Giannis Trade Advice, Duncan Vs. Kobe, Ohtani Vs. the Babe, the Frugal-ish Yankees, and Life After ‘First Take’ With Max Kellerman

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Max Kellerman to talk about the struggling Clippers and Anthony Davis (3:20). Then, they give Giannis trade advice before discussing the topics Max just missed talking about (40:33). Finally, they talk about life after ‘First Take’, boxing, and much more! (01:51:13). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Max Kellerman Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Get Gameday Deals all season long only on Uber Eats. Order Now. This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by 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. Open to U.S. residents 21+. 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.

• 0:46Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find a new episode of the rewatchables we put up last night. Rocky II. It was the last of the Rocky movies. We did Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky I. Rocky II somehow last. But it makes sense because it's probably the most polarizing one, even though me and Chris Ryan, Ben Lathan, we all love it. Unbelievable last 30 minutes, but we talk a lot about Stallone and boxing movies and a really, really, really fun podcast. So you can check that out. You can watch it. Watch it on Spotify. You can listen to it wherever you get podcasts. So that's it. Rocky II. I'm not sure what's going to happen for next weekend. I will tip you off on the movie maybe on Thursday.

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  Coming up on this podcast, Max Kellerman has been itching to talk sports for basically almost two years. I think this is the first time he's been on a platform since 2023, just getting takes off. We had a lot to catch up on. He is going to be launching a new podcast with Rich Paul. Next week we'll have the feed. I'll give you the, give you the heads up on Thursday's pod, but you can subscribe to it. It's launching next week. It's going to be called Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul. And we're gonna be doing it three days a week. I'm very excited about it. But it's great to have Max. Always wanted to work with him. Really excited to pod with him every once in a while. We had a lot to catch up on. We talk about possible Yanis trades,

• 2:15Bill Simmons?

  AD, what's happening in basketball, GOAT arguments, what's gonna happen in football this year, what happened with Max at the end there at ESPN. We go all over the place. And of course, had to end with some boxing because every time I'm with Max, I gotta talk boxing. So, one other thing, the Music Box series is coming back on HBO. This week, we have a great documentary about Jeff Buckley, directed by Amy Berg. It's awesome. So that's gonna be on HBO on Thursday night and then it will be available on HBO Max all weekend. So get ready, especially if you love Jeff Buckley. But I think even if you don't even know who he is, I think this is a really, really good documentary. So excited to have this back. Four documentaries from us this month.

• 2:58Bill Simmons?

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

• 4:01Bill Simmons?

  All right, Tuesday morning, Max Kellerman is here. This is the first time you have talked sports on a platform other than you did some boxing for Netflix. Yeah. You're talking boxing on a podcast, but this is, you've been itching to go.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  It's, you know, if, when you have an arm waving opinion about everything and you're on the sidelines for two years, watching stuff, the news cycle is relentless.

• 4:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  And it makes this job amazing because like you think of someone like Howard Stern, what he has to do. His show is not based around the news. They have a little segment. They have to create something from nothing every day. It's incredible, right?

• 4:39Bill Simmons?

  Where we have like Yanis and the Clippers.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  We wake up in the morning, read the paper.

• 4:44Bill Simmons?

  Drake, my homes.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  And, and the whole outline is already there for you. So like, that's every single day. And it's like, oh my God. And so, you know, my family is sick of hearing about this stuff.

• 4:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have, we're gonna do a segment later, all the things you're mad you missed out on over the last two years. We'll also talk a little about, you've never really talked about how you left and all that. We can go into it a tiny bit. I want to go topical at the top though, because we have the weirdest NFL season we've had in a while, maybe since like 2008. We have all hell breaking loose in the NBA. I haven't talked NBA in this podcast in a week since before Thanksgiving. The Yanis trade stuff, I think has officially arrived.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  He's deleting his social media.

• 5:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So just, and they don't look good. And this is the time and there's some teams we could talk about. And then this Clippers thing compared to the Lakers thing. And I kind of want to start with the Clippers.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Of course you do.

• 5:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's why. I, I really think this is like the most tortured, jinx NBA franchise we've probably had, even dating back to the Buffalo Braves.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Easily.

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  And this is the darkest.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Snake bit. They're snake bit.

• 5:50Bill Simmons?

  This is the darkest moment they've ever had. And think of all the knee injuries and terrible, terrible things, terrible trades they've made. They've been the, the black sheep little brother for the Lakers for.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Even in the window when Kobe was sucking up the salary cap and no one wanted to play for the Lakers. And they had Blake and, and they make the Chris Paul trade and it looks like there's the window. This is worse.

• 6:11Bill Simmons?

  This is worse. So combo of.

• 6:15Bill Simmons?

  The least likable, least successful team you could put together. Like, old, unreliable vets who don't want to be there. Harden was a minus 39 on Sunday night. Kawhi, you don't know what he's gonna play. So they just had this team that I thought was the third best team in the league last year, and now is five and 16.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  They had 52 wins last year?

• 6:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and, you know, toe to toe with Denver. I thought it went OKC, Denver, and then I would say Clippers third.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Who knew? Like, OK, so this is what's crazy about the Clippers. This is why you just say snake bit, OK? The sports, the basketball gods just don't like them.

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Personnel. Like, when I think about a franchise and whether it's gonna be healthy and good or not, first I think about human resources, right? So, for example, Jerry West spreads his pixie dust over the Lakers and they win forever. And then he goes to Memphis and they get good, then he comes back to the Lakers and they're great again. And then he goes up to Golden State. And I said on LA radio at the time, the battle of the five freeway has begun because Jerry West went to Golden State. They're gonna be good now.

• 7:17Bill Simmons?

  That never caught on. You tried to trademark it.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I tried, and it just didn't work.

• 7:20Bill Simmons?

  It didn't happen.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  But because the Lakers didn't hold up their end of the deal, right? But the Warriors became a championship team. Now Jerry West, even if that's just correlation and it's lazy, that's what we do in sports. In team sports, you have to make correlation, right? You don't know if it's exactly causal, but you correlate it. Wherever this guy goes, they win. Robert Ori always hits big shots in the playoffs and they always win championships. And they get Jerry West, right? Like, that's a good idea. The Clippers, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you bring in. When Ty Lou, that's, oh, that's the right guy, right? It doesn't matter.

• 7:56Bill Simmons?

  They get Chris Paul after the Lakers trade gets vetoed, and it seems like the home run of all time.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  And it doesn't ma- in the end, like, the Lakers are raising championship banners and the Clippers are raising, like, second round. What are they gonna? So, in this case... What's crazy is, is Norman Powell just much better than Bradley Beal? Right? Like, does talent of, has anyone ever thought that? Who watched basketball? Apparently he is.

• 8:25Bill Simmons?

  The reasons never, I, I, so I picked the Clippers to go over it. Cause just cause I thought they were really good last year. The Beal Collins for Powell, like that shouldn't have swung it this much, but they also got old. But at the Powell thing, it was like he had an extension coming and it seemed like they were afraid to pay him. So they were trying to keep all this cap space for three years from now. But he was the third best guy on the team.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Was he a second round pick?

• 8:51Bill Simmons?

  No, they got him from, he might've been at Toronto.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  No, but I mean, I think he went in the second round. And I think guys like that, there's this, uh, uh, there's an unwillingness to believe that they actually, that everyone couldn't have been that wrong.

• 9:03Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 9:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. Bradley Beal's on Phoenix. They're really bad. He's no longer on Phoenix, but the new team he's on is really bad. Norman Powell's on the Clippers. They're really good and they play defense and everything, by the way.

• 9:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  He's no longer there. They're really bad. Miami is kinda good.

• 9:21Bill Simmons?

  And Miami loves him.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  So sometimes.

• 9:24Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, the Clipper fans loved him. He was a guy that he would come in, he'd make two shots. And you could feel a buzz in the arena and he just was different than these Harden Leonard guys that have. I think some of it is, when I watch them and I, and I'm kicking myself that I thought they were gonna be as good because they're old. But the, the personality of the team, like, it's just like this quiet team. Like watching them in Miami last night, that was when Harden had the minus 39 last night.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:51Bill Simmons?

  It was one of those games where it's like, this is gonna be a loss. Like they've probably flew into Miami the night before. Miami's Powell's gonna be fired up. This, and of course they're down 30 in the third quarter.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Styles make fights. Like if you're a veteran, slow team against a team that suddenly is playing fast and running up and down.

• 10:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're playing five out, just trying to move, trying to attack.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  So you're on the road in Miami, old, slow team, fast team. It's just bad.

• 10:21Bill Simmons?

  But think about, so they have this aspiration scandal that's hugely embarrassing that they're probably gonna get penalized for. They have.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  You and Pablo good now, by the way?

• 10:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Pablo there good.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he came on here.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  He's like, it's like Scooby Doo or something. Right, he like Pablo's my dude, but like dude, who are you Scooby like if I we would have gotten away with it too. If it wasn't for you meddling kids, dude, they did an episode last year on Ishbia, right?

• 10:50Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Phoenix stunk.

• 10:54Bill Simmons?

  So you think Pablo is he's also a curse.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  About these guys and then he found out about the Clippers, they stink. And it's like, so, so.

• 11:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, so that's also a bad way to go into a season with the massive scandal, which is the part I underrated.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  No question. I mean, like the money will find its way to the floor. It'll find its way to competition. There were these huge TV deals and they're they're not not only salary caps, but April, essentially hard caps it because of the aprons and everything. And so the coaches salaries exploded because the their people are competitive. They want the product on the floor to be as good as possible. And they will find out ways if there's a cap and you have a gung ho billionaire owner. They'll find out ways to circumvent the cap if possible. I mean, Jerry Jones, who ushered in the cap in football in the NFL, immediately circumvented it day one. He's like, okay, they voted on it. Great. We have a salary cap. Now we have Deion Sanders. Wait, wait, how's that possible?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Well, we're prorating money over time and blah, blah, blah. And so it's not unpredictable that that would happen. It's unethical, like in a strict sense, but I don't really care as a fan. If I'm a Clippers fan, I'd be like, great, my owner's trying to win and circumvent the cap to make us better.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, it also didn't work.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  It not only did it not work, but it was it shrouded the season.

• 12:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  With bad vibes to start, man.

• 12:18Bill Simmons?

  That'd be funny if that was Adam Silver's penalties, like, you know, I was going to penalize these guys, but it ruined their season. Now they have to give their pick to OKC and we're now in this James Worthy, Len Bias situation with OKC. James Worthy, it worked out. It ended up winning them, I think, three more titles.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Len Bias was bad luck.

• 12:36Bill Simmons?

  Len Bias was the opposite, but I think if, you know, that that's a whole going down that road. That would have been multiple titles for the Celtics.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Good for Presti though, because for so many years, he was clearly better than almost everybody else.

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  But handicap by the dumb Harden trade was always the yeah, but with him.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:53Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but let's reverse the yeah, but yeah, but they still were really good. They just couldn't get over the hump. And now he's, you know, you can always pick on a sucker. And now he's, and he's ruthless about it. And it has one of the best teams ever, it seems, and is about to get a lot better. It's crazy.

• 13:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's what I wonder with when I look at like, we're talking about like Yanis and AD, all these dudes. Like, is it even worth it to to chase OKC? Where OKC, who just went 20 and 1, basically without Jalen Williams. He finally came back, you know, last weekend. But they might go like 74 and 8. They're gonna have the best net rating, probably in the history of the league.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  If Indiana's healthy last year. If Indiana's healthy last year, are you sure that OKC beats them?

• 13:44Bill Simmons?

  It's an interesting question about that game seven, because the thing with OKC, I always worry about these young teams. When the pressure gets super hot, what's gonna happen? And Indiana came out with throwing haymakers. Even like, what was it tied at halftime, even after Halliburton left? But.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  It's crazy and he was clutch. And Rich told me, Rich Paul was telling me at the time.

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  Your future partner at the Ringer.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yes, like any, any moment now.

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Um, he was telling me at the time, so I was like, Rich, this isn't that hard. Look at the point differential. They're squashing the league. Like, and the question was, it was them or the Cavs? And I'm like, it's OKC.

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  It was the Celtics argument the year before.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, same.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  At some point, you gotta trust the math. They're winning by 11 points a game.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  They're crushing everyone. And his point was, yeah, but they play in OKC. You gotta take some points off. Why? It's a sleepy town.

• 14:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Why would you take points off for that? You would think your players are getting rest when they get to OKC and everything. Said there's no energy when you get there. The teams that they're gonna face are not energized. Like, they're already thinking, well, you know, in a couple nights, we're gonna be in LA and we're gonna do this and this and this. And there's no juice.

• 14:50Bill Simmons?

  Is this gonna be a part of the behind the curtain? When you have the pod with Rich, he's gonna take us behind the scenes of the mentality of NBA road trips?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  It's he can't.

• 14:58Bill Simmons?

  Whereas like Miami's the opposite.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  He can't help it. If you talk to Rich Paul for long enough, you will hear something super interesting, based on his experience. Like, information that other people don't have and from a very educated point of view, that you have never heard before. You'll hear something new, like I hadn't heard that really, but. Watching the playoffs, Indiana, who was a team that kind of played the most like themselves, I thought, through the playoffs.

• 15:28Bill Simmons?

  And had a little bit of a horseshoe.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  No question.

• 15:30Bill Simmons?

  But in a good way.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  No question.

• 15:32Bill Simmons?

  They just, they had a way of, good things were happening to them at the right times of games or series.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, they seemed charmed. But that OKC team, I don't know, I'm not 100% convinced that they win the whole thing if Halliburton's in that game. I don't know.

• 15:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, it turns out Jalen Williams was playing hurt the whole playoffs. They didn't even tell us. Cause he, he was kind of a little more inconsistent than he usually was, but.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  But when your best player isn't on the floor, you know, and it's still close. The other interesting thing, you brought up the Celtics and then, and then OKC, and I wonder if this is going to be true going forward. They both had super tall players, playing real minutes who are actually really good.

• 16:13Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Right? Like Kristaps Porzingis, when the Celtics acquired, oh, we're giving up our identity, Marcus Smart. I'm like, you kidding? You got a seven foot million guy who can actually play, who's joining this team now. If he's healthy, it's a wrap.

• 16:26Bill Simmons?

  And they had Horford and they had Cornet and Tatum, who's, you know, the, one of the top 15 rebounders in the league on top of all the other stuff he does.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  How are you gonna beat them? And the answer was you couldn't. And then the same thing last year with Chet, it was like, so that was one of my arguments with Rich when, when I thought OKC would win. I'm like, they're crushing everyone. They're about to get some version of Wemby on the team, right? Like this guy's good. Come on. And I wonder if that, if that's something that championship teams are going to need going forward. It's only two years. It's not a pattern yet, right?

• 16:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, we haven't had this in a while where there's a team, I mean, maybe since the 2017 Warriors where there's a team was like, whoa, those guys are up here. Like, is it even, remember that year, teams were a little afraid to chase them until, really until Durant left and then all hell broke loose in the, in the next summer, but.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  If the Spurs get Giannis.

• 17:17Bill Simmons?

  So let's talk about it, cause I had some, I had some Giannis stuff. I guess we don't need to talk about the Clippers as depressing as it is.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Well, I mean.

• 17:26Bill Simmons?

  No, it's just like I just, there's no outs and they don't have their pick and.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  You're just, you're just in a tight spot.

• 17:33Bill Simmons?

  Did you like the trade when it happened?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Uh, hold on, which trade are we talking about?

• 17:37Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi and Paul George, basically for everything.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't like, well, I understood the logic. I don't think I would have done it. But I understood the logic because it seemed like it was a package deal. And Bomber, I think, saw an opening because of the state of the Lakers where we can take over. And Kawhi had just won an MVP, a finals MVP on his second team. Is he going to win a finals MVP on his third team? He looked like the best player in the world.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  And trying to not have the Lakers get him seemed to be a huge part of it. I liked everything about it except the, the Shea piece ironically.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 18:10Bill Simmons?

  I just, cause I thought, and I think I said this at the time, I still defended the trade. I was like, I get why they did it. You get these two guys and Paul George was awesome the year before. So they're getting like two of the best 10 guys in the league. But it was very similar to the Celtics in 07. When we got KG, I say we like him on the team. But we got KG and they really want a Rondo. And if you go back and you read about the reports of that, it was Rondo was the stickler. And the Celtics wouldn't bend on Rondo. And then finally Minnesota was like, all right, throw, can you give us, float us another pick? Or whatever it was. And they were able to keep Rondo and they don't win the OA title without Rondo.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:46Bill Simmons?

  And I always thought it was, I remember talking to Doc about this a couple of years ago. I always thought it was weird that they were going to try to win the title with Paul George and Kawhi. But then not have Shea as a piece of it. But Presti, he was smart. He's like, no, Shea has to be in the trade or I'm not doing it.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Well, cause Presti is like the anti, uh, Nick. You know, like I think about the Carmelo trade where it's well known Carmelo's only good. Like he had all the leverage really, I'm only going to go to the Knicks.

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, when he gutted their, Danilo and.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the Knicks were like, no, what's his name? The GM from the Bronx at the time.

• 19:17Bill Simmons?

  Donnie Walsh.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Donnie Walsh is playing poker, right?

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  And then, and then Dolan gets involved, like, wait, the, the grownups are doing this. Please don't, don't do this. And don't say, oh, we have to get Carmelo and, and suddenly everybody's in the deal, right? Presti is really smart. And the thing that the Clippers were really missing was a, an actual primary ball handler. Not putting guys who can do it.

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  You know, it's almost like, uh, There's a, there's a, there's a, uh, uh, an obvious desire to do this like in baseball at first base where, well, the most players can play first base. Therefore, they conflate that with the idea that defense isn't important at first base and you have bad defenders at first base. And it's sort of the same in the NBA where it's like, sometimes you get tempted. Well, this guy can do that job.

• 20:07Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  That's different than he should do the job. Like Draymond Green's not really the point guard. He's a guy who can do that and he works in it and he can do it sometimes, but just because someone can, doesn't mean they shouldn't. I think the idea that they could just do it with Paul George and Kawhi, two two-way wings, defined roles. Cause you know, Paul George is the Robin in that Batman and Robin. It made a lot of sense.

• 20:29Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi wanted him.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. They needed a guy to handle the ball.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  I mean, really the way to do it would have been, yo Kawhi, just come to the Clippers. Like we have a really good young team. We have all our picks. You just won the title. Like let's, let's just take this one slow. Cause the, all the research now is like, he never wanted to go to the Lakers. He didn't want to play for LeBron. So it was either stay in Toronto or go, but he'd already, I guess, had his mindset. Maybe bought a house in LA or outside LA. So maybe they could have played poker with him. They definitely could have played poker with Presti, but.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  He was going to the Clippers.

• 21:02Bill Simmons?

  This was a gung ho. We, ah, and, and we can keep from the Lakers and they just throw everything in. This trade, that not only is it a swap this year, they get their pick next year.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Is it the most?

• 21:12Bill Simmons?

  This trade is like, it's like VD. It won't end.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Is it the, yeah, it's the.

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  It just goes for seven years.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It's, it's, is it the most, like where does it, considering points of leverage on top of everything else? Pick swaps, picks, how bad one team wound up.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  It's the most devastating trade in the history of the league, but you can't, you can't get mad at them for doing it though. It's different than the Luca thing. The Luca thing is like, this trade is an abomination. We all thought it was an abomination when it happened. This Clipper thing is like, all right, I get it. They've never won a title. They've never made the finals. They're trying to keep them from the Lakers. What do they care about six years from now? We gotta do this now.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Fortune favors the bold. Yeah.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  This was like, you're at a dinner with 10 people. And you're like, yeah, let's get that Japanese Kobe steak and then the check comes and you're like, fuck.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  But for Paul George, the leverage for the for the move was that the thought was Kawhi would only do it if Paul George was there, right?

• 22:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but was that true?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I would not have, you know, I would have tested that theory.

• 22:12Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Easy for me to say, sitting here now, but you know.

• 22:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, now, so we're in a similar situation with Giannis. And there's the AD piece too. I'm in the camp, I don't think Dallas should trade AD. I think they should keep him. They're six and 15, but I've I watched them because I like watching flag and I'm just, I have their over for futures and I just, I feel like it could turn around for them. The West is like, there's eight, nine playoff teams and then it's a mess and.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  And they got a guy who looks like he can play a little point guard.

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, and now Nemhard's all of a sudden playing the Sun Draft, the free agent, right?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  Flag can do a little bit, but um. I don't know, I would keep him, I would wait. I don't think he has the same kind of trade value that people think because of his age. He's got this I thing, he's he's been banged up, he's got a lot of miles on him. Big contract, there's only a couple of teams that could trade for it.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  And if it gets worse, Bill, that's the problem.

• 23:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're right. For them, it's like, do you trade him before Giannis, the sweepstakes for that happen? Is the question. It's like, we got to move because everyone's going to be moving after Giannis. We might be out in the cold.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I think you got to move him now because there's, look, you don't want to trade a guy when his trade value is low. And you'd like to be the consolation prize afterward, but I think they have to be resigned to the idea, we have to target something we like. See if we can get that for AD and if we can, we should do it independent of everything else. Because the, there is the risk that AD. Makes a recovery to the point where he's still playing his normal 60, 60, 60, 65 games a year at a, at a certain level. But there's also a risk that given the physical stuff, given his age.

• 24:00Bill Simmons?

  Thirty, it's gonna be 33 soon.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  That it gets worse.

• 24:02Bill Simmons?

  Thirty-two and 13 last night.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, because when he, because he's great, you know, he really is. But I think you got, like, you gotta just, it, it's almost like a draft where you say, I like that guy. Oh, you reached for him, but we liked that guy. And they gotta figure out something they like and see if they can't get it for him. And if they can, you pull the trigger, I think.

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  Were you in the camp of, I can't believe this guy made NBA 75 when that happened?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Let's not forget that, you mean AD?

• 24:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  There was a point, not all that long ago, where it was like, can AD replace Tim Duncan as the greatest power forward who ever left?

• 24:43Bill Simmons?

  That was the, the 2018 range.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:46Bill Simmons?

  When he was wreaking havoc on the Pelicans.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  He was so good. He, and, and this was before this new wave of the super talls who can

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  play defense and do everything. And maybe it's not fair to KG, but AD was the one I'm like, he's guarding the pick and roll, you know?

• 25:04Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  One guy.

• 25:06Bill Simmons?

  And he could like just destroy. I remember there was a moment, I don't remember what game it was, in the 2020 finals. Well, first of all, it seemed like he had a chance to be the finals MVP.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:15Bill Simmons?

  And he was wreaking havoc against Miami. And it felt like a moment like, holy shit, like, but then his next game wasn't that good. It was, it was like, it was kind of sitting there for, if he had one more, like 35 and 20, there would have been a completely different conversation.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  I love those moments.

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  He couldn't kind of get over the hump.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  I love those moments.

• 25:36Bill Simmons?

  Whereas like Shaq in 2000 was like, I'm here, guys.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Those are so interesting to me, those moments of shifting perception based on this one moment, right? Like, I think about.

• 25:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, boxing's the king of that.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Mike Tyson, the night he fought Franz Bota, knocked him out in one, knocked him out with one shot in the fifth round.

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  But the, it's, the interesting thing to me, even though he'd already lost. The Holyfield. The interesting thing to me is before that fight, I remember thinking the public would have bet Mike Tyson into the favorite, no matter who he fought in the history of boxing.

• 26:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Right or wrong, they would have bet him that way. And after that fight, he'd have been the underdog for the first time ever. Right? So that that both the fight, like you can laugh because like, who's that? But the entire perception of Mike Tyson completely changed. I even think of, because you, you know, you geek out on stuff like this as I do Bobby Mercer way back in the day, who was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle.

• 26:30Bill Simmons?

  Traded for for Bobby Bonds.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Eventually, which was a good trade for the Yankees and then Bonds was traded for Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa. But, but Bobby Mercer, if you looked at the trajectory of his career in a depressed offensive era, hadn't really ruled himself out of that yet. And then had this incredible season where, because people didn't understand advanced analytics well enough at the time.

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  They didn't understand quite how good he was. And he was like 25, 26, and he followed it up with a really nice season. But it wasn't like the season before. And at that moment, people realized, okay, this guy is what he is. He's a sometime all-star. He's not going to be one of the greatest players ever. Those little, those single seasons or single games or single moments that completely reshape the way we think about a guy are so interesting to me. And I agree with you about AD. You could pinpoint that moment and go, it was cresting and no.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  Flip side, Eli.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  Who made the semifinalist for the Hall of Fame again, basically based off a couple of games.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Well.

• 27:31Bill Simmons?

  And if either of those Giants games against the Pats, don't go, you're Giants fan, I'm going right in your wheelhouse now. But, but basically like if Harrison just knocks the ball off Tyrese Helmut, or they call one of the five holds on the play.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:45Bill Simmons?

  They don't win that one.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  And then he makes a great play to Manningham.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Or if they just whistle the play dead because forward because he had five guys on him and the play was kind of over.

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  But it's those two. Now, the Giants fans I know, and I'm sure you're in that camp is like Eli had some huge road wins. He went to Lambeau.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Thing about, I'll make the Hall of Fame case for Eli. I think the answer is yes for Eli. And I'll, I'll start by saying he was an iron man, which is hugely, hugely important at that position. You never had to worry. He had more responsibility in his offense than anyone but Peyton or Tom Brady, right? Like he had a huge amount of respect. He's playing in a, in an outdoor windy kind of environment. Like his stats probably would have been a little better somewhere else.

• 28:25Bill Simmons?

  I think that's the most fair point for the Eli defenders is compare him to Breeze who got to play in the Superdome for a hundred years.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Right. Flip him and it's not, and it, Breeze is more accurate and all that stuff. But then here it is. Um, in terms of clutch. So Nate Silver, I don't know if you remember this article that came out five years ago, but Nate Silver wanted to see who was the most clutch quarterback ever, right? So he.

• 28:51Bill Simmons?

  It wasn't Tom Brady who came back from 28 to three?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  This is before Tom Brady did that, actually. It's how Tom Brady kept going. But so he goes back and he wants to see what's their baseline that they achieve, the, the kind of level that they play at normally. And what do they play at in the playoffs? And then you see the difference there. And a little unfair because Eli's base is lower than others, right? So he has more room to go.

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  The two postseason where he goes four and out.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Dude, he was the, he came out so far ahead of everybody else who ever lived that Nate redid the methodology because he's like, come on, Eli can't be this kind of an outlier above Joe Montana and everybody. Let's get all the Trent Dilfers out. Yeah. And I'm going to redo the methodology and see who comes out number one. And so when he redid it, it was close. Eli Manning won, Joe Montana, too. So, so that, right. And that was because when you think it's not just the Super Bowls, he went on the road. He beat Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers at Lambeau. Right? Like he was, he had tough matchups on the road for two playoff series and he won two Super Bowls. You're right.

• 30:01Bill Simmons?

  He also had a little bit of a horseshoe in a good way, much like the Pacers last year.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  There were a couple of moments where it's like, wow. Hundred percent. How did that, how did that go Eli's way? Butterfly effect, right? Like the butterfly had flapped its wings in China. We're not having this conversation about Eli, but it didn't. Yeah. That's actually what happened and he's a two time Super Bowl MVP. There have not been that many of them. And Bill, the, so, so I said, once upon a time, famously, infamously, cause it became a meme. Oh, this is one of your. The universe on the line. Yeah. I want Iggy Waddala, right? The point I was making was Steph Curry, I had seen in game seven, I was there. On my own dime, I just wanted to see it as a fan, right?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  I wanted to be able to, and they had the greatest half court offense in the history of basketball. They had 73 wins. They were about to be declared the greatest basketball team of all time. It was five minutes left in the fourth quarter. This is one of your moments that you were talking about. Seven. Yeah. At home, they did not score another point and you are the point guard and the best player on the team. He's carelessly throwing behind the back passes out of bounds. He's scared to shoot. When he does shoot, he's not hitting. I can't say scared. I don't know what's going on in his heart, but that's what it appeared. And the bottom line is that offense didn't score a single point the rest of the way. And lost a game seven at home.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  That to me is fate of the universe on the line, right? So that's what, what I meant, a guy like Iggy Waddala, open shot, not getting his own shot. I have confidence Iggy, if he has the shot, he's going to take it and nail it. There are certain athletes. This would be a good segment for you and Rich, defend your meme. Hundred percent defend your meme. I love it. That's what we're doing at the Ringer, Bill. That's what we're doing. That's what we came here for. I have a couple I could probably defend. Here's the thing with Curry though. But I'm saying all this, go back and think of the Patriots in oh seven. They were about to be called. They were going to replace the 1927 Yankees, the 72 win Bulls. This is the greatest team in the history of American team sports. Thanks for bringing this up. Period. Yeah. And he beat them.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Then fast forward four more years.

• 32:18Bill Simmons?

  What'd he score, 21 points, 17 points?

• 32:21Speaker 01

  It happened again, Bill. It happened the exact same way. And this time, actually, the play, while less improbable, was a better play by Eli, actually, when the Manningham pass. Like, he did it. You can't, yes, if anything changes, that's gone and we're not, but that's what actually happened. I don't see how you can, you can't tell the story of the NFL without Eli Manning in that era. You can't dismiss the Iron Man streak, the two Super Bowl MVPs, the road wins against, like, Hall of Fame quarterbacks at Lambeau. It's, he's a Hall of Famer.

• 32:54Bill Simmons?

  Football's funny because it's such a small sample size for these playoff games.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  It lets people like me make bullshit arguments.

• 33:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, but Flacco had the greatest postseason of all time.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  So when you start there, like, basketball just doesn't have that. They don't have Joe Flacco, oh, that Joe Flacco postseason, when he averaged 38 a game for 20 games in the playoffs.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Because basketball.

• 33:14Bill Simmons?

  Because you have seven-game series. The right team usually wins.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  The NBA, we actually know who's really good. It's not really debatable.

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  We've had two finals in the last 40 years where the right team probably didn't win. 1988 Pistons and 2013 Spurs. I think those are the only two you could say, I'm not sure the right team won.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe on paper with the Spurs.

• 33:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm just saying, they were up five with 27 seconds left. The game, that should be it. They should have won the title.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I see what you mean. The way it played out, you're saying.

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and the Pistons, I think if Azaya doesn't get hurt, they win. But it's funny, the Curry thing, I'm a, obviously Curry's my guy. I love Curry. It's a tough one to defend, and the only way you can defend it is by basically pointing to other players who are awesome, who failed in big moments. Like, Magic had the 84 finals, right? That was just as bad as Curry in game seven, but the bottom line is.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Tragic Johnson.

• 34:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the bottom line is Curry was home. They were, they had won what? They'd won 73 games plus another

• 34:18Speaker 01

  73 games.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  15?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Right, because the

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  They'd won 88 games.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. 88 games. And, and but not only that, to that point in history, that's the greatest offense ever. You're the machine who did, you're the unanimous MVP. You have guys like me on TV saying, I know in any other era, this wouldn't be true. But right now, Steph Curry is the best player in basketball in the middle of LeBron James's prime.

• 34:42Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  But in the playoffs, you find out who really is the best player in basketball. And by the end of those playoffs, LeBron James was by so far the best player. It was ridiculous to compare other people to him.

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, then Rich and Adam Silver got together and suspended Draymond for that fifth game.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  But you know, if you have a guy like Draymond Green and

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  That is the tax of Draymond Green. You never know when it's gonna

• 35:07Speaker 01

  What side of the line is it gonna be on? LeBron deserves credit for that. He baited him. It worked.

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  This would be another good segment. Um, I, let me make an excuse. So the 07 Pats and the 16 Warriors, I think had a very similar thing of there was too much pressure from the streaks that weighed on them to a point where I think they were just debilitated. Cause that Golden State basically should have lost to OKC, which is even crazier. And Klay goes nuts in game six and then

• 35:36Speaker 01

  I was game seven for that too. And that was a very winnable game for OKC.

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  OKC, Durant was bad in those last three games. I think even he would admit that.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Marcellus Wiley used to say this when we were doing the radio show, Max and Marcellus here in LA. He'd be like, uh, getting off the bus. Who do you like? When you see the athletes getting off the bus. And, and a lot of it was made of, at that season of Cleveland and, and Golden State.

• 35:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  But people like in your minds, I go back, the streak that the Thunder were on, you started going, getting off the bus. That's the best team in fact. Super winnable game for them. Game seven at Golden State.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  Westbrook thing was just, it was just too wonky.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  KD choked. I like, you don't like, you don't take pleasure in saying that, but how else do you describe it?

• 36:18Bill Simmons?

  3-1. The other one that was in that camp for me is the Miami 27 game winning streak in 2013, the Heat. Where all of a sudden that took a different life of itself, where these weren't regular season games anymore. Now they're playing like these are conference finals level intensity games. And I just think it takes something out of a team. I really felt like that happened to the Pats. I thought they, by the time they got to the playoffs, they were a different team than they were the first eight weeks.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  But you got like, so this is the most nervous I've ever been as a baseball fan was in 98 for the Yankees going into the World Series against the Padres. 120 or 116 regular season, 114 regular season wins. They're, they're beating everybody in the playoffs. You cannot lose to the Padres, but they swept them. They didn't win in six, seven games. They swept them.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't there a call? It was a bad umpire call?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. The Tino Martinez, uh, Tino Martinez. It was strike three. Yeah. There were, there were always turning points and, and you know, the baseball gods were smiling on them. But like, there were also times in those playoffs against Cleveland, El Duque, against like one of the greatest lineups ever comes in and shuts them down for seven innings. You know, I, I think the, it's fair to say when you're one of the greatest teams of all time, or you're in that conversation, part of what you're test, you're being tested on is can you be that same team when it matters most?

• 37:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of that comes-

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  Warriors failed the test in 16.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  I think it comes a lot from the leader. I think that, that your team has to believe that your guy is the best guy.

• 37:51Bill Simmons?

  But Steph atoned for that in 22.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  He did, but that was-

• 37:54Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. Just like Magic atoned for it in 85, 87, 88.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  But Steph deserves all the credit in the world for being the kind of player that you can build a system around that is just wins all these championships. But he was only ever the best player on a championship team, no excuses in 22.

• 38:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, but LeBron had a couple too. I mean, 09 and 10 and 11, the- Oh nine, he was great.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:21Bill Simmons?

  Ten, he was not. And 11 was just an abject disaster and is probably the thing that hurts his go case the most.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  But LeBron James was frequently the best player in the finals.

• 38:31Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  And sometimes.

• 38:32Bill Simmons?

  16 won a bet.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Sometimes he was the best player in the finals and they won the championship.

• 38:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Sometimes he was the best player in the finals and they didn't win the championship, but he was frequently the best player in the finals and, and oftentimes the best player on a championship team. Steph, in my view, has done that once. I know you can say 15, but come on. LeBron's second best player is Matthew Delavadova. It still goes six games.

• 38:57Bill Simmons?

  Steph was hurt in 16.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Kevin Love. Yeah, yeah, he was in, but he wasn't, he was on the floor.

• 39:03Bill Simmons?

  Defender meme is funny. Let's take a break and then I want to talk Yannis trades quick. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. This NBA season is all about the boost. Cause game days means your chance to boost your bet. Make every play pay off. Right now, all customers get a 50% same game parlay and parlay profit boost. Oh yeah. So like, for instance, by the time you hear this, Knicks Celtics would not have happened yet, but I'd like the Celtics at home tonight. I think the crowd's going to show up, but you could do that. You could ride some of the teams that have been playing really well lately. Like it feels like Orlando's been coming on, on the flip side.

• 39:46Bill Simmons?

  The Clippers are an absolute train wreck, maybe go against them. The games never stop with FanDuel. You've got more ways than ever to make every win even bigger. So lock in your bets, boost your odds, make every night count with FanDuel. Official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus, present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opted in required bonus issued as non withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Every football season, the same thing happens.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles clearly a sign for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover suddenly deserted 2:00 PM doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations. Well, those can only mean buffalo wings as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like french fries. It's almost like football is sending a message to eat more food. Yeah, the good news, Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day deals all season long. From wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last minute grocery runs. Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door. Order now on Uber Eats. All right, Giannis trades.

• 41:15Bill Simmons?

  So the question for me, and we're taping this, it's Tuesday morning. I think all the Giannis stuff's gonna start this week.

• 41:23Bill Simmons?

  If Atlanta got Giannis without giving up Jalen Johnson or Daniels or even Reese O'Shea, could they keep their team, which has this really cool identity right now without Trey? This long, athletic, kinda scary, young, the type of team, it's a little OKC-ish.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  You're keeping JJ and getting Giannis.

• 41:44Bill Simmons?

  Could I get Giannis and still keep my nucleus and actually make a run at OKC? Is OKC catchable if I have Giannis? And the big trade chip for them, they have the pick that is either the Pelicans first or the Bucks first. It's one or the other, the highest one. And the Pelicans one is probably gonna be top five.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Who's running your offense?

• 42:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, Jalen Johnson's been basically their like point forward and he's been awesome.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think when you get to the playoffs, I want a point guard. You know, like if it's a point forward, it's gotta be.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I think of Jalen Johnson as a forward.

• 42:22Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't excite you?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  I think in this era, you need a guy.

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm with you.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Who can really run your offense.

• 42:32Bill Simmons?

  Minnesota is not playing point guard.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  I'm thinking of Jalen Johnson as a point forward in the playoffs.

• 42:37Bill Simmons?

  When everything slows down.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  When everything slows down and like. It's tempting because maybe the following year, you could, you get a guy to do what you really need him to do. And now you have a suit, like you have crazy length it positions. You have defense.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I mean, yes, the answer is if you can, if you can center a package around Trey Young and get Yanis, you have to do it.

• 42:59Bill Simmons?

  So it would be Yan, it would be Trey Young, Porzingis, who's an expiring.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  They have, but they have a super tall.

• 43:05Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  They got a super tall guy.

• 43:06Bill Simmons?

  He makes 30s, that's perfect for trade.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:08Bill Simmons?

  They have that Bucks pick. They have a 2027, the worst of Bucks or New Orleans first. They have all their own firsts, so they could put together four firsts. Trey Young, the Porzingis expiring. We'll take Kuzma back. Kuzma will be the tax of the honest trade. And for the Bucks, it's like.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  For your second unit, you get a little offense there.

• 43:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, for the Bucks, it's like, hey, Trey Young. Fun guy to have in your team. He's got two years left on his deal.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Then the Bucks are just raising the white flag and saying, we are now a franchise that knows we're not going to compete for titles, but we can keep fans coming and, you know, like,

• 43:43Bill Simmons?

  But do you?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  If I'm the Bucks, I don't do it. Well, how many draft picks am I getting? Which draft picks am I getting?

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're getting that Pelicans pick, so you know you have a chance to be in the top four.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:54Bill Simmons?

  In a lottery that has three potential franchise guys.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  Right? And it's, everyone thinks is the best draft in a long time.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:01Bill Simmons?

  And thank you to the Pelicans for giving that pick to Atlanta. Uh, you have some other good ones too. They have a top 10 protected, uh, protected Sacramento pick.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  They have that 2027 worst one of the Bucks, Pelicans. Like they could put it together. I guess the question for me with the Bucks is, do you want to get in on this before AD becomes the consolation trade piece for Atlanta? Like you have Toronto, which doesn't have an asset like that pick, but could put together all their picks. They could put together their contracts. San Antonio is the wild card.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  That's the one. If I'm San Antonio, I'm doing whatever it takes to get Yanis.

• 44:39Bill Simmons?

  That's like a brain breaker trade.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  It's a brain breaker trade.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Just putting Wemby and Yanis on the same team is like.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  That's, and, and. If I'm San Antonio, I have to do that. That's, that's kind of what I'm rooting for to happen. I want to see it.

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  So if I'm Milwaukee, because you don't have really any asset that's awesome, except for a 2031, you can swap picks with the Kings.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  It'd have to be a three-team trade.

• 45:04Bill Simmons?

  It was a bonus.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Right?

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  No, they have a bunch of contracts.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what are, what is, what is, what is?

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  Can I get Harper in that trade?

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  If I'm San Antonio, no, thank you. I'm keeping Dylan Harper. If it's okay, I'm keeping him. I'm keeping him.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Sure, you'd like to.

• 45:22Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm keeping him. I think he's untouchable.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  How are you gonna get Giannis?

• 45:26Bill Simmons?

  Castle, I don't really want to trade him either.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Right, but, but it's, that's the thing, man. You gotta, as, as James Tony famously said, and I said this on the Crawford Canelo broadcast.

• 45:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  You gotta bring ass to get ass.

• 45:40Bill Simmons?

  No, I get it. I get it. They have a bunch of picks and they'd have to really decide on. I, Harper to me is untouchable. Castle, I should also be untouchable, but I have to give up something to get something. I have to give you at least one awesome asset.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:55Bill Simmons?

  The, your fans can say, well, at least we got that.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  And draft picks.

• 45:58Bill Simmons?

  And a bunch of draft picks.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:00Bill Simmons?

  Chicago really just has the draft picks. Detroit, Dern's not going to be in the trade. He's untouchable.

• 46:09Bill Simmons?

  The Knicks, they can't really do anything.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I mean, the Knicks would have, unless.

• 46:17Bill Simmons?

  They have the.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Giannis is better than Cat. Giannis is better than Cat. You're giving up a bunch of shooting there.

• 46:21Bill Simmons?

  But you can't package guys together and it like, it's too complicated.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  The, the Knicks trade that's not as complicated is AD. No, AD for Towns.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Oh, I think the Knicks trade that makes all the sense in the world for both parties.

• 46:35Bill Simmons?

  Don't do this.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, OG for LeBron.

• 46:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, but that can't happen though, because the contracts have to match perfectly. That's the problem with this apron. They would have to trade Towns for LeBron is the only way contractually they could do.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  They don't have any other piece that could match up with the numbers.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Once you start adding things with this apron, you can't do it. So they could do one for once. So they could trade Towns for AD right now.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  The thing about LeBron, and I, I think I would do that too. The thing, the thing about.

• 47:02Bill Simmons?

  I have Knicks fans in my life who are like, I like Towns. No, thanks. I don't want to deal with AD's injuries.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Me too, and, and Towns spaces the floor for a big in an absurd way. He's never become the defender in space that it looked like he'd be out of college. But if LeBron could be. Think of him like super Draymond Green on offense for the Knicks. He's, he becomes the pick and roll partner for Jalen Brunson. And you can play five out with him. And even if Mitchell Robinson's in.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna be 41.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  But, right, that's true. But for high leverage moments, if you can keep him healthy and he's doing much less. If he's really the power forward.

• 47:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're describing 2024 Olympics, LeBron.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:47Bill Simmons?

  This is like, we don't need all of you, but we need, we need your brain. We need your Swiss Army knife. You can play every position.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  He'll get to his spot to shoot the three, right? Like.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  And with five minutes left in a huge game.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Play defense.

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  I love having you out there.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, play defense with five minutes left in a huge game, by the way.

• 48:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Which you can still do in spurts. The problem with the Knicks is they will never win a championship when their best player is six feet tall. No one has ever won a championship since the bad boy Pistons.

• 48:16Bill Simmons?

  Isaiah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Right. Isaiah was the last one to do it, who wasn't at least six foot three. I mean, the basket's way up in the.

• 48:24Bill Simmons?

  She is like 6'3 and a half.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  The basket's way up high, right? Like it selects out for height. So you're not gonna, you need.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  And the physicality of the playoffs.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  You need a, the Knicks can't have their best player be Jalen Brunson. You need at least another guy who in big moments is at least as good as Jalen Brunson.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  Now, you're saying this, now you've been on the sidelines for two years here.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  This is the best Knicks team in your lifetime? Close?

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Best starting five of my lifetime.

• 48:52Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Easily. There's, there's never been a Knicks starting five. And I don't mean just like add up all the talent, maybe even then. But the Knicks of like who, the powerhouse Knicks who couldn't get over the hump when I was in high school and college. Were, you know, led by Patrick Ewing. Who was the second best player on that team? Charles Oakley? John Starks?

• 49:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, the 94 finals comes down to can John Starks hit a couple of shots?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Or.

• 49:17Bill Simmons?

  That's why you don't win the title.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Hakeem Olajuwon not get his fingertip on that shot in game six.

• 49:21Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  But still, when you look at the starting five, look at the Knicks' starting five now. You have a superstar point guard. You have in at the two, you can, you could have one of two legitimate NBA starters, right? You could, Bridges or Josh Hart are both good NBA starters. You could see either one on a championship team. OG and, and Towns and Robinson and like they got a lot.

• 49:49Bill Simmons?

  Don't forget McBride.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  McBride, they got a lot of stuff. Their, their starters, when you, when you like, when you look at each one individually, there's no real weak position. Maybe there's no position strong enough to get a couple of positions that are just checked at a solid level instead of a really high level over the hump. But there's no real weakness in the starting five where you say, that guy really, they're kind of hiding that guy. That guy's starting because they have a great superstar.

• 50:19Bill Simmons?

  Hart's probably the closest because that, that hurt them in the playoffs last year.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Unless you watch him every day and then you go.

• 50:23Bill Simmons?

  But in the playoffs, all of a sudden, he became.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  If, if, if Josh Hart shot a little bit better, right? Well, if he shot a little bit better.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  The question for me is, I'm trying to win the title, right? If I'm, if I'm the Knicks, am I trying to make the finals or am I trying to win the title?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Win the title.

• 50:41Bill Simmons?

  My team doesn't match up with OKC. I don't.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Unless someone plays traffic cop with OKC, you never know what could happen.

• 50:47Bill Simmons?

  They have 70 guys to throw it at Brunson.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  For seven games over two weeks.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  But if.

• 50:53Bill Simmons?

  It's a fucking gauntlet and that's why I don't know if I feel like.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Brunson and LeBron though?

• 50:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, LeBron is interesting and AD I think is interesting too for them because it just gives them, it just gives them a little more reliable size, rebounding, like the, the possibility of somebody going off in a.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  And how you getting AD?

• 51:12Bill Simmons?

  It would have to be Towns.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Right, then you're giving up a lot of shooting.

• 51:15Bill Simmons?

  You're giving up a lot of shooting.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  For, for some defense.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  And Mike Brown did figure out, it seems to me from watching them, the Brunson Towns thing. Feels a little more organic than it did last year. Last year, you could see their brains moving around. We gotta, we gotta figure out Kat and.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  If I were the Lakers, I would want OG Ananobi. And if I were the Knicks, I would want him instead of Kat to be in that deal. Because then the Knicks have plenty of shooting. And I think in high leverage moments, they still have defense.

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  Ananobi and Robinson for LeBron, basically. Which I don't know if that's possible with the cap.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I want Mitchell, like Robinson's not only good, but he's a playoff performer.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  And Ananobi makes like 15 million less than LeBron. You have to put it there.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Figure out how to.

• 51:59Bill Simmons?

  That's part of the problem with this apron is some of the teams don't have the right contracts to kind of add together. That's why Atlanta's so interesting because Atlanta can make any type of trade. And I really like their team. Like I, you know, when you think like, I don't know what they're going to get from Porzingis. It just seems like he's going to be plagued by this mystery virus he had for the rest of his career. He played one game, now he's gone again.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Well, when, but he's playing, like when he plays, he plays valuable minutes and he plays well.

• 52:24Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  And that was as true in Boston, too.

• 52:26Bill Simmons?

  But if you're think, if you're them and you're like, we might have a chance to make the finals. Like the Hawks have never made the finals.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  So I think they're.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  I think their motivations are maybe a tiny bit different than the Knicks. Where the Knicks are like, we have to actually win the title. Making the finals is fun, but that, that doesn't ultimately really, the title is what matters. You haven't won since 73.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Who are you telling? I was born, I was born in August of that year. That occurred in January. I have not had a breath since the Knicks, like the Knicks have never won a championship in my lifetime.

• 52:59Bill Simmons?

  So would you rather?

• 53:00Speaker 01

  I leaned on your theory about when a fan is allowed to jettison a team in order to come and broadcast in LA and root for the Lakers. I leaned on the Bill Simmons theory.

• 53:10Bill Simmons?

  Did it work?

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I was able to actually get behind the Lakers because I'd put my time in with the team. I tried, you know, and, and then really the, the final straw for me with the Knicks.

• 53:22Bill Simmons?

  Sports bigamist then?

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. The final straw for me with the Knicks was when Oakley got escorted from the Garden. Like. Could you imagine Paul O'Neal getting kicked out of Yankee Stadium?

• 53:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Right? Like, I, I would stand online, we'd have season tickets, I would stand online overnight at, around the Garden with my brother to get Knicks tickets, right? In the freezing cold, you had to stand, like, you had to get there, if you didn't get there, you know, they went on sale, whatever it was, 9 a.m., let's say. You had to get there, you know, the night before and just wait all night because the line wrapped around the block. And I did that because of guys like Charles Oakley. They made, they made you proud to be, Oakley made you proud to be a Knicks fan. And you get that, and you escort that guy from the Garden? Why? Because he doesn't like you as an owner? Come on, man.

• 54:09Bill Simmons?

  So you're back with the Knicks? I'm trying to keep track. This is like, you're like J Lo and Ben Affleck. I don't, I don't know what's going on.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Right. When you leave, when you leave the team, right? Of course, a part of you is, I'm interested in watching them. I want them to do well. I don't think that, I don't think that this iteration of the Knicks can win a championship.

• 54:32Bill Simmons?

  It is funny that we can divorce human beings, but not teams. It somehow is, is more violating to people in your life that you would get rid of a team. I remember fantasy was doing this for The Ringer. He was like, I'm done with the Knicks. And he, he really tried, and he tried to like, be like a basketball widow and, you know.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  I used to have the-

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  If the DNA is still there, you can't help it.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  In New York radio, I did the Max Kellerman Show like 20 years ago, uh, for ESPN Radio. And I used to have the abused Knicks fan hotline, right? Like, because like, they can't, they, but you know, yes, they can still hurt you because you, you always run back. And that's really the reason the Knicks, and I, I can't criticize the current regime that Dolan has in place because they've done an excellent job. There's no two ways about it.

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  The Brunson thing was amazing.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 55:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how legal that whole thing was either.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  And the whole Nova thing, it works.

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  You know, but, um, like, you had to make the trade for Towns. It was a shame to get rid of DiVincenzo, right? Like, but you have to pull the trigger on that deal.

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  It was the right trade.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  It was the right trade.

• 55:30Bill Simmons?

  And now Randall's not, he gave up pot. He looks like the quickest he's ever looked in his life.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Randall-

• 55:36Bill Simmons?

  Could be a new, could be a new trend.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Randall is like- There are some players who are really, really good. And yet, the real careful observers of them who root for the team that they're on, don't think that they want them on the team. And Randall's kind of like that with the Knicks. Most Knicks fans were like, okay, that might be addition by subtraction because Randall's off.

• 55:56Bill Simmons?

  We had the junior version of that with Marcus Smart. It had just kind of run its course, but in the outside world, it was like, Marcus Smart, he's part of the team. It's like, eh, we'll probably be okay.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  They were drafted right next to each other, seven, eight, I think.

• 56:08Bill Simmons?

  There's been, it's funny though, those guys, when you have them and you're watching them day in, day out versus the general public. Had a few of those over the years.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  This is, this is why when I said, I want Iggy Waddala. It was the same thing, like if you asked a real Yankees fan back in the day, bases are loaded, clutch moment in the playoffs. Do you want A-Rod up or Luis Soho up?

• 56:29Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Hardcore Yankees fans will tell you, I'd rather have Luis Soho up.

• 56:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, I would tell you from a guy that rooted for the team that would have to play those teams every once in a while, I wanted A-Rod to come up.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  Unless it was, unless one of the teams were up 12 to two.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, then forget.

• 56:44Bill Simmons?

  Then it's like, fucking A-Rod's going 500 feet here.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. There are like, the idea that clutch doesn't exist, that, you know, of course, if you have a guy with A-Rod's talent or Steph's talent, you give them, give them enough reps and they'll work through whatever. And eventually, they're, they're just too good.

• 57:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  But the, the sample size has to be pretty big for some of these guys. Whereas guys like, you know, David Ortiz.

• 57:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, plus we had like, Bill Miller was a classic example of this. You didn't want to see Bill Miller up with guys on base.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Nah, man. Switch hits.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  He was, he was getting, he was getting on base. He just was. The Dodgers had, had a couple of guys like that too, last year.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  They did.

• 57:22Bill Simmons?

  They, they were just, and you could kind of tell which guys.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Tough outs. Tough outs. Like you're a baseball fan, you know exactly what that is.

• 57:29Bill Simmons?

  The catcher, Will Smith.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:31Bill Simmons?

  Who I loved. Um, I just thought he was awesome, like the kind of guy you'd want. That's the thing, like, like we gave up Schwaber like four years ago, the Red Sox. And we had a postseason with him and every time he came up, I thought he was getting on base or hitting a homerun. And then they're like, yeah, we don't need him. We have some first base prospects coming up. It's like, what about the guy? Who, as baseball moves toward walks, home runs and strikeouts is like the fucking poster boy of this. We're gonna let this guy go?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Right. And there's also like, there's some, it's like this Gladwell type thing from one of those airport books he did. I forgot which one.

• 58:05Bill Simmons?

  Airport books.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like you literally, I got a flight. Oh, look, Gladwell has a thing.

• 58:08Bill Simmons?

  220 pages.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  You know, he'll be, he's a good expositor of some ideas.

• 58:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  It's kind of been replaced by reels on Instagram, I feel like, or for the kids TikTok, but, but, but he's good. He kind of like, you know.

• 58:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Composite, he.

• 58:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, now nobody reads on an airplane. My daughter would just go on TikTok for six hours. Yeah.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Yep. But, but it was like, it's kind of a, it was Blink, called Blink.

• 58:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  It's the Blink test. Then fans know their, their intuition is often correct. You take a look at a guy. And without looking at stats, and I'm all for saber metrics. I've been geeking out on them since I was a kid. But you can know that that's the kind of guy I want up in this situation, or I wanted to free throw line in this situation. And if they fail, you can live with it because you're like, okay, they're not always going to succeed. But I've seen that enough that, you know, in a blink kind of way, and in just an intuitive way. That I'm picking up something about this guy that's comfortable in that situation and that makes me, me feel confident. And.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  This is like my dad.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  The opposite.

• 59:09Bill Simmons?

  This is my dad with Jalen Brown, who's been a great Celtic. I love Jalen Brown. But in the last minute of a game, if it's a tight game and he goes to the free throw line. He's probably going to make one or two. And my dad will mention it. And he, by the way, forgets all the times Jalen made both, but when he goes one or two, like he did the other night in Cleveland. And my dad's texting me.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Perception.

• 59:31Bill Simmons?

  My dad's like, see, one or two.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Right. Selective perception, perceptual defense, whatever it is, you know, like, and yet. There's something.

• 59:41Bill Simmons?

  There's something in your gut.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  There's something, and you know.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  A spec, I once, there's a boxing trainer, Tommy Brooks, who was talking about Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. If they would have fought 100 times, Holyfield wins every time. He said, the difference is, and he kisses his arms, Holyfield. Loved himself and Mike hated himself. Yeah. Right? There's certain athletes, if they're at the free throw line in a tight game, they think they deserve to hit that shot. Like you could say, people could say whatever they want about Kobe Bryant. If he's at the free throw line in a tight game, that dude loves himself. He is going to, like, there's nothing in him working against his own success there. Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  And there are other, A-Rod, you got, you got the feeling like he was conflicted inside somehow. I mean, he literally just did a documentary called Alex versus A-Rod. There, there you go. It's probably why I said it on my mind, but he, there was, he's working against himself there. There's something in him that's working against himself. Ortiz, Ortiz is the opposite. The opposite. Manny the opposite. Manny would just go in these vendors where he would just go 30 for 58 for two weeks. I'm a Yankees fan. You don't have to tell me twice. And as great as Manny was, Ortiz is the guy. Don't want to see him. Dustin Pedroia, you can, stay away. That's how we flipped the rivalry because of Ortiz. Well, no, you flipped, you flipped the rivalry, you flipped the rivalry literally with a flip.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  The rivalry, rivalry flipped in a regular season game in 2004 after the Yankees broke the Red Sox heart in 2003. When Jason Varitek started a fight with A-Rod. July 27, 2004? He started the fight with A-Rod. With the game ender? He picked on A-Rod. He was, A-Rod was in the right, Varitek was in the wrong. Yeah. He bullied him, but then he won the fight before it got, before it got broken up, he got the better of it. And as a Yankees fan, I'm not saying this in retrospect, I'm telling you at the time, I thought, uh-oh. That's bad. That's really bad. It's bad for the psychology of the team.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Getting back to Steph Curry, Magic Johnson and all that stuff, it reminds me there, when your best player has a quality about them that makes the team feel like that, we have that guy, we can't lose. It does something to the team. And Steph, I don't think had that for a lot of his career. He's one of the greatest players ever, but I didn't get, LeBron did. I got the feeling like with LeBron on the team. LeBron did later. Later. Right. After the first, after the Dallas loss, he started getting that thing. The team, Derek Jeter had it, even though there were other players better than him on the team. Kobe Bryant had it, no matter what people want to say, which is why.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  I think it is also ridiculous when people say, oh, Kobe's like the eighth best player ever, the 10th best player ever, and kids from his generation lose their minds. That's not an unfair ranking, but why I would put him over Tim Duncan is because I think that it is close, I think, between those two, is that

• 1:02:46Bill Simmons?

  It's outrageous.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Kobe's team believed, if he had a shot to win, Kobe's team believed that they would win.

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna leave. The Tim Duncan slander.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  You think it's slander to put Kobe ahead of Duncan?

• 1:02:58Bill Simmons?

  I just think he's the most underappreciated superstar of all time.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  But what I'm saying is Kobe and Duncan are neck and neck. I think that's not slander. They're neck and neck. Kobe's the closest thing we've seen to Jordan, right? Probably the closest in any sport, tell me an upper echelon all time.

• 1:03:14Bill Simmons?

  I have Kobe like 10th or 11th all time.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Okay, I don't think that's unreasonable.

• 1:03:19Bill Simmons?

  But Duncan has to be, Duncan's 7th, and I don't think it's debatable.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  You think it's not debatable?

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I don't.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  So MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Russell?

• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  MJ, LeBron, Kareem, Russell, Bird and Magic.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Oh, ahead of Chamberlain, okay.

• 1:03:36Bill Simmons?

  Chamberlain was a loser for most of his career, and although, I wrote a whole chapter in my book about this.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  He didn't, I mean, the Celtics, the Celtics had every good player in the league.

• 1:03:46Bill Simmons?

  You know who was never getting traded, ever? Tim Duncan.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, okay, fine.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  Ever.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Fine, I think, I agree with what you're saying about Wilt, and they used to say, I never got to see Wilt play, really, but I used to hear, if you needed points, he'd give you assists, if you needed assists, he'd give you points. Okay, fine, you can put Bill Russell ahead of him, not have him 5. So I'd have Wilt 5, you have Bird and Magic right after that, fine, whatever. So you think Duncan is right after Bird and Magic?

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  I do. And guess what? I think Jokic is coming, but yeah, I don't think it can only be with one title.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Because now we're in the titles. I don't love the ring culture, but it's really tough to put a one-title guy in like the top 8 of all time. But I said this last month to Legler, I think he's the best offensive player I've ever seen. I wasn't there for Wilt, but of anyone I've watched in my lifetime, Jordan was the best player I've ever seen.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  He was a better, he was a better offensive player too, Bill.

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, Jokic.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yes, of course, Jokic is gonna shoot better, because in this era, you're gonna take those shots so much more.

• 1:04:43Bill Simmons?

  Everything he does, it doesn't matter who's on his team. He is just, his team is going to score points. He will figure out, what do we need today? I'll do that. And he's just gonna, I've just never seen a guy like him in person. I saw, I was there for the entire Jordan thing and saw great Jordan games.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  You think Jokic is good offensively as Larry Bird? For his, you have to say for his era because of course the skills improve.

• 1:05:07Bill Simmons?

  And as you know, Larry Bird is my favorite player of all time and my sports hero. I think he was a better offensive player because, because of the size is what makes it different.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Better in his, like, okay, in an absolute sense, all the athletes are always getting better because they're building on what came before them, right?

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Okay. But I mean, for his, so, so this is a thought experiment I do. In the one sport that's measured objectively, we know, track and field, that guys are getting better because better means faster, right?

• 1:05:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  There's no debate.

• 1:05:36Bill Simmons?

  It's track and field and cars are the two things that work for this.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Stopwatch.

• 1:05:40Bill Simmons?

  A 1963 Porsche versus a Porsche now, you can't compare the cars.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  So, so the 10th best sprinter in the world today is much, much better than Jesse Owens.

• 1:05:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  But that's a ridiculous statement to make because we're not, they, they're two different errors. Who's the greater, right?

• 1:05:56Bill Simmons?

  This is the Bob Cousy argument.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:05:58Bill Simmons?

  This is why I get mad when Cousy just gets cut out because he's like, oh, he played a million years ago. It's like, well.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  In, at that time.

• 1:06:04Bill Simmons?

  At that time, he was the most important basketball player we had until Russell showed up. And he was the best guard of the first 15 years of the league. Like, that has to matter a little bit.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, and I would say that Jokic in his day, as great as he is, I'll take Larry Bird in his day. Larry Bird.

• 1:06:25Bill Simmons?

  It's a good argument because Larry had three straight MVPs and then 87 was his best season.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  I, I remember as a kid and my dad loved Larry Bird, which killed me.

• 1:06:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  As a Knicks fan, because he said the Celtics play, the way they played reminded him of the Knicks championship teams. Like the unselfish way they played. But I was like, all I knew was Boston Celtics, Larry Bird.

• 1:06:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Get out of here with that dad, right? But inside, I remember thinking, I'm a little kid, I'm thinking, I'm, I'll never see anybody this good again. Like the whole thing with Bird and Magic. Came because Magic was able to adapt and he played longer and he had this weird prime that just kept going even as he kind of adjusted as a player.

• 1:07:06Bill Simmons?

  In 99, he went, that's what Bird really only had the nine years and then his body started to break down. Magic, Magic had like 11.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  When they were both at their best, head to head.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  Bird was slightly better.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  And, and that was kind of, that wasn't really debated, you know, in fact, like the guy who Larry was compared to early, it's a little revisionist history now because it's perfect with the college stuff and everything.

• 1:07:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Was Dr. J commercially.

• 1:07:27Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Right, but.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  You have that behind you over your right shoulder. The Bird versus Dr. J.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah, the Converse ads or whatever.

• 1:07:36Bill Simmons?

  Philly was their rival. It was funny because the Lakers, they played them in the finals those three times, but Philly was the, that was the hump to get over year after year.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 1:07:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  You know, but, but at any rate.

• 1:07:47Bill Simmons?

  He's another one who's slipped through the cracks of history now.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  He, yeah, because the ABA, but in the ABA, he was God.

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  I would say the first six, seven years of NBA in person, he was unbelievable to see in person with like his fucking Freddy Krueger going into the lane with one arm, all that shit.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  But Bird and Magic were like.

• 1:08:09Bill Simmons?

  They were different.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  They were different.

• 1:08:10Bill Simmons?

  So that's why I think Jokic is in that conversation with them because

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is.

• 1:08:14Bill Simmons?

  Of what he does, he can completely change the identity of guys who if they didn't play with him would have had completely different careers and that's, that's a different list.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  The first time he had a shot at it, he has, you know, if there's a guard on your team who's a B plus, but in the playoffs, he becomes an A plus.

• 1:08:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  And I know Jokic wasn't quite in his prime yet, but you can't rise to that same level in that series. That's, you know, that's like LeBron against Dallas.

• 1:08:41Bill Simmons?

  But he loses two, he loses two Murray playoff years because Murray gets hurt right before the playoffs.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  And as soon as he had a shot and they get Aaron Gordon, they get, they get the right kind of third guy.

• 1:08:53Bill Simmons?

  And honestly, last year, what he did against OKC was pretty amazing just to even drag that series to seven games and Gordon had a big piece of that too, but.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  He's an incredible player, but I'm, Jokic, but I'm with you. He's, he's a guy who like one championship would make, it's like Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Rodgers just winning one Super Bowl.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  It ain't gonna cut it in the all time arguments because his talent suggests like, wait, you're with Drew Brees and them, you're so much better than those guys, right?

• 1:09:22Bill Simmons?

  It's true, but this is why Curry's 22 is so important.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  So important because that's the first time he was the best player on either team in a championship.

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  He pulled ever up, there's no way they win unless he goes crazy.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  For me, that put Curry in the, like, in the top 10 ever conversation regardless of position.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  So the thing with Jokic and Duncan and Bird and Magic is I think it's actually impossible not to win 50 games if you had those guys in their peak. And this is the part that thinks Kobe, who I, I've kind of come around, especially when I wrote my book versus what the 09, 10 was so important for him, those last two titles. But those middle three years in the Lakers, when it was like, all right, dude, now you have to carry us, the team's not that good. And they just weren't, even in 06, like when he drags them to 45 wins, there's no 45 win 10 Duncan season.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  So, so there are different ways to look at this. If I have nothing, I have garbage on my team and I want to get my team as close as possible to winning a championship, LeBron James is the answer to that, right?

• 1:10:28Bill Simmons?

  I would throw Jokic in there too, though.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Okay, but.

• 1:10:30Bill Simmons?

  Jokic had that year after Murray before, I think, I can't remember if Aaron Gordon was on there or not, but you go back and you look at the roster he had.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, not good.

• 1:10:37Bill Simmons?

  It's like, how is this a playoff contender?

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  You can take, my pick all time would be LeBron. If you have something.

• 1:10:43Bill Simmons?

  I think that's fair.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  If you have something on your team, my pick is Michael Jordan. Cause every time Michael Jordan ever played with one other All-Star, except for when he came back for 20 something games, that one, he won, he never, didn't win the championship in under seven games.

• 1:10:57Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he almost had one in 90 before Pippen was Pippen.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Right, like, by the way, and then they, they go to seven games against the defending back to back champions.

• 1:11:07Bill Simmons?

  Pippen gets a migraine.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Gets a migraine and they still, like, otherwise, maybe he wins right. The, the point is with Kobe, not that, so he's more like Jordan. Give Kobe something to work with and he's going to take you as far as you can go.

• 1:11:21Bill Simmons?

  I still feel like there was some behind the scenes stuff with him that had to sort itself out over the years with his personality and there's, was too much written about what a tough teammate he was. It's the hardest thing to put into context with his career because his own coach.

• 1:11:37Bill Simmons?

  Was writing books about how impossible he was to coach, right? And then they hashed it out and they really figured out an unbelievable relationship over the second part of it, but that's still, you have to look at the first half of the screen, you have to count that in at least a little bit.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  So, uh, Bill James once wrote about, um, Carl Yastrzemski and Stan Musial, you know, and showed all the, all the ways they were similar, Musial on a, on a higher level, right? Have there ever been two superstars where they are among the greatest players in the history of American team sports, both? And one of them was such a close replica of the other. Kobe is, is in terms of his size, his position, his game, his accomplishments, the, how effective he was.

• 1:12:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, he also studied Jordan and, and actually tried to emulate him.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Six foot six and play shooting guard and have the same coach and everything, but he, you have the greatest play, I think Michael Jordan to me is clearly in by far the greatest athlete who ever lived, like in his sport, the greatest athlete ever lived. Everyone wanted to be like Mike, right? There were commercials, no one, like the, the next guy who came into the conversation who actually made it an argument, had to do something different. It was LeBron, right? He was like kind of the first post-modern player where he's like, I'm Magic and Michael.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  And with some Dr. J.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Kobe was the first, was the only guy really with the guts to say, I'm gonna, you know, people misuse the word emulate all the time, right? They think it means imitate, but really it means imitate in a way that surpasses. They're trying to surpass the original. Kobe had the guts to try to do the same thing the greatest of all time did, better than the greatest of all time did it. I don't think he got there, but he was basically Michael Jordan. He was like Michael Jordan minus a hair, right? But. Damn, that's good. That's so good.

• 1:13:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then he used some of the career advantages that his era had to try to beat him, which is what LeBron's doing too. Like Jordan, basically, he's comes in three years in college. Age 35 is like 42 now. That's when, that's when he won the 98 title, right? It's like, oh my God, he's 35. And now, you know, you can play 20 years. And that's why, like, even you look at the football, like, why Rogers, who seemed like he was done last year, it's like, maybe he's not done. Like, who knows with all the shit we have. And now, now you watch him like, oh yeah, he's done.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's not, he hasn't been.

• 1:14:11Bill Simmons?

  At least keep the door open for him not being done.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  He hasn't been great in like three or four years.

• 1:14:17Bill Simmons?

  We gotta take another break. 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 you are 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. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:15:01Bill Simmons?

  We didn't really solve the Yanis trade thing.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  I don't, I think the reason I think it will be the Spurs if he's traded is because the opportunity is there that is irresistible. It's irresistible.

• 1:15:14Bill Simmons?

  If I'm trying to win titles or make finals, I'm doing the way LeBron thought about the decade in the 2010s. Like, I'm staying in the East. I have a much better chance. I don't have to see OKC. I don't have to see Denver. I don't have to see Houston.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Where would they rank? If Wemby turns into what we think he might, if he turns in, take the median kind of like.

• 1:15:32Bill Simmons?

  Can Wemby play like two months straight?

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  That's the problem. He's gigantic in a way that you just don't know about his health. But Yanis and Wemby together.

• 1:15:39Bill Simmons?

  It would be amazing.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  And maybe like the greatest pair ever. They have a chance.

• 1:15:43Bill Simmons?

  Easier to make the finals if he can pull off Atlanta and not. Detroit would be the other one, but if I'm Detroit, I'm just not doing anything crazy. I really like my team.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  Not winning the title this year. We talked, Zach and I were talking, we did a pod a couple of weeks ago. And I was, I used to have, what would Belichick do? As the mantra back when Belichick was throwing a hundred miles an hour and like just knew the roster and when to get rid of guys. And now it's what would Presti do? And you have to look at these NBA teams and be like, all right, if Presti ran Detroit, what would he do? And he'd be like, he wouldn't trade for Anthony Davis. That's not happening.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Huh? Marketing?

• 1:16:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he'd do anything. I think he'd look at it and go, let's have an awesome year. OKC is probably going to win anyway. Let's go into the summer and really figure out what to do.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  This was like with the Celtics. I remember talking about it at the time, they'd lost again in the playoffs. And it was like, given the age of Tatum and Brown, let's say, and I said at the time, now they won the very next season.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  But I said, let's say over the next three years, they make the conference finals twice, the finals once, and they don't win anything.

• 1:16:46Bill Simmons?

  You're basically OKC in the early 2010s.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Well, by then, your two best players are 29 and 28.

• 1:16:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  And they may win four championships still. Like everyone's in such a rush. You know, if you have a nucleus you believe in, let it bake a little bit, give it some time.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  30-team league. All right. This segment is called Topics Max is Mad He Missed Out On.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Bill Simmons?

  Then we should mention, you were on ESPN for a while. You got bought out as part of the buyout. This happened, also happened as a fact, this has happened to a bunch of people. It happened to me sort of where my last five months, when I was there, when they weren't going to renew my contract. And it was kind of a staring contest. I was like, fine, I'll figure out the ringer. I'll, I'll take this time.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  They didn't buy me out, by the way. They just, they just, I just wrote out my contract.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  Right, right. You wrote it out.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:34Bill Simmons?

  So it's, but you didn't get to work.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:17:38Bill Simmons?

  You missed out on some topics.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:42Bill Simmons?

  I asked you to send me a list. I'll go through them quick. Or you, you can stop me whenever you want. Number one, Hal Steinbrenner is too poor to own the Yankees.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  You've been itching for two years to talk about this.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  I think Hal's doing, I think he cares. I think he's a, he's a good owner, like his intentions are good. But he's worth a couple billion dollars in a, in a sports environment now where the, where the richest owners are worth 10 times that. And so he's running it like a business that he needs to profit from, not just where he enjoys the increase in the equity, but he wants to see a profit, right? And as a result, he has turned the Yankees into a generic powerhouse, big market team. The Yankees have won, I don't insist the Yankees win the World Series every year. I'm not actually insane, but this is my number one sports team out of, out of all of them, right? I do insist on the following though. They win more than anyone else.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  And they certainly win more World Series than the Red Sox and the Dodgers. They're two traditional rivals in the American National League. In this century so far, which is a quarter of the way through. The Yankees have won one World Series. The Red Sox have won four and the Dodgers have won three. They're, the Yankees are failing. They're failing. They are a powerhouse team every year. They're excellent. They're generally well-run, good, generic, big powerhouse, big market team. That is not the New York Yankees. The New York Yankees were by far and away the number one franchise in the history of American team sports.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  They went from 1920 to 1965, winning half the World Series ever played, right? Even then after that, they, you know, they were a powerhouse again in the seventies and they had the greatest dynasty in the history of modern baseball in the late nineties. They won four out of five World Series. They came an out away from winning five out of six World Series. It was insane. And, and from that point, basically, and the only reason. George Steinbrenner is very overrated also, and I liked him in a way. But the only reason the Yankees got great was because he was kicked out of baseball. They couldn't trade away their prospects, you know, that's why.

• 1:19:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  Um, he was colluding with the other owners when Jack Morris and these guys were available and he didn't sign them. When the Yankees were in inflection point, they could have been a powerhouse again, and they weren't. Because he was in cahoots with the other owners to, to, to, to stick it to the players. Um, but the, the Yankees brand, which doesn't just mean, hey, we're top notch. It means we're the best by far. We are the standard that every other sports team aspires to, to be. He's, he's frittering it away.

• 1:20:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's funny because the same thing is happening in Boston where we flip it. Right? We have the four World Series this year through 2018. And then the team's kind of being run the same way the Yankees are being run. They spend enough money to make it.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  The Red Sox.

• 1:20:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they make, they spend enough money to make it seem like they're spending enough money.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:49Bill Simmons?

  The stadium's packed. They're making shitloads of money, but something's not, it's not as dire. It's not like.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Because you guys are like someone's house poor. Cause no, because you're house poor, your owner is team poor.

• 1:21:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, cause yeah, because he is the Fenway Sports Group where they have Liverpool and the Penguins, all this shit.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Too much. Um. But, but, but we're not just, the Yankees aren't house poor for baseball. The owner is actually, by the standards of Major League Baseball owners, one of the poorest Major League Baseball owners. He has less wealth than the others. Mark Walters are these guys who take over teams and are worth $20 billion immediately. Can hire Friedman or whoever they want to play Moneyball with money, right? And crush everyone every year.

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is what I'm worried about the Lakers. The Lakers for the last, really since the good doctor got sick, they're being run by the fucking succession family.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21:46Bill Simmons?

  The bumbling bus they just stumble into. They already had Kobe and then, you know, they, they're terrible for most of 2010s. LeBron just decides I'd really like to live in Los Angeles to get him. Then Rich is running LeBron's life. He's also has AD. He's like, AD wants to go to the Lakers. I'm going to make this happen. Now they have those two guys together. And then right as it's about to fail again, here's the Luca Dodgers straight out of nowhere. The, the buses did nothing. And now they're being run correctly by the Dodgers owner who's like,

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  It's going to be a problem.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Let's spend on scouting. Let's spend on consultants. Let's, the buses drove away Jerry West. Like, what did they do good other than have these people fall into their laps?

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Well, the irony of Dr. Jerry Buss, who unlike Steinreiner deserves every accolade he gets.

• 1:22:33Bill Simmons?

  He's an amazing owner.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  He's the greatest owner by far in the history of American team sports. Not close. I mean, I remember.

• 1:22:38Bill Simmons?

  Definitely the greatest basketball owner, but it's not even an argument.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  It's not an argument. I, I remember when he showed up at the Lakers, uh, practice and it was when they had traded for Nash and Dwight Howard and, and it wasn't going well. And I, we were, we had him on the show and I was wondering why he showed up because Steinreiner would have showed up.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  To, we demand to win. And he's like, I just wanted to make sure that everyone was getting what they needed. I wanted to see if anyone needed anything that they weren't getting. Right? And this guy was, he was unbelievable. Like his whole tenure was unbelievable. It's so hard to win in professional sports at all. This guy not only won, but wanted to win in a certain style. That makes it, you're already, it's already impossible. Now you're, forget it. You can't do that because you have stipulations of how you are going to win. I, I want it to be exciting. I want, he did it to the point, Bill. When I was a kid, I think the, the Celtics had 13 championships and the Lakers had like six. Now, it's like they're neck and neck all the time.

• 1:23:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because they count the Minnesota titles.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  They caught up. They caught up to the Celtics. That's like someone catching the Yankees. The Celtics were more than double ahead of everybody else.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  The problem now is because they had this incredible player, Luka Doncic. And they also have Reeves, who somehow wasn't in the Luka Doncic trade, which for reasons that will never, for 50 years from now, I'm going to be, I'm hopefully alive, wondering why he wasn't in the trade.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  But can you win with Luka's style? This is something Rich and I talk about, like, you know, it's like James Harden 2.0. I think he's better than Harden. I think he has a chance to be better than Harden was. But can you win with that style?

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  There's some good signs, though. He's already made the finals as the best guy in a finals team, right?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  But Harden got super, got farther than he should have. You know, it took the worst shooting performance ever for him not to make a finals by the whole team.

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  So I, I, I thought the Lakers were going to be like a play-in team.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Me too. I didn't know, I didn't think, I thought maybe not even a play-in team.

• 1:24:39Bill Simmons?

  Reeves and Luka are averaging, I think, 63 points a game.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Dude, JJ Reddick.

• 1:24:45Bill Simmons?

  Which is, I think that might be the record for two teammates. I don't know if two teammates have ever been over 60.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  JJ Reddick, man, like, he, that's, my mind goes right to JJ Reddick. The job he has done when LeBron wasn't there and sometimes Luka wasn't there.

• 1:25:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Defensively, and like, the team is playing, he's, his attention to, like, because think of what a head coach has to be. You have to be a leader. You have to get people on the same page. You need buy-in.

• 1:25:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, did you see that play last night when LeBron was talking to the Suns bench during a blowout? And they called the play and JJ got pissed and he called timeout and.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  That, that really bothered me, man, that LeBron, like, I understand why JJ was so pissed.

• 1:25:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but he's, I think they respect him. They have a pretty weird team, right? Nobody wanted DeAndre Ayton. The guy, I think, two franchises were like, we'll pay this guy to go away, basically.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  He's been excellent.

• 1:25:38Bill Simmons?

  They have Reeves and Luca, who are just two defensive liabilities. Like, there's no other way to put it. And then this hodgepodge of role players, and they didn't have LeBron for

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  And yet, they were winning without

• 1:25:48Bill Simmons?

  15 games.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  LeBron or Luca at times, and they were playing defense with a team that shouldn't be able to play defense.

• 1:25:54Bill Simmons?

  A little schedule luck, but not, not a ton.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Well, recently.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  But, um, but I watched them and I'm like, the team likes each other and they're really well coached. And they have two awesome offensive options at the end of the games. And as long as Ayton is okay.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  His number one pick for a reason, like, and he was, not like

• 1:26:11Bill Simmons?

  He was in the finals, going against Yanis.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  He was a bad player. He did some things very well, and they're exploiting it.

• 1:26:16Bill Simmons?

  Worse reputation. But it reminded me of like, one of those old, where the Yankees would go grab somebody. It was like, oh, that guy has a shitty reputation. But back to the Yanks, I think the thing the Yanks and Red Sox have in common is, hey, you're doing fine. You're making money. You're in the playoffs. There's this other level you could be at that the Dodgers have figured out. Where the Dodgers are like, they're spending the craziest amount of money. But I think they also make money and they're winning World Series. They figured out the Far East. I feel like that's something the Yankees would have figured out 20 years ago. Like, and, and they tried. They signed a bunch of Asian players, right? But they would have figured out like, there's so much money over there. This could be a pipeline for us.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  And the Yankees took unheralded guys compared to some of the Japanese superstars like Tanaka, who was great, great under pressure. Like, it's a shame that guy never won a World Series because he was such a great pitcher.

• 1:27:11Bill Simmons?

  Metzger was a good one.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  And hi- hi- history will forget him, right? Compared to some of these other guys, and that's a shame. No, you're right. The Yankees and the Red Sox are stuck in this, in their, their generic powerhouse, big market teams who are like, oh, shucks, the, the playoffs are a crapshoot. Meantime, the Dodgers find that, that blue chip guy. And they're like, we don't care what it costs. We're gonna get that guy.

• 1:27:35Bill Simmons?

  Getting Mookie was brilliant. Signing-

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Greatest players of all time.

• 1:27:38Bill Simmons?

  Signing Freeman?

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  Was, that's right.

• 1:27:41Bill Simmons?

  They didn't really need to have to do it. And the Red Sox were allegedly in the mix, but not really. But they didn't need Freeman, but they said, fuck it.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  Sox get Freeman.

• 1:27:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:49Bill Simmons?

  Yamamoto, same thing. Like, they didn't technically need Yamamoto, but they're like, fuck it. This guy's amazing. Let's get him.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Freeman is a perfect example. Hall of Fame guy, toward the end of his career, but it ain't over yet. He's still near enough his prime.

• 1:28:02Bill Simmons?

  And you want him in any playoff series, in any game.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  Incredible playoff performer, where the Yankees look at a guy like Goldschmidt, who was never as good as Freeman, but-

• 1:28:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  But like, maybe, and, okay, we'll get him. Maybe he can have a bounce back year. Come on, on a short deal. Really? How about pushing your chips to the middle of the table for the surefire blue chipper?

• 1:28:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, my buddy Jacko, my college roommate, diehard Yankee fan, who hates Hal Steinbrenner with the passion of seven sons. He thinks that Cashman and these guys would rather kind of strike oil with the Trent Grisham kind of signing. Versus actually like going to just get Yamamoto. It's almost like he, it's, he feels better. It's more, this is Jacko's theory. He's, feels like it's more impressive to land these like unheralded gems.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  If you're looking for a GM, Cashman's a very good GM. He's not good enough to be the Yankees GM. Because again, as a Yankees fan, I insist, you must be the best. If you're not the best GM, you shouldn't be the Yankees GM. But he, he's fine, he's good. He can, he does things like, like if you are looking for an athletic, highly drafted, like high draft position, disappointing outfielder, who you can get on the cheap. Nick Swisher, or, or Curtis Granderson, or, um, uh, uh, Grisham you just brought up. Cashman's your guy.

• 1:29:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  You'll be like, wow, he really picked up that good, useful outfielder, who's actually, look at that, he has 35 home runs. Gave up very little to get him. Boy, that's great. God, you know what? Sometimes you pull the trigger on a, on a, on a Garrett Cole trade. Even if you have to throw in an, or one of your overrated prospects that you'd like to hold on to. Right? Like, and they, he doesn't. He don't, you have to, like, whatever. So, so this is, the Clippers got it wrong when they pushed all the chips in for Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. And the Yankees get it wrong when they never push all their chips in for, I mean, the, the real thing is you have to identify the right target. The Dodgers say, Mookie Betts.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Freddie Freeman.

• 1:30:05Bill Simmons?

  They're also really good at getting rid of guys at the perfect time. And, and some of those guys ended up on the Red Sox. Where it's like, oh, we got Bueller.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  It's like, yeah, the Dodgers weren't that interested in keeping him. I wonder why? Well, because he's not. Oh, we traded for Dustin May. Oh, he's not good anymore either.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  That's the thing, getting back to Presti, like.

• 1:30:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  Guys in the league don't like Presti. You know why? You lose, he's better than you.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Speaker 01

  You will lose the trade.

• 1:30:30Bill Simmons?

  I don't want anyone the Dodgers didn't want anymore.

• 1:30:33Speaker 01

  I don't want my team to ever deal with Sam Presti and the Thunder. You will lose that trade.

• 1:30:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you want your team to get to that point where the other teams, that's where Belichick was forever. I think the Celtics of Danny Ainge got to that point where it was like amazing anyone was trading with Ainge. But that's where you want to be and the Yankees and Red Sox are just not there.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:52Bill Simmons?

  And both of them have good pieces, but I, I don't know. I don't know why the Dodgers wouldn't just keep, keep winning titles, which brings us to the next thing you want to talk about, because this all happened since you've been on the sidelines.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Bill Simmons?

  Ohtani versus Babe Ruth.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Ohtani's an incredible player.

• 1:31:10Bill Simmons?

  We should mention, you care about baseball. That's your favorite sport.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, no, no, that's not true. Baseball's not my favorite team sport. The Yankees are my favorite team.

• 1:31:19Bill Simmons?

  Fine.

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  Basketball is my favorite team sport.

• 1:31:22Bill Simmons?

  But you're a big history nerd and you remember all the stats and you're one of those guys. So Ohtani's getting thrown around in the Babe Ruth conversation.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  For obvious reasons.

• 1:31:30Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  Left-handed hitter, great pitcher. What, what Ohtani is doing in this day and age is harder than what Babe Ruth did in his day and age. But to suggest that Ohtani is the greatest player of all time, Ohtani's not the best player in baseball today. Aaron Judge is measur- regular season, regular season. Aaron Judge is measurably, objectively, much, much better than Ohtani.

• 1:31:55Bill Simmons?

  Even when you throw in the pitching?

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, including the pitching. You add everything up. Judge has more value because he's so much of a better offensive player. Regular season.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  But what Ohtani is doing is harder because the more the more homogenized the league becomes, the harder it is to get a crazy deviation from the mean. When Babe Ruth is playing against, you know, it's not an international game yet, not everyone has day jobs. Putting against white guys. Right, there's not a lot of diversity, or you don't necessarily have all the black players there. Just no diversity. You will have players who just suck worse than other players will suck in other eras, and players who are incredible more than other eras will have incredible players. So what Ohtani is doing in this day and age is just unbelievable. But that's the level of difficulty of something and how great a player is are two different things. For

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  example, it is rarer to hit for the cycle than it is to hit three home runs in a game. But three home runs in a game are obviously better than hitting for the cycle. Yep. Ohtani is not the best hitter in the game, and people are a little bit lazy with this. I remember watching Wade Boggs at a certain point, and he was hitting like 320 at that point in the season. And the announcer said, "There's Boggs," when he was with the Red Sox in his prime, "hitting 320 right where you would expect." And I thought to myself, or he was 330 even, I thought to myself, "Wait, stop. I know 330 sounds like a very high batting average to you, but that is not where you would expect Wade Boggs. 360 is where you would expect Wade Boggs." There is a difference, right?

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's that much better at hitting for batting average, at least, than everybody else. Don't get lazy and say... So Ohtani is one of the best hitters in baseball. Babe Ruth wasn't one of the best hitters in baseball. The distance between Babe Ruth and the second best guy was a chasm. Babe Ruth was so much better at the plate than everyone in baseball. That is not Ohtani. Even though it was easier to do that then, the fact is that's what happened as a pitcher. It's not just that Babe Ruth was maybe the best left-handed pitcher in the league. It's that, under pressure, his record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the World Series stood longer than his homerun record. Right.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  His single-season homerun record. So it's not just that he was maybe the best left-hander in the American League. He was also the best clutch pitcher in baseball history at that point, probably, right? So, so, yes.

• 1:34:32Bill Simmons?

  So you're pouring everybody a glass of settled down juice.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Settled, Ohtani's incredible. You may never see another Ohtani. Like, you didn't see another Babe Ruth for 100 years, whatever it is. And what Ohtani's doing is amazing. He, he's not in the conversation with Babe, not in the conversation.

• 1:34:46Bill Simmons?

  He does have something that I don't think Judge completely has. Judge is probably the closest of just owning a ballpark when he's up in a, in a big spot. There, it, it hasn't happened since, uh, early 2000s Bonds.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  And I don't get the feeling.

• 1:35:02Bill Simmons?

  Bonds was the last guy when he just was walking from the on-deck circle. Judge has it somewhat, especially because of his size. It's just different with Ohtani.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  I don't, no, I think when Judge comes to the plate, it's Judge. I think when he's at the plate, with the results in the playoffs.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:19Speaker 01

  I trust Ohtani more.

• 1:35:20Bill Simmons?

  Something about, yeah, and Ortiz, even Ortiz, who was unbelievable, but it's Bonds in the early 2000s. And I think we both think Bonds is a Hall of Famer.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Well, the, the, Paul, can I, can I talk about that for a second?

• 1:35:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  The Hall of Fame is in the.

• 1:35:32Bill Simmons?

  This was another thing you, it was on your list.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  The Hall of Fame is an easy one for the PED era. It's not hard. Why does this escape people? If it is very obvious when the person started juicing, and it's in the statistical record. I could, I can look at someone's stats, especially if I can couple it with a sudden and dramatic change in their appearance.

• 1:35:51Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  That is much more compelling evidence than a receipt from Balco, which could be forged.

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  Also, in the 90s and 80s and even 70s, when guys were doing steroids, it was way more obvious. You can see it in the.

• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  Conseco, everyone knew. Everyone knew.

• 1:36:04Bill Simmons?

  By the way, you can kind of see it in some of the old boxing.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Which ones?

• 1:36:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's just the, the guys, the, the water steroids were the guys, their necks would get bigger. Like, I'm just, I don't want to name names.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  I once asked Shannon Briggs on the radio, who was at this point probably 260 pounds, great guy, and a talented fighter. I was like, I know that this is not an either or, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Steroids are human growth hormone. And he goes, I've never been caught on a test, right?

• 1:36:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Like, so, but, but Bonds, what you can, you can forge a receipt from Balco. What you can't forge is a player in, you know, 12 weeks or 16 weeks, putting on 30 pounds of lean muscle and his forehead bulging. What you can't forge is a, you know, fake, is a guy who's home run to at bat ratio in the same ballpark in which he's always played, no exterior changes.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Doubles at the age of 35.

• 1:37:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  It doubled. Barry, but no, but Barry Bonds is a Hall of Famer because he was already one of the two or three or four greatest left fielders who ever lived.

• 1:37:11Bill Simmons?

  Right. If he gets hit by a bus in 1999, he's in anyway.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  First ballot Hall of Famer.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  Clemens gets hit by a bus and.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  He's borderline.

• 1:37:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause I guess.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  When he went to Toronto, he was in decline.

• 1:37:23Bill Simmons?

  He needs the Toronto Cy Youngs.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  He was in decline.

• 1:37:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  And then suddenly he goes to Toronto and back to back pitching triple crowds or whatever.

• 1:37:29Bill Simmons?

  That probably gets it. And who knows what he was doing.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  I think with longevity and everything Clemens deserves to be in. Maguire is an absolute no. Sosa's an absolute no because I can show you, I don't have to go through it now in their record where they, they fundamentally became a different player at a certain point where their.

• 1:37:46Bill Simmons?

  See, I would put all these guys in.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  You would put them all in?

• 1:37:49Bill Simmons?

  I would, I wrote this, I think for ESPN, the magazine, maybe in 06, 07, just put it on the plaque.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Put.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  It's a Hall of Fame. It's a museum. I'm supposed to bring my son, my grandson, whoever, and teach them about baseball. We're not going to have the most important guy. What am I rewarding though? The guys are already retired and I'm putting it on their plaque that they cheated.

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  I have a problem with it.

• 1:38:12Bill Simmons?

  And also how do we know like all these sports? I don't know who's cheating and not cheating.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Because.

• 1:38:16Bill Simmons?

  The drugs are better.

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Fundamentally, Maguire and Sosa, when you look at what they had done in their career, how it was trending, the kind of player they were, were not Hall of Famers. And then they suddenly became first ballot Hall of Famers.

• 1:38:28Bill Simmons?

  That's fair.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  Bonds was already a, let's say a 440 on base, 650 slugging guy.

• 1:38:33Bill Simmons?

  What do you do with Piazza who's never been, we've never figured it out one way or the other?

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  Piazza in his, in his minor league career, I don't think ever slugged 500. And then eventually he was playing catcher for 140 plus games a year. And hitting 40 home runs and hitting three whatever, and his on base was in the over 400, is slugging over 600. You can do with Piazza what you want. I wouldn't put him in.

• 1:39:02Bill Simmons?

  You don't think this is happening in other sports now?

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Of course it is.

• 1:39:06Bill Simmons?

  Of course it is. That's why I just think the guy, it was easier to figure out who was doing it in baseball because of what the, what the drugs made people look like.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  And like, but like, but I just want to, just like with Ohtani or with Boggs, no, he's not usually at 330, he's at 360, there is a difference. To, to say, when Bonds was a mid 400 on base, mid 600 slugging guy, so people understand, you can't really do better than that hardly. That's like one of the greatest ever, he did it every year. He then went from that at the age of 35 to a 600 on base guy, 800 slugging guy. It's like in the, in the comics, if, you know, Captain America was this like skinny little guy who took super soldier serum and it maxed out human potential, right? But it's as though, it's as though-

• 1:39:53Bill Simmons?

  It was the limitless drug.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  No, no, it's as though Bonds, instead of being, what was, what's Captain America's name? I forget his name in the comic books, but it's as though instead of taking the little weakling guy and giving him the super soldier serum, you took the biggest, strongest, best, best athlete in the world, who was Barry Bonds, and gave him super soldier serum. It makes a mockery of the game.

• 1:40:12Bill Simmons?

  It seems like it made his eyesight like 2010, 25, like 20 slash 5, like, he, I mean, what was the one year his on base was like-

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  600.

• 1:40:24Bill Simmons?

  And some of those were intentional walks.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Most of them.

• 1:40:26Bill Simmons?

  But it just seemed like he knew where every pitch was going within an inch either way around the strike zone.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  Craziest baseball stat I think I've ever heard. That year, it wasn't the 73 homerun year, it was another year that he was 600, 800.

• 1:40:39Bill Simmons?

  There was like a 02, 03 somewhere in there.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Cause they wouldn't pitch to him. Every time the bat left Bonds' shoulder, every time he took a swing, it was almost a 50/50 proposition, whether he missed the ball entirely, between these two outcomes, it was almost 50/50. Missing the ball entirely, getting an extra base hit. He was just about as likely to get an extra base hit every time he swung as he was to miss the ball. So anyway, so Bonds is a first ballot, should have been a first ballot Hall of Famer in spite of the steroids and everything, but he is not the greatest hitter of all time. In other words, it's demonstrable that Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, now Aaron Judge, were better hitters

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  than Bonds at Bonds' very best, until he started changing, and then Bonds became the best, but I don't give him credit for that, because it wasn't him. It was him plus.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  But he's still a Hall of Famer. Clements borderline because of longevity, he's in because he was a borderline Hall of Famer at the point where it was clear something was going on. McGuire and so said, no way. And so on, right? Like this stuff ain't that hard. Do you have any Mahomes? When the GOAT stuff started for him? I think you were on the sidelines for that. It was a little early. Well, I'd said it after the first preseason game. I saw him before he started as before he was going to be the starter that year. So his second season, I was on First Take and I said, I know it's one preseason game, but I will tell my grandkids that I saw Patrick Mahomes play. I tell you that right now. I'm going to tell my grandkids I saw him play. Mahomes has something that Brady never had, which is this.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  To say you're the Michael Jordan of a sport doesn't simply mean you're the greatest of all time. What it means is you put your eyeballs on that guy and you say, that looks different. I haven't seen anything quite like that yet. That I haven't seen that. That's my eyes are telling me that's something new. Then you look down at the stats and you go, oh my God, that verifies what my eyeballs are seeing. Forty touchdowns, four picks, whatever. Right. Then you look at this, at the, how far his team is going and they're winning tons of championships. Yeah. That's how you become the Michael Jordan of a sport. Now, is Mahomes near Brady right now? No, of course not.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Brady beat him head to head when Brady was old and Mahomes was young, even though Mahomes didn't have an offensive line, but still Brady never looked the way Mahomes did as bad as Mahomes did in that's, well, he looked incredible in that Super Bowl in certain ways because he had to make spectacular plays, but his team got slaughtered. Because Mahomes has since then also not looked good in another Super Bowl, right? But Brady, when you, when we remember him, it's like, oh, this guy's got something. But he was kind of like Jeter and Peyton was like A-Rod. I remember writing those columns 20 years ago. That, that Jeter was right because one of them. Or like Russell Chamberlain, like same kind of. Same thing. Yeah. If you look at the numbers, one guy's better, but if you watch them, you know which one you want.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  If your life depended on it for one game, you're not picking the guy with the numbers. And then Brady. Who was also like Jeter and Kobe, a little overrated in the clutch early on in the sense that like the highest level of clutch to me is the Mariano Rivera strata or the Michael Jordan strata. You are the best who ever did it. And in the biggest moments, you become much, much better than yourself, who's the best ever.

• 1:44:08Bill Simmons?

  And it's shocking if you don't come through.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  It's shocking. So like Mariano Rivera has the lowest adjusted ERA in the history of baseball for pitchers with over 1,000 innings. His adjusted ERA in the postseason is one third of that, or his ERA in the postseason is one third of his regular season ERA, which is the lowest ever.

• 1:44:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Okay. That Michael Jordan, the same thing. He got better. Kobe, Jeter and Brady, I think are on a level where people think of them as clutch because they just stayed who they were under pressure. I don't think early on Brady elevated under pressure. I think he was still just a really good player.

• 1:44:44Bill Simmons?

  First Ram Super Bowl.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  He was that kind of guy.

• 1:44:47Bill Simmons?

  Set up the field goal with 35 seconds left.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he's a clutch player, but I didn't notice him.

• 1:44:51Bill Simmons?

  Panthers Super Bowl.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  But did you feel like his performance, when you watched him week in and week out, got better in the playoffs? No, that was Brady. He would do stuff like that. What I'm saying is.

• 1:44:59Bill Simmons?

  I trusted him completely in the playoffs.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  Obviously, right? What I'm saying is a thing happened to Brady midway through his career where he started putting up Peyton Manning numbers and he started actually elevating in the playoffs, like to come back against Atlanta.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  The Butler game.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  The Butler, exactly.

• 1:45:16Bill Simmons?

  That's when, right around then, it tilted, but they still needed a play on defense. But he scores those last two touchdown drives.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:23Bill Simmons?

  Against an incredible defense.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  He went from Jeter Kobe level with that stuff to Jordan Rivera level.

• 1:45:30Bill Simmons?

  By the way, the Eagles Super Bowl.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  What, 500 yards?

• 1:45:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and I think they had, what'd they have, 40 points somewhere around there?

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  Really, that Super Bowl came down to a branding. It was, it was the first team to make a defensive play is going to win this game. And it was the Eagles who made the defensive play.

• 1:45:44Bill Simmons?

  The other crazy thing with Brady was they never really, I mean, he lucked out, or didn't luck out, they drafted him, but Gronk was like the big. The big ad and then Edelman turned in, but they never, it wasn't like, I watched what like the Bears did for Caleb Williams, where they're spending first round picks, trading for guys. Never had a situation like that.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  Brady is different in the sense that when you put your eyes on him originally, it wasn't like, I've never seen this before, oh my God. Then you look at the stats, oh my God, that verifies what my eyes see.

• 1:46:12Bill Simmons?

  Something about Brady when he got the job, because I remember being in Boston that year and all we did was argue about Brady versus Bledsoe for three months. And I was in the Brady camp and I think I was writing for ESPN at the time, so I can back that up. But there was a polish to him. Everything he did was just really high end, like the play actions were perfect. The way he handed it off was always on time, like his, the passes, the guys always caught it.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Wanted.

• 1:46:36Bill Simmons?

  You could just kind of tell like, oh, there's something different. This guy just does everything well. I don't know what he is, but he's something. Whereas Bledsoe was the classic overpaid. Good say, he was like a LaMelo Ball almost, even though we'd won some games.

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  Mention the executive because I like this guy a lot. I was doing, uh, Around the Horn at the time.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  And I said.

• 1:46:55Bill Simmons?

  Was it Eric Rightholm?

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  Nope, it wasn't Rightholm, who was never actually doing Around the Horn when I was down there. But, but, um, I remember saying, I think Brady's better than Bledsoe. And this executive told me, you can't say that on TV, because it was at the time where you, and I was like, have you been watching?

• 1:47:11Bill Simmons?

  We were arguing about it.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Brady's who you want. So, so Brady is the GOAT, obviously, in football. But Mahomes has a chance to do something Brady really wasn't in the running to do. Brady, like through his prime, was Brady better than Montana? Montana was four and oh in the Super Bowl. Montana, 13 touchdowns, no interceptions.

• 1:47:32Bill Simmons?

  He's the Tim Duncan of NFL. He's just been cast aside.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  Cast, but, but better than Duncan in his sport.

• 1:47:38Bill Simmons?

  When 1990, by the time he won that fourth one, we were all like, Montana's the best. We'll never see another one. And now he's kind of gone.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  But it, but. Brady outlasted Montana.

• 1:47:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  You can't put Montana ahead of Brady because Brady did it for so long. But at their best, fate of the universe on the line, I don't think I'm taking Brady over Montana.

• 1:47:56Bill Simmons?

  I think Brady would even probably take Montana over Brady. I don't know. I think to me, it's a toss up.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Joe Montana is also such a cool dude.

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  He really was.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  Really, everything about him. First of all, his name is Joe Montana. He getting away with this shit? Joe Montana? You have the nerve to actually be the greatest who ever did it and your name is Joe Montana?

• 1:48:14Bill Simmons?

  He was doing it during this time when quarterbacks just got the fucking shit beaten out of them.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  He was so tough.

• 1:48:19Bill Simmons?

  I follow a couple Instagram accounts where they'll just show old hits sometimes. There was this hit on Jaworski that I had forgotten about. Where he gets hit from behind and then gets the Giants. It's like, is he dead? What just happened?

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable.

• 1:48:33Bill Simmons?

  Montana had a bad one against Jim Burt was the bad one with him where I think he got knocked out in the playoff game.

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  I'll remind everyone, by the way, speaking of Montana, oh, the Chiefs are cooked, this and that.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  There was a year that Montana won the Super Bowl, you know, with the catch, right? Like that year, at one point, I want to say he was six and five, something like that. They won the Super Bowl that year. Like Brady set a standard. You win seven Super Bowls. It's just insane.

• 1:49:05Bill Simmons?

  The Tampa one really pushed her over the top. Plus beating Mahomes twice.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  The Tampa one, the fact that, is it Brady or Belichick? Is along with, is it MJ or LeBron? The greatest sports debates of the 21st century.

• 1:49:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  And we have an answer to Brady Belichick, which shocked me, right? I just always assume NFL is a coaches league. Belichick's good no matter who he's with.

• 1:49:26Bill Simmons?

  We have an answer.

• 1:49:27Speaker 01

  Dude, he went to the Bucks. It's not that he, it's not that he had a good run like Montana did, right? When he went, it's, it's, he didn't get to the AFC championship game like Montana did. He won the Super Bowl and Belichick has not been back to the playoffs.

• 1:49:45Bill Simmons?

  I get it, but the 2000s, Belichick gets the edge. He just does. He put together those rosters, the defense and the special teams and the attention to detail and the way he did the roster.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  But could he have done it without Brady?

• 1:49:56Bill Simmons?

  More important than Brady.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Because Matt Cassel won a lot of games. They didn't make the playoffs. And by the way.

• 1:50:00Bill Simmons?

  I know, but you lose your quarterback in the eight minutes into a season.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Could he have? And you look at the backup quarterbacks. My argument always was, of course it's Belichick. But imagine putting Drew Brees or Peyton Manning.

• 1:50:12Bill Simmons?

  2010s.

• 1:50:14Bill Simmons?

  I think he was more important in the second decade. I think Belichick was slightly more important in the first decade.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  I agree with that.

• 1:50:20Bill Simmons?

  The roster, like all the guys, the way they looked at how to build, like a chemistry, the locker room, getting the guys like the Vrabel, Rodney Harrison.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Agreed, but that's not, but that's not the, the debate is.

• 1:50:31Bill Simmons?

  Also, he had the balls to bench Bledsoe for Brady, which nobody would have done.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  I'm not taking away.

• 1:50:36Bill Simmons?

  He never gets credit for that.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  I'm not taking away Belichick's credit for that. I am saying that Belichick was the undisputed greatest NFL coach of all time. Don't even compare anyone to him.

• 1:50:46Bill Simmons?

  I still feel that way.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  I think he's, I think Andy Reid is in the conversation. Bill Parcells is in the conversation. There, there are other people in that conversation in retrospect.

• 1:50:58Bill Simmons?

  Andy Reid.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  But Andy Reid lived in the NFC championship game. And then as soon as he gets his hands on like a great, great, I think McNabb was a great quarterback, but, but he gets his hand on a roster with real talent, lives in the Super Bowl, lives there. And it's hard, like Belichick and Brady.

• 1:51:14Bill Simmons?

  He needs at least two more before I'm ready to entertain that combo.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  Reid?

• 1:51:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Here's the problem with Mahomes for the GOAT combo. He can't throw the deep ball anymore. And it's just a fact and the stats back it up. The eye test backs it up. He overthrows them when he, when they're open though. Like I don't, I just don't think he's had that good of a year this year.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  He hasn't this year.

• 1:51:35Bill Simmons?

  And he didn't really, the set, last year was the same thing where it was good enough, but it wasn't to the same standards he had for those first.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  What's happened the last two years, really?

• 1:51:43Bill Simmons?

  Five or six.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Was that he's his best target? No, his best target got old.

• 1:51:47Bill Simmons?

  I would take Rice and Worthy on the Patriots right now. They're better than the Patriots receivers.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I saw him hit Rice with a, with a dime in this last game that they lost that maybe they don't lose if Rice had, ball is in his hands, just drops the ball, right? Like you can't, Mahomes does not have the same threats on the field, offensively, receiving threats that he used to. His favorite target is old and not as good anymore.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. There's a Tyreek Hill made Mahomes case. He could kind of float out there.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  Except that when he left, they still won a Super Bowl.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  I know, but it's just with the stats when you look at the.

• 1:52:21Speaker 01

  Well, you're talking about the deep ball.

• 1:52:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  Right? Like get him some real deep threats and let's see the deep ball.

• 1:52:27Bill Simmons?

  We're these pretty fast. All right. We'll take one more break and then, uh. Wow, we've, we've been going a long time. You have 20 more minutes in you?

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  All right. Dude, we're talking about sports. How much time you got?

• 1:52:37Bill 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, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead?

• 1:53:22Bill Simmons?

  But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three, Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. Well, we, we said we're going to talk about you leaving ESPN, and you weren't able to talk about a lot of stuff. And a lot of other people were talking, including people you did shows with. How, how frustrating was it for you to sit on the sidelines, be talked about, but not be able to talk?

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  That doesn't bother me at all.

• 1:54:00Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  You're talking about me like I'm not sweating anybody like that. But I was very flattered that, you know, because if you go off the air, you're not sure that the sports world would care. Right? Like, but people seemed to care. I was like, oh, look at that. People are thinking about me. I was very flattered by it, to tell you the truth. And in terms of the stuff that went down behind the scenes, there were things said to me in private that, early on, that it's not like anyone said to me, hey, this is top secret. Don't repeat this. But I think there's a general understanding that if someone's talking to you in private, it's a private conversation. And I wouldn't repeat that unless they said it was okay to repeat what they told me.

• 1:54:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  So that's, that's what I could tell you about. Like, the behind the scenes stuff on first take, for example.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  But in terms like, I'm not, I'm really not worried about that stuff, you know? Like-

• 1:54:57Bill Simmons?

  But you're, so Stephen A. you're in a relationship with where you're doing a show together for how many years? Four?

• 1:55:04Speaker 01

  Five.

• 1:55:05Bill Simmons?

  Five years. You're with this dude every day, seeing him in the mornings, your commercial breaks, you're hanging out.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:55:12Bill Simmons?

  And then the show ends, or the show ends with you and he moves on with other people and then, you know, and I should say, I like Stephen A. and I've always gotten along with him. I didn't love how he handled the aftermath of you leaving, where it's basically like, I told you the show would be better. I just thought, because I think you're really talented. Now, you and I have known each other for a while. Whether it meshed as a show perfectly, I don't know the answer to that, but I just, I just didn't think that was the right way to handle it.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  If you're doing a debate show and you're a competitive person.

• 1:55:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:43Speaker 01

  Why would you want me as a partner? That's bad. You want to go 15 rounds every day with Mohamed Kellerman? That's just bad. You know, it's embarrassing, you know?

• 1:55:53Bill Simmons?

  So you think that was part of it? He didn't want to put the time in? Or like just wanted a different type of show? Like what's your take looking back two years later?

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  Put the time in. It's, you know, it's a debate show.

• 1:56:08Bill Simmons?

  You're ready to roll on all topics.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  You want to like, like, like if you're, I have an idea. This is what I want to put on TV. I want to spar Bud Crawford every day for 15 rounds and I want everyone to see it.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Eventually you're going to say, I don't want to do that anymore.

• 1:56:24Bill Simmons?

  And you bring in some other people in a rotating cast.

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's, that's one aspect of it. There are others. In other words, that's what I could tell you from my point of view.

• 1:56:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  And I also think that, that if you make a calculation, that if you can be perceived as a solo act, really, that you can get paid at a certain level that you can't if you're not a solo act, then you'd like to be a solo act, or at least perceived that way.

• 1:56:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, so like Mike and the Mad Dog are a good example of a show where it was the two of them together for a long, long time. And then all of a sudden, whatever happened, happened. Mike got his own show and he stayed on top for

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  Do you know who was supposed to be? Do you know who he wanted to be?

• 1:57:09Bill Simmons?

  Did you get the call?

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that was the plan. I was supposed to go over and, and work with Mike, yeah.

• 1:57:15Bill Simmons?

  Interesting, because I got the call. Who else got the call?

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  I don't know, but we had like come to an understanding.

• 1:57:20Bill Simmons?

  So you're gonna leave ESPN and do it?

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  I did leave ESPN.

• 1:57:24Bill Simmons?

  To do, but not to do a show with Mike?

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:28Bill Simmons?

  You did the show with Mike?

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57:30Bill Simmons?

  So what happened?

• 1:57:31Speaker 01

  I, again, my, my interpretation of what happened, my analysis is, I think, I think he realized at a certain point, they're not gonna make me take a partner. Why should I take a partner? Because I'm beating the hell out of the guys across town by myself. I think when he thought they're gonna make me take a partner, then it was like, okay, well, I'd like it to be with that guy. And then it was like, I don't need a partner.

• 1:57:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's too bad, though, because I actually think he, long-term, he did need a partner, because it's always good to have people to play off of.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  Look, I don't need a partner either.

• 1:58:04Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  But I like having one, because I find conversations more interesting than just talking into the wind, you know?

• 1:58:12Bill Simmons?

  So over the years, you had Brian Kenny?

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Jim Lampley, Marcellus Wiley.

• 1:58:18Bill Simmons?

  Marcellus for a while.

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  Great partner. And in fact, I've become good friends with the people I work with, because I, like, Bill, you know better than anybody, we're getting away with it. If you're in this business, you're getting away with it. Shh, fuck it, shh, we're talking about sports.

• 1:58:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  And like

• 1:58:36Bill Simmons?

  You'd be doing this anyway.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  Come on, it's your job as a guy, like an average American guy, it's your job to follow sports. It's like literally what you have to do. You have no choice in the matter, right? You gotta find out what's going on. And, and so, how to make that experience even better? Hang out with your friends and talk about sports, right? Like, why would you not want to do that? Uh, it's interesting, because Stephen A. was the one partner I've ever had over the, over like years.

• 1:59:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  Where I didn't feel like a relationship was really forming. And I like to go to work and, and, you know.

• 1:59:14Bill Simmons?

  You can feel a little bit watching it. And it was hard to tell how much of it was theater and how much of it was like, oh, these guys just don't get along in the same way, or.

• 1:59:23Speaker 01

  Whatever you feel about who you're working with and what the situation is, to me, a cardinal sin is betraying that on the air. You should always be thinking about making the show entertaining.

• 1:59:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  And I do think it reached the point on that show where it was like, come on, dude, we're, we, we, the first priority is to make good TV.

• 1:59:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's becomes, I mean, good TV is like professional wrestling, right?

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:59:45Bill Simmons?

  Both guys have moves, you sell the other guy's move.

• 1:59:48Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  And I think we've all been in situations who've done this where you're with somebody who, or on a, on a bigger show, where people are either selling your moves or they're not.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Right, exactly right. And, but he's a showman, like, like he would, I never had to worry about when the little red light come on that it wouldn't be a show. But it would be like, you don't want to be undermined, you know?

• 2:00:12Bill Simmons?

  Is that a fun show to do? Like, did you like doing, what was it, two hours a day of just, five days a week of having to react and just be like, preserve the moment stuff?

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  The issue with that show is this, what is a hot take? A hot take is a counterintuitive conclusion that on TV, you're going to just state your conclusion. You do analysis about a subject, you come to a conclusion that's counterintuitive. So when you say it, people will be like, what are you talking about? Give me 90 seconds, I'll explain it to you. Oh, at least he has a point of view. If you have, if there are 12 topics a day, and you have 12 hot takes on those topics, because by and large, there's a consensus about sports, these, this guy's good, this guy's not as good, whatever it is. This team is in the right direction, the wrong direction, whatever it is. The consensus is usually correct, right?

• 2:01:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  Sometimes, some small percentage of the time, aha, in fact, what everyone thinks is not true. If you have a counterintuitive conclusion about every topic in sports every day, you are insane. Like, I, I, Skip Bayless is very entertaining and I always enjoy my interactions with him privately.

• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  He's a guy, he's insane, right? You can't, you, you, 12 hot takes a day? Unbelievable, right? Right. You've come to 12 conclusions that go against the consensus every single day that you're gonna... But Stephen A. has no hot takes. Stephen A. almost never, I can't think of any counterintuitive conclusions that he ever reaches. That's not his job on the air. His job is to be the big reactor to a counterintuitive. Counterfucker. Reactor. Just, he's there to hear the crazy conclusion that his partner has come to and actually be the everyman with a loud voice, like, "You are crazy," right? And do it theatrically.

• 2:02:04Speaker 01

  So there's a lot of pressure on his partner to come up with a counterintuitive conclusion about everything. Now, how do you do that? Well, you're just making it up, you're doing it for TV. No, what you do is you take a topic and a good producer will start to drill down on the topic and say, "Okay, so you agree about this." So Mahomes is a great quarterback, but what does he do well and what does he not? And, and you keep going down until one or the, until you get a divergent opinion. "Well, actually, I think he is good at this." "No, I think he's good." "No, actually, the most important player on, we both think this is gonna win, this team's gonna win the championship. We both think this is why..." Drill down. "But no, actually, the key player is, other than the superstar, is this guy." "No, it's that guy." Actually, Draymond Green is the second most important player on the Warriors, right?

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  He's actually the pick and roll partner who does all the dirty work. Victor Wembanyama is the best player in the NBA right now. There you go, there's a counterintuitive conclusion. So, but you keep digging until you get a divergent opinion and there is your argument. But there was a lot of pressure on that show. Like, like Stephen A.'s opinion will not diverge into counterintuitive almost ever. So his big take will be, but he'll deliver it theatrically, is Steph Curry is the greatest shooter that God ever created.

• 2:03:20Speaker 01

  Who does not know this?

• 2:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Everyone knows this. A, a, a counterintuitive take would be actually, you know who the best shooter on the Warriors is? It's Klay Thompson. Because when you, I'm, I'm making this up. I don't believe this. I thought it was Steph. But because when you say greatest, you have to talk about high leverage moments too. And I have more confidence in Klay hitting a high leverage moment three than I do Steph. Something like that, right?

• 2:03:42Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:03:43Speaker 01

  That will never happen. So there was pressure on that show for me to keep digging until you hear something you think is crazy.

• 2:03:51Bill Simmons?

  This is the perfect example of what you just said. Jalen Brunson is the best Nick of all time.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  There you go. Do you believe that?

• 2:03:59Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Okay, then, then you can't say that.

• 2:04:01Bill Simmons?

  It's arguable though.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  But, but you have to keep digging until you find the thing that Bill Simmons thinks is actually true.

• 2:04:07Bill Simmons?

  On those shows, if I say that in a production meeting, they're like, that's amazing.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  They'll go nuts, but.

• 2:04:13Bill Simmons?

  Segment, segment two, let's do it.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  You should not say the thing you don't believe. You know, you should stick with, and that's, so the difficulty with me on that show was it was a lot of work to keep digging until I said the thing that I believed that would also get a reaction.

• 2:04:29Bill Simmons?

  But on top of it, they're telling you Cowboys, Lakers, Knicks, Yankees, like it's all the big teams.

• 2:04:34Speaker 01

  For good reason.

• 2:04:34Bill Simmons?

  Over and over again. Those, that's the red meat.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  You fish where the fish are.

• 2:04:38Bill Simmons?

  Like right now, the Cowboys having a little run. It's perfect because it's actually reasonable to talk about them. I remember when I was doing Countdown, they're trying to make us lead with the Lakers all the time because that's coming from Bristol.

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:04:50Bill Simmons?

  Lead with the Lakers again. It's like, well, can we lead with Memphis? They're, they just traded Rudy Gay and the team's better.

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  I would tell you no. Do not, do not.

• 2:04:57Bill Simmons?

  They're like, no, no, talk about Kobe. Can he make, how high can they get? And then we'd have to do that segment again.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 2:05:03Bill Simmons?

  And that's kind of the ESPN red meat philosophy.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  By the way, the first thing I said on First Take that drove everyone nuts was Tom Brady's going to fall off a cliff. Right?

• 2:05:11Bill Simmons?

  I remember that. That made me angry.

• 2:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, well, the part that I didn't like, and I apologized it for, about it the next day, and they didn't like it on the show when I apologized, was that he's going to be a bum in short order. But I was just being kind of, I was talking the way you talk in a barbershop, right? I didn't really mean it, but I just meant a guy, just a guy, a Jag is what I should have said. Um, but it was just based on every quarterback who ever lived.

• 2:05:33Bill Simmons?

  Is this a defend your meme?

• 2:05:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I was, but I was wrong about that because on every quarterback who ever lived after the age of 40 or 41, they fell off a cliff.

• 2:05:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  He kept going. The odds were that I was correcting what I was saying.

• 2:05:47Bill Simmons?

  That's LeBron right now.

• 2:05:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:05:48Bill Simmons?

  Odds are, he's just gonna keep getting hurt, have small injuries, and his body's gonna break down the way Karl Malone stayed once upon a time.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Correct, but when I said that about Brady, they loved it because that would get traction, right? Because you still remember it 15 years later.

• 2:06:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's what can get cut into a social media clip, which unfortunately is a lot of the economy of these conversations.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Right, like you say things on your podcast, I'm sure, all the time that get repurposed, and it's like, because when you, because again, if you, if all you see is the counterintuitive conclusion, and you don't have the pro, the analysis of how you got there, then it sounds, did you sound crazy?

• 2:06:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, a good one is like, we do, we always do the NBA over under pods, which I've been doing since ESPN, where the wins, the over unders, when you go over under, you're hoping to, like in the NFL last year, I went 27 and 5, which will never happen again, right? This year, I'm probably, I'm probably closer to 17 and 15 this year.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  It's not, still not bad, you're, you know.

• 2:06:43Bill Simmons?

  But you're making the case for each team, you're not gonna be right about all of them, and then if they, like, I, I thought the Vegas, I couldn't figure out who the seventh AFC playoff team was gonna be. And I, it was like Vegas, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, so I just went with new coach Pete Carroll following Antonio Pierce, easier schedule, maybe that's 9 and 8, I picked them.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:07:04Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna go 2 and 15.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:05Bill Simmons?

  You could cut out the argument I made for them into a clip, and it's probably gonna be really bad, but you could also take the argument I made for why the Pats, I thought they could be a playoff team, it's, you can cherry pick all this stuff.

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  But if you hear the explanation, it's different.

• 2:07:20Bill Simmons?

  You can't go crazy about it, is my point.

• 2:07:21Speaker 01

  By the way, let me say something else about that. If you do real analysis, and you always come to the intuitive position, your powers of analysis aren't very good. Right? You're you're affected by you're overly affected by group.

• 2:07:33Bill Simmons?

  You're calling about it's like that. You want to have a smart zag every so often.

• 2:07:37Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think you even have to look for it. Just if you're really thinking about something now, if you come to that counterintuitive conclusion, you're in a room of 100 people and 99 people think you're wrong, you should absolutely double check to make sure that you believe what you think you believe, because the chances are you're wrong and they're right. But Bill, sometimes you check and you check and you check and you go, no, in fact, I'm right and they're wrong. And that's great. Then you could, you know.

• 2:08:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's funny. When you talk NFL, there are some things that are reliable every year, like the new coach following a bad coach.

• 2:08:07Speaker 01

  Yep, little bump.

• 2:08:08Bill Simmons?

  The bump combined with the easy schedule. Like, that was why the Patriots checked every single box for, I know this is crazy, but it seems like they could be a playoff team and here are all the reasons why. Right? The Bears are when it gets a little, a little stretchier because they're in a hard division. Who knows if Ben Johnson, we've seen Mike McDaniel, we've seen some of these offensive coordinator geniuses. All of a sudden, they're not good when they get head coach. Who knows if Caleb's going to be good? The Bears' history outdoors. I I picked them to make the playoffs. I didn't feel great about it. But that's one where there was a case and now the case looks awesome.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  So all year, I thought the, because I've been watching, been going to some Rams games with Rich and.

• 2:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  Um, and I think they have a great quarterback who, remember when I was saying if you have to believe you're you have that guy on your team? One of the reasons I think teams fold against guys like Brady is because when Brady marches the Bucks down the field and throws a touchdown, if you don't have Matthew Stafford on the team, and we had to find out about Stafford, then that already even in the opposing quarterback's head, you're thinking, of course, I'm going to lose to Brady.

• 2:09:12Bill Simmons?

  That's what the Patriots have right now.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  Stafford went right back down the field.

• 2:09:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  And and he went, so they have that guy at quarterback. They have a great third down defense, especially, I think, the Rams. They have a great coach, all that stuff. So all year, I'm saying, I'm thinking, I don't have a platform to talk about it. I think the Rams should be the Super Bowl favorites. Here's a counterintuitive one.

• 2:09:32Bill Simmons?

  And well coached, too.

• 2:09:33Speaker 01

  Great coach.

• 2:09:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  How about right now? Who would be your hot take team to win the Super Bowl right now?

• 2:09:42Bill Simmons?

  Hot take team.

• 2:09:43Speaker 01

  Right on the tip of my tongue.

• 2:09:44Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 2:09:45Speaker 01

  Texans.

• 2:09:47Bill Simmons?

  Sal and I talked about that Sunday.

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:49Bill Simmons?

  So I was doing it from the context of who am I the most afraid to play in a playoff game with my young, precocious, new little Patriots?

• 2:09:58Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 2:09:58Bill Simmons?

  And it's like, you know what? I don't want to see the Texans.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  No one wants, because if you have a defense that's peaking at the right time, and you have a quarterback who might be that dude, right? Have you seen evidence in the past where maybe he could be that, right? And, and a coach that the players, like a leader of men, guys, you know, like they got all those things.

• 2:10:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Bears are the wild card to me in the other conference, just because of the way they ran the ball in Philly, kind of broke my brain.

• 2:10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:25Bill Simmons?

  It's like, oh, that could actually, that could actually work in January for at least one upset. I don't know if it could work round after round, and I don't trust Caleb, but that's not nothing.

• 2:10:36Speaker 01

  I, you know, no one feels sorry for you right now. You got the coach and the quarterback.

• 2:10:41Bill Simmons?

  That's all you need.

• 2:10:41Speaker 01

  And the quarterback is so young, and you're set, like Patriots fans are set. You're gonna be competitive every year.

• 2:10:48Bill Simmons?

  I was just texting somebody about that the other day, like barring something crazy happening, once you have the combo, it's like this is 12 years.

• 2:10:55Speaker 01

  It's the whole thing.

• 2:10:56Bill Simmons?

  This is, this is it. We can always, you can patch around these two things, but you need the two things to survive.

• 2:11:01Speaker 01

  Do the Broncos have that combo? Is Bo Nix a combo?

• 2:11:04Bill Simmons?

  I, I'm not quite there with them. Are you?

• 2:11:07Speaker 01

  I don't know about Bo Nix. I will say that there have been certain coaches on my mind recently. I mentioned J.J. Reddick. He's on my mind a lot. I just, I'm so impressed with what he's doing. Sean Payton is just unbelievable, what he's done to that franchise, a mess of a franchise. And that's like, there, there's, it's not an accident.

• 2:11:27Bill Simmons?

  It's a culture rebuild. It's an accountability. It's looking for certain guys, like all the guys, if you study all the guys Vrabel signed, they're all like locker room guys, like Spillane.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:37Bill Simmons?

  Spillane, Mac Collins, Moses, like all these dudes who were like well-liked on the teams there. On Harold Landry, he knew because he coached him, and he just, he wanted the team to be unselfish, got rid of some guys from the Belichick era, in some cases, just because they were part of the Belichick era. Like they traded Keon Wade, who I actually think was like. Decent and now plays every snap for the Niners, it seems like, but he was like, you know what? This team's moving this way. I want guys that are swimming all the same way this way.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  Sean Payton.

• 2:12:07Bill Simmons?

  Sean Payton, same thing.

• 2:12:08Speaker 01

  The Broncos remind me of the old Patriots, like the early Brady Patriots in the sense that they give you a sense that you're in the game. Like there are a dozen teams in the NFL right now who think we almost beat the Broncos. No, you didn't. You know, like I have this theory in sports and it applies to boxing, but it applies to all sports. The great offense will always be overrated when it comes up against mediocrity. Cause mediocrity has nothing to stave off the offense. So it gets overwhelmed.

• 2:12:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  The great, well-rounded fighter or team will always be underrated when it goes up against mediocrity because it will beat them, but it'll beat them the way a chess master beats someone, which is you tighten the vise, right? Like you accrue all these small advantages and in the end you win, but it seemed competitive or at least like the other team was.

• 2:12:55Bill Simmons?

  That was Pat's Giants last night.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  And that was.

• 2:12:57Bill Simmons?

  They could have put up 50 and they were like, yeah, let's save some for next few weeks.

• 2:13:01Speaker 01

  That was Pat's greatest show on turf.

• 2:13:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  Right? It's like the great, well-rounded team or individual athlete needs another great to go up against to really show you what they have. And what we've seen from the Broncos, I think the reason people are not maybe convinced about the Broncos is because they're that, because they, they, they are a team that will figure out a way to win. And until you see them under pressure in the playoffs against another great team, you're not going to believe it, but I'm not convinced that they won't do it.

• 2:13:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's so I was, I always keep track of wins, losses, and then either or games.

• 2:13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:38Bill Simmons?

  I think they have five actual wins where they beat the other team. Buffalo has eight. To me, Buffalo is still the, the team. I think for some reason it's gotten written off a little bit mainly because of that Thursday night Houston game.

• 2:13:49Speaker 01

  They don't have a lot of weapons.

• 2:13:51Bill Simmons?

  They don't have a lot of weapons, but they still have a great, a great, great, great player. Decent infrastructure. They've been in a bunch of big games, so they're not going to be scared. So I don't, I mean, I honestly think this is the hardest season to figure out in a long time. The Pats are finally favorites in the AFC. It took forever because it seems like they're probably going to get the one seed.

• 2:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:10Bill Simmons?

  But that's the only reason.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Texans, even the Buffalo, one of the reasons I'm so high on the Texans is because I saw them on a short week. Right. For Buffalo, do what they did.

• 2:14:19Bill Simmons?

  They just crushed it.

• 2:14:20Speaker 01

  They crushed it.

• 2:14:21Bill Simmons?

  The problem is the Chiefs are probably not making the playoffs.

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  I don't, I'm not ready to say that.

• 2:14:26Bill Simmons?

  They're two back from those wild card teams.

• 2:14:28Speaker 01

  I will believe it. When they're dead and buried, I'll believe it.

• 2:14:31Bill Simmons?

  They've lost to three of the teams that they could potentially be in a tie in. So it's like, pretty grim.

• 2:14:36Speaker 01

  There was a middleweight champion in the early 1900s named Stanley Ketchell, one of the biggest punchers of all time. He was shot dead when he was 24 years old. And I'm forgetting who gave the quote, famous newspaper guy, I think, at the time. I'm forgetting who it was though. At his funeral, they said, start counting to 10.

• 2:14:56Bill Simmons?

  To see if he gets up?

• 2:14:57Speaker 01

  To see if he gets up. That's how I feel about Patrick Mahomes. Start counting to 10. And when you get to 10, out, I'll believe he's out of it and not until then.

• 2:15:04Bill Simmons?

  I'd be delighted to see them not make it. I don't want to see them in the playoffs either.

• 2:15:08Speaker 01

  Of course you don't. You have ulterior motives though.

• 2:15:10Bill Simmons?

  Texans is my number one. I don't want to see you in a playoff game.

• 2:15:13Speaker 01

  You have, you, what it comes down to at the core is you want Mahomes out of the conversation. And if they can-

• 2:15:18Bill Simmons?

  Because of the Brady thing?

• 2:15:19Speaker 01

  Of course, of course. If they can, like what, what Mahomes and the Chiefs have done, by the way, in a tougher division, Brady and what Brady and Belichick done will never be done again, but you know.

• 2:15:29Bill Simmons?

  I'm a results guy, Max.

• 2:15:31Speaker 01

  But like, it was an easy division.

• 2:15:32Bill Simmons?

  I was ready to entertain the Mahomes and the GO conversation, but Brady never went like nine and eight.

• 2:15:37Speaker 01

  Entertain it, but that doesn't say what you're rooting for.

• 2:15:39Bill Simmons?

  Brady never went nine and eight.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  Because what, a much easier division though. And all you had to do is win the division, you get a bye in the first round, right? Like, I'm not diminishing what they did. It'll never happen again. It's never going to happen again. Especially since they did it in an era of great parody. In fact, it just doesn't seem like that now.

• 2:15:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it can happen again.

• 2:15:56Speaker 01

  It'll never happen again. But the Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes' career, he's never not been to the AFC Championship game.

• 2:16:05Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 2:16:06Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 2:16:06Bill Simmons?

  It's a good GOAT resume thingy.

• 2:16:08Speaker 01

  I mean, ridiculous.

• 2:16:11Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk boxing before we go quickly? Just because I barely have anyone to talk boxing to other than Van and a couple of other people.

• 2:16:17Speaker 01

  I love the fact that you, like, you're, to me, a good bellwether in terms of what the sports fan in America cares about. The fact that you know as much about boxing as you do always made me feel good as a boxing fan. Because it meant that, like, it's, it's, at some level, it's still important.

• 2:16:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, 70s and 80s, it was as important as anything. Yeah, Mannix always calls me Big Fight Bill.

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:40Bill Simmons?

  Because I show up for the big ones. I might not be watching that, the zone fight in mid-July.

• 2:16:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, Maddox is my guy.

• 2:16:46Bill Simmons?

  Mid-July, maybe I'm not showing out for the flyweight championship and, you know, Riyadh.

• 2:16:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:16:53Bill Simmons?

  But I, I watch all the big ones. Who's, as we head into 26, who is our number one draw right now?

• 2:17:00Speaker 01

  Who's the, who's the number one draw in boxing, or who's the best fighter in the world?

• 2:17:03Bill Simmons?

  Give me draw first, then best fighter in the world.

• 2:17:07Speaker 01

  Um, draw?

• 2:17:09Bill Simmons?

  Did Crawford?

• 2:17:09Speaker 01

  Might still be Canelo Alvarez. You know, if you have the Mexican fanbase in North America.

• 2:17:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  You have a lot. Anthony Joshua in England will still bring him out for sure.

• 2:17:20Bill Simmons?

  I meant draw from, like, public being excited about a fight. Because I, because I think Canelo had the belt.

• 2:17:27Speaker 01

  The American public?

• 2:17:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just everybody.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  I mean, to me, to-

• 2:17:30Bill Simmons?

  Did Crawford grab this with beating Canelo?

• 2:17:32Speaker 01

  Maybe. I think the hardcore fans certainly are interested in Bud Crawford.

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, my answer is Crawford. The guy who I'm most interested in watching is Crawford. Because he is this generation's GOAT in this, people go, well, how could you be the greatest of all time in this generation? There are some guys that make a certain impression on contemporary audiences.

• 2:17:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:55Speaker 01

  That you can't tell that audience anything their guy was the best, right? Crawford's one of those guys. He's like the, the boxing fans who watched Crawford in this era might pick him against anyone ever when all is said and done.

• 2:18:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, I remember, and you're obviously the hardest hardcore boxing guy. But I've always had boxing people in my life. There was, somebody I was friends with in the 90s who would get so mad if, if anyone thought Roy Jones wasn't the best. Fighter, like there's certain guys that resonate with the hardcore people where they're like, they'll actually want to get in a fight.

• 2:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:30Bill Simmons?

  Somebody's like, yeah, but what about, it's like, there's no what about, it's Roy Jones.

• 2:18:34Speaker 01

  Roy Jones at one point, at one point, Roy Jones, if I would have told you, remember what you were thinking? When Mike Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks in 90 seconds, I'm sure you watched that fight, right?

• 2:18:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God, my mom hadn't even brought down the, all the pizza and wings she made for me and my friends yet. The fight was over.

• 2:18:50Speaker 01

  So what no one was saying at the time, but everyone was thinking was, he might be the best fighter of all time, right? Like everyone would say Muhammad Ali, but it's almost out of respect. What people were feeling is that. And if I would have told you on that night, there's a junior middleweight amateur, who's only a year younger than Mike, who will never come close to actually losing a fight, who will be the champion of middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, jump up to heavyweight, beat a top five guy, and one day open as a two to one favorite to beat Mike Tyson. You would say that is not possible.

• 2:19:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  If what you're saying is true, you're describing the greatest fighter ever. That was Roy Jones.

• 2:19:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:31Speaker 01

  At the moment he beat John Ruiz, had he never melted off 25 pounds of lean muscle to go back down to light heavy, where he was never the same again.

• 2:19:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then he got cold cocked and that's, guys are never the same after they get cold cocked.

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  But like if you, he didn't melt off 25 pounds of fat.

• 2:19:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  He was all muscle.

• 2:19:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  He melted off 25 pounds of lean muscle and was visibly not the same guy. It wasn't just the Tarver knockout.

• 2:19:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:56Speaker 01

  He fought a guy, Glenn Koff Johnson, he got abused every round and knocked out and like abused it. Roy never lost a round, even if you think, well, someone could have caught him. He was up eight rounds to one, right? Like not that anyone did catch him. If he would have stayed at heavyweight and fought, let's say, Holyfield and Tyson, and at that point in their careers, let's say he beats those two guys and retires.

• 2:20:19Bill Simmons?

  He would have beaten Tyson.

• 2:20:19Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 2:20:20Bill Simmons?

  He would have beaten Tyson. Tyson had, his off the, off the ring stuff was, was insurmountable at that point.

• 2:20:25Speaker 01

  And if he did that, even forget, hold it just Tyson and retires, he would be considered hands down the greatest of all time. But that's not the way it happened.

• 2:20:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're describing my Billy Corgan theory.

• 2:20:35Bill Simmons?

  If Billy Corgan, they put out the melancholy double album. And then he's just like abducted by an alien and is never seen again. We're talking about him reverentially as one of the five most important musicians we've had. And Roy Jones, if he just, after the Ruiz fight, just is in Roswell and it gets zapped up and he's just gone and we don't know what happened.

• 2:20:54Speaker 01

  It's him and Ray Robinson is what people would be talking about. But Crawford is Crawford is like, you know, there was Floyd Mayweather before Crawford. There'll be another guy after Crawford. Once upon a time, there was Ray Robinson and everyone who lived through those eras will say, no, that guy Crawford is this era's that guy. You're not gonna, you know, especially if he were, if he wins one or two more big fights and retires, he's in the conversation.

• 2:21:16Bill Simmons?

  It goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning about the moments that could shift you one way or the other. Like if Hagler just knocks out Leonard in 87 and retires. His career is remembered, I think, completely differently. Instead, it's like people almost bring up the Hearns fight and that fight. And then him just disappearing and moving to Italy. He was so mad he lost the Leonard decision and it just completely changed how the careers discussed now 40 years later.

• 2:21:46Speaker 01

  You want me to do two minutes on Hagler right now?

• 2:21:47Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I could do two hours on him, but.

• 2:21:50Speaker 01

  So Hagler is a hard bitten, learning his craft by paying his dues guy. And Sugar Ray Leonard is the uber talented wunderkind who wins the Olympic gold medal.

• 2:22:03Bill Simmons?

  The appointed Ali's successor.

• 2:22:04Speaker 01

  By Howard Cosell.

• 2:22:05Bill Simmons?

  Had seven up ads.

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  He turns pro, he makes 50,000 in his pro debut. Hagler's on the undercard. He makes whatever he makes, the 1/20th of that, whatever it is.

• 2:22:15Bill Simmons?

  And nobody would fight him for three, four years.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  Hagler, he had to go into the middleweight lion's den of Philadelphia. All the black middleweights who were being avoided, the Black Murders Row. Benny Briscoe, Bobby Boogaloo Watts and Eugene Cyclone Hart and all these guys. And he lost to them and then he rematched them and beat them. And then he rubber matched some of them and knocked them out. And when he emerged from that era, he was a killer, right? But he was, they fought for their first world titles on the same card, Leonard and Hagler.

• 2:22:45Bill Simmons?

  Got robbed by Vito.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  Leonard got a million dollars to beat a great Wilfred Benitez by 30 seconds left in the fight, stops him in a close, tough fight. Hagler beats Antifermol, gets a draw. Leonard gets the title Hagler makes 40 grand Leonard makes a million so this keeps going on. Finally, when he gets to fight Sugar Ray Leonard after Leonard made him.

• 2:23:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, you left out that he beats Minter for the title and it's basically a riot and they're throwing bottles.

• 2:23:11Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm just editing details.

• 2:23:13Bill Simmons?

  But it's like nothing went right until the Hurns fight.

• 2:23:15Speaker 01

  Nothing went right and even Leonard has a press conference within in the ring Hagler shows up ringside. Cause Hagler thinks he's going to announce he's coming back because they had to detach retina Leonard so he retired. He's going to announce he's coming back to fight me and instead Leonard announces his retirement.

• 2:23:31Bill Simmons?

  Invites him.

• 2:23:32Speaker 01

  Invites him and around.

• 2:23:33Bill Simmons?

  I actually I had Ray on my podcast when I was at ESPN and I I think I asked him about that. So it was kind of like fucked up psychological warfare.

• 2:23:41Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:23:42Bill Simmons?

  He invites him to the thing makes it seem like he's going to announce.

• 2:23:44Speaker 01

  And then tells him no payday.

• 2:23:45Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry it'll never happen and Hackler is like what why am I here?

• 2:23:49Speaker 01

  Sugar Ray Leonard had made what is 11 million dollars for fighting Roberto Duran 13 million dollars for fighting Tommy Hearns. Back when the highest paid team athlete in sports was Dave Winfield 2 million a year. Leonard's making five and six times as much in a night.

• 2:24:04Bill Simmons?

  Bird's making 700K.

• 2:24:06Speaker 01

  And Leonard's making 13 million so Hagler sees this season and finally Leonard when he gives him the shot. Right Hagler's the champ but Leonard's giving him the payday. He says, all right, I want a 12 round stuff fight instead of a 15 round fight and I want whatever it was thumbless gloves or you know. Cause of the retina but the main thing was the 12 instead of 15 rounds because that was in an era where it could have been either one. And Hagler agreed to it because Leonard said instead of us each taking 14 million you take 15 I'll take 13. He knew how much that would mean to Hagler. He purchased those three rounds.

• 2:24:40Bill Simmons?

  Ah.

• 2:24:41Speaker 01

  Where Hag Leonard won the fight. I mean Leonard won the first four rounds everyone agrees so now Hagler has the next eight and all Leonard has to do is win two and get a draw. Hagler didn't win seven of the next eight he won most of them but not seven of them. And so he ran out of rounds in the end.

• 2:24:56Bill Simmons?

  I think I've argued about this fight with more people over my life than any other sporting event.

• 2:25:01Speaker 01

  Hagler Leonard.

• 2:25:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because I think Leonard won and I thought Hagler was off his game the whole thing he was off balance. I I just don't think he fought a good fight.

• 2:25:10Speaker 01

  More psychological warfare. Leonard the pretty boy like Hagler destruct and destroy for Tommy Hearns he's going to go right through him. Against Leonard, he wanted to show he could outbox him. He even talked about that a little as the fight approached. So instead of coming out southpaw and Leonard had a hard time. He comes out orthodox, gives away four rounds, turns southpaw in the fifth. Now it's a different fight, but Leonard wins a couple of those rounds late and gets a decision. I talked to Hagler about that.

• 2:25:34Bill Simmons?

  By the way, Duran did that to Leonard in the first fight.

• 2:25:37Speaker 01

  In the first fight, yeah.

• 2:25:37Bill Simmons?

  In the Montreal fight, because he basically just challenged his manhood for four straight months. Then Leonard's like, I'm gonna fight this guy.

• 2:25:45Speaker 01

  That was what Clubber Lang was based on in Rocky III. You're assaulting the wife. That was all based on Duran. But Duran, I always thought was the reason Leonard came out and fought Hagler. Because after Duran fought Hagler and lost to him close, he told Sugar Ray after the fight, you get him, you'll beat him. And I think that's why Leonard took the fight.

• 2:26:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, Leonard always said he never was gonna fight Hagler until he saw the Mugabe fight and saw how much punishment. Just, and that fight's incredible. That's like, that, if I was gonna do a starter kit for boxing fans to learn about the 70s and 80s, I would think Hagler Mugabe would be on there.

• 2:26:20Speaker 01

  Great fight.

• 2:26:21Bill Simmons?

  It's so good. I mean, the number one would be Foreman-Lyle. Just, I'm not gonna tell you who wins, just watch this.

• 2:26:26Speaker 01

  I got one better for you than either one of those. Corrales-Castillo.

• 2:26:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, that's a great one.

• 2:26:31Speaker 01

  Corrales-Castillo won and Prior Argüello won.

• 2:26:35Bill Simmons?

  Prior Argüello one's incredible. It's also a good, that's a good legendary nights.

• 2:26:39Speaker 01

  I like the fact that you have Leonard Hearn's one here.

• 2:26:43Bill Simmons?

  It's my favorite fight.

• 2:26:44Speaker 01

  It is, it's mine too. And I think that was actually, all things considered, the highest level of boxing we've ever seen. Like two impossibly great fighters, no excuses, at their very best in a 15-round fight. Tommy Hearn's, well, as close to unbeatable a fighter as you could possibly imagine. Sugar Ray Leonard somehow figured out a way to get it done in a fight he was losing like.

• 2:27:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, and the fights switched gears five times.

• 2:27:13Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 2:27:14Bill Simmons?

  I did, I did that close circuit in the Boston Garden with my dad and. Most of the people there rooted for Hearns and I was fucking outraged. I was so mad because Ray was like my guy.

• 2:27:25Speaker 01

  I remember before that fight, reading in a magazine, Emmanuel Stewart, who's Tommy Hearns trainer at the time, talking about how Dundee was saying, Angela Dundee, Leonard's trainer, saying this is how, why Leonard's gonna win. And Emmanuel saying this is why Tommy Hearns is gonna win. And I was a big Leonard fan as a kid too. And when I was done reading what Emmanuel said, I was so scared. He said, it's gonna feel like Sugar Ray Leonard is in a tank and it's just filling up with water. And I thought to myself, that's exactly what this is like.

• 2:27:57Bill Simmons?

  I still can't believe he won.

• 2:27:58Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable.

• 2:28:00Bill Simmons?

  Like Hearns, we talked before we started taping, I was saying how Hearns was like the, I think I might have written this somewhere at some point, but he was the other team in the best sports movies.

• 2:28:10Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:28:10Bill Simmons?

  And he just like, you kinda needed, he just, he was a freak. You were talking about Mahomes before about, I've never seen this before, like, we've never seen Tommy before. The six foot, one hundred and forty seven guy who hit like a fucking tractor.

• 2:28:25Speaker 01

  Who could outbox you because he had a seventy eight inch reach and could box and could jab. And as an amateur, wasn't a puncher. He was a boxer.

• 2:28:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the frustrating thing about the Leonard fight. It felt like he figured that out over the second part of the fight. Like, oh, I'll just box Ray.

• 2:28:39Speaker 01

  Leonard hurt him in the body with that left hook in the fifth round.

• 2:28:43Bill Simmons?

  Then he finally, Leonard finally got him. But yeah, it's the roller coaster of that fight.

• 2:28:49Speaker 01

  I'm happy for that Tommy now, in retrospect, at the time, it was like, well, he lost to Leonard, then he lost to Hagler. He's not, but I think as time has passed, his position all time, like he's seen as other than like Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, he's the greatest welterweight ever, probably.

• 2:29:05Bill Simmons?

  You know what's a great fight that is a great fight for a different reason than people think it's a great fight is Tyson Douglas. It's actually like a great fight. Like, forget about that it's the biggest upset of all time and all that stuff. And just how amazing that was to watch Tyson.

• 2:29:19Speaker 01

  Douglas boxed the fact that Tyson knocked him down.

• 2:29:21Bill Simmons?

  Douglas on that night is about as much as you would want from a heavyweight. Like he, total package, right? Left, left, left. He's got size. Quick rights, he'd throw up her cuts.

• 2:29:31Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. And he showed a lot of heart getting off the canvas and finishing the job.

• 2:29:35Bill Simmons?

  Should have been done.

• 2:29:35Speaker 01

  But he was always a talented guy. He just was never really motivated properly.

• 2:29:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, we could talk boxing forever. So your podcast with Rich.

• 2:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29:42Bill Simmons?

  Is starting next week.

• 2:29:44Speaker 01

  You tell me, like I.

• 2:29:45Bill Simmons?

  It's starting next week.

• 2:29:46Speaker 01

  What? Great.

• 2:29:48Bill Simmons?

  We're starting it next week. It's happening. We're gonna launch.

• 2:29:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:29:51Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna launch the feed later this week so people can subscribe. And then you and Rich, a guy you've known for a long, long time, and you told me once upon a time, maybe three months ago, like, I was trying to get you to do something for a while with us. And you're like, well, I'm down the road with this other thing. And it turns out it's Rich. And I'm like, Rich is, how is this gonna work? And then we all went to lunch and I got it within 10 minutes.

• 2:30:14Speaker 01

  I knew that the thing about knowing you for a while and knowing Rich for a while is that if there was any issue, it was easily fixable. It was like, that's something that get hashed out quickly.

• 2:30:26Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that part, I was more concerned like, how is Rich gonna be a host on a podcast? Like, this guy is like one of the biggest power brokers in the NBA. Is he gonna be forthcoming? But it's like, the bottom line is, he's a huge sports fan. He's like a one of us. He's gonna have takes on everything and you guys have the chemistry.

• 2:30:44Speaker 01

  Is brutal with his own clients, like in the sense that he will tell you, Rich will tell you what he thinks. And, and he manages to do this thing, even when he was like a source for me, right? When I was, when I was on ESPN and he was an agent, he manages to do this thing where you're, he's never positioning you in a way that's gonna burn you. Like, if Rich gave me information, I never had to worry about, I'm gonna get burnt by this because he's giving me this information to position me for his client, right? Now, sometimes it was beneficial for his client, but it was the truth.

• 2:31:17Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  Right? If Rich tells the Celtics, you could trade for AD, he's not gonna re-sign here. He's not telling them that because it's not true. He's telling them that because it's true. That's, that's not the plan. And so, so he's, he manages to be extremely straightforward and honest, even when the honesty is highly critical, even of people he works for and with. Uh, and also maintain good relationships because people know it's coming from the right place.

• 2:31:43Bill Simmons?

  So we're gonna go, it's gonna be three, three times a week, in the middle podcast of the week. Probably a guest.

• 2:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31:50Bill Simmons?

  At least for part of it, we're gonna try to get some, uh, some, some, I mean, turns out Rich has a pretty decent rolodex of, of possible guests, but there's, there's a, there's a kind of bringing different people in to hang with you guys that I think is gonna be a piece of this.

• 2:32:05Speaker 01

  It's funny, one of the reasons that, um,

• 2:32:09Speaker 01

  we're with you is because I have done lots of stuff that has been repurposed as podcasts, right?

• 2:32:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:15Speaker 01

  Marcellus and I, we did a radio show in LA that did great as a podcast nationally. We were beating most of the national podcasts on ESPN as an LA podcast, um, and we were by far like the biggest local podcast. And I've done TV shows that have been, I've never done a straight podcast. So like, you're the guy for that, like a hundred percent.

• 2:32:36Bill Simmons?

  Oh, thank you.

• 2:32:36Speaker 01

  But when, even things like, okay, we should do a guest on Wednesday. When we first started talking about that, it didn't fully occur to me, when you have a guest on a podcast, that's the show that day.

• 2:32:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, it could be most of it.

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  But it's not like a segment. It's not like the guy's gonna be on there for five minutes.

• 2:32:54Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:32:54Speaker 01

  It's not PTI, a good five minutes.

• 2:32:56Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 2:32:56Speaker 01

  And even something like that, when you haven't been through it, I wasn't thinking that way. I was like, yeah, we could just do a guest on this day, on this day. No, no, actually, when you have a guest come in and sit for your podcast, that's kind of the show that day.

• 2:33:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's good, so we're gonna, it's gonna be a video pod and it'll be part of the Netflix thing we're doing and, um, I have high hopes for this one. I think it's gonna be good. I'm, I'm glad you're talking sports again. It's great to have you back. I missed hearing your voice on things.

• 2:33:19Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thanks. That's, that's, really, you don't know how people feel about that. If you're gone, the world goes on and, and it was nice to hear like around the industry and from sports fans that, that, uh, they were still thinking about me to the extent that they think about, you know, anyone in, you know, talking about this sports.

• 2:33:37Bill Simmons?

  The only person who's bummed out is Hal Steinbrenner. He's gonna be taking some hits.

• 2:33:41Speaker 01

  I don't think he's, I'm not as down on him as a lot of people. He's just not rich enough.

• 2:33:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:45Speaker 01

  He's only worth like two billion dollars.

• 2:33:47Bill Simmons?

  It's a good what if, right? Like if the, if the guy who was supposed to run the Yankees doesn't end up falling apart with the Steinbrenner's daughter.

• 2:33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:56Bill Simmons?

  That guy, what was that guy's name? Whatever that guy's name was. He was supposed to run the Yankees and he actually would've been good at it. And then Hal didn't really wanna run them and kind of begrudgingly did it.

• 2:34:05Speaker 01

  Working out.

• 2:34:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Hank wasn't happening.

• 2:34:08Speaker 01

  But I, my suggestion would be sell the team.

• 2:34:11Bill Simmons?

  Or how about sell it, sell 30% of it and bank some of the money so you don't have to be cheap anymore.

• 2:34:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:34:17Bill Simmons?

  Although relatively cheap.

• 2:34:18Speaker 01

  What's 30% of the Yankees?

• 2:34:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. It's probably like a 11 billion? 10 billion?

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  30% is 10 billion, you think?

• 2:34:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'm sorry, so.

• 2:34:26Speaker 01

  See, I don't need, I don't need how Steinbrenner would be worth 5 billion. I need the next owner of the Yankees worth 20 billion.

• 2:34:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, maybe you do like what the Lakers did, where you sell a piece and then five years later, that person.

• 2:34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that.

• 2:34:37Bill Simmons?

  That's what you do. All right, Max, good to see you. I look forward to your pod.

• 2:34:39Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 2:34:41Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks so much to Max, thanks to Gahow and Eduardo as well. Don't forget new rewatchables Rocky II, it is up. Don't forget about the Jeff Buckley documentary we have as part of our Music Box series on HBO. That's gonna be Thursday night. I'm gonna be back with this podcast on Thursday. Putting up late because I think this Lions Cowboys game is a big one. So House and I might do our football side before or after that Lions Cowboys game. And then we have a big guest. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but it seems like John Cena is gonna be on. So that's gonna be Thursday's pod. I will see you then.

• 2:35:31Bill 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. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, visit rg-help.com, call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys, starred in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner.

• 2:36:15Bill Simmons?

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• 2:36:50Speaker 02

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