have a role. Like, no one's gonna ever give me the ball at the end of the shot clock.
1:32:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:32:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, like, that, that, to me, is like a role player. It's kind of like, you know it when you see it. He's a role.
1:32:14 Bill Simmons? Important spinoff question, this question. Jacoby, when we played pickup hoops together for two years at USC, was I a role player?
1:32:24 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:32:24 Bill Simmons? I was old.
1:32:25 Speaker 04 Yes. Um, your impact was more just like, uh, you're kind of like a coach on the floor. And, uh, remember that guy in the Lakers you were talking about, who hit the baseline shot that I had no idea who you were talking about? Selvi, Fred Selvi, whatever that guy's name is?
1:32:38 Bill Simmons? I would have made it.
1:32:39 Speaker 04 Frank Selvi. I was like, I hope he doesn't ask me a question about Frank Selvi. Like, I don't know what his name is. But nine to 12 feet on the baseline is just Bill's spot.
1:32:48 Bill Simmons? 18.
1:32:48 Speaker 04 That is his spot.
1:32:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah, 17. 17.
1:32:53 Speaker 04 You are my boss. You are my boss. So, yeah.
1:32:55 Bill Simmons? Oh, 17, 16?
1:32:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.
1:32:58 Bill Simmons? What about breaking up the two for one, two on ones?
1:33:00 Speaker 04 No, I mean, that's, I mean, you're, you're, you're great at that. But if, if I was the number one option, you were the number two option, we were losing. Yeah, we were losing if you were the second option.
1:33:06 Bill Simmons? I needed to be the number four option, which made me a role player.
1:33:09 Speaker 04 And then we're winning, and we're staying on the court for a while.
1:33:11 Bill Simmons? John Colleen sent a Sam Perkins question on role players, asking if Jerry, if Sam Perkins was the Jerry West of role players. Mavericks, late 80s, Lakers, early 90s, Supersonics.
1:33:24 Bill Simmons? Pacers. Sam Perkins was a role player on the 96 Sonics and 00 Pacers that made finals. He was a, he was kind of better than a role player in the 93 Sonics and then the 91 Lakers. He was probably the third best player, but then also in Dallas. He played in five conference finals for three different teams, four different teams and three finals. Really interesting Sam Perkins career. Sent me on a deep dive. 167 playoff games for Sam, 35th all time. And kind of had all the faces of Sam and then finally crested with the Indiana. It looked like he had just smoked a bowl. He weighed like 300 pounds, but could still hit a three at any time. But really fun run for him. Hadn't thought about Sam Perkins in a while, guys.
1:34:09 Speaker 03 I feel the same way and, and I always like, you know, my mind's eye is like, oh, he's, he's talented. Like I, I expect, you know, him to make the right play. His hoops IQ was always in the right place, but maybe I'm, I'm only thinking about the end of his career.
1:34:23 Bill Simmons? Well, he was on the Lakers. So one of the best game ones ever, which I mentioned to you, I think I mentioned to you the last time we did this was that Bulls Lakers game one. MJ misses the game winner, bounces around and goes out, but Perkins made the three. That was the game winning play they set up for him. Magic found him. Sam Perkins is really good. Uh, all right. Really, really important question from Corey from St. George, Utah. In your book of basketball, you debated a team of five of the same player versus any other duplicated five. Would a team of five Victor Wembanyamas be the ultimate team that would beat any other version of five other guys? Meaning could five Wemby's beat five LeBrons? Could five Wemby's beat five Iversons, et cetera, et cetera?
1:35:08 Bill Simmons? Jacoby shaking his head.
1:35:09 Speaker 04 Absolutely not. No way.
1:35:11 Speaker 03 I feel the same way.
1:35:12 Speaker 04 I would say, I think that's always, I'm one of the, the evolved, like the superstars. He's probably one of the worst to clone four more times and put out there because he is so tall. Like how, who's bringing up the ball?
1:35:23 Bill Simmons? Wemby. Wemby.
1:35:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's the problem. Who's like, what?
1:35:26 Bill Simmons? Wemby number five is bringing up the ball.
1:35:28 Speaker 04 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
1:35:31 Bill Simmons? Jacoby, I actually think, I completely disagree with you. I think five Wemby's kills everyone. You play zone with the five Wemby's. How do you score?
1:35:41 Speaker 04 What are you talking about?
1:35:42 Bill Simmons? How am I getting a shot off against five Wemby's? All they're doing is playing zone. How am I shooting anything?
1:35:50 Speaker 04 All right, I have a counter. I'm five Michael Jordans. I agree with this. That's the answer.
1:35:55 Bill Simmons? You guys would take five Michael Jordans over five Wemby's?
1:35:59 Speaker 04 Definitely. Bill, this is, Bill, Bill, I'm gonna allow you to retract this statement.
1:36:03 Bill Simmons? I'm not retracting it. Wemby's 7'6".
1:36:05 Speaker 04 Five Michael Jordans? What are you talking about?
1:36:08 Bill Simmons? Against five Wemby's?
1:36:10 Speaker 04 What are you even talking, peak Michael Jordan? Michael Air Jeffrey Jordan?
1:36:15 Bill Simmons? I, the one, we have to break this out as a social clip.
1:36:18 Speaker 04 This might be funny. I can't believe this. This might be funny.
1:36:21 Bill Simmons? But the, the one Wemby couldn't post up in game five against Oklahoma City.
1:36:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, he gets tired in the second quarter.
1:36:29 Bill Simmons? So you're saying one of the five Michael Jordans is pushing him out? But then we'll just bring in another Wemby to get closer.
1:36:37 Speaker 04 He can't, it's a feature. He, he doesn't have enough ass. Five Lebrons are, five Jordans, you need somebody who's good at everything, jack of all trades. Wemby's a very unique player because of his height. He needs guards and people to set him up. He doesn't, like, honestly, he doesn't even create his own shots. The best Wemby is rolling to the basket and then Steph Castle just blindly throws the ball up in the air. And either tips it in or tips it off to, off the rim to himself and dunks it.
1:37:01 Bill Simmons? See, I think five Lebrons would have a better chance than five Jordans. Jordan is 6'6".
1:37:05 Speaker 04 It's a good argument.
1:37:08 Speaker 04 Instead of the LeBron Jordan debate, we're having the LeBron in his clothes?
1:37:12 Bill Simmons? Five Wemby's versus five Jordans. Five Lebrons. Five James Harden's would have some trouble, I feel like. Cause that's the other thing. Five Currys could just like bomb threes and try to beat them with math, right? That was like, we don't care how tall you are. I'm just gonna shoot 30 footers.
1:37:32 Speaker 04 I love it.
1:37:35 Bill Simmons? Matt from Toronto is exhausted by the term generational.
1:37:40 Bill Simmons? Supposed to be once in a generation. Now he's hearing it's a generational draft, multiple generational prospects. He said in his eyes, only two generational players are in the NBA right now. LeBron, whose generation is ending and Wemby's, whose generation is starting. Wants to retire the word generational for everyone else. Let's not use it anymore. I would throw in Joker as a generational offensive player. Which I think he is. So I would say we have three people that the generational word can get thrown around. Other than that, I think he's right. I didn't even think, I look, I'm gonna look in the mirror. It's like.
1:38:13 Speaker 03 How can you leave Curry out?
1:38:15 Bill Simmons? Generational. Oh, you're right. He's still in the league.
1:38:17 Speaker 03 Steph Curry.
1:38:18 Bill Simmons? Steph Curry, generational shooter. So there's four.
1:38:22 Speaker 03 Not Durant?
1:38:25 Speaker 03 Generational scorer? He's gonna go down as the most prolific scorer.
1:38:29 Bill Simmons? He's a generational scoring forward.
1:38:32 Speaker 04 Generational tweeter.
1:38:33 Bill Simmons? And Durant's kind of the line for this. Generational scoring forward, but what does that even mean?
1:38:39 Speaker 04 I don't like the term generational.
1:38:42 Bill Simmons? You don't?
1:38:42 Speaker 04 Because I just don't know when it starts or when it ends. It's kind of like when you go to a store and they have the sign on the door that says like, be back in five minutes. I'm like, when did you, when did the five minutes start and when is it gonna end? And how do you know when I'm gonna see the sign? So it's like the generations are like bleeding to each other is what I feel like. Like there's no defined beginning and end of the generation. Sort of just like a sliding 20 years through time.
1:39:02 Bill Simmons? Would you say House is a generational eater?
1:39:06 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:39:07 Speaker 03 I agree with this.
1:39:08 Speaker 04 I would say all time.
1:39:09 Bill Simmons? I think he is too, because anytime over the course of my life, when people who didn't know House, ate with House, there's always that point in the meal when they just become impressed that House is still eating and that he's picking stuff off other plates. And it's been going on forever, I think, which makes him generational.
1:39:26 Speaker 04 He doesn't draw a lot of attention to it either. He's not performative with his overeating. You know what I mean? He's not talking about it. It's just sort of just slowly like, oh, hey, no. It's like the guy will come by and be like, oh, you're done with the egg rolls? Oh, no, no, no, I'll take that off.
1:39:39 Bill Simmons? Do you think I'm a generational playing blackjack at 4:30 in the morning guy or no?
1:39:44 Speaker 04 No.
1:39:45 Bill Simmons? Okay. House, this question's for you from Cody K.
1:39:49 Speaker 03 All right.
1:39:49 Bill Simmons? He's a longtime Wizards fan.
1:39:51 Speaker 03 Oh, great job Cody.
1:39:52 Bill Simmons? He's lived through the draft picks of people like Jan Vesely.
1:39:56 Speaker 03 I'm familiar.
1:39:56 Bill Simmons? He's lived through overpaying Otto Porter.
1:39:59 Speaker 03 He did that.
1:40:00 Bill Simmons? He's lived through playing and coaching of Randy Whitman.
1:40:03 Speaker 03 That happened.
1:40:04 Bill Simmons? Losing on purpose.
1:40:06 Speaker 03 Sure.
1:40:06 Bill Simmons? He's excited about the draft and he's seen recent rumors of the Wizards getting in on the Greek Freak sweepstakes. Am I losing my mind thinking a lineup of Trey, Trey Johnson, Bilal, AD and the Freak could work? He didn't even mention your number one pick in the draft. Plus, we have Dulles to Greece flights, he wants to point out too.
1:40:29 Speaker 03 No, this is true.
1:40:30 Bill Simmons? You still haven't talked yourself into this.
1:40:32 Speaker 03 It's outrageous. It's preposterous. I understand the season that we're in now with the NBA where we have to, you know, go into this, this drama queen mode because there isn't anything to talk about from the games. But there is no scenario under which it makes a lick of sense for Giannis to come to Washington. None whatsoever.
1:40:52 Bill Simmons? Jacoby, where do you want Giannis to go?
1:40:54 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:40:56 Bill Simmons? What's your team? What's the most fun for content, Giannis team?
1:40:59 Speaker 04 Expendables is off the table.
1:41:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:41:01 Speaker 04 Uh, most fun for content is going to be the Nets. Just like a terrible Nets team and they win like 30 games. He's just pissed, but he's in New York and there's like rumors about him being out in clubs and stuff. It's just like, and he's just getting hammered. He's just like, God, I was actually better off in Milwaukee than I am here in, in Brooklyn. That would be for content would be the funniest because of the spotlight the New York market puts on you. And like, you think it's bad with your roster in Milwaukee, like, welcome, welcome to Clowney and Joman.
1:41:30 Bill Simmons? I, I think Miami would be the most fun. Heat culture versus you, you also have to sign my two brothers if I'm coming. We do that whole thing. That could be fun. Jason from New Jersey has a Greek Freak thing. He says with Wemby doing what he's doing, do we have to rescind Giannis's nickname Greek Freak? Or the Freak? Next to Wemby, he doesn't seem to be freakish. Not saying we need to call Wemby the French Freak.
1:41:58 Bill Simmons? But I don't think we can have other players called Freak if Wemby's in the league. I disagree. I'm fine with Giannis is the freak. We've called him the freak. Wemby's the alien or the UFO.
1:42:07 Speaker 03 Alien.
1:42:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's alien. He's not a freak. He's more than a freak.
1:42:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, because he hasn't earned anything yet. Uh, Giannis earned the freak.
1:42:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:42:15 Speaker 03 He didn't just arrive and we looked at him and started calling him the freak just because of how he looked. It's how, because of how he played, his force of will, his, his dominant style. That's what really, he filled out the freak. Right now, it is fine to call Wemby, uh, an alien or, you know, from a, from a different whatever. Cause that, that's all that we can ascribe to him. There's nothing, uh, it's a great run. I'm, I'm thrilled for, for the Spurs and let's see how this plays out before we start giving him any nicknames other than recognizing that he's a giant person.
1:42:44 Bill Simmons? Would five Giannis's beat five Wemby's?
1:42:46 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:42:47 Bill Simmons? Oh, phenomenal. I agree with Jacob's strong.
1:42:51 Speaker 04 I don't think five Wemby's is a strong team. I really don't think five Wemby's is a strong team. I could beat five Wemby's.
1:42:56 Bill Simmons? I love this. I can't wait to see what people think of this.
1:42:59 Speaker 04 I can't believe you're.
1:43:00 Speaker 03 I think.
1:43:00 Speaker 04 It's a social clip.
1:43:02 Speaker 03 I, I want Freak to get to a Western Conference team and dunk on Wemby, you know, repeatedly. I think there's a real, you know, uh.
1:43:12 Bill Simmons? He's mad he took his corner?
1:43:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly right. Not, not the freak corner, but you know, who's the biggest, baddest big guy?
1:43:21 Bill Simmons? It's like what's happening in Euphoria right now is Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney.
1:43:27 Bill Simmons? No.
1:43:28 Speaker 03 I haven't watched one. Well, I haven't watched one episode, but I already know which way I'm leaning on this.
1:43:33 Bill Simmons? Well, one of them, one of them has been naked the whole season, so I don't know.
1:43:36 Speaker 03 Yes, and I know which one that is, so.
1:43:39 Bill Simmons? Marcus, Marcus is a huge Suns fan. And he's still having trouble, especially with the recent Jalen Brunson thing.
1:43:48 Bill Simmons? Digesting the Suns 2018 draft. And he said, when they took Deandre Ayton over Luka Doncic, it was so monumental, it overshadowed everything else that happened that night. The Suns had three of the first 31 picks.
1:44:03 Bill Simmons? They took with the first pick, Deandre Ayton over Luka Doncic. With the 10th pick, 10th pick, they took Mikal Bridges over Shay Gildes Alexander. And with the 31st pick, they took Iliakobo over Jalen Brunson.
1:44:17 Bill Simmons? I did not realize this. Ilya Kobo, Ilya Kobo.
1:44:22 Speaker 04 Not familiar with him.
1:44:23 Bill Simmons? So they passed up Luka Doncic, SGA and Brunson all in a row. And they all got taken either the next pick or two picks later.
1:44:33 Bill Simmons? Pretty interesting. How's that like broke house?
1:44:35 Speaker 03 I'm trying to think who the GM was for that. Cause that's the kind of stuff the Sixers have been doing for a decade now, which I really enjoyed.
1:44:43 Bill Simmons? Kevin from Malden, um, diehard Celtic fan, along with all his buddies. And said, if it's a Knicks Thunder series, who do we root for?
1:44:53 Bill Simmons? We're very split.
1:44:56 Bill Simmons? None of us like New York teams. None of us want to root for the Knicks. That's how fucking annoying the Thunder are to watch. Kevin from Malden writes. You have a bunch of Boston guys rolling with the Knicks over the floppers. Jesus Christ, I hope Wemby and the Spurs pull it off. Wow. I kind of feel the same way. I probably would, I probably, the basketball fan in me would probably root for the Knicks storyline. Even though it's a New York team and New York will be insufferable for years after.
1:45:22 Speaker 04 You can hate the Knicks, but it's hard to hate these Knicks. It really is. Even if you're from Boston, like I get it. You hate the uniform, but like the players and the vibes like. And they're going to be underdogs to the floppers. I think you have to go Knicks, even if you're in Boston.
1:45:37 Bill Simmons? What do you think, Gus?
1:45:38 Speaker 03 It's a great, great point. I agree with you on this. Yeah.
1:45:41 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:45:43 Bill Simmons? This is a good one. Maybe we end on this.
1:45:48 Bill Simmons? Speaking of flopping from Liam from Minneapolis, he recently watched the 1997 movie Double Team. Starring Dennis Rodman and Jean Claude Van Damme. And was thinking, what current NBA player action star duo should we get to remake this? And was wondering if it should be Anthony Edwards and Jason Statham.
1:46:09 Bill Simmons? I had an idea. They remake double team as double flop with SGA and Statham.
1:46:20 Speaker 03 That's phenomenal.
1:46:21 Bill Simmons? I made this on CGI.
1:46:22 Speaker 03 You did that. Yeah. Look at you.
1:46:24 Bill Simmons? I put in, make a, I make a, make a double flop movie poster for me and they did it. Double flop.
1:46:31 Speaker 03 It can't be, Statham is, is, is too legit. You need a, a worse action hero.
1:46:37 Bill Simmons? Well, if SGA was an action movie person, his move would be he's in fight scenes and he would be flopping and the, the people would be just completely confused.
1:46:46 Speaker 03 Disarmed.
1:46:47 Bill Simmons? He would dive into them with like an elbow thing and go flying and they'd be like, what the fuck did that? And then Statham would just come in and punch him in the face. That would be the move.
1:46:57 Bill Simmons? You don't agree with that?
1:46:57 Speaker 03 I was so scared to Google double team movie Dennis Rodman because I'm sure there were some double teams filmed during this film.
1:47:07 Bill Simmons? You guys, you guys got.
1:47:08 Speaker 03 Those two guys together. Yeah. It felt like we should just be careful. We, I, I felt like treading carefully here was the right move.
1:47:14 Bill Simmons? You guys got really scared there for a second.
1:47:15 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, the action hero bit.
1:47:17 Bill Simmons? That's all I have.
1:47:18 Speaker 03 Statham, Statham might be too big.
1:47:22 Bill Simmons? So the biggest thing we argued about was five Wemby's versus five Michael Jordans.
1:47:26 Speaker 03 One of your worst takes, one of your worst takes, honestly.
1:47:29 Bill Simmons? I'll be interested to see what America thinks.
1:47:31 Speaker 03 Kind of insane.
1:47:31 Bill Simmons? I have a zone defense of five, seven foot six guys.
1:47:36 Speaker 03 It's Michael Jordan versus 22 year old French guy. Who shot four for 15 because he couldn't get in the lane against. He took one shot in the first half.
1:47:49 Speaker 03 Isaiah Hartenstein.
1:47:50 Bill Simmons? Listen, if I was actually picking this on my life, depending on it, I'm picking five Michael Jordans against everybody. I just have, would have the most confidence.
1:47:58 Speaker 03 I'm picking five Isaiah Hartenstein's over five Wemby's. Five Isaiah Hartenstein's over five Wemby's. That's a good matchup.
1:48:05 Bill Simmons? Before we go, House, who do you want with the number one pick?
1:48:08 Speaker 03 AJ, it hasn't changed. It's AJ. AJ all day. I love that guy.
1:48:12 Bill Simmons? The whole long story that the Utah feature writer did about what's the deal with Darren Peterson's cramping situation? Did you read that?
1:48:20 Speaker 03 Did not, don't care.
1:48:22 Bill Simmons? You should read it because it will make you maybe not want to take him as much and move maybe more toward AJ.
1:48:29 Speaker 03 I already, who? I already said AJ. I want AJ.
1:48:33 Bill Simmons? You know, he reclassified as an Peterson. He reclassified as an eighth grader house. Did eighth grade twice. He's a little older than you'd think. AJ.
1:48:41 Speaker 03 Don't care. I watched him play basketball. He's fucking awesome.
1:48:44 Bill Simmons? He is really good. I hope you take AJ.
1:48:47 Speaker 03 Me too.
1:48:47 Bill Simmons? Who do you want them to take? Jacob's?
1:48:50 Speaker 04 AJ or Caleb. I'm staying away from Peterson. If, if I'm like the number four pick, who's at the Jazz and don't have.
1:48:56 Speaker 03 It's the Bulls.
1:48:57 Speaker 04 Oh, the Bulls. Yeah. I'd be terrified if Peterson drops me. I kind of, your, your hands are tied. You have to take him.
1:49:01 Speaker 03 Wow.
1:49:02 Speaker 04 I'd be terrified to drop Peterson. I really would. I'd be terrified. I watched some of those games. It was just like weird. He'd have 22 in the first half and just be like, yeah, I'm out. I'm done.
1:49:10 Bill Simmons? He's one of the all time terrified to take him, terrified not to take him guys that we've had in the draft.
1:49:17 Bill Simmons? Where either, either way, either way, you're just scared for the result.
1:49:22 Speaker 03 You should get Dominic from Dubuque to ask that question in the next mailbag.
1:49:26 Bill Simmons? Dominic from Dubuque? Who's that?
1:49:28 Speaker 03 I don't know. I just, I just came up with that. It feels like a guy that might have a question about the all time list for, for guys. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
1:49:38 Bill Simmons? Hopefully Dominic, if there's a Dominic in Dubuque, hopefully he'll, he'll run in. All right, guys. It was great to see both of you. Jacob's, we'll, we'll watch and listen to you on the mismatch and food news. Julia Littman, house, fairway roll and US Open coming up.
1:49:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, we got the memorial. We're in Jack's place next week. That's, that's going to be exciting.
1:49:58 Bill Simmons? Bring your gambling show as well. Are you going to bet on World Cup or no?
1:50:02 Speaker 03 Uh, yeah, I've already bet on Norway over Iran. That was one. I'm just doing whatever Anthony DeBundo tells me to do. So I'll be betting. I'm almost definitely betting against the US when they play a good team. Um, but I'm just listening to the bundle. Definitely betting on the World Cup.
1:50:21 Bill Simmons? DeBundo, I think might've had an aneurysm today because Sinner lost in the French Open. He was like a minus 12,000 favorite or something. He got, he's struggling and ended up losing. No.
1:50:30 Speaker 03 Right.
1:50:30 Bill Simmons? French Open's wide open. Anyway, uh, all right, guys. Good to see you.
1:50:36 Bill Simmons? All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jacobian House, thanks to Mahoney, thanks to Gahout and Eduardo as well. Don't forget to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey before the end of the weekend because that's going to be the next rewatchables. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you next time here on the Bill Simmons Podcast. 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. Get them a 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
1:51:21 Bill Simmons? 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 Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits.
1:52:04 Bill Simmons? Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6th. Get tickets now.
1:52:17 Speaker 05 The Mosquito Bowl is the incredible true story of four college football stars who walked away from NFL careers after Pearl Harbor to enlist in the Marines. From Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg, in starring Nicholas Galatine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis, comes a story of brotherhood and sacrifice. Four men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield. The Mosquito Bowl in theaters October 30th.
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