Down Goes OKC! Spurs-Knicks is Here! What the Hell Just Happened? And What Does OKC Do Now? | With Zach Lowe

Join The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe LIVE on Netflix to react to Wemby and the Spurs defeating the Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals to reach the NBA Finals (1:17). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Give No Quits. Shop at your Local Duluth Trading Company Store or Online The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Tremfya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tremfyradio.com.

• 1:06Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The conference finals finally is here. We are down to four teams. Think you know it'll go down. Take your shot with FanDuel. Get closer to the action. And as you know, I've been telling you for years, FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same-game parlay for a shot at a better payout or try live betting and jump into the action on a tip-off or just follow me and my picks because every once in a while I'll put them on social. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21-plus select states or 18-plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat.

• 2:17Bill Simmons?

  Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix. Zach Lowe is here on a beautiful Saturday night. We just had an awesome, awesome game seven. My favorite game sevens are when it's not just a series at stake, or maybe even the title at stake, but I feel like there's real big picture basketball shit going on. Like era shit, legacy shit, changing of the guard type stuff. And it just felt this way from the beginning and eventually we'll remember it as the Luke Cornet chase down game. That was it. It's the Cornet game. Lock it down. Biggest play of the game. Luke Cornet, much maligned the entire series. Now, where do you want to start? I mean, that was incredible.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  I, I want to start with what you just said about, you know, Tariqo punctuates the game. It's, it's Wemby's world now. And it's absolutely remarkable that the Spurs are already here. They're so young. And I, look, they've been a clear championship team for a while now. The experience thing didn't bother me. It didn't, it didn't, it didn't, you know, limit their chances to me. But when you see them all embracing after the game, all the young faces, they're so young, the joy they have and Wemby's crying and all this. It's like they're already here at the pinnacle. And we are, what is it right now? May, five, four months removed. I mean, it was really not until those December games, starting with

• 3:42Speaker 02

  the Vegas tournament, they played three times in like 10 days. Until San Antonio won those games, the story of the season was, is it going to be 73 wins? Are they going to be maybe the greatest regular season team of all time and have the greatest two-year run of all time and start of a dynasty? And the Spurs eviscerated that in a 10-day span in December, started this series with a remarkable win on the road, and end it with a remarkable win on the road, and go into the finals with De'Aaron Fox looking healthier, Dylan Harper looking healthier. And Wemby at the top of the league and yet you use the phrase changing of the guard. Wemby's world. I already want the 2027 Western Conference Finals to start.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Because there's going to be a lot of talk about what is Oklahoma City going to do in the wake of this crushing defeat? Their title hopes dashed this rising phenom that they and nobody else has an answer for. What I want in my basketball fan soul is run it all back. Jalen Williams, you were injured, we're running it back. Chet, we got a lot of Chet talk to do. Let's go into the summer, learn, go into like the Australian outback like Dirk did when the Mavericks lost, whatever.

• 4:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you want him to do the Dirk?

• 4:52Speaker 02

  To come to come back stronger.

• 4:53Bill Simmons?

  Where did Dirk go? Yeah, the remote parts of Australia?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and and just and just come back and say, you thought it was a changing of the guard? We're coming right back at you again with the same core group that we had tonight. But these two teams going back and forth is awesome and for the Spurs to be here is absolutely incredible.

• 5:12Bill Simmons?

  Wow, you just chewed up a lot of storylines there.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Let's get, but there's.

• 5:16Bill Simmons?

  That was great. Let's start here with the Spurs, though. Young core teams that make the finals, this just basically only happens once a decade. Seventy-seven Blazers, eighty-six Rockets, ninety-five Magic, LeBron in the oh-seven Cavs. Fifteen Warriors, sort of.

• 5:36Bill Simmons?

  Curry's like six years in at that point. Um, we had the eighty-seven Mavs almost, the ninety-three Sonics almost. There's been some almost. This is like the youngest, craziest run. Even the eighty-six Rockets seem more conceivable to me than this. And then they go down three, two. I picked the Spurs before the series. I genuinely thought they could win. After game five, I I thought it was a wrap because of because of Fox. And because of of Harper, they just didn't look right. Harper looked great in game six. We were texting before the game. Tell them what your prediction was before the game.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Well, I mean,

• 6:13Bill Simmons?

  About Fox.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  I said Fox was gonna have 15 points on 6 of 14 shooting. I thought he, I basically said he's gonna have a good game, not a great game. But you were worried that he was gonna have.

• 6:21Bill Simmons?

  I was worried for the 0 for 11.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, disaster game.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Cataclysmic, like, is it already time to trade him game? And I was like, I like the shots that he was getting in game six. And I was like, I think he's just gonna have a good, fine, productive game. Maybe a big.

• 6:34Bill Simmons?

  So what did he end up with?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Uh, he was.

• 6:37Bill Simmons?

  I think you nailed the prediction.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  15 points on 6 of 12.

• 6:40Bill Simmons?

  You nailed it.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  He needed to miss two more shots for me to get it exactly right.

• 6:44Bill Simmons?

  All right, so here's what I jotted down from the everything we would want from a game seven standpoint. We had two fantastic teams.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:53Bill Simmons?

  With two tremendous stars that I, I think played really well. And I want to talk about SGA in a second, but both of those guys were awesome in that game for different reasons. And you had two fascinating career moments for those guys, too. You have SGA, you talked about it with Goldsberry after the game six, like, we're throwing his name around with some pretty legendary guys from the last 75, 80 years. It would kind of be nice if you had a better series. Could we ask for that? And he was lights out. And then you have Wemby going on the road, down 3-2 in a series. Battling foul trouble. We get down the stretch. I didn't feel like NBC, I thought NBC did it, the crew did a good job today. It was the one time where I felt like they should have been losing their minds that Wemby got that fifth foul so fast.

• 7:38Bill Simmons?

  Cause he got four, then all of a sudden he had five. And it's like, oh my God, there's seven minutes left. Is he gonna foul out? What are they gonna do? Are they gonna take him out? So we had that. And then we had, uh, the Chet self-combusting piece.

• 7:52Bill Simmons?

  Which we have to get into too. But Zach, I thought this game had pieces. I had three series written down. The 81 Celtics Sixers, which were the last time two awesome teams played in a game seven like this. They both had 62 plus wins. Same kind of chaotic rugby type game. Bulls Pacers with OKC in the Bulls in 98. OKC in the Bull spot of down six, down eight, down four, down eight again, down two, down eight. Just, just kind of trying to scrap back and getting into it. And yet the Bulls came back and won and and OKC did not. And then the other one I had was the 2016 Golden State OKC game ironically. And that was in Golden State, but OKC, just the shots, they just couldn't get good shots.

• 8:38Bill Simmons?

  Like you'd even think about like all the offensive rebounds they had in the first half and then Wallace like saving them down the stretch. But the offense, the non SGA offense was so hard for them. So explain it to us, what happened?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, Joe Williams and AJ Mitchell are hurt. That that's part of it. And you take those guys away and it's like, oh, my God, we're real short on creators. And honestly, when SGA didn't come out at the end of the first quarter, did you think he might play all 48 minutes of the game? Cause I did.

• 9:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, there was two panic things. What he ended up, I think 44 minutes, that was one. And the other was they came out to start the third quarter. They had Wallace out there and J Will and Caruso. And it was like, oh, we're Dagnall's doing this now. Like he's, he's worried this game's going to get away. So that there was definitely like, he's calling timeouts. I felt like he was desperately trying to hold on to this game. They did some interesting sub stuff too with the centers, especially in the second half where I think they, he was kind of realizing, maybe I can't rely on Chet. And I'll start him in the third quarter, but I'm also going to have Harton staying in as, as fast as I can if he's not there. But ultimately Chet's why they lost. I, I don't want to do the Monday morning, you know, first take, just blame a guy.

• 9:46Bill Simmons?

  He didn't step up, send him to Siberia, but I voted for him, I think third team all NBA. He was the number two defensive player in the, you know, of the year. And he didn't want to shoot and it got to the point Zach where they were throwing a pass. He wasn't even catching passes clean anymore. Like you, like he was as far in your head as you can get on a basketball court. Would you have sat him or would you have stuck with him?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  I think without, I, I think if they had more options, they probably would have sat him. And then they sat him late from a game when, when it was almost too little, too late.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's just, first of all, SGA was everything you would ever want him to be in a game where I think there was some actual like career defining pressure on him after

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  six and series, like a scintillating game of shot making. He had the one annoying jump sideways into Devin Vassell, who he could, but, but when you get a guy airborne, the benefit of the doubt is going to go to you. When a guy bites at your pump fake so badly that he's flying in the air, you're probably going to get the call.

• 10:47Bill Simmons?

  I thought you couldn't go sideways on that, though. I thought they took care of that role.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  You shouldn't. It's inconsistently officiated, but it doesn't matter. He played like an absolutely brilliant game. Wemby played a brilliant game. And here, to me, the series, the series changed in game four when they stopped double teaming Shay. And that was, I think you and I did a podcast after that game, and I said that there's a little whiff of like, when the, I didn't really make this comparison, but I just, it was the first thing that came into my head of when the Warriors in game four of the finals in 2015 went with the death lineup and started Igudala. And you could, and you could sense like, oh, the terrain of this just changed in a way that is not going back into the tube. I thought not trapping SGA changed the whole series, made his life difficult, made the Thunder's offense life difficult.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  And I had a, I talked with Goldberg, I had a checklist for what does Oklahoma City need to win game seven, even at home, because the Spurs had been the better team through six games. And the checklist was, there were three things on the checklist. They got one. I said they needed two. One was a good Shay game. They got a great Shay game. Two was, they're going to need a really strong three-point shooting performance from their role players. I'm not counting 12 of 35 as checking that box. I think that's like 34%. They needed better than that. They were like 29% before the end of the game. And then the third one was, they're going to need to force a lot of turnovers and get out in transition. And the Spurs again won the turnover battle tonight. That's been the story of the series since game two. So they only got one out of three. And the check-

• 12:14Bill Simmons?

  I would have thrown in offensive rebounds for there, which they were getting in the first half. And then it just flipped in the second half. San Antonio-

• 12:21Speaker 02

  15 offensive rebounds.

• 12:22Bill Simmons?

  ended up with 15 offensive rebounds. They had four at halftime.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Well, and I'll tell you, Dylan Harper had two, and both of them led to bad- And and then both of them were the result of Oklahoma City messed up a rotation at the top of the arc and the guy from the corner had to panic rotate up at a shooter who was left open by mistake. And both times, I think it was Harper, both times, the corner guy crashed and got huge rebounds. And let's should we like chat?

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  Let's do, let's do, let's do SGA and Wemby first and then we can talk about chat. So to finish the SGA thing, that was one of my favorite games I've ever seen him play. Cause I felt like, first of all, worst possible team for him to play, right? Where they have, it feels like seven perimeter guys to throw to and Wemby.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  For everybody to play like that, like that's just this, this is what this guy is now. He's the worst possible guy to play if you're an offense first player.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  But they also had a bunch of perimeter guys who seemed pretty comfortable, at least trying to stay in front of him. They were trapping him really smartly and he was just solving it for two hours. And I didn't think he was doing a lot of the flop stuff. I thought everything he was doing was just like really smart scoring, made a couple of threes.

• 13:34Bill Simmons?

  And it felt like, wow, if they win this game, this is gonna be, I know he won two MVPs in a row and he won the title last year, but this will be like the defining game that I'm not positive he's had yet. The first game you would point to, and then he just ran out of gas and Reggie and Jamal, who I thought did a good job tonight, they noticed it right away. They, they noticed he started bailing on the passes and stuff, but that's about as well as he could play, finished with 35. But as you said earlier, you don't have Mitchell. Now, now McCain's taking up most of that Mitchell minutes and playing really well, but Jalen Williams was, that was it. Cause Jalen Williams would have allowed them to go bigger, smaller. He would have been the second creator and they just, you could really feel it today. They didn't have that second guy.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you mentioned the big man stuff. I think what they concluded was, and you could see them trending this way, the whole series was, we cannot play another big man with Hartenstein because there's just not enough shooting and dynamism on the floor, but we do want to have as much size as possible because Wemby is just so dynamic at the rim. We need a second layer of rim protection. So. We would like to play two bigs. The only two big combination we have left that we have any faith in is Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. They just completely separated into those two in the second half. And part of that is like, if Chet's gonna be a zero, like Chet is a floor spacing off the dribble attacking big man who can play with a traditional center. That's the whole point of him.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  And he, he ended up averaging like 10.5 points per game in the series and was completely invisible the entire game. And you never want to read too much into one game. But when you play like that in this game, that matters a lot and is going to have some lasting effects that he and the team are going to have to get together and figure out like, how do we not have that ever happen again? Because that was just not an acceptable performance of a guy, from a guy of his caliber. And the whole series was leading to that and it, this was the low point.

• 15:31Bill Simmons?

  I got this email a few times before game seven. And I wrote down, because I had a feeling we'd be talking about this, but Joe from Pennsylvania wrote, I have no dog in this fight, but if you're an OKC fan, would you be worried that Wemby is taking Chet's soul? He wrote this before game seven. Ben Craven wrote, do you see any parallels between what Wemby is doing to Chet and what Jordan did to Drexler?

• 15:56Bill Simmons?

  Greg in Toronto wrote, is Chet versus Wemby the best modern example of two generational unicorns? Where the mere existence of one completely robs the relevance of the other?

• 16:07Bill Simmons?

  Chet deserves praise for not ordering a Tonya Harding level hit job on Wemby.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  I mean, we don't know what's, we don't know what's going on. We're not watching the post game right now. This should all be happening now. There could be the Tonya Harding hit job could be in now.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  Shane Stan, is he out of prison? So here's the thing. I don't see how this gets better. And it's going to open up over when Yanis, wow, we're talking about Yanis again. Yanis is going to go in the next three weeks and it does make me think like, OKC, who felt like their window was the most limitless window possible. And now all of a sudden they're like, holy shit, we couldn't even make two finals in a row? With this unbelievable setup we had? Do you start that? I just feel like Chet and Giannis, that's going to be mentioned for the next 72 hours. And it's not Presti's style to do a trade like that, we should say.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  So it's not. And I do think you have to zoom out a little bit and say, minus two of our most important players, we took a team to game seven who is a great, great, like, these were two great, great basketball teams.

• 17:10Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  It's not as if you can come away with the sort of like, we've just fallen hopelessly behind the rest of the league and like, things have caught up to us. I, I think you would probably take the long view.

• 17:19Bill Simmons?

  You blame the injuries.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  They, I just think you take the long view, like, we're not, we're not far away. We're going to learn from this. That's what I said at the beginning. I want, I want a vengeance narrative to come. I want the Thunder to come together and say, no, no, it's still our time. It's still our time with this core. We just weren't up to it this time. We're going to learn from it and get better next time. And about Chet, first of all, after this performance, how much more does Oklahoma City have to throw in to entice Milwaukee? And you have massive second apron issues for the Thunder. They can't aggregate contracts. So it's not that easy to do. They're going to be the most, one of the most, if not the most expensive teams in the league ever.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  We're talking about that later, really quick.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  But like, how much, how much, how enticing is that to Milwaukee? But it's not like Chet. So it's, it's, it's disturbing that they concluded Chet is offensively, like, can't play next to a center by the end of the series. It's just not working. He's not doing anything. He's not even looking at the rim out open three.

• 18:12Bill Simmons?

  But how about, why couldn't he have done what J. Will did? J. Will was the spacing center that Chet has been for his entire career. What happened?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  But not only that, like, so he just can't really play center at all in this matchup. You can't put him at the five as the only big man on the floor and have him screen and roll to the basket and just do the most basic center thing that Wemby's also awesome at, which is be giant and tall and screen and roll to the basket. You can't have him guard Wemby pretty much ever. Like, you're that terrified of putting him at the five and having him guard Wemby in this series. It's just.

• 18:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  There are just a thousand red flags around Chet after this series. And it's just, he's going to have to dig deep and they're going to have to dig deep. And because this, this rival is only going to get better in the next three to four years.

• 18:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're doing the Tim Connolly, I've now taken over Minnesota. How do I create the team to beat the team I just left? And if you're OKC now. You went from we want to have this long window. We have these picks.

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  We're going to try to figure out how to navigate everything, build around these three guys, use all our draft picks to maybe move up, move around to drafts. To now like, how do we beat Wemby? You know, do you look at number 12? Do you, there's a Michigan center who's seven foot three. Do you just like, do you try to trade up and get him? Do you try to trade Chet for Giannis or Evan Mobley? Do you, I don't even know. And then the other question would be, should you even be panicking about Wemby? Because nobody has a guy to guard Wemby. It's not like there are other teams in the league are like, we, we have our Wemby stopper over here. There's not going to be a Wemby stopper. They did the best job you're going to do.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  I think it, for me, I think it's much more toward that second pull that you outlined is like, there is not going to be a silver bullet answer. In fact, I think if there is one, it's more shooting. I, I think you just, I think they were a shooter short in this series and it just made it easy for him to rove around and just patrol the paint and be on the baseline. And you know, they're like Wallace had a good game for them tonight and is a decent shooter. McCain is an up and down three point shooter. I just think they were, Caruso teams are like, had a great series. What was he? One of six on threes tonight. Almost dunked on Wemby. That was exciting for about, for a second.

• 20:21Bill Simmons?

  Hurt his wrist, it looked like.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  I, I think if, if, I think if there is an answer, that's the answer. It's just, we got to get as much shooting as possible and have faith in our defense around it to, to round it out.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  They, this was their issue last year and it didn't really rear itself we had, even though they did play in two seventh games. But that was the always thing. You always would look at the threes, the games that got blown out, this series, they suck from three. There were moves they could have made during this season with the, with all the picks and all the young players they have. You know, there were people sitting around like that, like who knows when Trey Murphy is going to get traded.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  That's, that's a name that was, that was the name floating around my head as I was talking.

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And maybe that's a move they make. That's another thing is Trey Murphy, we assume he's probably going to get traded over these next three weeks. I think Boston is a possibility. We thought whoever lost this matchup was a possibility. There's a couple of other teams, but you know, you have two, three weeks to trade for somebody like that. We, we'll talk more OKC later. Let's, um, we'll take a quick break. And we're going to come back and we got to talk about Wemby and just everything we saw in this series and what that might look like against the Knicks too. This episode is brought to you by Duluth Trading Company. Whether it's the 19th inning, the 12th quarter, or the fifth and a half shift overtime, not going anywhere.

• 21:42Bill Simmons?

  Which is why Duluth builds hardworking gear for folks who work their butts off. Their surefire Arsenal work shirts are built for function and comfort, giving a big foam middle finger to all that is futile. And the new no quit utility shirt is equipped with cooling and wicking tech, oh boy, to keep you comfortable, all while being tough enough to take down your most daunting tasks. When it's marathon work session versus you, give no quits. Shop at a Duluth store near you or at DuluthTrading.com.

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  Victor Wembeyama, 22 years old. If you're going to nitpick his performance in the playoffs, you might say protect the defensive boards a little better.

• 22:31Bill Simmons?

  Maybe take your time on doubles.

• 22:34Bill Simmons?

  Try to figure out how to get closer to the basket.

• 22:38Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. That's all I got. He was fucking awesome. He was a maniac.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  There are no nits. There's no picking. I'm not, I'm not, I mean, like, everyone wants him closer to the basket all the time. And I think the people who scream that all the time, even though some of them are ex-players and I certainly am not, are underestimating how fatiguing it is to throw yourself at the basket over and over and over again when you're skinny and you do what he does on defense. And just how hard it is, like, the days of just throw the ball into the post and post up and back down have been over for like 25 years. And the reality is, his games are like, he broke through the other night and he made, took nine threes, I think, and his jumper was on again today. And he made that step back over Jalen Williams on the left wing. I almost fell out of my goddamn chair. It's always going to be a mix and that's okay. And he's...

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Defensively, there are just no words anymore for what this guy is doing. I mean, I said it with Goldsberry and I've wondered where this game ranks. Five of Oklahoma City's nine worst offensive games, points per possession, going into this game tonight, were against, for the whole season, playoffs included, were against the Spurs. Like, it's just a weapon that no one has an answer to yet.

• 23:47Bill Simmons?

  You know, when you really noticed it, when he would come out of the game and SGA was like, when I let Murph out in the backyard, he just runs around. SGA was like, he's not out there. You could just see like the hop and a step. It's like, oh my God. That's what the rim looks like.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  You led with it almost as a joke. I do think that Cornet block, if we're going to talk about the Wemby on the bench minutes, I mean, that was, if he finishes that fast break, Hartenstein, or passes it off to Wallace, because it was kind of a two-on-one, that makes it 97-93. Wemby's in foul trouble, crowd's going crazy. Instead, it's a block, and I can't remember who ends up scoring at the other end to make it 99-91. Just, it was a castle. It was a castle jumper. That, and their, their transition defense the entire series was just balls to the wall. Oklahoma City just could not convert in transition as consistently because everything was contested.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  The rebounds were contested. Like, credit the Spurs. That's the kind of urgency it takes to beat a team like this four times. And like, that Cornet, that Cornet block was, maybe the moment of the entire game. I don't know, but it's up there.

• 24:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, there were two moments when it felt like OKC was going to make a run, and that was one. So it's 97-92, 6:48 left, Wemby has to come out. And then there was that other one,

• 25:10Bill Simmons?

  when it was, I'm gonna say it was like, two minutes left, Wallace hit that second three, and then San Antonio inbounded the ball. All this stuff's blending together. And they just decided to run the let's throw it to Wemby play.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, Door took it away.

• 25:26Bill Simmons?

  Door took it, and OKC just couldn't convert. But it felt like, oh my God, this would be the classic young team falling apart piece. But, I, listen.

• 25:37Bill Simmons?

  I really respect when somebody knows how to handle themselves with five fouls because they brought him back a minute later. He came back with like over five minutes left and the announcers were talking about it and I agreed like I'm just going at him and trying to get that that uh that six one and there were a couple of times it felt like they could have attacked him and and they just didn't. So there were a couple of things San Antonio did even in this game to try to try to get him a little more open. Couple of times they just put him in the corner and created basically left him on one side and had him not really back down but he was at least 18 feet where he can go toward the paint with his right hand. So maybe trying to think what stuff the Knicks will try to do against him. Now that the Knicks have that Mitchell Robinson finger

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  thing. I assume who's gonna play but who knows. They'll have towns to throw at him who's a dump out waiting to happen all the time. Other than that, who are they gonna be able to like OG would be the other one, I guess?

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Ananobi guarded him quite a lot. I rewatched all the games this weekend to prep.

• 26:34Bill Simmons?

  Little Josh Hart, maybe? A split second or no?

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Josh didn't guard him much. Josh guarded Steph Castle a lot. OG guarded him a lot, probably towns and Ananobi and Robinson. And then there's like random guys who are in these games because they're regular season games. Like Kukporti comes in and whatever. I think we'll see a little bit of and and that is where the Harrison Barnes swap out of the starting lineup for Champagny, who was absolutely nailed in this game tonight, looms large because when the Knicks would play around like that and put Ananobi on Wemba Yama, Harrison Barnes was the guy that they would be like, all right, cat, just like stand in the corner with Harrison Barnes and that's safe for you. And that's not, that doesn't really exist anymore. But the Robinson, I just want to flag it now. I think he's a massive deal in this series because one of the other things I've come

• 27:22Speaker 02

  to believe watching Wemby is everyone searches for like, what's an answer? What's is there an answer? Is there a player? And like I said, I don't think there is one. There's no individual player. I think shooting is an answer. And I do think an elite offensive rebounder and and lob catcher, someone that he's got to think about, like if I try to block every shot and even I'm gonna miss some, am I gonna get? Punished on the other end of it, or is there a lob threat? And I think Mitchell Robinson, obviously in the Vegas game, he had like a thousand offensive rebounds.

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  I think that player type is a really important player type against the Spurs and like they then if they don't have Mitchell Robinson full throttle, I think that's a bigger problem in this matchup than it would have been against the Thunder.

• 28:07Bill Simmons?

  I wrote, anytime I watch a game like this, I always write down in the second quarter in bold, the guys who I think I trust in the game. So for the Spurs, I had Wemby, Castle, Fox, Vassell, Harper and Champagny. So it's six guys for them and that was before the Kelton Johnson renaissance in the second half, right? They had seven guys really show up in this game, not to mention Cornet, who had the biggest defensive play. For OKC at that point.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  By the way, by the way, I just want to point out, that's basically all seven guys who played in the game. Ever the other three guys played six minutes, three minutes and three minutes.

• 28:45Bill Simmons?

  I felt great about all those guys. OKC, I had SGA, McCain, Caruso. And then I had I heart question mark and J will question mark. And those were the only five guys I had for OKC. Now I didn't have Wallace down and Wallace came on in the second, he didn't really play as much in the first half.

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  And Wallace should have been on there and maybe I forgot to write him down, but um, but it's interesting, I didn't have Chet and I didn't have Kelton Johnson and Kelton Johnson, who I thought really wasn't good this series. But then in the, in the second half, he had some big offensive rebounds. He had a couple of big threes that I, there were some, a couple of no, no, yes threes. Uh, and had the right kind of energy, right kind of energy. Whereas like from, from the OKC standpoint, I, Dort was that guy for them last year. He would give them energy with defense with, you know, just like kind of veteran stuff. And he just wasn't, I didn't feel like he was the same in this playoffs.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Look, I think it's not second guessing. I, I, I, and certainly I was not alone said after game six, like, I don't think you can start Dort and Holmgren and Hardenstein again in game seven, because you're just getting boat raced at the beginning of every game.

• 29:56Bill Simmons?

  Would you have started Harper and Baylor and Baylor Shireman?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Again, I said after that game, I don't know, like we always say chess, not checkers. I'm not sure what Missoula was playing. I think he was playing Bobble that night and neither chess nor checkers.

• 30:12Bill Simmons?

  Had to been some Bobble.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  I just couldn't believe he started that lineup again. To his credit, he pulled Dort real fast and put Caruso in and the damage was not as severe. As it could have been, but like every time. The Thunder got, there were two times the Thunder took the lead and when they took the lead, it felt like they had gotten to the top of the mountain and boy, what a relief. And just instantaneously, the Spurs would go on like a nine oh run to say like, no, no, we're going to retake control of the game. The first one is at the end of the first half when they finished on a seven oh run.

• 30:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Right after the Thunder took the lead and I think there was another time in the second half and just like, that's so impressive to take that punch, to have the crowd going like that. Four point lead, three point lead, whatever it was, and just instantaneously like, oh, an 11 oh run just happened. And it's not just they're, they're ahead again, they're in control of the game again, and they got to fight back again from seven, eight, nine down. It just like sensational responses by the Spurs.

• 31:07Bill Simmons?

  Fox especially, I thought had a couple of big boy moments. Right when the momentum felt like it was shifting against him and he had some old school. Did he win clutch player of the year?

• 31:20Bill Simmons?

  He might have.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 31:21Bill Simmons?

  Second, he was like.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  He did, no, he did. I think it was the beam team year, which was the first year they had the award.

• 31:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't have my clutch player of the year by year thing framed yet, so I'm not able to look at it, but. But it was the old school Fox center with 15, five, he had three steals. And I thought he did an okay job anytime he was on SGA too, like when. Now, I, I don't even really know who OKC was trying to switch SGA on to because it felt like every single guy was at least. You know, passable with Wemby behind them. There wasn't like a, like a black hole type person. If we down to the next series, it would have been Brunson.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  It, it ends up not mattering because.

• 31:59Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't matter.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Of, of the guy that's, that's behind him, like you said.

• 32:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So Champagne hit six threes.

• 32:08Bill Simmons?

  And it was interesting, they didn't close with Vassal, uh, Vassell. He was on the bench, I felt like for most of, most of the end because they were playing Harper, who we have to talk about.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 32:20Bill Simmons?

  Listen, man. I, I've talked about it before, so have you. 20 year old point guards doing this on this stage on the road is unheard of. This is, yeah, I'm trying not to use the word generational, but we're talking 1980 Magic Johnson at age 20 in the finals. And we're talking Derrick Rose in that Bulls Celtics playoff series. 20 year old point guards are a mess. They're like, they're, they're like freshmen in high school, just trying to remember what their locker combination is and just trying to survive the day and remember where the classrooms are. They're not supposed to be running the offense. He had that one, when he, we backed down. I can't remember who it was, he backed him down, did the footwork thing and kind of stopped.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  I think traveled, but.

• 33:04Bill Simmons?

  It felt like, might've been a travel, but somehow ended up pulling. But I just, we're, we're gonna have 15 years of that. I thought that was in such an important game for him. Because now, you know, the Knicks, that atmosphere is going to be even crazier. It's the finals, the spotlight's a little bigger, but I think they know with him. He seemed healthy to me too, the last two games, which is the big thing.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, bounce back, uh, his bounce is back, his power around the rim is back and he.

• 33:27Bill Simmons?

  He tried to do that crazy dunk too.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:29Bill Simmons?

  In the fourth quarter, which was probably a mistake, but he was like, I'm going for it. Fuck it, which was that whole team, yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  I mean, they killed some clock before, but again, I, I was surprised that he just went for it. But I'm also not because he thinks he's gonna pull it off. And imagine if you do, you just, I think Chet Holmgren would have just broken into like 10,000 pieces and that would have been the end of him. And it's like, I don't know what you, I just don't know what would have happened.

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

  Poor Chet. This is really gonna be, gonna be a tough one for him. So Harper, Castle, Fox together.

• 33:59Bill Simmons?

  This was the dream when you get Fox, when it's like, we'll have these three guys. Sometimes we'll even be able to play them together. This will ease Harper into this, Fox on a bigger stage, on a better team. Fox is in Sacramento and, and would you call them in our over under pod?

• 34:16Speaker 02

  The Hindenburg of the NBA. I said they were, I said they were, they were heading for a Hindenburg level season. By the way, we have a deer in Fox, Mike Brown. We got off the Hindenburg reunion coming up in the finals.

• 34:26Bill Simmons?

  We have a reunion for them, but Fox gets out of there.

• 34:30Bill Simmons?

  The ringers, Rich Paul smartly puts him on Wemby's team, which was, I think, a good move. And, uh, and this couldn't have worked out better. I mean, you guess where else he could be on Sacramento?

• 34:43Bill Simmons?

  With Russell Westbrook and DeRozan and waited to see who they pick, who they're gonna, how they're gonna fuck up the seventh pick. So you have that castle was, you know, I thought he was incredible the whole series for his, he's 21. It's not like he's 10 years older than Harper. The defense, when he had the four fouls, I was nervous for them because it's like, I don't know if you can survive if he's out of the game that long. I don't know. What has he become? What is, what is Castle in five years for you? Who is he?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  I mean, an all-star for sure. Um, a multi-time all-star.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  Who's the doppelganger? Who, like, who is it?

• 35:19Speaker 02

  I mean, you have to think, who's a big physical guard who, who gets by with brute force and passing creativity around it? And by that time is probably a more reliable jump shooter than he is now, although he shot the three well in the playoffs. Like I'm trying to even think of who plays with the, the raw power and like ferocity that he has. Like he, he plays as if, he plays with like a hatred of the guy in front of him. Like, I just want to beat the shit out of you and go up right in your face.

• 35:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he was tired of Caruso after seven games. I think he was, I had enough of him. I don't know. I don't know who he is.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Knowing, and no one is coming to my mind as like a great guard wing doppelganger for him.

• 35:59Bill Simmons?

  It's somebody that definitely belonged in a different era and decade. I think he would have been really happy in 2003 or 2004, being in like those Pacers Piston series. But yeah, I don't, I don't really know even who to compare him to. So the

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Like a, like a meaner. Is he taller than Dwyane Wade, like a meaner, um, more aggressive, more like powerful Dwyane Wade? I don't know.

• 36:26Bill Simmons?

  It's like a Dwyane Wade crossed with Alvin Robertson. I'm gonna go back to the eighties for Alvin Robertson. Um, so anyway, you have that. You have this Cornet signing that they do that was really smart. They played the Celtics perfectly and then Cornet, every time Wemby comes out, they lose the Cornet minutes. And at some point, I had a couple of people in my life who like the Spurs. They're like, what's up with this Cornet? What a stiff. I'm like, he's not a stiff. Cornet's a good backup. This is just for whatever reason, can't get a go in this series. And then finally was able to hold the fort a little tonight. But what's interesting about them going forward, they have the Wemby extension this summer regardless, but they could still kind of dabble and make this team better. I didn't even know what you would do because you always want to base this stuff on who do we have in a game seven that we trust?

• 37:11Bill Simmons?

  And we just went through it. I, I, seven guys I like.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, they have small windows to do small, to medium things. The big things are over. Um, I looked at it a little bit too, and I, I didn't think too deeply about it because the series was still going on there. It's not nearly as like financially dire as what's about to hit the thunder.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  And.

• 37:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, and they, and they have the Carter Bryant piece too. Like if he emerges, Calvin Johnson expired next year, but if Carter Bryant becomes that perfect, like defensive, physical banger who can also hit threes and play next to Wemby, that's kind of what they need.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Well, and the, the, the Calvin Johnson one is a big one because if they end up having to keep him at what a fair rate would be for a guy who just won six man of the year, it, it, and they love him and maybe they will. But if they keep him, they're gonna, I think they should probably want to resign, extend or resign Champagny. They have a team option on him next year for nothing, for $3 million. They get pretty expensive if they keep everybody together, but again, they have windows now. And by the way, we should, we always do this thing where we, we, the collective, we, everybody, um, points out when a team, like the Rockets were the first team that we talked about like this, um, the Pistons have gotten a little flack for it. Like, well, they had all these trade assets and they did nothing at the trade deadline and look how it came back to haunt them in the playoffs. The Spurs did nothing at the trade deadline and they have a lot of assets.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  And everyone I think thought they were going to do something at the trade deadline and they didn't. And they're in the finals, so sometimes it goes the other way too.

• 38:37Bill Simmons?

  I was okay with them because I felt like. It was probably a year ahead of schedule. They needed to taste our own butt in the playoffs. As it turned out, they didn't.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  No, they just they're drinking everybody else's blood.

• 38:50Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, it's just like, let's take a year and see what we have because that's like what Sam Presti would have done. For instance, but as it turned out, it turned out to be an incredible move and they have a bunch of picks too. Like they're going to be able to have some maneuverability. So how many Knicks fans in your life? Were texting you over the last 48 hours, asking you who they should be rooting for in this game?

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Oh, just.

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  Because I had every single Knicks fan I knew was like, what do you think? Who who should I root for? And I'm like, if I'm you, I don't want to play Wemby in the finals. That's who I would root for.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  So it's funny. I said this with Goldsberry. Like, I just think you just have to say, I don't care. Because the easy answer is like, the the answer they default to is the Spurs because, oh, we beat the Spurs, you know, twice. And including in the the cup and like, we looked pretty comfortable against them. We killed them at home in March. Uh, and the Thunder, the Thunder, I'm like, I just don't, the Spurs have risen to the level where there's just no great answer here. And they're both bad answers. But if Jalen Williams is hurt and A.J. Mitchell is hurt, I think the Thunder might actually be the better answer because I don't want any, I don't want any part of these guys, but they're just, they're, they're just excited. And honestly, like weirdly, a lot of them were, a lot of my Knicks fans, friends and acquaintances and people I run into

• 40:06Speaker 02

  were rooting for the Spurs regardless because they're just fascinated with Wemby and they have a lot of people really just have bought into even casual fans that bought into like the flopping with Oklahoma City drives me crazy and I just don't like the way they play. Like Knicks fans were, they're, they're just like, you know what? Let's, let's have some fun with Wemby. It'll be, it'll be fun at the very least.

• 40:25Bill Simmons?

  I am delighted that we don't have to talk about flopping anymore. Thank God. Thank God. That's over for content and the most fun possible series was Knicks Spurs. Even though the basketball historian inside of me was like, man, OKC. Going through wars to try to win two straight titles like that would be really meaningful. That would put them on this whole other other level, but Knicks Spurs is the most fun series. And if you're the league.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 40:53Bill Simmons?

  This is like the, this is the all time wet, the only other wet dream. If you're talking wet dream finals, it's this one. It's 2016 LeBron rematch against the 73 win Warriors coming off the Klay Thompson OKC game. It's the 2010 Lakers Celtics rematch, right? Those are the three wet dream finals for the league. And this might be number one, honestly, out of everything we mentioned, because you have the revival of the Knicks. You have 53 years and generations of fans waiting for this forever. And you have Wemby, your next guy, the guy who's ready to replace LeBron and Curry as, as the guy in the league already here.

• 41:36Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's like what we had in 2007, except the rest of his team is actually good. When it was Spurs Cavs and it's like LeBron's here. Yeah, but he's playing with guys that have no chance against this Spurs team. This is different, like Wemby could actually win it. And I feel, I feel like we have some history with Wemby too now. And I think the Olympics was really important with that. We've, even though he's young and he hasn't been around and he missed half a last season, I still feel like I've seen him in some basketball games, like he doesn't feel like a shiny new car to me. The, he can't to you, right? We've been watching him for a few years now.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  We've been talking about him as arguably the best player in the league for five months now. Like he's here, he's been in big games, the, the international stuff was big and.

• 42:18Bill Simmons?

  And the Olympics.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And this is, you know, um, another finals without any of the sort of older generation players that have carried the league for a long time. And it's the first, I think, well, I mean, depending on what you, how you perceive of Shay or whatever. But obviously there is a guy like everyone, everyone is fascinated by Wemba Yama. People who have watched two basketball games the entire year and kind of half watched them while drinking in the suite somewhere at MSG. Like can't wait to watch this guy play on a big stage.

• 42:49Bill Simmons?

  He did a thing today in the fourth quarter. It was, there were, it was like halfway through the fourth quarter. Dylan Harper, maybe even like four minutes left. Dylan Harper ended up with the ball and he kind of lost it around the foul line. And all of a sudden, there's a fast break and the OKC had a two on one. And they ended up throwing it in the left corner to McCain. And Wemby was hustling back and he's on like the three point line, but somehow challenged the shot and he did like that crazy Wemby like Freddy Krueger move he does. And he almost blocked it. And if he had blocked it, that would have been the greatest block I've ever seen.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  If he, if the, if I had had time, I would have gone back and slowed it down because he's running and you know, he's going to jump at it. And you're just thinking, he's so big that he's just, Jared McCain is at least going to know that he's coming, but probably also think he can't actually get to it, but I'm using my head a little bit. Like, did he actually almost?

• 43:45Bill Simmons?

  He did, I rerounded it. He almost had it. It seemed like he did from the camera.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  And that's like Tirico on the call, God bless him, was like, oh, Wemby did that Cornet contest. And I'm like, oh, if only Luke Cornet could do a Cornet contest like that. That was, that was, that was not the Cornet contest. That was something altogether different. I get where you're going. He started from very far away, but that was not the Cornet contest.

• 44:08Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Opening US residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Torturo gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Torturo stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tadiana 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. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push,

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. FanDuel has the finals line for us.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Okay, you saw it, you looked at it?

• 45:52Bill Simmons?

  I saw it. It was not what I would have guessed. I'll tell you what I would have guessed after, but what is your guess?

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Spurs very slight favorites. Like, what is the proper terminology? Like minus 110 or something like that?

• 46:06Bill Simmons?

  Like minus, say like minus 125, minus 130 range as slight favorites?

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so I would have said Spurs minus 150. And it's Spurs minus 205.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  Good one, favorites. Very similar to the Boston Dallas finals line. If you want to do Spurs sweep, that's plus 730. If you want to do Knicks in four, Knicks in five, that's 16 to one or 12 to one. If you want to do the greatest night of basically everyone's life that we know from New York, Knicks win in six.

• 46:43Bill Simmons?

  Plus 480.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Look, if the Knicks win in six.

• 46:46Bill Simmons?

  Shut down New York City.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  I'm either, I'm either sleeping in Madison Square Garden.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, not getting home.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  I'm doing a live podcast from the street, just drinking with crazy people and you may never see me again. But those are the only, those are the only two.

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  Not sure we see really anybody again. I don't know what happens. I mean, that will be the highest priced basketball ticket of all time. It will be in the running for highest priced sports ticket of all time. I don't know.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  If, assuming we get it, let's assume we'd knock on wood that we have a game six and maybe a game seven in these finals.

• 47:21Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm supposed to go there. I can't go live after game two because my son is graduating high school. Big moment. Last time I skipped a game for his graduation was the Curry game. Curry game for Boston, Golden State, when he graduated the.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Which you have stated.

• 47:38Bill Simmons?

  Eighth grade.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Which you have stated was probably good for your emotional health to not be at the game despite its historic significance.

• 47:44Bill Simmons?

  I felt like whatever I did, they were going to lose, but I, I'm glad I didn't go. I missed the greatest game of Steph Curry's career, but my son obviously means more as he does for this high school graduation. But it's just, it almost guarantees game two is going to be good. I'm not saying I have those powers, but.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  It's good for, it's good for Ben Simmons that he's, that he's stayed above NBA players that you don't really know. And the Bill Simmons love power rankings that he's sustained in these intervening four years that he hasn't fallen off at all teenage Ben Simmons.

• 48:11Bill Simmons?

  And stayed ahead of the other Ben Simmons, who is now a professional fisherman.

• 48:17Bill Simmons?

  That was another thing. I was worried he was going to be like, what if Ben Simmons had been Wemba Yama? Like been the biggest star in the league. My son had the same name.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Did Inside the NBA work Ben Simmons into the Sixers gone fishing graphic? They must have, right? Like if, if, if they didn't, I like, what a missed opportunity. He could be on another boat, just fishing randomly, like not even, not even on the Sixers boat. He's just on a boat nearby, just.

• 48:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Is that gonna, in a boat in the back? Yeah. You don't have to say your finals pick, but are you leaning, I'll save it for your podcast, The Zach Lowe Show, a great podcast.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're gonna record.

• 48:53Bill Simmons?

  Are you leaning longer series or shorter?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Longer, longer. I haven't, I haven't made up, I haven't made up my mind on who I'm gonna pick to win, but I will say I think the line, I would not favor the Spurs by as much as Vegas is favoring.

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Off the bat. I think this next thing is real. Like, I think it's legit. I don't care what the level of competition is, like, to do this for this long and you just know, like, I know what my eyes saw, how they are playing, but the Mitchell Robinson thing is a big, a big X factor.

• 49:25Bill Simmons?

  The other X factor is the Spurs probably just feel like they won the title even though they have another team waiting, but that was such a, to come back 3-2, to do that on the road, it's about as emotional of a just getting to the finals. I'm trying to think, who would have had a more emotional, we just won the conference finals win? In the recent history of the NBA, because normally it's more veteran teams, right? I guess OKC beating San Antonio in 2012? But even that wasn't a game seven.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Oh, but we're picking like winners, like they had to have won the series.

• 50:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, winning the conference finals, being that emotional to just win a conference finals. Miami beating Boston in 2012 was a good one, but they were home. But yeah, it's pretty rare to have, like, I remember going back to the 90s, because I wrote down, it's funny, I went through all the game sevens in conference finals, because what was rare about the thing today, there was, every time it's under 200 points. Like, for, basically, before 1993, every game has been under 200 points, except for 2002 Lakers-Kings overtime was 106-102. So usually they're rock fights, and then, for the most part, the home team's always won until recently,

• 50:44Bill Simmons?

  and that was the fifth one in a row that the road team has won, which is nuts. The home teams.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Conference Finals, game seven specifically.

• 50:51Bill Simmons?

  Conference Finals, game seven specifically. But I'm looking at the list of most emotional ones. I guess LeBron beating Boston by himself in 2018 is up there. That was one of, one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. He played all 48. I know he'd won a couple of titles already, but the emotion of just dragging that team that he had all the way, three series, that was pretty nuts.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  That was the only emotional Eastern Conference triumph for that LeBron 2.0 in Cleveland because the other ones, I'm not even sure.

• 51:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they were like.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Realized what round they were in and someone was just told, no, you're actually in the finals. Now you get to play the West team. You just beat all these teams again.

• 51:27Bill Simmons?

  Ninety-four Knicks over Indiana was one. And then Barkley over Seattle in 93 was another one. And then the most famous one for me was the Celtics Sixers one in 81 when everyone charged the court. You know, that's still, I think, the greatest playoffs.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  The Stockton shot in Houston.

• 51:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a great one. Ninety-seven.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:48Bill Simmons?

  The Matt Maloney team. That's a really good one.

• 51:51Bill Simmons?

  But

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  I wonder how much they have left in the tank. Wemby has never played this many minutes for this kind of a stretch. They've been really, really, really careful with him, almost like a pitcher not throwing more than like five, six innings. But he, he was 40, 40 minutes or around there for about a month.

• 52:13Bill Simmons?

  So we'll see what happens. We'll see what they have left in the tank. Let's talk about what happens with OKC.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 52:18Bill Simmons?

  I always like to play, what do you do with you? So we talked about the safest thing to do is just be like, look, man, we won the title last year. We had a big bull's eye on us all year. It was the first time we became the villains. The flopping thing became a huge storyline constantly. People just didn't like us. That's always a weird thing to deal with for the first time. And then we had some bad luck in the playoffs. We went against a guy who's the best, the best player the league's had since LeBron and Curry from a ceiling standpoint. And a team that just took it from us and we were banged up and injured and let's not overreact. That would be the, that would be the safe, smart move. I don't think they're going to do that.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Okay. What do you think they're gonna do?

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  I think you have to start getting creative with some of these picks. Because the thing that they have is they can go 130, 140 cents on the dollar in a trade. And you're stockpiling all these picks. Now, they just changed with the lottery form, those picks might actually be even worth a little bit more than maybe they used to be, but you know, I'm just not wasting this SGA window when he's this good. You know, when he's, this is four years in a row now where he's been one of the one to four best players in the league. And you just never know when that window's gonna end. So I would, I would try to get at least a little creative. What do they need? What's your, what's your all time fixer? Just improve the Chet spot? What would be your move?

• 53:42Speaker 02

  I mean, but how am I improving the Chet spot?

• 53:46Bill Simmons?

  Yannis?

• 53:47Speaker 02

  I, again, I have to aggregate, like it's, it's, anything's possible when you have as many picks as the Thunder have.

• 53:53Bill Simmons?

  Deandre Ayton?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  The restrictions of the second, I'm not gonna let that slide. The restrictions of the second apron are real and like make it very hard for the Thunder to make trades because they can't aggregate salaries, they can't take back a dime more. Like there's a lot of restrictions that just make this mechanically much, I think.

• 54:11Bill Simmons?

  Are they, are they over the second apron now or it's next year? They're not over it now.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't know if they're over it now, but.

• 54:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they're over it yet. Next year they will be.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  When the calendar flips to July 1st, they're gonna fly over it.

• 54:23Bill Simmons?

  So next year, just so people know, SGA is 40, but then he goes to 60, 65, 70, 75. Chet and J. Dub both start five year, 239 million dollar deals. They have Mitchell, who they resigned at three, three and three, the best contract in the league. They have Caruso at 19.5.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  It's unbelievable, that contract.

• 54:46Bill Simmons?

  They have team options for Hartenstein, Hartenstein 29.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  They're under the aprons now.

• 54:52Bill Simmons?

  So they have team options for Hartenstein for 29, Dort for 18. They have to deal with Kason Wallace. Whether you want to extend him or not, get him on a good deal. And then they have Joe and Wiggins and J. Will making a combined 30 million next year. Plus Topich and Sorber making nine.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Sorber is just a forgotten man, just another mid first round pick sitting there waiting to contribute next year.

• 55:16Bill Simmons?

  That they might, if they're really under the crunch, might have to use picks to try to get rid of. They have the 12th and 17th pick this year. They have a Clippers swap next year. They have a top five Denver first. They have a Dallas swap in 28. They have a Denver top five protected first in 29, and then they have their own first.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  What do we do to mark the moment? When that Clippers swap is exercised and the Paul George trade ends? Do we have a?

• 55:46Bill Simmons?

  Is it like when, like the last episode of Seinfeld?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  I was thinking.

• 55:51Bill Simmons?

  Like, do you have like a clip show leading into the final episode and then a party after?

• 55:56Speaker 02

  I was thinking like the last episode of The Sopranos, like every podcast just goes blank. When they're, when they're talking about it and people think we're all dead.

• 56:05Bill Simmons?

  I got a mailbag question, wondering if they should raise to the banners, Paul George and Kawhi?

• 56:12Bill Simmons?

  Because of all the, all the good stuff that, that trade brought them.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 56:15Bill Simmons?

  Not the worst idea.

• 56:16Speaker 02

  So, so, all right, so get creative. I mean, they can do, they can, I think the, I think the number one need is shooting more than anything else. And I don't know where they get it, but I, but yeah, they can bundle a bunch of picks and move up in the draft. They can bundle picks and players and try to get like a low price player. And the Chet one is, Chet one's tricky. And did, and did Jalen Williams, I mean, this was more or less a lost season for Jalen Williams, like almost an entire like lost season. And now they're going to jump up and make all NBA level money next year. And that is a proven big three on a championship team. We just saw it last year, but it, it, we just didn't see enough of it this year in terms of availability.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  And like this, this game tonight, I just don't think we can talk enough about what just happened to Chet Holmgren in this game. Like that was a disaster. And I'm just fascinated where he goes from here personally.

• 57:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, and we've also seen a couple of times in NBA history where a guy had such a bad playoffs, it followed him. Right. It definitely affected Dirk for a couple of years. There's no question. Hey, one of the famous Celtics examples was Antoine Walker when Kenyon Martin just destroyed him. I honestly felt like Antoine Walker was never the same after that second Nets series. Like Kenny Martin just took his lunch and then we mentioned Drexler earlier as another one where Drexler was the second best player in the league in 92. The next year, I don't even think he made an All NBA team. Like between that and kind of being a backup on the Dream Team and getting his ass kicked by Jordan every day. Like he just wasn't the same after that. So the question is, do you start to worry that that could be Chet?

• 57:52Bill Simmons?

  And then if I'm another team in the league, do I feel like this is my opportunity to try to go get Chet?

• 57:57Speaker 02

  And what is Chet? Like what if, what am I getting in Chet? Because am I getting a guy who is this another? You know, it's hard for these big guys where it's like we, we're doing it with Mobley and Chet like, oh, they have this well-rounded game. Like maybe this is the year they're gonna, they're gonna develop into a 24-point a game scorer and the perimeter game's gonna come along. And it's just, it's hard and are you ever getting that guy? Or is he gonna be 19 a game, second best defensive player in the league, reasonable three-point shooter? I mean, the, the total vanishing of his three-point shot is astonishing.

• 58:29Bill Simmons?

  Inexplicable. I think it's like one of the best things about his game.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  And it's the thing that like, yeah, okay, sure. It's hard for you as a big man to, a skinny big man to dribble against wings that are guarding you and get to your spot. You're not an overpowering ball handler who's gonna back people down. But that's the thing that should never go away, no matter what, no matter what, wherever. You're going to get five open threes a game by spotting on and like it just, they, he got, I think he averaged less than two attempts per game and was completely invisible in the biggest game of, of the year.

• 58:58Bill Simmons?

  27% from three in this series before tonight. What did he shoot tonight? Was it like one for two or something? Did he even take a three?

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Didn't shoot. Uh, zero for zero. So you can just.

• 59:10Bill Simmons?

  So he finished 27%.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  Really odd.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  It's not the percentage. How many did he take? He took 11 threes in seven games.

• 59:20Bill Simmons?

  He passed up a couple too, tonight, that Jamal and Reggie called him out for right away. Like, wow, he's got it.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:27Bill Simmons?

  Like, they were about as harsh on him during the broadcast as you hear announcers. The only one who will really do that is Van Gundy. But they were, over and over again, like, where's Chet? What's going on here? Why hasn't he been more impactful?

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Straight up was like, hello, hello.

• 59:40Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Like, Kenrich Williams attempted as many threes in this series as Chet did.

• 59:45Bill Simmons?

  But the other thing is, shouldn't he have, like, if I had told you he's gonna do zero threes in game seven? Or 10? What number would you have believed? I would have believed the 10, because it was like, oh, they're finally like, this is their strategy now to pull Wemby out. They went smaller with Chet at center and he's just gonna shoot threes, but he just, I, as I said earlier, when he wasn't catching passes clean anymore, that's when you know you're in your head. Like, when the ball handling, pass catch stuff goes sideways.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  So, as long as they are, is, is, assuming we're both right, that they're under the second apron for like, the, the next month? Like, so let's just, let's just do it then. Do you think Chet? Plus, you're gonna have to throw in someone else good. You think, let's, I'll just make up a fake trade.

• 1:00:29Bill Simmons?

  Throw in some of their extra picks.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  Chet, no, let's just go Chet, plus Kason Wallace, plus Sorber, plus three unprotected firsts and three swaps, including some of my swaps from other teams, for Giannis. Do you think that's a good idea?

• 1:00:44Bill Simmons?

  I think that's way too much. I, I wouldn't have Wallace in it. I would have less picks and less swaps, because who am I competing?

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  You would like to do that, that, that you're probably not getting Giannis.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  Who am I competing against with, for Giannis? I'm competing against Miami, who I can top any offer they have. And now Orlando, because they, we didn't talk about this, but they hired Sean Sweeney, the, uh, San Antonio bench coach who spent, what, five years with Giannis, four years with Giannis in, in Milwaukee? And I think makes, not the first person to make this point, but I think that entered them into the Giannis chat for trades. There's no question. So it's like, is Palo on the table for Giannis? Is that even a possible trade? I don't know. You might be competing against that, too.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  Sure. I mean, again, they traded all their picks for Desmond Bain, so I'm not sure how many sweeteners they can throw in there. Um, but look.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  If I'm the Bucks and I could get rid of Giannis and just start over and have Palo as the centerpiece, I'm, I'm doing that.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  But like, but you're, like, The thing about the Thunders offer offers whatever you want to say compared to the Heat or whoever you want to throw out there is like at least if I'm Milwaukee and I trade him to Miami or I trade him to Golden State or something like at least I'm getting picks where I have some expectation that I can bet against that team being successful and some of these picks might end up being pretty valuable even with the lottery rules changing if I trade him to Oklahoma City even if I like flee Oklahoma City they're just not is there's no world reasonable world that I can project where those picks are going to be any good and I'm probably not getting any of my own picks back which is another little side plot I still kind of like the Jalen Brown

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  to Portland Yanis to Boston a bonanza of picks including Milwaukee's own picks that Portland's have coming back and young players coming back to Milwaukee I kind of like that trade construction I have no idea how interested anybody actually isn't doing it but I don't mind it.

• 1:02:39Bill Simmons?

  I keep saying it I don't think Boston's in on Yanis.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  I mean I certainly not sensed any great urgency from them to break up their team.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  I think the the reason to trade Jalen would be to not want to have the two 70 million dollar guys in two years or 65 or whatever it is so to just flip him into somebody else who then is going to want an extension that's the other thing with Yanis to me it's it feels like a very un OKC move like if we if we're really gonna like we've been with Presti now for 20 years Presti is a huge chemistry guy he's a huge put personalities together certain types be patient like even they with that first OKC run when that was when you and I started working together and the Harden trade was a big trade for them because they couldn't afford him even though I feel like they could have but then you look at the next couple

• 1:03:29Bill Simmons?

  of years they remember they how hesitant they were to do anything and then that last year when they thought KD might be leaving they said that was when they went over the tax and they made some some big swing trades and did like the Dion Waiters and a whole bunch of weird trades that they did I think for the most part he's pretty careful the one time the Perkins Jeff Green trade which feels like it was 700 years ago now. Is a little bit similar to this Chet situation, I think. Where it was like Jeff Green, KD, Harden, Westbrook, those were like their four guys. Oh, they'll never trade. And then all of a sudden he did it. He traded Jeff Green because he needed a center. And that would be like, so we know he could be cutthroat if he needs to be.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  I mean, Chet is now an All-Star and an All-NBA level player. This is just a completely different conversation. I mean, there was also the Ibaka trade, which was, you know, like when they got Oladipo.

• 1:04:23Bill Simmons?

  No, he's, yeah, it's a bigger situation because you're going to get a better player back than Kendrick Perkins.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  But the other thing is like Yanis plus J-Dub plus Shay, like the financial, I'm not solving any financial issues with that kind of trade. In fact, I'm just, I'm getting even more expensive.

• 1:04:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't see, I don't see them doing and messing with, you know, now you got the brothers there. And it doesn't feel like an OKC move. I would say the move would be, hey, we should have won and Jalen Williams got hurt. And you talk yourself into that world and you don't do anything. But the question is, is Chet going to do the Dirk Australia? We don't see him again for four months because he's going to take a ton of shit all week.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  I mean, and, and look, I don't love piling on. That was dumbfounding. Like the whole series was dumbfounding. He had a couple of moments in game five and six where he seemed to like crash the offensive glass, had a couple of nice takes against Vassell, whatever. This was a, just a dumbfounding game. And in a game where they, the, the need for anyone to produce offensively other than Shay was never more glaring than in this game. And he just didn't do anything.

• 1:05:29Bill Simmons?

  Wow. 32 minutes, one for two. Like you almost looks like it's like the James Harden 2021 Brooklyn game seven box score when he was on one leg.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Well, and you're right.

• 1:05:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, he was hurt, but Chet was healthy for this game.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  And the last, the last two things I remember him doing on offense. Yeah, you know, he had that nice block on Dylan Harper were dropping, dropping an entry pass. Now he recovered it, but it was, it took the, it took the, he like cut into the middle of the floor. Shay passed it to him and he dropped it and it disrupted the whole rhythm. And then he tried to drive on Victor and you could hear the broadcast gearing up like, here he goes. He's going to, and then he just like fell over and was, and like, I couldn't even see him on the floor. And like, those are my last two memories of Chet Holmgren on offense.

• 1:06:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, it does have shades of that Jordan Drexler thing, but more like, it's almost like a boxing thing. Where the, or like what happened with Ronda Rousey, when she was just, you know, beating everybody, making everyone submit, and then all of a sudden, she fought Holly Holm, got knocked out and like lost her mojo and like, kind of never got it back. She ended up losing again.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  And that's why what I'm rooting for is comeback for vengeance, because the end of Ronda Rousey was not that fight. It was the next fight against Amanda Nunez.

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, look at Zach talking UFC. This is so exciting.

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  When it was very clear that she was broken as a fighter, would never be repaired.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Wow, this is amazing.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Let's dig out of it, come back, like, everyone should be fucking pissed off, like, no, we're not ready to pass the torch. We want to go at that guy. We want to do it together. I'm going to learn from this experience. This was my low point. Like, I'm coming back next year. Jalen Williams got to be so frustrated that he just lost an entire season, lost an entire Western Conference Finals, other than a few minutes here and there where he didn't do much. And just like, go back at him next year.

• 1:07:17Bill Simmons?

  Glad you brought that up.

• 1:07:20Bill Simmons?

  What happened to Jalen Williams? He played, I have it in my notes. He played last year, he played over 3,000 minutes. Right?

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  He got hurt.

• 1:07:30Bill Simmons?

  Regular season and playoffs. This year he played 1,000. I know, I know he got hurt. I'm asking you, how do we end up with him playing 1,000 minutes this year? Where it wasn't like a knee injury or torn MCL or like, this is just like a hamstring injury that he just kept having for eight months. Like, what the fuck?

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Well, it happens. I mean, we, it, it happens and obviously everyone is a lot more cognizant of like, if we, if we push this too far, real bad stuff can happen. Now hamstring, Achilles, it's not the same, but.

• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  They didn't push it far, far at all. I, I mean, if anything, they pushed, they unpushed it because they were just hoping he could be healthy for basically two rounds and he couldn't even do that.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  He had a wrist injury too that messed up his, uh, his, his, his, like, uh, pattern in the middle of the season. But yeah, I mean, look, it just. He got hurt and every time he played, he would get hurt and he would feel it. I mean, it wasn't subtle. He would come off the court grabbing his left hamstring, like something isn't right there and it was causing pain and discomfort and it wasn't getting any better. And look, he played 37 minutes in game one and I thought he played quite well. And that game you've talked about a lot, like took, took, like, there was punishment from that game. Like, there was, there were lasting effects that both teams had to deal with and overcome from that, from that crazy.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  And maybe that was their tactical mistake was unleashing him too much in that game. Cause that game, it's weird, cause this wasn't a great series, but it had an all-time game one and a really good game seven, and then everything in the middle, we're never gonna remember.

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  I mean, and I think, like, we have short memories and you and I were arguing about this a little bit before the series where you said Chet's the second best player on the Thunder. I was like, all due respect, like, I, like, I think we're about to be reminded of what Jalen Williams is. And then he, we were, and then he was gone. Like, that guy's fucking awesome. That guy showed out in the finals last year in a seven game finals. He's a 6'8" monster wing. You can do everything. Like, he's, he's, and like, isn't this as a neutral fan, what you want? Like, get the gang back together and take a shot at, like, isn't that more fun than panic trade for Giannis and all of a sudden?

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  The gang's not gonna be back together, though.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Well, the core gang, like, the main part of the gang. Like, the side characters might change, but like, the main part of the gang, that's more fun to me as a neutral fan than panic trade for Giannis. We get way older, so different, we disrupt. Don't we want?

• 1:09:51Bill Simmons?

  I would not panic trade for Giannis.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  Don't we want continuity? Don't we want to watch great teams? The core of great teams. Not the top eight or top nine, but like, the core of great teams. Don't we want them to stay together and grow together? Isn't that what we want as fans? Don't we want them to come back and try to avenge this? That's what I want.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Guy by the name of Magic Johnson. You might have heard from him, or might have heard of him. 1984 finals, sucked. Got the nickname Tragic Johnson. Guess what? He was fine. That would be what I told Chet. I'd, Presti's gonna take him out. They'll go get an ice cream cone in downtown Oklahoma City. And I'll be like, have you ever heard of the Magic Johnson story? 84 finals, rock bottom.

• 1:10:31Bill Simmons?

  Came back, ended up winning three MVPs and three titles. That could be us, Chet.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  No, he'll bust, the pressy will bust out an obscure 80's hip hop song, rap song, where he's like, you're gonna like the lyrics to this. This is gonna speak to you.

• 1:10:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just think about this later. Uh, can you be Joe Dumars for a second, New Orleans general manager?

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  And I'll be, uh, I need another phone. I need another phone.

• 1:10:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm Sam Presti calling you.

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 1:10:59Bill Simmons?

  Hey, Joe. Um, I've got,

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  I already threw the phone to Troy Weaver. I already just threw my phone. I'm scared. I threw my phone to Troy. Troy?

• 1:11:10Bill Simmons?

  I have, uh, I have Lou Dort's expiring. I'm gonna pick that up, the team option. I could pick up the Hartenstein team option for 29. I've got Aaron Wiggins to offer you. I have the 12th pick in the draft and the 17th pick. What else do I need to just get you to trade Trey Murphy to me?

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Sorry, the phone went, the phone, our landlines are out. There was a power outage. We, no, so no, like, give me the package again. Hartenstein, 12, 17?

• 1:11:39Bill Simmons?

  12 and 17. I will give you Hartenstein and Dort on expirings. And I'll take back Jordan Poole in the Murphy trade. I'll take back Jordan Poole's expiring.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  You'll take back Jordan Poole now? I'm paying attention.

• 1:11:54Bill Simmons?

  I will. So you give me Poole and Murphy. I'll give you 12 and 17. I'll give you the Hartenstein expiring, the Dort expiring. I'll take Jordan Poole for a year as an expiring contract.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  So now I have eight centers on my team that I gotta figure out how to play together?

• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Also, instead of Hartenstein, I'll, you can keep Jordan Poole, I'll throw in Wiggins instead.

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Uh, I need another pick or a swap that's actually good.

• 1:12:16Bill Simmons?

  How about Topich? Have you seen him? Do you see him in garbage time?

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:12:20Bill Simmons?

  Any interest?

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  No. I mean, for me, New Orleans, no. I like, I, he's fine. I need to see more of him. I need another pick or a swap.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  What if Dumars says back, is A.J. Mitchell on the table?

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  That's what I would, that's, that's what I would say back. Three million a year. Um, I'm interested. How badly do you want to win the title? You got a very, you got a window with these three guys. How badly you want to win the title, Sam?

• 1:12:46Bill Simmons?

  A.J. Mitchell, 12th, maybe 17th pick in a contract. Yeah, there's something there. That's the, to me, that's the move because I'm tired. If I'm them, I'm tired of not quite having enough three-point shooting. You know what I mean?

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  I do. Um, and that's a very intriguing, that's a very intriguing trade.

• 1:13:06Bill Simmons?

  Also, I have to trade for him before somebody else does, like the Celtics.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  And the thing everyone's around the league, I don't know Troy Weaver at all, but the thing everyone around the league talks to Troy Weaver, talks to him says is like, he's always got a guy or two in the draft that he really, really wants, that he just loves and he has to have, we saw it with Queen and maybe if there's somebody in that range, that 12 or 17 helps him get maybe in a year where they, you know, traded their pick, obviously. Maybe he'd be amenable.

• 1:13:35Bill Simmons?

  McCain, I thought, I loved how he played in the playoffs. I'm on the record when Philly drafted McCain, I went nuts. That was my favorite. I watched him in L.A. I've just always liked him. I think he proved that he's a guy that can be out there for them in a real way. And I wonder with SGA, Mitchell and McCain, um, could you turn one of those last two pieces into something with Murphy? Would be interesting. Couple of things before we go. Just a couple, couple of mailbag questions tied, basically tied to, um, tied to what we just watched.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  I had a whole thing on the pod the other day about if they had flopping penalties like they used to with flagrant fouls.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  I saw this.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  Ben from DC said, you missed the best part about your flopping point system, the leaderboard. They'd publish the leaderboard every week and it would be like shameful to be like the number one in flop points. It would just be good. So, good one for that.

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  I love that. I mean, look, look, teams do that with their like hustle boards, right? And they track it in practice, charges taken, hustle this, hustle that. And like, if you're at the bottom of the hustle boards, like there, your name's at the bottom there.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  There you go. It's like being in the bottom in the, in the barrel speed one in baseball. Like Caleb Durbin for the Red Sox. He's like in the bottom 5% of barrel speed.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  I love all these stats.

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  It's when you know, when you know you're not doing great. Tyler in Portland, I had a whole thing about all the losers from the Knicks-Cav series and he wanted to know why Tom Thibodeau wasn't one of the biggest losers out of how this has played out with the Knicks. And he said the second biggest loser were the seven remaining Tibs fans. I just thought that was really mean.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  You just wanna, you wanna throw a spotlight on his cruelty? Just let's platform his cruelty.

• 1:15:20Bill Simmons?

  Do you feel like Tibbs was a loser for how this has turned out for the Knicks? Or did circumstance make this a better, circumstance and health make this a better situation this year for the Knicks? If Tibbs is the coach, are the Knicks in the finals?

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  I don't think so either.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  But I also don't think that he's a loser in this situation. I'm sure it eats at his craw a little bit, or whatever the right terminology is to see this happen. But I also, I'm sure he's happy for a lot of the people that are there that were with him. I'm sure it's an interesting emotional time for him, but I don't consider him a loser. I would flip it around and say, how about Mike Brown is a winner? He did a great job with the Knicks. He played the long game. He pushed all the right buttons. He was a good hire, even though he was like their 17th choice apparently for the job.

• 1:16:05Bill Simmons?

  I like that. Um, all right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary.

• 1:16:30Speaker 03

  Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease symptoms don't pause for the moments that matter. That's why understanding your treatment options matters. Discover what's possible with Trinphaya. Guselkamap. Trinphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections, or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Talk to your doctor and explore what's possible, or call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more about Trinphaya and visit trinphyradio.com.

• 1:17:16Bill Simmons?

  So Clark from Rockford, Illinois wants to know, did all the negative national discourse on OKC's flopping tweak how SGA played a little bit over the course of this series in a negative way?

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  I actually thought a little bit about that because they're so buttoned up of like, well, the noise doesn't affect us. We don't care about the noise. We don't care about the officials. We don't care about the media. We don't care what's being said. They must be aware on some level. Like, I think the tipping point for me was, what was it? Underdog Sports made the fake operation game, and then they got a cease and desist letter from Shane's attorneys or something like that. It was like, okay, so I wonder if this just is, this shrieking noise is in his head at all? But then he goes out and shows out like that in game seven. And I think the really, the thing that really bothered him was Victor Wembanyama. I actually don't, I probably don't think the flopping thing bothered him.

• 1:18:10Bill Simmons?

  Sam from Austin said, on the Zach Lowe Show, good podcast, after game six, Zach talked about how the Spurs play a one-man zone with Wemby roaming the paint while everyone else is locked up man-to-man. Goldsberry asked if Zach could coin that term and encourage him to take credit for it. Sam thinks it should be called the unboxing one. I, I do feel like it should have a name, but I was thinking, maybe it's like the alien box or the box and alien?

• 1:18:37Bill Simmons?

  Something like that.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  I'll workshop some stuff in my head.

• 1:18:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  Now that I know there's a groundswell of interest.

• 1:18:43Bill Simmons?

  There's a groundswell. People like the box and one. I, by the way, have always loved the box and one. I've always loved variations of it. It's the two things I've never understood with basketball. Why don't more teams play box and one and why don't more teams press? Like if I was OKC, every time Fox was out, I would have pressed. Cause I think he, Castle, I like. I don't think he's a point guard. I think he was dying to give up the ball. And I don't know why they didn't just go 94 feet with him with Kason Wallace.

• 1:19:11Speaker 02

  I'm just so charmed by this that you, I mean, we're, we're, we're almost 30 years into this. And you're just not giving up the full court press. You just.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  I love the full court press.

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  Enamored with like, someone's got to do it. Someone's got to really make it part of their. I mean, the Pacers kind of came closest for you last year of doing it.

• 1:19:31Bill Simmons?

  The Celtics were doing a little this year, but I thought OKC Wallace was playing 22, 23 minutes a game. And I don't know if, if he's out there, I'm like, hey, when you're out there, you're, you're just going 94 feet with everybody. They couldn't really do it with Caruso.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  I'm just going to say this. I mean.

• 1:19:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  There, if you want to implement these kinds of tactics that may or may not work, but that are certainly unconventional. I think you're going to have to suck it up. And try to get the GM job for the Sacramento Kings because your owner is a guy who suggested that his coach play four on five defense and cherry pick. And it's like, if that's available, you can go to the owner and say, here, in the job interview. Here are some crazy things I want to try. You're going to think I'm crazy, but these are going to work. He's the right audience. Maybe this is your destiny.

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  Vivek.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  You can save the Kings.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  Through 12, we are going to press for five minutes a half.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  Maxine Reynaud is going to be a full court press center for us. We're doing it.

• 1:20:27Bill Simmons?

  Vivek is a gullible guy because Vlade Divac looked him in the eye and said, we already have Darren Fox. Luka is a big market superstar. He's not going to want to stay here. And Vivek's like, you're probably right. Let's take Marvin Bagley. I signed off. So if he signed off on Marvin Bagley over Luka, I think he would sign off on my press idea.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  This is, and then you, but then that you have carte blanche. You're, what's working against you is you did not play for the Sacramento Kings in the early 2000s. That would have been a big leg up for you in this, in this race, but alas.

• 1:20:56Bill Simmons?

  I would have started smoking again, too. I got a bunch of emails today. Are you a soccer guy or no?

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  I'm ready for the World Cup. I don't know. I watched the final.

• 1:21:04Bill Simmons?

  Do you follow what happened today?

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  I saw the penalty kicks. That's all.

• 1:21:07Bill Simmons?

  So PSG won for the second year in a row, and I got a million emails about this, about how, but, but, but, but, but, Mbappe.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Mbappe?

• 1:21:17Bill Simmons?

  Mbappe. I always screwed up. My speech dyslexia.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  He doesn't play for them anymore.

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  No, but he left and they've won two titles in a row and people are wondering.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  Ewing theory?

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  If they, it's gone further than that. It's like, A, is this the best Ewing theory ever? And B, should we just change the name? We're never changing the name. But I, I can't think of a better Ewing theory than this of going all in on a guy, the guy leaves, and then they immediately win two titles without him when he's considered to be one of the best players in the world.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  His, his first name is.

• 1:21:46Bill Simmons?

  I have to co-sign it.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  His first name is Killian, right?

• 1:21:49Bill Simmons?

  Killian Mbappe.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  I feel like that gives us, gives you a lot of pun potential for, like, you don't even have to name it.

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  The Killian theory?

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  You, you have Kill sitting there in the first, in the first part of his name. But he, he plays for Real Madrid. I assume they're good and he's still very good. Like, you know, so how does that?

• 1:22:04Bill Simmons?

  Not as, not as good as you'd think.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:22:07Bill Simmons?

  I had a mailbag thing about, um, a single shot swinging a series, how few times that's actually happened, most famously Ray Allen. Um, and Joshua M. wanted to know, why didn't I mention John Starks, his miss in game six in 1994? And a couple of people have wondered about this. Why doesn't that get better PR as a do or die? We could have won the title if that went in. Listen, I watched a lot of basketball back then.

• 1:22:39Bill Simmons?

  There was no way that John Stark shot was going in. I never thought it was going in. And, uh, and by the way, it was hotly contested by Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the best 15 players of all time.

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  I think there's a finger, I think there's a fingernail on that shot.

• 1:22:53Bill Simmons?

  And there might have been a fingernail on it, but I just don't think that shot was going in. I know it's like you could say, oh, if he had made that, but I just, I don't know.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  So the interesting thing about that shot is they're down two, I believe, the Knicks. So that's a shot, they, they, they're playing for the win. But Ewing has always contended, I was rolling to the rim wide open at the nail and John had a passing lane to me and he didn't make it. And Starks has always said, there was just so little time on the clock that I wasn't sure I had time to pass it. You would have time to gather it and shoot it. But Ewing, it was always said, if he had passed it to me, we're going to overtime. I'm making a little eight footer and we're going to overtime.

• 1:23:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, he did miss that little eight footer the next year.

• 1:23:34Bill Simmons?

  Jack from Chicago wants to know if we could see with these new tanking rules, a spite tank? Of somebody who, somebody else has their pick? Like the Nets and like the Nets could be an example, right? The Rockets control the Nets 2027 pick. And the Nets could be like, fuck it. We don't care if we're one of the worst three teams. We don't even have our pick.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  How about we relegate you?

• 1:23:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:57Speaker 02

  How about we relegate you?

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  Watch this Rockets and they just play five point guards for the last 10 games of the season. And it's like Silver's worst enemy. I didn't think of that. Do you think of that variable?

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's come up. I've seen people talk about it as one of the potential ripple effects of this sweeping change that is everyone is still trying, trying to grapple with, including what they've done to the second round, which I did not even realize was in the proposal until.

• 1:24:20Bill Simmons?

  That was like, they had a couple of shots and just got drunk and they were like, wait, did we change the second round last night too? I don't remember. I passed out.

• 1:24:27Speaker 02

  We can do anything. Once they've gone for this, we can do anything. How about we make the second round of like, we could do, we could do anything we want to.

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  Cause there's some drafts where if you have 16 and 31, it's almost better than having like six, right? Those deeper drafts where after the top five, you don't even, you just want to like throw darts against the dartboard.

• 1:24:48Bill Simmons?

  Rob H. had another one on this. Would this, this weird new rule lead to somebody trying to accumulate a bunch of picks in one draft to have the most possibilities, basically stack a draft? Like when, when Houston and Brooklyn made that weird trade, when, uh, when Brooklyn wanted their picks back and they did, and could we see something like that where, I don't know, the Spurs have a 29 pick, but they have three 28 picks and they're like, you know what, let's trade our 29 pick for another 28 pick and try to have four of these?

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  Sure, why not? I don't know. I mean, no one knows yet, but yeah, that's not a bad theory. I like that.

• 1:25:29Bill Simmons?

  It could be weird.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Bill Simmons?

  The biggest question I've gotten over and over again is, why would I want to be the play in 10, the 10 seed trying to win two playing games so I can get destroyed by San Antonio next year? Why wouldn't I want to actually, could this lead to higher level tanking, basically? We're like, eh.

• 1:25:48Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 1:25:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to be the 10 seed.

• 1:25:50Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't, I, I think, I mean, there's two directions that flows in, right? There's the team that's 12th and is four games out of the 10 seed and do they go all out to try to get it? I, I could see that team, currently already, I could see that team under any rule system you have, having some thoughts, having some thoughts about it. But the other.

• 1:26:12Bill Simmons?

  Be responsible.

• 1:26:14Speaker 02

  The other one where I'm eighth and I'm like, I'd really like to be 11th. I just can't see a team doing that to its fans, especially since a lot of the teams in that spot are younger teams who really, I think, could use and value the experience. And like, look, we saw Orlando get in, we've seen play in teams have real success and get to the finals and in, in Miami and Orlando took Detroit to seven, like, you know.

• 1:26:37Bill Simmons?

  Counter. Golden State, do they give a shit about March and April after Jimmy Butler's injury? If they have this new lottery system in place? I don't think they do. I think they're saying Curry's fine. You're sitting out, don't try to come back. We're going for it next year. We just lost our second best player. And then you're just trying to get in that four to 10 range.

• 1:26:57Speaker 02

  I guess, but like they have Steph Curry and they've always been honorable, but having Steph Curry on their team even this year and they gave you, I think your, maybe your favorite moment of, maybe top five moment for you of this NBA season was that Warriors Clippers.

• 1:27:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:11Speaker 02

  Play in game.

• 1:27:11Bill Simmons?

  Top three, top three, easily.

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  You were so delighted.

• 1:27:15Bill Simmons?

  Leo from Indianapolis wants to know if Halliburton doesn't tear his Achilles in game seven and then they win the best finals of all time. What do the rest of the decade look like for the Pacers? Would it have been a fluke or would it have just kept going? So no Halliburton injury.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  And they win the title?

• 1:27:32Bill Simmons?

  They win the title, they lose Turner. Is it just like a one year fluke like Leicester City basically in the Premier League?

• 1:27:39Speaker 02

  I don't think you lose Turner if you win a title.

• 1:27:42Bill Simmons?

  You think they wanted to keep Turner at that price?

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  I think if Halliburton's healthy and you win the title.

• 1:27:46Bill Simmons?

  Turner comes back?

• 1:27:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the reasons they punted on Turner was next year is a loss for us anyway. I might as well just save some money. Halliburton's hurt. He's out for the year.

• 1:27:55Bill Simmons?

  It's an underrated what if.

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  I just think as a fan, I still and will forever feel just so robbed of what that game was shaping up to be.

• 1:28:04Bill Simmons?

  Cause we could have even had what we had. Yeah, even what we had tonight could have been at that level. Um, John, did you see Shay, by the way, said before this game today, it was the biggest game of his career?

• 1:28:15Speaker 02

  I did.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  It's that you played in a finals game seven. How was that? You're not ever playing in a bigger game than that.

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  But I wonder if he just in his memory now, that game, even like that game is so weird to look back on. Like I wonder if he can even conjure what it felt like before Tyrese Halliburton tore his Achilles. If he can even bring himself back to what that, what the stakes were. Cause then that injury happens and it's like, I just felt like I was in a haze for three hours and not even paying attention to the game because you knew what was gonna happen.

• 1:28:50Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that's almost a good one to end on.

• 1:28:53Bill Simmons?

  But I am gonna end on this.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  Mason from Seattle. Sent this before game seven. I feel the exact same way about AI as I do about Wemby. He's a foreign unknown technology that's arrived to dominate our world for the future. There's nothing any of us can do about it. I felt genuine dread after watching game one. The same dread I feel when I think about how AI is eventually gonna take my job in a year. That's pretty dark. Um, but I just want, the only reason I wanted to mention that email is that's how astonishing this postseason has been that we have.

• 1:29:32Bill Simmons?

  Seemingly normal people sending mailbag emails comparing Wemby to the most generation-changing technology we've created since the internet.

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  I wish I could remember who it was who summed it up. I don't even think like that's a that's a dark that's a dark version of a thought pattern that I don't think is like fringe fringe. I think it was Harrison Feigen, who's a Lakers blogger, but I might be miscrediting somebody. After game one, somebody tweeted, Wemby is the first player I've ever watched in my life where I thought, maybe they might actually have to change the rules for this guy. And I think that like that tweet like got some traction because I do think you watch it and you're like, is this a Wilt thing where like fundamental things about the geometry of the court are gonna have to change? Like I it because when in his best

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  games where it just feels so hopeless to ever do anything near the basket, I think those thoughts could reasonably like creep into your mind.

• 1:30:34Bill Simmons?

  I love how much he cares. I love how he reacted after the game. We'll see how he reacts if they actually win the finals, but the mountain that they climbed and you know, the more we're talking and think about it, you're OKC, you have that semi magical year last year, but the game seven was pretty weird with the Halliburton injury. Like it was just a weird way to win the title, but you're taking any tighter you get. But now you think they start out the way they did this year. And it's like, holy shit. Oh, my God, what are we gonna do? And now the oh, my God, what are we gonna do has just shifted to Wemby and away from OKC, which to me is the most it's even more stunning than San Antonio being in the in the finals, that the what are we gonna do has just shifted

• 1:31:19Bill Simmons?

  teams in real time.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  And I think the other 28 teams are still like, what are we gonna do about OKC when they get healthy and they they make whatever moves they're gonna make. And I think that's the ultimate compliment is these two teams are going to be staring at each other one way or another. And they're the ultimate measuring stick. And I think that's why one of the reasons why, if you want to psychoanalyze it, why Shay would call that the biggest game of his career, why Wemby would weep after it, because they both have so much respect for the other team that they know what the challenge is.

• 1:31:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, there's four guys in this draft that levitate above everybody else. The order has been in great debate. There's a chance Peterson could get to four. As crazy as that sounds, I know you've been doing some stealth YouTube.

• 1:32:04Speaker 02

  How are we talking about the draft? Where are you going with this?

• 1:32:07Bill Simmons?

  Because I wonder like with Chicago at four, would OKC, would that be the power move that we talked about earlier? Like the what would they do move? Maybe they just go all in and try to get one of those four guys.

• 1:32:18Speaker 02

  If I'm a team.

• 1:32:18Bill Simmons?

  And try to keep, keep their nucleus in place.

• 1:32:20Speaker 02

  I've done my, I've done my just enough to be dangerous YouTube-ing of those four guys.

• 1:32:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  If I'm Chicago, I'm just not even picking up the calls. I mean, you gotta really do some crazy ass stuff to make me just not be psyched to take whichever one of the four falls into my lap.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  But that could be, that's the opportunity for OKC though, to be like, we're overwhelming you with a stupid offer.

• 1:32:43Speaker 02

  But I'm not even know, I don't know.

• 1:32:44Bill Simmons?

  You hear those stories about when people don't want to leave their house and somebody knocks on their door and is like, I want to buy your house. It's not for sale. Here's the offer and like, whoa, I guess I'm moving.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  I mean, so I can get a bunch. The overwhelming thing is like, I got, they have some Denver swaps, a Clippers pick, a Clippers swap, their own picks. Like they could throw 10 first round picks at me. If I add them all up, are they as valuable as one of these four guys?

• 1:33:10Bill Simmons?

  What if I put Chet in the table?

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  I just want to start over, man. Just let me start over. Just Benny, Benny the Bull just wants to start over.

• 1:33:19Bill Simmons?

  I think you've talked me into it for Chicago, but also for OKC.

• 1:33:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:33:23Bill Simmons?

  I think the move is, deep breath, that San Antonio team is awesome. That's going to be the team we battle for the rest of the decade and.

• 1:33:33Speaker 02

  I guess, I guess if you, if you offer me 10 first round picks and Chet Holmgren, I guess I just have to do it. I mean, I don't know. But then if you're Oklahoma City, you're out. That's it. You gave everything for a rookie.

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  You know what the example is? It's when Kawhi wanted to play with Paul George.

• 1:33:52Bill Simmons?

  Right? Ironically, and what did Presti do? He said, well, I don't want to trade Paul George. And they're like, what about?

• 1:34:02Bill Simmons?

  What would it take to trade him? He's like, uh, four firsts, three swaps, and then you have to give me SGA. And they're like, well, we can't give you SGA. And he's like, well, that's what it would take. And he just kind of ground them down. Maybe that's what one of these teams in the top four would have to do. They also got to figure out what Wallace is worth is the other thing, which we didn't talk about. Is he, do you do an extension with him or roll the dice with him as heading toward a restricted? What's his price? Is he like in the 25 million range probably, right?

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think if you're

• 1:34:33Bill Simmons?

  20 to 25?

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  If you're his agent, you're at the very least throwing around like, you know, Christian Brown, Jalen Suggs types.

• 1:34:39Bill Simmons?

  No, you're, you're mailing the Christian Brown contract to them.

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  Well, no, I'm like, this guy's

• 1:34:43Bill Simmons?

  This is what Christian Brown got.

• 1:34:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:45Bill Simmons?

  Our guy's better than this guy.

• 1:34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:34:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'll leave you with this. Why does Denver have to trade anybody to sign Peyton Watson? Fuck off, you have Jokic on your team, dickheads. Pay everybody. Clip this out, Denver fans. Clip this out. Cronkite's got a kajillion dollars. Just pay Peyton Watson and keep everyone else on your team because your owner's super rich.

• 1:35:05Speaker 02

  How much did Arsenal make?

• 1:35:07Bill Simmons?

  What are we doing?

• 1:35:07Speaker 02

  Just, just for making the Champions League final? Isn't there, they must, that must make gargantuan amounts.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:35:15Speaker 02

  They own Arsenal, right?

• 1:35:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Joker was there supporting Arsenal.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Bill Simmons?

  With at least one of his brother. All right, Zach Lowe, what's your podcast schedule this week?

• 1:35:24Speaker 02

  I think, uh, we are going to record Monday night. So I'm going to San Antonio, uh, for game one of the finals at least, and, uh, flying Monday. Uh, Tuesday, there's going to be some interesting podcast stuff happening that the NBA is organizing that I don't know if I should really say anything, but now I've said something. But so I don't know what, how that's going to work exactly, but so I'm going to do a traditional episode where I just do a deep dive finals preview. I've watched my film, I've got my notes, I'm ready to go, I'm going to make my pick. So that'll come out either Monday night or overnight into Tuesday morning like usual. And they'll have some fun in San Antonio, hopefully see a great game and, uh, hopefully we get a great finals and boy, the Knicks and the Spurs. Woo.

• 1:36:05Bill Simmons?

  All right, so I'm gonna be, I'm coming back with my pod on Tuesday. We have tomorrow, Rewatching Balls, who usually runs Monday night. We are running it tomorrow night, because I'm not gonna have my podcast, because we did this. And we did 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it's one of the best episodes we've ever done. Without spoiling what happens, I would highly encourage people to check this one out. Zach Lowe, I don't know when I'm gonna see you again, because this final schedule is weird, but I'll see you after one of these games.

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:34Bill Simmons?

  This is like, I'll see you after probably game three, but we'll talk about it this week. Safe travels in San Antonio.

• 1:36:41Speaker 02

  You won't see me after game six in New York City. That's the one thing I can guarantee.

• 1:36:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm gonna say goodbye to you before game six in New York City, in case that's the last time. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris and everybody else at The Ringer. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MYRESSET. Call 888-797777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 8778HOPENY, or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.

• 1:37:36Bill Simmons?

  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. 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.