Half-Baked Ideas and a Mega-Mailbag With Kevin Wildes and Joe House

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Wildes to discuss some new half-baked ideas. Then, Joe House joins the pod to help answer some mailbag questions from the listeners. Finally, Amanda Dobbins rants about being a Philadelphia sports wife to Rob Mahoney and Bill. (0:00) Intro (2:44) Half-baked ideas (01:00:59) Mailbag (02:13:00) Philadelphia Sports Wife rant Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kevin Wildes, Joe House, Amanda Dobbins, and Rob Mahoney Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo NBA 2K27 | Ball Over Everything 2026 Mazda CX-50. Designed for Safety. MazdaUSA.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for teen gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com slash paying for PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457.

• 0:39Bill Simmons?

  It's the Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. Wanted to mention, we have two rewatchables episodes coming this week. On Monday, we're doing the Italian Job from 2003. And then on Thursday, the 40th anniversary of About Last Night. One of the most secretly important days movies ever made with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. So stay on your toes for that, two episodes. I'm gonna have one more episode this week. I'm not sure what the day, but probably, probably Wednesday. Stay tuned for that. We have an action packed one, this one. Kevin Wilds is here. We're gonna talk about Little Red Sox at the top, a really half baked ideas. Because he's had a whole batch percolating for a while. I had a whole bunch of mailbag questions that I had to go through with Joe House on NBA

• 1:24Bill Simmons?

  and NFL, WNBA, all kinds of things. And then last but not least, we taped a rewatchables last week. And Amanda Dobbins and Rob Mahoney and I, we finished and Amanda wanted to go on a rant about being a Philadelphia sports wife. So I'm putting that at the end. Amanda Dobbins is Philadelphia sports wife rant. So there you go. There's just a lot to offer everybody in this podcast. We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then my friend, Kevin Wilds. This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27. We just had one of the craziest off seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K, because every 2K season can be one of the craziest off seasons. The whole league shifted in real life.

• 2:08Bill Simmons?

  It could shift to an NBA 2K27. The best place to compete with these new look rosters and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA finals if you want, because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises. You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of NBA 2K27 right now.

• 3:17Bill Simmons?

  All right, we are recording on a Sunday afternoon, right after a tough Red Sox loss. I'm right after tough times for Kevin Wilds, who just went to see the new Spider-Man movie with his son and felt like he was too old. What happened?

• 3:29Speaker 01

  You know what? I just like a straightforward villain. I just like, I'm the villain. I've got powers and I'm gonna try to thwart the city or whatever. You have to try to stop me. When we're starting to like, I'm in your mind and, and a lot of, and again, I'm projecting here to other movies that I've seen with my son. I'm always like bouncing around in other dimensions. I'm like, what, what dimension are we in now? I'm just, I'm, I feel like I'm getting too old for cinema. I just need, I need straight down the middle. You know what I watched with my wife the other day? Urban Cowboy. Oh, hi, I'm John Travolta. I'm in love with you.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  We broke up, now we're back together. But fastball right down the middle, Bill. That's what I, we're not in like, we're never in another dimension.

• 4:21Bill Simmons?

  That's why I've been enjoying Homeland. Homeland was just, guy came back from Afghanistan, they might've turned him, they might not have.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:30Bill Simmons?

  And, and we just gotta figure it out. I'm with you on the multiverse. I don't get it at all. I don't understand it. I don't like these movies. People get mad at me that I don't like these movies. But like, even when you go back to the first Iron Man with Downey, pretty straightforward.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:44Bill Simmons?

  Right? It wasn't, there weren't all these other characters, weren't going backward and forward. Anyway, good luck. I'm glad, I'm glad people are going to the movies. Ultimately, it's great. I'm glad your son's going. I'm glad the Red Sox have revived the summer. They lost a series to the, to the A's who are terrible.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  But not, but I, we weren't gonna go undefeated.

• 5:05Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  And I feel like both of these games were, you were in the ninth and you're like, oh, we got a shot here. Didn't work out, but I feel like it's, it's, they're weaning us off the high of, I think there would, I wrote it down, 27 and five in their last 32.

• 5:18Bill Simmons?

  Just was better than that. It was 31 and five in their last 36. They were, they were 27 of 30 at one point, which like nine teams had done. My wife, I, I begin along great with my wife. It's been a really strong summer for us. Usually that happens after basketball ends and she kinda likes when baseball's on. I've been watching basically the Red Sox from the moment the NBA draft ended all the way through. And this weekend kinda pushed it a little bit, because it was two day games. And it was like, what do we do? And it's nice out. And I'm like, wow.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Nah, I gotta watch the A's.

• 5:51Bill Simmons?

  Red Sox are coming on and it's like, oh, really? Aren't they playing the A's? Aren't the A's bad? It's like, ah, I know, but we're winning streak. And then today's.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  So you actually had like, three losses in this series.

• 6:05Bill Simmons?

  I feel like I can get it back. It's, it's, it's like a bad at bat. I feel like I can get it back with the next at bat. But right now, I just walked back to the dugout and it was, it was bad. How's your summer been, by the way? This is the worst month ever for sports discourse.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Look, you know what? It's, this month is traditionally not great. The World Cup really saved us because we had a month plus of just excellent sports. So not only was the World Cup great in a vacuum, it also pushed all of the sort of just, what do you think? Conversations to August. So I'm still fresh on, what do you think? Like, hey, the Bills, what do you think? If you do it a few times, you're okay. If you do it 10 times, you start to drag. But I still got a lot of, we're doing just a lot of what do you think right now? Hey, Panthers, what do you think? Yeah, we knew seven minutes on the Panthers.

• 6:57Bill Simmons?

  World Cup was a godsend. LeBron decided to take an extra three weeks was great. Thanks to him, thanks to Rich Paul, thanks to everybody.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Savvy move.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  Well done that. The Jalen Brown trade was good content. I'm with you. Like, like last week was the first football thing I really did on my podcast, which I had to do the QBs, which usually I do like a week earlier, but, but now getting into it, I had, I had thoughts on the Bills, the new stadium and the uniforms. That was fun this weekend. That somehow they have obstructed views in the new stadium, which I think is.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  I didn't even know that.

• 7:30Bill Simmons?

  Possible. Yeah, it's a big thing this weekend.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  They built, they built a stadium with obstructed views?

• 7:36Bill Simmons?

  There's some obstructed views, not everybody's covered. And then they brought out these uniforms that looked like they were out of the, the XFL in the eighties or nineties, whatever the XFL was, I don't even remember.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  I had, I've got a stadium based half baked idea too about obstructed views.

• 7:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I can't wait. We're gonna do a whole bunch of.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Teaser.

• 7:55Bill Simmons?

  I think, has there been a polarizing sports content take football guy yet? I feel like Joe Burrow is kinda on the on deck circle with some Joe Burrow conversations ready to be had. There's, there's some good zags against him where he hasn't made the playoffs in four years, so only three healthy seasons.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  You wrote that, um, what you were on, oh, you were on with Mina.

• 8:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  And you were talking about Drake and I, I watched it. And then I got fired up on your behalf.

• 8:23Bill Simmons?

  Thanks.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Joe Burrow, you were like Drake's won 17 games. Oh, excuse me. Jake, Drake won 17 games last year. Joe Burrow's won 19 games in the last three years.

• 8:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  At some point, winning football has to count for something. I know like, Jalen Hurts can win the Super Bowl and people are like, ah, I don't know if he can win the Super Bowl. Okay.

• 8:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, he won it, yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Sam, I know Sam Darnold's putting up good numbers and won the Super Bowl. Is he as good as Joe Burrow? Like, I, no, I probably won't go there. But Joe Burrow has to win games. And I like Joe Burrow and he's fun to root for. But you can't win, you can't go five and three every year and be like, ah, if it wasn't for my defense, like, not really, dude.

• 9:07Bill Simmons?

  And you can't blame your offensive line, because Drake May had no offensive line last year. It's been interesting, you're a Pats fan, we should mention. It's been interesting watching people pick apart the last Pats season and some of it's just fine and some of it's not. But like, when they talk about the easy schedule, which it was easy, but there was a couple of teams they played kind of in the wrong part of the season to play those teams. You know, like they played Miami pretty early. They played, they played Tampa before Tampa kinda had their swoon and.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  We started the Tampa swoon. We started the Tampa swoon, we played them off the bye. We played Lamar when he was like, he, remember he played half the game? We played, um, the Browns were a great defense. The Browns beat, were, gave a lot of quarterbacks a lot of trouble. We had no problem. There's one other big game that we had that I was.

• 9:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, there was, they played Atlanta right before Atlanta did a swoon too. Or they played against Atlanta when Atlanta was, was pretty good. So yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  I just can't defend the easy schedule anymore. I'm like, you know what? Then you should be, you should be driving a brand new Mercedes then. If you, if you saw how the, that the Patriots were gonna win 14 games, you should've bet it.

• 10:18Bill Simmons?

  Right. They were, though.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  It was right there for you.

• 10:21Bill Simmons?

  It was seven and a half or eight and a half depending on when you had it during the season. And, uh, and they overachieved by like six wins. AFC is, is in a weird spot. I don't think the Bills are very good. Baltimore's got a new coach, Chargers, who knows? Denver, who knows? Casey's got Mahomes coming back off the torn ACL and a bunch of upheaval. It's, it's been fun to try to figure out. NFC, I have more, more steady opinions, but.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  That being said.

• 10:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Opening night, must win.

• 10:52Bill Simmons?

  Week one must win?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  It is a must win.

• 10:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't have must wins at the NFL until November, December.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I have them early.

• 11:00Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  That is, that is a must. If we get shellacked.

• 11:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Just, it's for my own ego. I mean, not, not for like how the logistics of the season and how it plays out, but it's gonna, it's a must win for me.

• 11:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  I, I can't walk back into the studio after back to back embarrassing losses. It's a must win game.

• 11:20Bill Simmons?

  They definitely have more talent than they did last year. They're in the year two of the coaching staff that they have, continuity matters. And if you're gonna ding them, it's, it's that the schedule's harder and the variable thing, I have no idea if there's any fallout from the soap opera of the last six months. I would guess, no. I certainly don't think the players care, but who knows? But listen, it's half baked ideas time. We haven't done this in a while. I got some great ones from readers too, but this is, this is your show. I don't know if you want to give us like a cleanup hitter coming out of that. Do you wanna, wanna get like a leadoff hitter? Do you wanna do a cleanup hitter? Where do you wanna go?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  An update to the credit card cafe that I need to get your, some clarification on.

• 12:01Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I dropped Russell off at camp in New Hampshire, driving back, I stay overnight in the Berkshires. It's like, okay, I'm, I'm by myself. I go across the street to the bar, get a hamburger. The, the table behind me, kinda rowdy group of guys. All of a sudden I hear they're doing credit card roulette.

• 12:23Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm there. I'm like, kinda like feeling good. I'm like in the woods. It's like kinda nice. I'm like, I'm feeling lucky. Do you think it would have been a violation for me to be like, hey fellas, I want in?

• 12:38Bill Simmons?

  What do you get out of it?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  That I want my meal paid for.

• 12:42Bill Simmons?

  You like complete strangers. Let's double this up.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like, there's like, it was, I think it was a table of six guys. Or do you think like, no, this is our bonding moment. We don't really, aren't accepting just strangers at the bar?

• 12:56Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, that's.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, the more the merrier.

• 12:58Bill Simmons?

  This sounds like the beginning of an action movie that I would have seen 10 times. Where a good natured guy on his own for the night in the mountains, thought he'd make some friends, play a little credit card roulette, and now people are getting shot, people are on the run. He's wrongly accused.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Jason.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  I think Jason Statham's playing you or Viggo Mortensen.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I didn't do it. I felt like I missed out on a bonding opportunity with these guys.

• 13:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, we have another update, speaking of stuff from previous half baked ideas, if you haven't heard. A reader named Bill from Massachusetts said he ate at the new Red Robin where they had the burger towers. We had talked about food towers and Red Robin apparently is doing different towers for like onion rings, sliders, so that the towers, keep an eye on this.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  How tall was the tower? Do you know?

• 13:50Bill Simmons?

  It was, it seemed like it was five burgers and it just looked better than bringing them out on a platter, I think. I mean, I'm just much more excited. Yeah, I'm much more excited to see, but it was a tower. It wasn't like a big pole through the burgers. They were all like on, on.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I've gotta see it.

• 14:05Bill Simmons?

  Tears.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I've gotta see it.

• 14:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  All right. First half baked idea, are you ready?

• 14:10Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  You know, male loneliness is an epidemic.

• 14:16Bill Simmons?

  It really is.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  So we can get, just guys in general, you just get stuck on your phone, you're just, you know, you doom scrolling, they call it. So I switched this up. It's called Zoom scrolling. Okay. It's, it's part of a application within Zoom. You know, when you're in your car?

• 14:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  And you've been, you haven't put your seatbelt on and then your car knows after a certain amount of time, it will start beeping at you. Hey, you're putting, this is unhealthy for you. You need to buckle your seatbelt.

• 14:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, as you know, from driving with me, I never buckle it and I just wait the minute until it stops doing the noise.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Well, you, you, you don't buckle your seatbelt ever?

• 14:59Bill Simmons?

  Eh, not really.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  That's a terrible.

• 15:02Bill Simmons?

  I know. I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. I just don't like seatbelts. I know, listen, I, I know, I'll get skewered. I'm a bad example. Sometimes I'll put them on. If I'm going like, you know, 95 on the highway, I might throw it on there, but.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  I, I mean, that's a whole nother podcast.

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna defend it.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Most people think that that's a positive, healthy reminder.

• 15:23Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  So here's Zoom scrolling. If there's a certain part, if you're, you know, just mindlessly flipping through your, scrolling through your phone, at a certain point, your phone activates and one of your closest friend or just someone in your contact, their Zoom will activate.

• 15:46Bill Simmons?

  So they come to save you.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  You, you just have to talk to, you just have to talk to them on a, it's like running into them in the street.

• 15:55Bill Simmons?

  So it's like the Instagram restrictions where if you're on for 15 minutes, Instagram will shut down.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:01Bill Simmons?

  This is the opposite. This is positive. It sends you to a friend.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're trying to introduce your friends because your, your buddies are out there scrolling too. So all of a sudden you're scrolling, scrolling, oh my goodness, I wanna buy that, you know, Mustang and then you keep on going through. Then all of a sudden, oh, hey, oh man, it's my buddy Jesse. I haven't talked to him in a while. And he's always like, oh, hey, what's going on? You talk to each other for 30 seconds and you keep going. So you're getting rid of sort of doom scrolling and also fighting the epidemic that is male loneliness.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good. May, it makes it more social. There's, there's a prize at the end. Except would they, would your friends be able to turn their settings off so they wouldn't be activated to come save you?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  No, it is, it's government mandated. It's something that the FCC is involved to fight male loneliness because it's an epidemic.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  See, I was wondering, I thought, I like this idea. I was wondering, cause they have these things where it's just, you've been online too long. You've reached your limit, get off.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Like brick your phone or whatever.

• 16:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but now that they also, AI is getting better and better. And I wonder if AI could get to the point where somebody could just talk to you like, almost like your social media therapist, but it would be AI and they could be like, Bill, you've been looking at Bruins hockey fights from 1970s for 45 minutes now. And you've already watched this Terry Riley fight three times over the last six months. I just want you to rethink this. These games happened almost 50 years ago. Maybe move on.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  There's nothing more to watch.

• 17:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's nothing more. You've seen all the Bruins fights. You've seen every L C court fight that could have ever happened. You've watched all the Stan Jonathan fights. You've seen John Wentzink in different brawls. You don't need to go here anymore.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  It's good. All right. You wanna hear my, um, where is my stupid, um, I have, I have a, um,

• 17:52Speaker 01

  I have an AI one that will, will, will bake into it. I don't have a name for it.

• 17:56Bill Simmons?

  Okay, let's hear it.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  So we were playing, um, we turned our chat GPT into a game show host. I didn't know what you could do is we're like, hey, go into game show host mode. And we're just like, um, well, like name every hockey team. So you get the list of the hockey teams and then we'll all, we all go around the car. We're like the Bruins, the Rangers, the Red Wings. Then eventually you get stuck and they're like, oh, you have four more. And we're trying to get it and the first person that doesn't get it, you're out. And you can talk to it and it will, it'll be like a little game show host. So we're going around and Billy just gives us, he's, he's stuck. So he just says, the carnivores.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  And chat GPT of course says, correct. Next three to go. And we're like, no, there's no team called the carnivores. And chat GPT says, oh, you're right. My mistake. I, I thought there was or I, you're right. You know, and it's got this weird, I've got the settings on in a weird manner. So here's the issue.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  VAR, automated balls and strikes, and of course the tennis lines, these things are super accurate.

• 19:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  But you still wanna boo them. We've lost the John McEnroe vibe in tennis. Who's he gonna yell at? The ball was out. The robot said it.

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Do, you know, you're out. You can't really argue. It was a ball. What am I supposed to do? Have some element of just total mistakes within.

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  Within chat GPT.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yes, within the like, oh, balls and strike. Oh, he checked it.

• 19:43Bill Simmons?

  You caught us.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  It's out, it's out, it's definitely a ball, but it's still a strike. Like what? And then you can just get light up. Oh, this is, this tennis ball, it's on the line and then it pops up out. The what's going on? Everybody can boo. It can be more emotion to it. So it's not so stale.

• 20:04Bill Simmons?

  I like it.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Introducing an element of.

• 20:07Bill Simmons?

  You like ABS, right?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, yes, but I also like.

• 20:13Bill Simmons?

  I think it's, I think it's been great. They had one today where the guy missed it by three inches. It would have been strike three on Durbin.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they know. Yeah, that almost, you know, we almost came back.

• 20:21Bill Simmons?

  Three inches? Fucking get this guy's eyes checked. You, you get really mad when the, um, makes, makes a mistake.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  But I, I, if I don't like taking away, like, has it reduced arguing?

• 20:34Bill Simmons?

  It's a good point. It has a little bit.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  More emotion. Like I haven't seen a, a manager come out and kick dirt on the home, on home plate all this year.

• 20:41Bill Simmons?

  That's why we have the WNBA now. Everybody's just arguing about everything, every game. Just constant screaming. The WNBA is a Bravo show now. It's great.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Goodness. All right. You have one? You've been teasing one.

• 20:54Bill Simmons?

  I have, I have an unbelievable one from a reader. I have a couple of good reader ones, but I really have a great one from my wife and I don't know when you want me to unleash it.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  So just before you do that, I wanna hear it right away.

• 21:05Bill Simmons?

  One of the best ones ever from my wife somehow.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  This.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  I just want to be honest with you. We've been doing this pod for like 15 years.

• 21:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  I've never texted you, hey, I've got a great half baked idea. And you've never texted me, I've got a great half baked idea.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  This is the first time ever.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  The very nature of the idea, if it is any good, then it's just an idea. It has to be fundamentally bad. So I feel like you violated the terms of engagement with this.

• 21:40Bill Simmons?

  Right, okay, that's fair.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  So this, I hope that it's perfectly mediocre, which is the real sweet spot of half baked ideas. But I do want to hear you. You've been teasing it for weeks.

• 21:53Bill Simmons?

  I'll give it to you now. And I really do think it's a perfect half baked idea because I don't think it can happen, but I loved it. So we went, we went to Hawaii and we were there for a week and my wife loves dogs, right? We've always had two or three dogs basically since 2005.

• 22:10Bill Simmons?

  So like about day three, she said, you know, it'd be great. I'm like, what? She said, if, if you're away in a place like Hawaii and you could just adopt a dog for like two days.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Like a hotel dog.

• 22:24Bill Simmons?

  It basically, they have like, there's a service and they know people are coming in and it's just like, I'd like a golden retriever for two days to join me on my vacation. And they'll bring, oh, we'll bring, we'll give you Millie. And then Millie comes in and she's a six year old golden and it's a female and we walk her and she sleeps in the room with us. And then, uh, and then she gets her dog fix. We take her into the ocean.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's loving it.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and we're paying them and then we return Millie near the end of the trip like we would return the car. Like, thanks for, Millie was great. We would, we would absolutely run this back with her next time we're here.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  And Millie, and Millie's having a blast too.

• 23:02Bill Simmons?

  She said, everybody wins. We're the, the person who has the dogs, they're getting paid. Everybody wins.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Maybe some rescue dogs, maybe you end up taking the dog home.

• 23:13Bill Simmons?

  Maybe, maybe it's a cup of coffee to see if maybe we take the dog back. Maybe it's like, you know, we love Millie. What, how much would it take? Would it, we, we just want to sign her up for the Simmons family for the rest of mankind. Is this too good of an idea or is it a half baked idea?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So I've been, I've been at a hotel where they have a, um, a hotel dog. It's just sleeping in the lobby. And it's very much like, hey, can we play with this dog? Like, yeah, but it kind of hangs out in the lobby. Can I take it for a walk?

• 23:41Bill Simmons?

  This is like when, like how you go, I don't know if you've ever used Turo. You go in Turo and it's like, oh, I want, it's basically like your own, it's like a, like a rental car, but it's like you can pick, pick like, it's like a slightly higher level of cars. You'd be like, oh, I really want like a Ford Explorer.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Got you.

• 23:59Bill Simmons?

  And it would be the same thing here. It'd be like, oh, I'm on the dog site. I really always have just wanted a Great Dane. Just two, two days with a Great Dane. Oh, let's go to the site and be like, oh, when we're in, you know, when we're in Hawaii, we'll get, we'll get this Great Dane for two days.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  I don't know if it's right for us, but I really want a Saint Bernard.

• 24:17Bill Simmons?

  Right, or we'll try, right. Saint Bernard, maybe we'll get a Great Dane for two, Saint Bernard for two and finish with the, with the six year old golden. I don't know.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  Just keep bringing them back. There's something here though.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  I think that's great. You know where they get you though? The tennis ball rental.

• 24:33Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  The tennis, the tennis balls.

• 24:35Bill Simmons?

  It's like $20 a tennis ball.

• 24:40Bill Simmons?

  She, Millie only likes specific tennis balls. They're 60 a can.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  How much is the chuck it? Yeah, no, Millie, you get Millie $19 a day, but the chuck it is $80 one.

• 24:52Bill Simmons?

  It's a great one. All right, you go.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  You're gonna love this one.

• 24:57Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  You're gonna love this one.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  So I like FanDuel, as we all do.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Not a huge fan of losing money. Also, not a huge fan of winning money. So if I win 20 bucks, I'll be like, oh, cool. But if I lose 20 bucks, I'll be pretty furious.

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  We should mention you're not really a gambler.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:22Bill Simmons?

  Kevin, wow, it's not like really fun to go to Vegas with, just.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  No, definitely not.

• 25:27Bill Simmons?

  Not, definitely not. Not a great time.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  But I want, but I, I, I'm, I want to sort of exercise my predictive powers. I want to be part of the conversation, et cetera, et cetera.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  And growing up, my parents subscribed to Yankee magazine. Like a New England magazine. Do you remember this magazine by any chance?

• 25:49Bill Simmons?

  That was the first thing that ever published me.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yankee magazine, really?

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  Grad school, I wrote this piece and the professor really liked it and I ended up got in a Yankee magazine.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  So I, I think now it's a full, full sized magazine, but it used to be almost.

• 26:02Bill Simmons?

  Mini magazine.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Like farmer's almanac size. And in the back was this throwback where I did some research on it. I think they did this in the late 1800s called Yankee Swap. And this is where Yankee Swap came from. Where you say, hey, you know, I'd like a John Deere lawnmower and I've got a canoe. Anybody interested in, you would call you, if you want this lawnmower, I'm looking for a lawnmower. Are you interested in the canoe? So you can trade stuff.

• 26:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  But you're not buying stuff, you're just trading stuff that you got. So it's a little bit sort of like polymarket. I want to be able to bet, but I just want to bet some of the stuff that I have versus some of the stuff that someone else has.

• 26:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so you bet like 1984 Sports Illustrateds. You'd be like, I'll bet all of these.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  I've got, I got 10 of them. I'm, but I'm looking for a blender. Anybody want to put something up against me on that the Bills lose the first game against the Texans? First like, yeah, I'm from Texas. I've got a big smoker. I'm like, oh man, that smoker is worth a lot. I've got a, you know, I've got a lacrosse net that my son's on. You're like, great deal.

• 27:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  We, we punch it in on this eBay type app thing. And then that's the bet. And next thing you know, if I win, I've, all of a sudden this guy sends me this big smoker. Yeah, that's got to be baked in somehow.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  So eBay would have to like use some sort of system to judge a general value for everything that people put on.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Well, no, there's an emotional value too. Like, yeah, I just want to see, I'm taking Texans over Bills. I can see, I, I see who's on the other side of it and everything that they're offering. And then, hey, are you guys, are you guys interested in this lacrosse net that I'm getting rid of? Until someone says yes.

• 27:52Bill Simmons?

  So I could say, I have the envelope that the Celtics got the number five pick in the 07 lottery.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 27:59Bill Simmons?

  I'm willing to bet this, but I need, I need some big stakes from the other side. Let's go. What do you got? And then somebody's like, I have a Paul Newman jersey from Slapshot. Like, let's fucking go right now.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  There you go. That's a little more.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yes, that's like high stakes. I'm doing more Yankee Swap style or like.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  You're like trying to clean your garage out.

• 28:21Bill Simmons?

  I got a second leaf for Laura.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Rusty 25 pound weights. Anybody interested in them? They're, they're covered with rust. Like I'm looking for a weed whacker.

• 28:32Bill Simmons?

  Or after you got married, like some, somebody gave you an ice cream sundae maker. You just never opened, still in the box.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  I've got a popcorn maker that shoots the popcorn all over the counter. I'll be honest with you, just what, what do you want? Just any sort of Patriots coaster.

• 28:47Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good. So it's basically eBay and FanDuel merging.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  And becoming like a property swap across the bed. I think that's pretty good. That's like a three fourths of a baked idea.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  That was a good idea.

• 29:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's solid.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yankee magazine FanDuel, that's crossed off. You have another one? I've got, I've got this one.

• 29:07Bill Simmons?

  I have some great reader ones.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:09Bill Simmons?

  Including, um, Matt from Edmonton said he's a long time listener and enjoyer of hackbaked ideas.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks, Matt.

• 29:15Bill Simmons?

  He wants to, um, create a historical workplace comedy TV show that focuses on the janitorial staff at the Manhattan Project. And it's called Moppenheimer.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  No puns.

• 29:27Bill Simmons?

  No puns, half baked ideas, okay.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  No, that felt like a pun that was, that was.

• 29:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, okay. Tommy Leonelli.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  We just dismissed Moppenheimer immediately.

• 29:39Bill Simmons?

  This might be better than a half baked.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:41Bill Simmons?

  He's talking about express checkout at a hotel. You just check out, your card settles everything, you don't think about it. He said, the worst part of any dinner out isn't the wait for the table. It's the exit tax, that awkward 10 to 15 minutes in of a meal. You're flagging down the waiter, waiting.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Totally agree.

• 29:55Bill Simmons?

  Meal's over, great dinner vibes fade, you just want to get out. Half baked idea, you go to the restaurant, you check in. The bill auto closes on checkout, receipt hits your email, you tip on the phone from the parking lot, do pre-tip, whatever. Hotels have been doing this forever, why don't restaurants do it? That's actually better than a half baked idea.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  That's a, well, I went out to dinner, we had a show dinner.

• 30:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I'm ready to go. I was, I was ready to go, I was done with the dessert. We were like, I'm, I'm gonna go. I'm, I'm.

• 30:30Bill Simmons?

  You've been sitting in the chair for two hours.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  I, I'm just antsy, I'm, I'm not watching Spider-Man here, fellas. I'm ready, I'm ready to leave. The conversation has now started to plateau.

• 30:42Bill Simmons?

  Nick writes, arguing with somebody about Mahomes. It's like, it's time to go.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  I'm ready to move. I love that idea.

• 30:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I love, I love that idea.

• 30:51Bill Simmons?

  Somebody should try that. Okay, you go.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  You're gonna love this idea.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Kids at camp, no phones, no digital appliances, writing letters. We're writing letters to them.

• 31:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  They're writing letters back to us. It's really nice.

• 31:12Bill Simmons?

  Kids' letters are usually disappointing.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Well, I'll be honest with you.

• 31:17Bill Simmons?

  They don't put a lot into it.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  I don't know if they're, I don't know.

• 31:20Bill Simmons?

  Not a lot of effort.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  But they're, they're, they're trying, you know, it's not bad, but it's not necessarily what you would expect.

• 31:30Bill Simmons?

  Especially the boys. The boys are just, you know, my, boys are away at camp. Mom's like having a stroke every day about it. And then, oh, it's a letter came in from Ben. Hey, Mom. Hope you're good. Love, Ben.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  There was a snake in the cabin. That was the highlight. Okay, someone did, someone mentioned this concept to me on social media, but I couldn't find their, the Instagram message. So I apologize to this person, but I want to give them credit.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Because you're about to be an empty nester. And again, even though I don't like puns, this was just a coincidence.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  And when Ben got into college, did he do the whole click the, click the video and it pops up? You're accepted. Everything's now on the computer, right?

• 32:20Bill Simmons?

  No, it was an email. He didn't have that.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  An email?

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  It's even lamer.

• 32:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  This goes the other way.

• 32:29Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  You go out to

• 32:35Speaker 01

  the mailbox. Oh my God. It is a five foot by five foot box and it's making noise. Ben, oh my gosh. I, I, I think this is what I think it is. You bring it inside, you open it up. Holy cow. It is a huge birdcage filled with pigeons, homing pigeons. Ben got into college and this is how you're sending them letters. The pigeons are from the college.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  This is where they were raised. Oh my goodness. So now you have to raise these pigeons for a little while until he goes off to school.

• 33:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  And then whenever you're ready, whenever he's settled, like, all right, honey, let's go. You grab a pigeon that you've been taking care of. You put there. Get it? Nice.

• 33:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Attach this letter to its leg and then it flies off because kids love, you know, records. Although they are very digital savvy, the analog is starting to have a real comeback. And there's nothing more analog

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  It is true.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  than a, a homing pigeon. Now they can only go one way. That's the issue. I learned about this.

• 33:53Bill Simmons?

  How far can they go? Like, oh, my goodness.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  They can go to South America.

• 33:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  They, they, they navigate via mag, the earth's magnetism. They're unbelievable.

• 34:05Bill Simmons?

  Honing pigeons.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Homing pigeons are back.

• 34:08Bill Simmons?

  Homing pigeons.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Homing pigeons, yes.

• 34:10Bill Simmons?

  Let us say honing, homing.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Well, they hone in on, um, they hone in on where they're from. And this is a little bit of like empty, it's called empty nesters.

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  That you're an empty nester, but you have these pigeons. And then when you're out of pigeons, you've, you've sent your seven letters. That's a sign, oh, we've got to go see Ben. Boom. You fly back out there. And when you're there, you go to the bookstore. Oh, I'll take a dozen pigeons.

• 34:37Bill Simmons?

  What, what happens to the pigeon after it delivers the message? It just goes for the rest of its life?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Well, this, it's, no, you have to go back to the bookstore now. You order 12 pigeons.

• 34:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  And then you take them back to LA and then you're, they're ready to.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  Can I think they fit in the overhead compartment or no?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  No, you have to, they travel, they travel separately.

• 34:57Bill Simmons?

  Next to the plane. Okay.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  With the dog.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Empty nesters.

• 35:05Bill Simmons?

  Kevin in Minnesota says, no one wants to take the keys from their aging unsafe parents.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Great call.

• 35:13Bill Simmons?

  Now you don't have to.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  They take the car in for an oil change. You've pre-arranged the mechanic to make the car self-driving. They outfit it with autonomous driving tech response to their actions, but not really. Now your parent thinks you're driving. But they're like a child at an arcade machine with, with no quarters in it. The world's safer. Uh, your dad drives in the nineties and he wants to call it Gramo.

• 35:40Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty good. Gramo.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Get in there, just press buttons. She waits.

• 35:49Bill Simmons?

  For two hours, she completely changed the car. We gotta take a break. We'll come back with more half-baked. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. There's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind. Not just, when you drive with me, you drive with peace of mind. I'm one of the great drivers. But knowing you're behind the wheel of Consumer Reports' safest new car brand, that's Mazda. That's going to give you peace of mind. The Mazda CX 50 Hybrid comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. So confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Mazda, move and be moved. Visit MazdaUSA.com and discover how confidence comes standard.

• 36:30Bill Simmons?

  Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Half-baked ideas is back. By the way, Colin from Portland, Oregon wants, thinks MLB should do metal bat Sundays.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Great take.

• 36:47Bill Simmons?

  Just Sundays, metal bats. It would change the strategy. Pitcher, they'd put their worst pitchers in there because everybody's hitting it further. It would probably end when there's a live drive.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Just one day. I don't know if I need every Sunday, but just one day.

• 36:58Bill Simmons?

  Field of Dreams Day? So Netflix, Netflix pays for metal, metal bat Sunday.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:04Bill Simmons?

  And it's just the game. Everybody gets to use the metal bat.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Who says no? That is a home run idea.

• 37:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm watching. Okay.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  And it's a, it's a carve out. Oh, regular old game. Oh, what are we watching? Cardinals, Rangers? No, it's a metal bat game. Holy cow. Great take. Great take.

• 37:22Bill Simmons?

  What else you got?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Did I ever tell you a story about my buddy who ran a KB toy store? Have I ever told you this story?

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  No, but I still love KB toy stores. They, they had all the, all the cards that I used to buy growing up. They used to have the three packs.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Oh, the rack pack.

• 37:38Bill Simmons?

  Rack packs. Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, all right. So my buddy Dan used to manage a KB toy store and he came back to, uh, the dorms one day and he said, I got a great idea. So what, I said, what is it, Dan? He said, I know the ins and outs of KB toy stores better than anyone. I said, okay. He said, I know the margins. I know it all. I'm like, okay.

• 38:08Bill Simmons?

  This is good.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Says, there is a open storefront across from my KB toys. So yeah. So here's my toy store.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Dollar less than KB toys.

• 38:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, almost like a Mocha Joe type thing. Right.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  I said, I said, Dan, that is going to work. I, I, I just loved it. Just dollar less than KB toys. So a combination of that and my Fitz furniture concept where we're just, it's furniture that fits in your house. We're just a one idea.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Business.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Had to call my bank the other day. Didn't go well.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Didn't even speak to a human. What's your bank called? Only humans. Only humans is the idea. Get this.

• 39:07Bill Simmons?

  It's incredible.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Only humans. No robots. Boom. Right away. Bang. You're talking, hey, what's up? Immediately. First call. Hello. Hey, what's going on?

• 39:16Bill Simmons?

  What's up, Bill? How are you?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Hey, how, how's it going? You're going to love this even more. But no one's calling the chat, right? The first line of

• 39:29Speaker 01

  the first level of person that you talk to is what I'm calling, uh, M T I B S level employee. You call for, for something. This person, the first thing they say to you, man, that is bullshit. Immediately. You're like, yes, thank you. Thank you, Brian. I can't believe we're doing that. That is bullshit, man. But yes, it is. I, that's what I'm saying. That's a double charge. He's like, yeah, let me get you to somebody. So the first level of defense, they're not.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  That guy's just on your side.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  He's immediate. Yes. They have no, they have no idea what's going on in the bank.

• 40:11Bill Simmons?

  He's not suspicious. He's not thinking you're trying to pull something over on him. Nothing.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  They have, they have no trade. They've never even been to the bank. They, they have no banking background at all. They are just immediately on your side and that's our loyalty component. And then at the next level of only humans bank, then you'll get to someone that can actually help you. But you're already in a good mood because someone had heard you out.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  It's a great idea. I mean, it, it could run in concert with my idea of no babies on this plane airlines.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  Everybody's 10 years and older.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 40:45Bill Simmons?

  That's it.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  It's just, there's just no babies on this one. We have a baby specific plane.

• 40:50Bill Simmons?

  We have a 10-year-old cutoff. It's like, it's like an amusement park ride. You have to be over this certain height to get on the roller coaster. You have to be 10 years and up to get on the plane.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It's a great take.

• 41:00Bill Simmons?

  Um, uh, P A B, he sent his initials as an acronym. He really liked your half-baked idea about youth sports training to be an intramural champion, which you did in the last one. But he thought, um, you should take it a step further. It's an entire youth sports league built around just the best possible experience for the parents.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:23Bill Simmons?

  All parents who know that their kids not, not getting a college scholarship. He said, tournament locations always coincide with great peaches, great peaches, casinos or sporting events you can attend as a fan. The hours are set up so you can go out drinking with the other parents at night. No bad weather, bartenders at all events, and you get credit for spending the weekend at your kid's volleyball tournament. Take it from there. It's half-baked.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Can I add one thing that I think is very important?

• 41:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  The kids don't try out, the parents do.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  So the, you know, the hockey team, oh, it's tryouts tonight. The kids are playing hockey, but the coaches are upstairs at the bar watching people interact.

• 42:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man, I don't think Jimmy's gonna make it past the first tryouts. He was drinking before we got here.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  It's like, you're very nervous and some people are like in full suits. They like really wanna make the team.

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  So I was like, I think you're gonna make it.

• 42:23Bill Simmons?

  I think the, the reason this is a half baked idea is I think people would have ringers. They'd have ringer kids in the league so their, so their kids could dominate. And then they could be like.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  The wins and losses, the wins and losses are not the point.

• 42:38Bill Simmons?

  For the parents, there's still games. You still have to get competitive on the sidelines. It's just the expectations are lower or maybe you don't, maybe you don't get.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 42:48Bill Simmons?

  Competitive at all.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  So Russell played in like, at one point, Russell played on somehow four baseball teams in one calendar year. And one of the teams, the games were literally across the street from a house and we would walk there.

• 43:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  And it wasn't the highest quality baseball in the world, but it was all buddies.

• 43:07Bill Simmons?

  Favorite league he's ever been in. Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  It was, he, and he loved it.

• 43:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  He, the kids wanna just have fun. Like I know that's a crazy concept. He absolutely loved it. I think that's a great idea. I like the parents trying out part. Cause if you get on a team with parents that you're not really rocking with, it's rough. Caught at the bar like, ah, hey, yeah. No, I, yeah, no, Bill is a nice guy. No, he's a great guy.

• 43:31Bill Simmons?

  It is like a baseball clubhouse. You can, you can have one bad apple parent, but if you have two, the wheels come off. Or the NBA is an even better example. You get away with the one head case, but if you have the two head cases that can start becoming buddies.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Not great.

• 43:47Bill Simmons?

  Wheels come off.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Speed round, yeah, speed round. Tell me if you wanna stop on any of these. Number one, kids want medium sized ice creams. Adults want a small scoop. Kitty size should be two scoops and the adult size should be one. World Cup grabbing shirts and jerseys.

• 44:02Bill Simmons?

  Wait, hold on. So you're saying the kids scoop? When I say a kid scoop now, it's actually twice as much ice cream and the adult single scoop is less than the kid scoop. Yeah. Why wouldn't they do it that way?

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Guy go up there, Billy says, I'll watch two birthday party bonanzas and another scoop of Oreo madness. And I'm like, can I have one kitty scoop of mid chip, ladies?

• 44:29Speaker 01

  It's ridiculous.

• 44:30Bill Simmons?

  Do you have any vegan flavors?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Kitty scoop, I'll have the adult scoop. The adult scoop is small and manageable. The kitty scoop is.

• 44:39Bill Simmons?

  That's good. One for one and speed round.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  World Cup grabbing shirts, jerseys. Everyone should wear skin tight spandex like a scuba diver. You would never be held and you're faster. Number three, a stadium specifically designed to put the crowd into an ornery mood. Number four, 35 pound remote. Number five, loser plane. Again, loser plane is just when I don't have this one. This is not probably half big. It's why it's running anchor leg on the speed round. When teams have to fly back and like, oh, it's gonna be a rough, that's gonna be a rough plane ride. I don't know if I wanna be on the plane, but some sort of misery loves company, just a miserable, a miserable plane.

• 45:25Bill Simmons?

  Wait, can we go back to ornery stadiums?

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Yes. We wanna hear the story behind the ornery stadium?

• 45:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, cause I was thinking like in kidnapped movies, like in ransom, when they play the person in the dark room, they're playing like really terrible electronic rock music.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  Like pulsating music so they can't hear the conversations.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:44Bill Simmons?

  Are you, you're thinking that like you'd put the fans kind of uncomfortable with, with the environment? Or what, what are you thinking?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  The genesis of this is we went to the Texans Patriots game in the rain. And I didn't realize when we were pulling up, people were in full ski outfits, which I don't own a head to toe ski outfit. I just had regular warm clothes.

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  Or they wear the plastic thing that goes over your whole everything.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I just had regular heavy clothing on. We get to the stadium and the seats are soaking wet. Like, all right, well, we're not sitting. I would have liked to sit if it was a sunny day, if I was at SoFi, if it was Patriots Texans, I would have sat down at least once. Can't sit down. It's my seat is ruined.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  So I don't know if it's, if it's wet seats, smaller seats. Again, I don't know if the technology is there. Occasionally some spikes come up and maybe spike you a little bit.

• 46:48Bill Simmons?

  It sounds, it sounds like they're trying all of this with the new Buffalo Bill stadium.

• 46:53Bill Simmons?

  Obstructed seats, small scoreboard.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  But I don't buy, this is the central premise.

• 46:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  The more comfortable the seat, the less energy you have. That's sort of the point, right? If you're in a nice, huge recliner, you're not gonna be fired up.

• 47:12Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  And if you're sitting on the ground and you know, WW1 in a trench, you're, you're gonna be ready for action. So I don't want a more comfortable stadium. I want to be slightly uncomfortable. Maybe that's like old Fenway in me, but I wanna be, the stadium, the whole thing can be designed. I don't wanna be annoyed, but I wanna be ornery. It's a very fine line. I don't quite know how.

• 47:36Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's like the clips they play in the Jumbotron and they're just stuff that people don't really like.

• 47:43Bill Simmons?

  Like it's season, season eight of Entourage, like, oh, I hate this season. Oh, man, that's what it is. Had the drug problem. Yeah, this season sucked.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. You want another one?

• 47:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Well done.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, let me give you a quick.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Oh, this is a good one.

• 48:01Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna give you a quick one from Adam. Tattoo QR codes.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Great.

• 48:06Bill Simmons?

  People have tattoos. You don't know the meaning behind them. There's a little QR code next to it. If you're interested, you just, you just put your camera on it. It's like, here's the story of my tattoo.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  That's good for people with tattoos as well. So when Bill Murray gives you that card, you had an interaction with Bill Murray or whatever Steve Martin does it. So they don't have to keep on explaining.

• 48:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm all for more QR codes. Anyway.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Really?

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Not in restaurants.

• 48:33Bill Simmons?

  No, no, no. I like QR codes in general. I like when they pop up on ads.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  But not men, I just outside of menus. I don't wanna do it on a menu.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  I don't mind the menu.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Oh my, you sit down and there's a QR code sitting like attached to your.

• 48:47Bill Simmons?

  Counter, I would say menus are probably top five most disgusting germ filled thing that you could probably touch. Number one being the screens on an airport on the, on the seat in front of you, those screens. I'm, I'm convinced they don't have, they're not wiping those down every flight.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Well, I have number one, the smiley face or frown face on the bathroom exits.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Like hole, which I do like that, but I'm not touching that. It's a little bit gross. Game that tune.

• 49:19Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Game that tune.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  So when we watch sports, we watch it through a few different lenses. We watch it through an entertainment lens, a sense of a stor, history, historical lens, a community lens, friends, family. My kids are watching games through a pure participatory lens. They play flag football, we're watching football. So everything that they're looking at, they are inserting themselves into the game to the point where when we're watching the game, Dad, how, how tall is he? How tall is Will Campbell?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Like I, I, I think he's six, how much, what's his 40 time? You think I could beat him in a race? Like, no, I, I don't think you could beat Will Campbell in a race. Do you think if I could beat him in a race with a five second head? Like, no, guys. But then they start to hurt their feelings. We're starting showing them videos of Larry Allen. Look how fast Larry Allen is, guys. You can't do this. Then I'm starting to beat them down though. Hey, do you think the entire flag football team could beat Khabib in a fight? Probably not. He's gonna, it's gonna be bad. Like, how about two, like, enough, guys, enough.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  That being said.

• 50:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I saw another video. Two pro beach volleyball players versus 20 rec league volleyball players. I was super into it. So it's game that tune.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  I like that.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  We'll start with three on three basketball.

• 51:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  And the, the, how you could normally see this idea is, oh, I get it. Three pros versus 10 Joes, pros versus Joes. Let's see how it works out. But here's the game that tune element of it. Remember name that tune, I can name it in 10 notes, I can name it in eight notes. So on one side, suppose you had Steph, um, Steph, Clay, Draymond. Okay. Cause everything's historical. On the other side, we've got JR Smith, uh, Kevin Love and Richard Jefferson. Now they are competing to see how big of a challenge they are willing to accept.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  So they start off, so they, all right, we can beat three rec league basketball players, two junior high school players and five of fifth graders.

• 51:57Bill Simmons?

  I mean, this was the best thing about name that tune, watching people up it.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  Be like, oh my God, don't do three.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  See that at, you know what? Add, add two more high school seniors. Holy cow.

• 52:10Bill Simmons?

  But they're gonna go five on three? Oh my God.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Keep going. Add an 80 year old, like an 80 year old, what's the, it starts to get weird. Eventually like, all right, you do it. And then the other team becomes the coach. Because a lot of times it's just a strategy issue. So if Steph and Draymond and Clay accept it, okay. Kevin Love and Richard Jefferson become the coaches of the team. Do it for basketball. Volleyball, I've seen it work for. I saw it, there was a Japanese game show was three soccer players versus, I think a hundred, maybe third graders.

• 52:44Bill Simmons?

  Sadly, I saw this. Yeah, I saw this.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  They didn't, they, they needed, they had no shape. Um, there was 10 goalies, but they needed some real coaching there too. So game that tune. So we can actually see like, all right, I don't know if you guys could be Khabib. But now it's Khabib and another UFC guy and they can, UFC would probably, I'll leave that to the side. Maybe non-contact sports.

• 53:07Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Game that.

• 53:10Bill Simmons?

  If, if Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were playing horse for $10 million, eight o'clock on ABC on Tuesday night, would you watch?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:20Bill Simmons?

  I would too.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  One on one sports, I'm into.

• 53:25Bill Simmons?

  I think like things with old people that we used to love doing something that hopefully won't get them hurt. Like I, I would just be fascinated, like Larry Bird, a three point contest. How, how many could he make now? Like he's, he's, I think he's about 70?

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Well, Bob Cousy made all those shots in blue chips, remember?

• 53:46Bill Simmons?

  That was great. Do you, are we in danger of soiling? The legacy, that, that's why it's a half baked. This half baked is from James in Nashville. I think you're gonna be horrified by this.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Gee whiz, that's a bad way to start.

• 54:01Bill Simmons?

  He said, there's a dumb companies like Cameo that lets celebrities connect with the public where they send you the messages.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  I thought Cameo was a nice company to try and recruit.

• 54:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm giving you what James is telling you.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:14Bill Simmons?

  But he says, well, why don't we take a step further? What if you could pay money to get a little bit of a celebrity's blood transfused in you? For example, he actually mentions Larry Bird. You find out Larry Bird's blood type, if it's a match, you could have him donate some drops to put in your body. And then you could tell people you have NBA championship blood in your veins.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Jesus, God.

• 54:39Bill Simmons?

  Uh, I don't even know if that's a quarterback idea.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  I don't know about that one.

• 54:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know about that one either.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I just came off of Spider-Man, that's what happened.

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh, is it?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Well, me, he's a spider.

• 54:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and then.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  That was the concept. A little bit of Larry Bird's blood is too weird. That, that probably doesn't pass the, it's, it's too weird.

• 55:04Bill Simmons?

  That's too weird. This one wasn't weird though. Adam in Chicago said, we did speech karaoke. We talked about that on a previous topic, did he? It exists. In Chicago, there's a place called Chicago Movie Oki. And you can go there and you can give speeches from different movies.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Chicago had.

• 55:23Bill Simmons?

  Chicago's always the best.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Chicago had something else. Huge old baseball with no gloves or something.

• 55:29Bill Simmons?

  That was from about last night. This, the 16 inch softballs with the no gloves.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't, I wasn't aware of this. Chicago was the answer to all of this.

• 55:37Bill Simmons?

  Chicago's great. Adam said he went there a couple of years ago and he did the rushing dragging scene from Whiplash.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  So does someone else have, does someone else need to play the drummer?

• 55:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. That's all, that's just the information he gave.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  But he just wants, he just kept on doing this. Not my tempo. That would be fun. I would love that.

• 55:56Bill Simmons?

  Movie Oki, pretty good idea.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  I think I'm out of half baked ideas, Bill. What?

• 56:01Bill Simmons?

  All right, I got one more from Craig in Las Vegas. He said, he works in an office with several other professionals. And the family photos, each of us have displayed in our offices are woefully out of date. He wants a service that comes to your office on an annual basis. They have access to all your social and they just update your photos. Like once a year. Like you, you have a picture of your two boys, but it's from when they were like in fourth grade and second grade. The service comes in is like wilds. Those, those photos are for, your kids are older now, like you need to do photos. And they just, they just kind of come in one day, 25 bucks. Just come in and change the photos.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Do I?

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  You've already signed up, you can't do anything about it.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  But do I need a current photo of my children every year?

• 56:49Bill Simmons?

  They go on your social media, they grab them. They have access to your private, your Facebook, your wife's Facebook.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Well, remember I had the idea of funeral photos?

• 56:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  A photographer that would come on your, I was looking at the obits the other day. And they're putting in these pictures of these old people. And they don't want all of them. Oh, 85 year old Maude passed away. They took a picture of the other day. That's not what Maude wants to look like.

• 57:17Bill Simmons?

  So I think, I think it should be like age 30 or 35. And it's just, like, it's the standard funeral photo. 25, 30?

• 57:26Speaker 01

  25 is too young though. You gotta just look like.

• 57:30Bill Simmons?

  No, but we just know, it's every time there's ever an obituary photo, the person's always 30 in it. It's just, we all make a rule.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  I just don't want to, if I died and you came to my funeral and I had a 25, like, heck, that doesn't look like that. I don't know.

• 57:44Bill Simmons?

  35?

• 57:48Speaker 01

  You know, I think I had the photo in your, in, in your contact, you had a mustache. Just saved it or you had a, I just thought it was the funniest one. But other people should probably pick them.

• 57:58Bill Simmons?

  Do you save your friends the contact photo? Do you put pictures of them so when they call you, there's a picture of them? I do that too.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  But then I guess it's, the program has changed where you can suggest a photo and it pops up. I'm not into that.

• 58:14Bill Simmons?

  No, I like picking the photos. Yeah, I have good photos.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  That you want of you?

• 58:20Bill Simmons?

  No, of, of my friends when they call, it's photos that I've selected. So when I see them on my phone, it's like, oh.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm laughing at them basically.

• 58:31Bill Simmons?

  There is.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  He's having a blast, my guys are always having a blast.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  Do you have, do you on your, I'm not gonna ask you this. It's too much personal information for me. Phone address book habits of whether it's people in your everyday life, you just have their names. But if you don't talk to them much, but you want them in your phone, I put a Z next to their name.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  A Z?

• 58:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so they're on the bottom.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Oh, brutal.

• 58:58Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  I don't, but then, I don't go through the phone book though. I just type in people's.

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  It's easier to go through, yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  You're treating it like a digital Rolodex.

• 59:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's like levels in my phone.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  So you've got triple A, somebody's triple A.

• 59:12Bill Simmons?

  No, it's all, it's all double Z's for everybody other than like 75 people.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Two tiers.

• 59:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  No one moves up to A.

• 59:22Bill Simmons?

  Sometimes people move up, they do. Like, you know what? I, they're in my life a little more than being a ZZ. Now they're just, now they're moving up, they hit the full name of my phone now. It's pretty good. Wilds, you, you've always been wilds in my phone.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, in a W. I'm way back there. I'm basically one step above the Z's.

• 59:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it's, it's very limited group as you go through.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  In the bottom.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  Um, all right, football's in a month.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  It's gonna be great. I just, I just can't wait. Patriots facing a must win and early FanDuel eBay. It's Texans over Bills. If anybody wants to bet me any specific thing that they have, pitch me what you're willing to trade me and I will go through my garage and basement to see if there's anything that I think lines up to equal value and we can get a bet on the board.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  Are you gonna film a new commercial for First Things First this year where they do the edits where it's like you guys are in different poses and then you're mad, then you're happy? Yeah, the Anchorman stuff, I like that stuff. Yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  I was gonna have a production company called Head Turns and Finger Points. It's just, we would specialize and.

• 1:00:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  And then reverse it.

• 1:00:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, the, the best ever at that was 90210. That was my favorite thing was the opening credits.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Just.

• 1:00:44Bill Simmons?

  Cause they would do the.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  It works. It works. It's great.

• 1:00:52Bill Simmons?

  Ian Ziering like had clearly practiced it for months before he was ready to do five, season six. Anyway, all right. Wow. It's great to see you. I'll see you before the end of the year for, for near holiday half baked.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  If not before then. Good to see you.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  All right. Go Patriots.

• 1:01:07Bill Simmons?

  Thanks, buddy.

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

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• 1:02:33Bill Simmons?

  So this mailbag episode is brought to you by ChatGPT, the official AI sponsor of the Bill Simmons Podcast. I actually used ChatGPT work for, I think it's the third or fourth question that's coming up here with Joe House. You'll see in a second, but it was very helpful. It's a, it's a strange question and I needed the help. So let's get to the mailbag and you'll see what I mean. All right. Joe House is here. We're gonna do some mailbag stuff. House and the Ringer Gambling Crew. We have changed the name of Ringer Gambling and it's now Ringer Wise Guys. And on Monday, a little, it's a soft relaunch, but we're going to be available on Twitch as well on the Ringer. We are reviving our Ringer account. So you can find Ringer Wise Guys on the, on the old feed on Spotify and everywhere else on pods,

• 1:03:18Bill Simmons?

  on Twitch and on YouTube. And we're doing division previews. You did your AFC East one on Friday. Raheem passed on two of the teams, which I thought was incredible.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  He had numbers. His model obviously is telling him some numbers and he's sharing what the model says, but he didn't have a strong conviction. So he didn't want to like jump in with heavy.

• 1:03:38Bill Simmons?

  Make a lean.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Heavy action.

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  I've yelled at everybody. We were gonna make actual picks on Ringer Wise Guys. Do you feel good about the name change? We were, we were Ringer Gambling Show for a long time.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Ringer Wise Guys is strong. That's, that's, we've, we've been that for, for a little while as well.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna do, we're doing Ringer 107 again with a tweak of four picks during the week. And then last second picks on Sunday will be exciting.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  That'll be fun.

• 1:04:05Bill Simmons?

  Mailbag stuff. So I had a bunch of these. Thanks to everybody who sends them in. I always enjoy them. I haven't sent any of them to the house.

• 1:04:15Bill Simmons?

  Mike wants to know, he was talking about the Adley Rutchman trade.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:04:20Bill Simmons?

  And we gave up five prospects for, oh my God, we gave up our second, fourth and fifth prospects for, and it just seems like a lot. And he was saying, oh, he was 10 years old at the game when Jeff Bagwell got traded for Larry Anderson, which was a famous terrible Red Sox trade. He says, it's taken me 36 years to realize something. MLB trades for prospects are the equivalent to NBA trades for draft picks. Trading Rutchman for three of our, getting him for three of the top five prospects is like trading a first and two second rounders in the NBA draft for a quasi all-star, right? So I was thinking about this. I think he's right. And I've always been a big, get the, get the real guy over the prospects.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  But then when you actually see the lists and the numbers, it's more intimidating than these amorphous first, second round picks. But I think he's right. Like what the Red Sox did basically was they traded an unprotected first, a heavily protected first and some seconds for a 28 year old catcher who's really good. And that made me feel better.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  There are good examples out there of teams, you know, doing that kind of asset collection, getting the, the prospects. And then, once you have that, that basket of, of prospects, if the team surprises you at any point, then you have something, then you have real leverage and real currency to do something. And that, that's kind of the, the position now Washington.

• 1:05:48Bill Simmons?

  It's like Charlotte with a bunch of firsts and seconds in the NBA right now, where it's like, if they want to make a move, they have cap space, all these things to do.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:05:56Bill Simmons?

  Do you agree with this?

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  I do. I think it's a good.

• 1:05:58Bill Simmons?

  Much harder to, football, they have like that whole chart and they're very determined, like the chart said this and pick 32 is worth this and they traded 32 for 74 and.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  That's, that's all like draft value. This is like, these are human beings. The, the prospects in baseball are, are real guys. It's different from, in the NBA where now we have, uh, you know, a, a protected first and three seconds. Well, who are the guys? No effing idea.

• 1:06:26Bill Simmons?

  Right. Or like one of the picks the Celtics got for Jalen was like, well, the Clippers, it might be Clippers. It could be the Sixers. It's protect, it's like, I can't keep track of any of this.

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  Burridge from Mississippi, he says, in the year of our Lord 2026, what does Steve Kerr, Draymond Green and the immortal Steph Curry have to play for? What indignity, what slow moral rot has taken the greatest dynasty since Kobe's Lakers and dragged it into this valley of mediocrity? I ask this not as a Warriors hater, but as a student of decline. A man who has studied the fall of empires and finds this one every bit as instructive as Rome's, if considerably less dignified. So I thought that really poured it on there.

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  I admire the inspired verbiage.

• 1:07:19Bill Simmons?

  It did make me think though. And I know we've already talked about this and Curry and Curry's, he's retiring as a Warrior. Like it's a rap and sadly the Warriors know this, but we haven't had a lot of these where it was like, something real happened for an extended bunch of years of the team that won titles. And then there comes an end to it, right? And so we saw with the Magic Lakers and, and Bird Celtics. So the MJ Bulls, which was abrupt. Magic's Lakers had figured out how to kind of keep it going. They got Vlad D. Batch and Perkins. And then Magic came down with the, with his diagnosis and that was, kind of ended it. Celtics just got old. They never replenished it. Matt, the Jordan's Bulls, that was like, we're rebuild, we're rebuilding and rebooting.

• 1:08:04Bill Simmons?

  Like we don't want you guys anymore. Like they made the decision easy. And then Shaq and Kobe with the Lakers.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  That was a Shaq Kobe. It's one of us has to go type of situation. They had to reboot with that. They were able to get the Gasol miracle and get a couple more years out of it. This one's pretty unique. This one's almost, almost like the 92 Celtics, like that range with Bird, Parrish, McHale, except they had Reggie Lewis and Brian Shaw and D. Brown, and they had this youth infusion and they kind of, they have a two timelines thing. Whereas the Warriors don't. And I just wonder.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  One timeline.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. How does this go? What like, and everybody signed up for two more years, basically. So what happens? None of us think this is, this is like barely a playoff team.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  There's still a trade to be had out there with the Jimmy Butler situation. And if we're gonna be, you know, appropriate about it, they did try. Jimmy Butler got hurt. They were a pretty goddamn good team when Jimmy Butler could play.

• 1:09:06Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  And they kind of were directionally going, you know, arrow pointing up to an additional asset at a trade deadline if Jimmy Butler hadn't gotten hurt. Like they were looking like they could be a kind of interesting playoff team.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the old guy team.

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. But, but the Butler injury changed everything and you can't immediately pivot. It's the, you know, the salaries are complicated. The salary cap is complicated. And so we are wondering what the hell's going on because we didn't see them make what seemed to be a genuine effort at, at, at Jalen Brown. Okay.

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, it seemed like they thought they, they didn't want Jalen Brown.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:09:51Bill Simmons?

  It seemed like they did want LeBron.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  They don't want Jalen Brown at that price. They would love to have LeBron at the, for four million bucks, eight million bucks or whatever it was. And then use that as a way to bring in another player that could actually help them compete. But they're kind of stuck now for a little while.

• 1:10:08Bill Simmons?

  So the question is, are you stuck forever or are you stuck until December, January? And is there actual plan? We're gonna use the Butler expiring, especially as it gets closer to February. We're gonna canvass the league and see what two to three unhappy teams are there. Situations that went sideways and we have a better chance to make a good trade then. We can hang around for a couple of months. Cause listen, these guys, Lacob, I think cares about his standing in the community and going to games and not being yelled at. He's got his kids involved, or at least one of them with the team. I just don't see them rolling over and going thirty seven and forty five now for the rest of the career. So that I, I feel like there's gonna be a move. So I think we're aligned.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  I, I agree.

• 1:10:52Bill Simmons?

  I think they didn't like the moves now.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:55Bill Simmons?

  But my guess is December, January, February, if they're around over five hundred, they go all in. So we.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  I agree with this.

• 1:11:01Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So it's not as dark as, uh, the fall of Rome. I guess would be my bigger point.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  Crumbling empires and dynasties.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  Kyle from New Jersey, you broke out the T-shirt the last time of the, uh, of.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Jaylen Brown on colonoscopy day. Yeah.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  He asked, would you say we've gotten to the point where you have, you've had the most famous colonoscopy of all time? My sister got one recently. I still thought of you over her. I guess that's the bar. Not sure if there are any other famous colonoscopies. Kyle, you're dead wrong. Uh, I actually went to chat GPT to figure out if there were other ones. Cause I, I always thought of the Katie Couric one. That was the famous one.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  That, that is the famous one. And it's so funny. You mentioned that. That's.

• 1:11:41Bill Simmons?

  There's a more famous one. So here's.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  Famous?

• 1:11:44Bill Simmons?

  Chat GPT came up with five. Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty-five. Cause they found blood in his stool and they found a cancerous section of his colon and he made a recovery. And that was like, apparently the first real screening. Katie Couric, after her husband tragically died. Kimmel had one in two thousand and eighteen.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Yep. I remember.

• 1:12:02Bill Simmons?

  Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mack filmed a whole thing in twenty-two and Terry Crews filmed his in twenty-three and sent it out to all his social media. So there are five that were marked there. I don't think I'm in the top twenty.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Those are public health, you know, the whole thing is about the public health. You, you didn't intentionally, um, schedule years with a public health message attached to it, but it turned out to be a famous day.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  See, I think you did more for colonoscopies than me because you've talked about them on multiple podcasts about how great they were and how great the nap was. And you liked, you didn't mind drinking the gross thing. You have to drink twice and.

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 1:12:40Bill Simmons?

  I felt the same way. Uh, Jeff from Richmond wants to know, Harbaugh and McCarthy won a title at Michigan. But is it possible JJ knew the defense's play calls in advance? And that's why he's looked basically so terrible as an NFL quarterback that this was a limit all along. Hey, conspiracy bill did entertain this one.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Well, remember when he came into the league, there was some eyebrow raising around where he was selected. It wasn't like, you know, there was that, that natural question, system guy, guy in the perfect situation, situation guy coached up properly. Um, you know, the, the play calling was very solid or is there, there, you know, natural talent that's gonna jump over that stuff?

• 1:13:30Bill Simmons?

  Intangibles. Um, I got, I got a bunch of questions about the basketball Hall of Fame, which is coming up next week. Our friend Doc Rivers is gonna make it in as a coach. The question I get the most is like, who's, who should be in the Hall of Fame and but isn't?

• 1:13:48Bill Simmons?

  And you could go a bunch of directions with that.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Seriously? Everybody's in the Hall of Fame. Who isn't in the Hall of Fame?

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  So the natural reaction is, oh, everybody's made it at this point. And they've actually, this is one of the reasons I wrote my book a while ago. The Hall of Fame's a mess. All the thing. There's seven guys who should be in the Hall of Fame in art and I'm gonna read them to you in order and we could talk about them really quickly.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  Paul Silas, who was on three title teams in seventy-four, seventy-six Celtics, seventy-nine, uh, Sonics. And then played in another finals as well.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  He was basically ten points, thirteen rebounds a game for the playoffs from seventy to seventy-six, played fourteen hundred games.

• 1:14:30Bill Simmons?

  Was the best defensive forward of that decade, other than DeBusher, was the glue guy, most respected locker room guy for that whole decade. To the point that when the Celtics didn't keep him, Dave Kouns was so mad, he retired for two months.

• 1:14:45Bill Simmons?

  And I think with some of the people we've let in, I would have him in, especially because he coached too and was just such like a beloved guy. That was one that struck me. When we were growing up, he was an awesome, I, I would say like a little bit Draymond Green-ish as like.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:15:01Bill Simmons?

  Not a, not an all-star, but like important. So that's one.

• 1:15:06Bill Simmons?

  Bill Laimbeer.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  Center on two champs and a finals runner-up, five straight Eastern Conference Finals, basically double doubles for all of that. For ten years was fourteen and eleven with fifty percent field goals. One is in the mix for rebounding titles, only missed four games in ten years. And was the most annoying opponent of the last forty-five years, hands down. Everybody hated this guy, but he was memorable. I hate making the case for him, but.

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  Zero All-Star game appearances, right? Zero All-NBA teams?

• 1:15:38Bill Simmons?

  Right. But Michael Cooper just made it.

• 1:15:42Bill Simmons?

  That's where it's like, if Michael Cooper's in, like, we have to start thinking about Bill Laimbeer. The thing with Laimbeer, the three-point, the three-pointer was there the first decade, but like, basically the three-pointer came in in eighty. But I think if he, if you transported him from eighty-one to now.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Bill Simmons?

  He's a really dangerous, like, two thousand twenty-six player. He's a classic Mr. Zara guy. Did you, did you hate Bill Laimbeer? Cause I think he's the most despised Celtic opponent of my lifetime.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  I hated him because I hated the Pistons for what they did to Jordan. Uh, you know, MJ was my guy, you know, in, in that, that era. And I was just, you know, enraptured by every time MJ was on the floor in those playoff games.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  Someone there trying to hurt.

• 1:16:23Speaker 02

  Against the Pistons. Exactly right. Yes.

• 1:16:25Bill Simmons?

  Tom Chambers, who when I did my book in two thousand nine was ninety-six in my pyramid.

• 1:16:33Bill Simmons?

  Was just really good. He made two second team All-NBA's. He was twenty-seven and eight for two straight years in eighty-nine and ninety, two Western Conference Finals, was a part of the ninety-three finals team.

• 1:16:45Bill Simmons?

  I, I wrote down the best forwards from basically second half of the eighties through ninety-one. And I think he's in the top ten, Bird, Malone, Barkley, Mullen, Wilkins, Worthy, McHale, Pippen, Chambers, Rodman. I have as the, now you can nitpick with two of those guys. I had in my book, he was the starting power forward and the white guys who played like black guys team. And then there's a whole what-if thing with Chambers and Worthy and the Clippers and Lakers in eighty-two. If he's just on the Lakers, his whole run, could he have just been, he wasn't the defender James Worthy was, but would he have been a worthy like offensive player? Because we saw it on the eighty-seven All-Star game. When he won the MVP and he was awesome.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  It's easier to, to project him in, not only because of the, the All-Star and the All-NBA, but, um, the prolific scoring, like I, I, I can see it. I can see, I know what his shot looks like. That helps. I don't know. I can't remember what Paul Silas's shot looks like.

• 1:17:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  He just played in that, the, the deadest of dead era Silas did.

• 1:17:45Bill Simmons?

  Chambers is the first two guys I mentioned. I think there's a case. Chambers should be in. These next five guys are should be in guys because even when I did my book, I had him in the top hundred. Gus Williams, we talked about in our previous pod. I don't need to do that one again. Gus Williams is outrageous that he's not in.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  I agree with this.

• 1:18:03Bill Simmons?

  Kevin Johnson is not in, and there might be reasons for this off the floor, but resume wise, belongs, I don't need to go through it. When I had him, did my book, he was ninety-three.

• 1:18:18Bill Simmons?

  These last two are fully outrageous to me.

• 1:18:23Bill Simmons?

  Sean Kemp, not in.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:18:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Three second teams, second best guy in the ninety-six Sonics, who really kinda threw some punches back at the ninety-six Bulls, who were, might've been the greatest team of all time. Three-year peak.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  Outrageous.

• 1:18:39Bill Simmons?

  Basically a twenty-ten guy in the playoffs. He was twenty-one and ten, fifty-seven percent field goal, outplayed Hakeem Olajuwon in a playoff series, beat Karl Malone in a playoff series and thrived against Dennis Rodman in a playoff series. And then was one of the most memorable dunkers of all time. And the Lister dunk is in the pantheon. Not to mention the Sonic, it's yet another slide against Seattle fans that he's done it, in my opinion.

• 1:19:03Speaker 02

  Well, and, and he, he, he tried to build a legacy by having as many kids as possible, which can't go overlooked.

• 1:19:11Bill Simmons?

  I should have mentioned that.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  Spread the Kemp leg- legacy.

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Um, I don't need to go to the Hall of Fame right now and pick five guys that I know for sure Sean fucking Kemp is so. Like I, I don't wanna name names. Let's not, it's not nice or appropriate. But Mitch Richmond is in the goddamn NBA Hall of Fame and Sean Kemp isn't.

• 1:19:32Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  That's incorrect. That's a mistake. That's a, that's a miscalculation.

• 1:19:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we, I, I had no platform whatsoever during the ninety-six finals. But I do remember talking to you on the phone about it a couple of times and we were like, we couldn't believe how good Sean Kemp was. It was like, where is this going? And granted, he blew it and, um, you know, which would be the case for Derrick Rose to get into. Which is, you know, he, he's one of those what-if guys. Kemp had all kinds of personal issues, but I think he should be in. And then the last one I can't believe is not in is Robert Horry, the greatest role player of all time.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  He's not in.

• 1:20:10Bill Simmons?

  Played for seven championships.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  How long has he been eligible?

• 1:20:14Bill Simmons?

  A while. He was on the 94, 95 Rockets, 00, 01, 02 Lakers and the 05, 07 Spurs. And was huge parts of those six teams, 244 playoff games. He was on 10 55 win teams. He was on eight teams with a 700 plus win percentage. He was the first guy with 100 steals, blocks and threes in the, in the same season. And he had famous game winners and then swung the 05 finals for real. He had 20, that game he had 21 of the last 35 points, five threes. And it's one of the great finals games ever played where he swung a title from one team to the other. And I wrote a piece at the time talking about if I called you and I said, the Robert Horry game's on, you would say, which one?

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  He's not in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  I am not going to go back. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll ask. We like chat, GPT. That's, that's our AI interface.

• 1:21:11Speaker 02

  What, what's the ballot situation? Like, has he been on and then gotten to a certain level and not made like?

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  You play a couple of years and there's no rhyme or reason. You don't know how close somebody got. There's no voting like in baseball.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Okay. That, that's what I'm getting at.

• 1:21:25Bill Simmons?

  He should be in.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  Cause it's crazy. I, I mean, and I'm wondering, you know, was he close at different times since he's been eligible?

• 1:21:32Bill Simmons?

  Do you think Derrick Rose should be in? That's a really hard one. I, my, I would lean toward no, but he did win the MVP.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Respectfully, no. Super respectfully, no. I mean, I, I admire the talent. He showed up. He, he did take the league over that, that, that year. It seemed like the ceiling was super high. It just got cut short by injury.

• 1:21:51Bill Simmons?

  Football question from JK Collins. He was listening to my QB rankings podcast. And was talking about why haven't they ranked players based on how much they move the Vegas line if they're out? It's basically a Vegas war rating. Or on our podcast, a FanDuel war rating. Isn't that the ultimate measure of a player's worth to a team? So Ben Fox had this on Twitter recently, talked to 11 oddsmakers.

• 1:22:18Bill Simmons?

  Who do you think the number one quarterback who moves the line is this year, heading into the year?

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Wow. This year. This is going to be hard. Cause I, I mean, it was just like Mahomes was just the, the obvious, most obvious.

• 1:22:29Bill Simmons?

  2026, number one quarterback moving line.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  Josh Allen.

• 1:22:35Bill Simmons?

  You are correct. 7.23 points if he's out of the game.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  Perfect sense.

• 1:22:40Bill Simmons?

  Number two, Patrick Mahomes.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:22:43Bill Simmons?

  6.32.

• 1:22:44Speaker 02

  Not, I mean, no surprise.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  Number three, Matthew Stafford, 6.16. Number four, Drake May, 5.93. And then number five was Lamar Jackson, 5.89.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  Yet another, more evidence that Drake May is a top four quarterback.

• 1:23:04Bill Simmons?

  He was top three or four last year and I think he's going to be top four again this year.

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:23:09Bill Simmons?

  Jake in the Bay.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  Wants to know, this is a little harsh, but I'm going to read it. I didn't write it. Can you remember another player of consequence in the modern era with less franchise specific fan love than Kevin Durant? Is anyone even close? His recent self-induced spat with Golden State and Klay is just another brick in the wall. And I could tell you this much as a Golden State fan, we don't want him and we don't claim his legacy. Joe Lacob might, but Golden State fans certainly don't, especially if you're going to mess with Klay, who we adore beyond reproach. They might as well just leave Durant's jersey blank when he goes in the Hall of Fame someday. And then Jared P. sent a separate thing about how stupid it is when people have to announce

• 1:23:54Bill Simmons?

  what jersey they're going to be in the plaque, but ask like, what would Kevin Durant wear if he gets in the Hall of Fame? Which he will, because he's going to get in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And I think the answer is, I think he's going to do, I think he would do Sonics.

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. That's incredible.

• 1:24:08Bill Simmons?

  That's the move.

• 1:24:09Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And he's like, I love Seattle. It's, I, I would have loved to have played there, but I, to honor the Sonics, something to be a thing. It is, it doesn't have, I went through my top 30. It's pretty hard. Shaq's probably the closest. And I think Shaq, the Laker fans love Shaq. They just love Kobe more.

• 1:24:27Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:24:27Bill Simmons?

  But it's weird to have a career that you had, like Durant had, where there's animosity with every fan base that you played for.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  Well, it, it's OKC. I mean, he, he, he did play a significant role in that franchise elevating itself into, you know.

• 1:24:45Bill Simmons?

  So you think they'll forgive him in the end?

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes. He won his MVP with Oklahoma City.

• 1:24:51Bill Simmons?

  They're still salty with him when he goes there.

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  I don't know. That, that's, that's good fandom, I think.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  I feel like he can still save this as we head to the last part of his career.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  How?

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I don't have an answer.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  I thought you were going to give me some, something about him going back to Oklahoma City.

• 1:25:12Bill Simmons?

  Or the Seattle expansion team.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  He goes back there and finishes it as like a start and finish and that move. Brooklyn probably has, Brooklyn's probably the coolest with him just because he did try to win there and then, you know.

• 1:25:27Speaker 02

  Who are the Brooklyn fans?

• 1:25:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's, that's probably Brooklyn.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Brooklyn fan base. Oh, God.

• 1:25:33Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of Joe Lacob, Rancher from the Bay, said he grew up in the Bay area, remembered reading my column, how to annoy a fan base in 60 steps about the Warriors after Joe Lacob got booed.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  When I talked about all the shitty things that happened to Warriors fans, three years later, they win the title. And he said, that was the, that column was the first time I felt the plight of Warriors fans were recognized. But then it all changed and Steph saved the franchise, turned into a dynasty. The 2015 title was the most euphoric sports moment I remember. And he asked a question, because we talked about this last pod when you were on, talked about the concept of a baggage handler.

• 1:26:14Bill Simmons?

  And he says, wasn't Steph Curry our baggage handler? So I, I do have a baggage handler

• 1:26:21Bill Simmons?

  terminology. If you missed the last podcast, it's about a team or franchise or city hasn't won in forever. And somebody comes in and flips it, gives them the confidence. And that's the first person I think of and point to. Steph was there for six years before they won. If you're drafted by a team, can you also be the baggage handler would be my question? I think the answer is yes.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:26:43Bill Simmons?

  But it's a little different when it's like a Messi egg coming in, like your hired gun baggage handler.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  No, I, I, I agree. No, Steph changed. Steph was, was native to that situation and he grew up, he matured and then he, he blossomed. I mean, he was a metamorphosis.

• 1:26:58Bill Simmons?

  So baggage handlers, baggage handler, doesn't matter whether you're on the team the whole time or not?

• 1:27:03Speaker 02

  No, no. You, you, he was, he became a very different player. He was a radically different player. I do want to chime in. I do have a, a, a good pal who sent me a follow-up to the baggage handler concept. And observed just out loud, we don't do college football very much, you and I, because we didn't really grow up with it. We're going to, we have a college football team.

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  That way you stay away. Yeah.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  And it, well, we also have Holy Cross, but both are on the upswing. College football is a great repository of baggage handlers. And he sent me a list, but the only two that I remember off the top of my head, Vince Young in Texas, what, what he delivered to that and, and Cam Newton in Auburn.

• 1:27:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  That's an incredible one, isn't it?

• 1:27:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a great one. Doug, yeah, Doug Flutie, and I was going to say Doug Flutie in B C, but he never actually won there.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  A bunch of people.

• 1:27:58Speaker 02

  Maybe like Reggie Bush.

• 1:28:00Bill Simmons?

  The, oh, the USC, Pete Carroll.

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  Reggie Bush and Liner together?

• 1:28:03Bill Simmons?

  Pete Carroll. A bunch of people sent this out. I'll, I'll give the credit to Kyle Wegner from Nebraska. That we missed the Wayne Gretzky of baggage handlers, the man, the myth, the legend, Theo Epstein.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  Who did build the Red Sox and then went to the Cubs and built them. He, he double baggage handled.

• 1:28:22Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 1:28:23Bill Simmons?

  So the baggage handler should be called the Theo.

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  Okay. I'm, I'm fine with it. The architect of two incredible.

• 1:28:32Bill Simmons?

  The two hardest ones.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  Most forlorn franchises in the, in the sport.

• 1:28:38Bill Simmons?

  The Red Sox fans, we were actually dumb enough to think we were going to win every year. The Cubs fans had like completely given up. They were like the, the widow who just assumed the husband was never coming home from the war. We were like, we were dumb enough to think each year was going to be the year.

• 1:28:52Speaker 02

  There's nobody like him.

• 1:28:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  I'm trying to go red eye. No, not Red Auerbach. Jerry West.

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  I think he's the baggage handler.

• 1:29:04Bill Simmons?

  Ben from Central Mass said, Aaron, Aaron Donald's looming comeback, Philip Rivers, weird comeback last year had me thinking the weirdest late career comebacks of all time.

• 1:29:15Bill Simmons?

  He said, Bob Cousy and the Royals, Satchel Paige on the A's at age 58. Magic on the 96 Lakers, Collins on the 83 Bucks. And of course, Philip Rivers, but he picks Bob Cousy who hadn't played in seven years. And inexplicably came back on the Royals, which were, the numbers are terrible. And then he threw a game in one of the worst or best comebacks ever when the Knicks beat the Royals. But Cousy just became a player coach randomly for seven games and it's terrible. And he's like completely washed up. It's weird. I don't think the Aaron Donald comeback is going to be like that at all. I think he's, I'm factoring in and like our projections and stuff for the NFC like that. He's going to be 95% awesome, right?

• 1:29:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I agree. Absolutely. Well, what's the case for him not being awesome?

• 1:30:02Bill Simmons?

  Just that he hasn't played in three years? I would say the flip side, his body's going to be nice and fresh.

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  That's a net positive.

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  It's football. There's nothing harder than, than on the body than football.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  You had a bad weirdo comeback. The, the Joe Gibbs coming back was bad.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, that poor Dan Snyder was trying to, you know, taking a swing with, with that. And it didn't, yeah, it worked, turned out poorly. Just like everything else, everything else that Dan Snyder did.

• 1:30:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that, because it was partly because of Vermeil, because Vermeil went to the Rams and it worked. Remember? And it was like, oh, well, it worked. And then all of a sudden Gibbs was back coaching your team again.

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  Well, Snyder was flailing. I mean, he, he needed a reason for the team to be relevant. He needed to, to try anything to reconnect the team to the fan base here.

• 1:30:50Bill Simmons?

  I don't think that one worked.

• 1:30:53Bill Simmons?

  Rich in Toronto.

• 1:30:56Bill Simmons?

  Thinks this one will be seconded by Craig Horlbeck. Definitely Joe has.

• 1:31:01Bill Simmons?

  Instead of dancing around the idea of an actor's appearance in the rewatchables, he thinks we should lean into it with a new category called the Mila Kunis and forgetting Sarah Marshall appearance Apex Mountain Award. For is the most, is this the most attractive a person has ever been in a movie? And it could go female or male, because we did talk about this during Witness with Harrison Ford. I really like this idea. I'm adding, I'm adding this to the next one. We're doing Italian job in the rewatchables tomorrow. Let's just say there'll be a Charlize conversation.

• 1:31:31Speaker 02

  Oh, daddy.

• 1:31:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Really good suggestion though from Rich. And then, um.

• 1:31:39Bill Simmons?

  One more set from seven oh seven on the rewatchables. On Hitch, I was talking about, we were talking about how Denzel never made a rom com.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:31:48Bill Simmons?

  It's true. He's never made one.

• 1:31:51Bill Simmons?

  He has an idea that he thinks I would like. The movie starts with the current seventy one year old Denzel at the memorial service for his deceased wife. Sitting in a chair melancholy and a young family member approaches him and asks how he met grandma. And then the movie goes back in time using Denzel. Becomes young Denzel, thanks to CGI and how he fell, met and fell in love with his wife. And we go rom com. Denzel will never do this, but I thought that was a pretty strong idea.

• 1:32:17Speaker 02

  I agree. You know, the, the crazy thing is you could talk that whole thing into chat GPT and get a whole script with all the characters.

• 1:32:24Bill Simmons?

  I think that just happened.

• 1:32:25Speaker 02

  For the actors and actresses. Yeah.

• 1:32:27Bill Simmons?

  Andy from NYC had a question for Conspiracy Bill, asking if I was watching this Matt Ishby situation with his United Shore stock. Which has been, uh, been going down.

• 1:32:39Speaker 02

  fluctuating.

• 1:32:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  In the wrong direction.

• 1:32:41Bill Simmons?

  fluctuating and not doing well and, and was asking, what are the possibilities of a sale if you can't make the debt payments? Are you watching this?

• 1:32:52Bill Simmons?

  That's not happening.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  Doesn't feel like it.

• 1:32:55Bill Simmons?

  If he needed cash for the team, you would just sell twenty five percent.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:32:59Bill Simmons?

  You would, you would sell a steak. You would, you'd value the team at five million and get money from somebody. This is a good one for you from Jeff from Texas. He thinks the new Vegas team name should be called the odds.

• 1:33:13Bill Simmons?

  So we could say stuff like, what will it take to beat the odds? The odds are against us. The Vegas odds are plus two hundred to beat OKC. And then he said, I'm just about a hundred percent positive. House will support this.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  He is correct. He is a hundred percent correct. That is a great name. Uh, and it also, you can imagine the cool logos. I love the four letter names. They, they fit perfectly.

• 1:33:39Speaker 02

  And you can, you can do front, back. Oh, I'm, I'm so all over this. That's phenomenal.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  Willie. What are the odds?

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  I like the odds, the Vegas odds. I don't know what the other runners in the clubhouse were for that, whether they go Vegas or Las Vegas.

• 1:33:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I haven't been happy with some of the team names lately.

• 1:33:58Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, they had this right now, Vegas, all the only one that's relevant to Vegas really is the aces, because the Knights aren't, aren't anything and the Raiders are the Raiders.

• 1:34:06Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  So it would be good to, to tie it to the, to the locale.

• 1:34:11Bill Simmons?

  Willie from Rockaway Beach wants to know, in the Odyssey, Odysseus' thing was, was stringing the bow and shooting through the axes. That was like his move. I don't know if you saw the Odyssey yet. He's the only one who could do it. Um, he wants to know what my Odysseus tax is. Wonders like trade machine.

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:34:33Bill Simmons?

  Dump pop culture, sports analogies. He had a bunch of, bunch of things. I, I don't have anything to rival the, um, the, the string in the bow and then shooting it through the thing, but I, I feel like you do. I think your Odysseus task is your ability to eat for another half hour at a normal dinner after everybody else is finished eating. Like that is your version of stringing the bow.

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  I will accept that.

• 1:34:58Bill Simmons?

  You're, there is. You're second and third. Everyone else is playing eighteen and you're playing like fifty four. And you're just going at your pace and then, then you're looking around and you're like, oh, they, you're gonna eat those french fries? What's going on at the steak? And you're just kind of cleaning up. And I think that's, that's better than any Odysseus thing I have.

• 1:35:18Speaker 02

  Here, here's the secret. Not, I mean, of course you have to have the appetite and the interest and the curiosity. But when I get to go out to eat with friends and family, I'm eating the whole table. I get what everybody ordered because I know.

• 1:35:34Bill Simmons?

  You win.

• 1:35:35Speaker 02

  At some point, at some point, and there's nothing that I can't taste. It's, it's a, it's a really wonderful thing that I probably stumbled into. It's not like a deliberate strategy, but over the years, I've just grown accustomed to eating. If the food arrives at the table, I'm gonna eat some of it. Either at the beginning of the meal or the end of the meal. There's gonna be, you know.

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  The other issue is when the restaurant puts in parameters, like this is for two or three people.

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:36:03Bill Simmons?

  It's like a personal insult.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  That's an outrage to me.

• 1:36:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the steak, but you need two or three to finish the steak and you're like, okay.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 1:36:12Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's ridiculous. Um. Kobe from Oakland, who now lives in Vancouver, was very upset about, uh, Katie's comments on the seventeen Warriors. And he said he was watching highlights from them and couldn't help but notice the insane love of Steph's gravity in the court. Which has been talked about forever, but he said, there's so many highlights of Durant bringing the ball up court. Going direct to the basket for an open dunk because two guys had their backs turned, trying to tie off Steph and forgetting that he had the ball.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  People just feared the empty. This is why it's impossible to talk about Curry historically compared to other guards, because nobody has ever swung defenses like this.

• 1:36:56Bill Simmons?

  And he wants to know, has any other player in NBA history had a gravity even close to that? So to me, it's centers.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:37:06Bill Simmons?

  It's like when Shaq was really feeling it and had position. The whole team would sink down. The whole defense would sink down him. Just everybody else was open. But I don't remember a guard having what Steph has.

• 1:37:19Speaker 02

  Except for Michael fucking Jordan? I mean, Michael Jordan, all, all, all ten eyes on the floor. I mean, all the, the, whatever. Everybody, not twenty eyes, eighteen eyes. There's nine other players. They're all looking at Michael Jordan when he had the ball.

• 1:37:34Bill Simmons?

  Man, that's, so you're saying, you're saying the goat of basketball also had the best gravity?

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, he's in the conversation. Yes, yes. He tilted, you know, the, the, the Pistons had to engineer a specific style of, of, you know, thuggery.

• 1:37:53Bill Simmons?

  Right. I've never seen anything in person, like what would happen to defenses with Curry.

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  Well, because.

• 1:38:01Bill Simmons?

  Watching them just.

• 1:38:02Speaker 02

  Soon they cross half court.

• 1:38:03Bill Simmons?

  Figure out where he was.

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  Right. Yes.

• 1:38:09Bill Simmons?

  This is a good one.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  I do, I do want to say, just as a final thought. We were cheated by not having Michael motivated to develop a three pointer. We know he could do it.

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  Just didn't matter back then.

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  He had.

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  One of the guys in the twentieth century.

• 1:38:24Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  It was used as a dagger and not as.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  I know. I'm saying we were cheated. The six that he had against Portland.

• 1:38:30Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, speaking of Jordan.

• 1:38:33Speaker 02

  The talent is there.

• 1:38:35Bill Simmons?

  Shaheen from London was talking. He thinks the best that in soccer, the best individual player season ever, just based on individual stats, was achieved by Messi. In the eleven, twelve season, where he played sixty games and scored seventy three goals, then thirty two assists. Did not win the league, but made it to, uh, was second semis of the champions, won Spanish Cup, Spanish Super Cup, and wants to know what is the basketball version of a season like that? Where somebody's stats are so ridiculous, but you had enough team success too, to make it relevant.

• 1:39:11Bill Simmons?

  I can't, I had three seasons that I'm gonna give you. One was the ninety six MJ, when the Bulls went eighty seven and thirteen. He won MVP finals, MVP thirty six and six. The numbers weren't insane compared to the typical Jordan season is the problem. Curry in sixteen. If they had won the title, I think would be in the conversation for this, but they lost game seven, but he had thirty a game. He made five threes a game. I don't know if anyone else had even made four. He was like fifty, forty five, ninety, everything. They won twenty five games in a row. That had all of the check marks and then they blew the game in the last five minutes. So sadly, the answer is Wilt Chamberlain.

• 1:39:53Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:39:54Bill Simmons?

  Nineteen sixty seven. Averaged twenty four points, twenty four rebounds and eight assists during the regular season. The team went sixty eight and thirteen, which was the record for best record at that point. In the playoffs, he was twenty two, twenty nine and nine. Twenty two, twenty nine and nine and beat Bill Russell and they went eleven and four. So they went seventy nine and seventeen. And he basically averaged twenty four and twenty six every game. Granted, it was sixties, but I think that's the answer.

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  J J Reddick's not impressed. That's, that's.

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  He's not impressed.

• 1:40:28Speaker 02

  Truck drivers.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  We, we had less bums than truck drivers.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  What's the answer, um, to Giannis' twenty one season? Because I feel like he was definitely, he didn't score enough. Is that the deal? Is that why he's not?

• 1:40:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that, that, it, it's gotta be, the stats have to be.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Bill Simmons?

  Almost like what, what Jokic was doing in one of his years, but if the Nuggets had also been incredible, I guess.

• 1:40:53Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 1:40:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't, Shaq had, was okay, but yeah, it's tough. Like the Wilt stats are like, wow, we'll never see those again.

• 1:41:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:41:03Bill Simmons?

  Nathan from Appleton, Wisconsin.

• 1:41:07Bill Simmons?

  Thanked me for the El Chepo discussions about the Blazers. But said, we did not mention the Stanley Cup. And he writes, this motherfucker wanted the name of his wife and five kids on the cup. So six people who were involved with the actual running of the team that got to the pinnacle of the NHL. Didn't get their name on the most famous trophy in sports. Awesome. That was unbelievable. Did you follow that whole story?

• 1:41:31Speaker 02

  I don't understand. Why they agreed. Oh, is it his choice of the names?

• 1:41:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  They submit a list?

• 1:41:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's like, here's what we're putting on the cup.

• 1:41:41Speaker 02

  That's outrageous.

• 1:41:42Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:41:43Speaker 02

  It's so bad.

• 1:41:47Speaker 02

  How do they have the room?

• 1:41:49Bill Simmons?

  They don't. They have like that one. They have like this one thing and they can put as many names as possible and then that's it.

• 1:41:57Bill Simmons?

  James is a Celtics fan and wants to know. Who was the, who had the washed goat season in NBA history? And suggested Trail Blazers, Mello, Celtics, Shaq, Ewing and the Sonics. Or is it the obvious Wizards MJ choice? The answer to this is MJ and the Wizards was the washed goat. Cause he couldn't jump. He, I think he played 82 games, at least one of those seasons. Was going against all these young dudes, hadn't played in a while and was not MJ anymore. He was a shell of himself, but he wasn't.

• 1:42:31Speaker 02

  Couldn't get him to the playoffs. Did have a 50 burger though. Did remind everybody. He would, you know, once every three weeks, he would drop something.

• 1:42:40Bill Simmons?

  So maybe he was too good for that.

• 1:42:42Speaker 02

  Well, they didn't make the playoffs as Michael Jordan.

• 1:42:46Bill Simmons?

  Made like a game winner in the All-Star game. The other one I was thinking was Kareem near the end when he could bet, he was like 42. But somehow in the 88 finals, they're still going to him in the biggest moments and he's got nothing left. And so the answer is probably Jordan.

• 1:43:02Bill Simmons?

  Conspiracy Bill is being summoned again. Christian in Ohio. When he says, when we hear about double agents and teams that might relocate Nico Harrison, Dallas, all these, the conspiracy rumors, why hasn't Joe Dumars in New Orleans come out of the, come up in this? He's out of the league. He's working for the league. Makes a bunch of dumb moves last year and then no moves this summer for Pelicans team going nowhere. Seems like prime double agent material. Thank you, Conspiracy Bill. Just wanted to get that out there. I, I don't think it's a conspiracy with that. I think the Pelicans are just incompetent.

• 1:43:39Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand how they weren't going after anybody.

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Isn't that indirectly a kind of like inaction is action? Not doing anything. It makes it a lot easier. It might not even be their plan, but it's a plan. It may not be what they're intending to do, but it certainly does make that, that franchise feel very relocatable to me.

• 1:44:06Bill Simmons?

  There are, there's some over unders on FanDuel, which I know you know for NBA. I know people are pumped that it's August 9th and we're doing NBA content. And everybody was looking for that. But there's, uh, some of the win totals were out. And there were four teams.

• 1:44:24Bill Simmons?

  That are basically like 44 and a half.

• 1:44:28Bill Simmons?

  And these four teams are.

• 1:44:31Bill Simmons?

  The Lakers. Miami. Indiana, Orlando, and actually Toronto, assuming with Kawhi. So there's five teams. If you had to go over on any of those five teams, who would you pick? Indiana, Miami, Orlando, the Lakers and Toronto.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  It's the Pacers. And I already have them.

• 1:44:51Bill Simmons?

  That's what I had as well.

• 1:44:52Speaker 02

  Forty-three and a half. So I'm thrilled to hear that the market moved in my direction.

• 1:44:59Speaker 02

  The, the. Combination of healthy Halliburton.

• 1:45:05Bill Simmons?

  Seemed dancing at his wedding. He looked great. He's back.

• 1:45:08Speaker 02

  Healthy Halliburton and Zubots is going to be an eye opener. It's going to be a revelation. And that team is talented. They have, you know, all of those guys know their roles. We're, we're going to see it early, I think.

• 1:45:23Bill Simmons?

  Little Kelly Oubre over there.

• 1:45:24Speaker 02

  More than that. I think it's going to be more than a little. It's going to work. I think it's going to be something.

• 1:45:29Bill Simmons?

  The East is stacked because I was like Charlotte was 39 and a half for their win total. I was like, I think Charlotte's going to be pretty good. Conspiracy Bill question from Ben from Detroit.

• 1:45:41Bill Simmons?

  He wants to know if Detroit traded Scoobal to the Dodgers. So they could win the World Series again and drum up support for a salary cap for medium level and low level teams. They're basically trying to stack the deck. Cause that will help the salary cap argument. I don't think that's what it was. I genuinely feel like.

• 1:46:03Bill Simmons?

  That Scoobal's side made it seem like we're going to the Dodgers at the end of the year anyway. So he kind of put the stink on himself with the other teams. And teams didn't want to give up prospects to somebody for two months and then they leave. Right? That was my interpretation.

• 1:46:16Speaker 02

  All of that's credible, especially if you think that, um, that his, this is the last time you're going to get a whatever hundred million dollar, however many hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 1:46:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  For, for, for a pitcher, right? This is it.

• 1:46:33Bill Simmons?

  I just, would you pay that much for a starting pitcher? I guess you don't, if you don't care about money, you would.

• 1:46:40Speaker 02

  I, I mean.

• 1:46:41Bill Simmons?

  I just don't trust, like we did crochet and he's already hurt.

• 1:46:44Speaker 02

  Nearly 800 million for Juan Soto and Juan Soto is hurt too. I understand that that's different. I put a pitcher in a outfielder, a hitter, but.

• 1:46:53Bill Simmons?

  Jack wants to know.

• 1:46:56Bill Simmons?

  Do you think it hurt LeBron that he didn't end his tenure with the Lakers and sign with the Knicks? Cause the Knicks won the title. And that was like the best thing. This Knicks fan base starving for a title, which he saw in real time as they won. They hadn't won and he goes there as a missing piece and then as part of that. And where does that rank among LeBron regrets for his career? Which I think is a really fun topic. He suggested the failed Paul George Kyrie swap 2017, the Westbrook debacle. Zubots for Mike Muscala.

• 1:47:32Bill Simmons?

  He said, forcing Bronny to play basketball instead of being a five star NFL caliber safety. Would have been a good safety.

• 1:47:40Bill Simmons?

  He left out a couple of good ones.

• 1:47:44Bill Simmons?

  I think the number one, if I, if I'm LeBron and I'm like 78 and I'm just thinking back at everything. I think the thing that would make me the maddest would be the 09 Orlando Cleveland series. And it wouldn't be a regret as much as. Remember Orlando just turned into an awesome team and guys, we did a, but we did a. We did a rewatchables on one of the games, I think from that with the, because I did a Dwight Howard book of basketball, but. I think you look back at that now and it's just fucking batshit crazy that series. He did Turkalu was awesome. Rashard Lewis was good for a year.

• 1:48:19Speaker 02

  They made every shot that they looked at. You beat me to it. Those two guys, that, they were the really the linchpin to it. And then Dwight Howard was pretty awesome.

• 1:48:28Bill Simmons?

  And LeBron was awesome. And that, I think he was like 35 and 11 and nine. He like did everything he could and Orlando was just on a heater. Howard played the best he'd ever played.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  Who was the second best player on that Cleveland team?

• 1:48:43Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that was, that's why he left Cleveland. No, it's like we're, I think we, I don't know if Jameson was there yet. I'll look this up as we're talking. But I, you know, if you remember going back. That, that was, we were supposed to get the LeBron versus Kobe finals. Right? The Celtics got hurt.

• 1:49:05Bill Simmons?

  The stars had aligned and it was going to be like the greatest. You know, star on star series we'd had in a while. All right, I'm looking this up. I have.

• 1:49:16Bill Simmons?

  The series ended in six.

• 1:49:20Bill Simmons?

  The second leading scorer in the Cavs. Was Mo Williams.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  Okay, that's why.

• 1:49:26Bill Simmons?

  Followed by Delonte West and Zdruska Algoskus.

• 1:49:29Speaker 02

  I knew, okay, good. I Larry Hughes, I messed up, but Algoskus I remember on that team.

• 1:49:34Bill Simmons?

  In this series, Rashard Lewis. Shot 48% from three.

• 1:49:39Speaker 02

  I, I was, I was there.

• 1:49:41Bill Simmons?

  Made 18, he made 15, he made 18 a game. Turkalu was at 39. Mikael Pietrus was at 51% from three. Oh no, I'm sorry, 47% from three. Rayford Austin, 38%. The team shot 41% from three. They were 62 for 152 and just.

• 1:50:03Bill Simmons?

  Just flipped the series. But I, that would be the one out of all the ones he's had where it's like, fuck man, we should have made the finals that year. Would I, like nothing, none of those Orlando guys ever matched that again. Within a year and a half, your dumb team was trading for Rashard Lewis. Turkalu got a big contract from somebody.

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  PEDs, yeah.

• 1:50:22Bill Simmons?

  Right. Tough one. I would say that was a big one. The other one I would say.

• 1:50:27Speaker 02

  Bad team though. They would have got swept by the Lakers too.

• 1:50:32Bill Simmons?

  The other one is whether if you're LeBron, looking back at everything, would you have just gone to the Knicks in 2010?

• 1:50:41Speaker 02

  2010?

• 1:50:43Bill Simmons?

  Instead of Miami. Bring Dwyane Wade there. Go to New York because that was on the table, I think.

• 1:50:49Speaker 02

  Who was the general manager at the time? No. Who was the GM at the time?

• 1:50:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the problem. It was Donnie Walsh in the wheelchair and James Dolan and...

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:51:01Speaker 02

  I mean, Riley really deserves the... He gets credit. He also... He deserves the credit.

• 1:51:09Bill Simmons?

  Sniffed it up.

• 1:51:10Speaker 02

  Come here. It will be awesome.

• 1:51:12Bill Simmons?

  The Paul George trade is a good one because I think the Paul George trade, because they were getting rid of Kyrie anyway, and I think it would have... I think if they were somehow getting Paul George and somebody else good. And they... It definitely would have been a better team. I don't know if it would have mattered against the 18 Warriors. By the way, I got this from a few Pacers fans because I talked about LeBron's, that awesome Oladipo versus LeBron. We did the redraftables, that series. And a bunch of people mentioned, I said how LeBron had that great block on Oladipo and gave five minute to three. And it's like a famous goaltend, apparently, that all the Pacer fans are still pissed off about. In the game report, they said after it was a goaltend.

• 1:51:52Bill Simmons?

  And then Ray, Blazer fan, wanted to point out on all the Blazers conspiracy stuff that the Blazers sale was an estate sale with all proceeds going to charity.

• 1:52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Bill Simmons?

  So they had to actually maximize value. They couldn't like pick the owners. It was basically highest bidder wins. So he was saying Adam Silver didn't have a lot of... Didn't have a lot of elbow room with this because of the way the sale was done, which I think is true.

• 1:52:23Bill Simmons?

  They still have to approve it.

• 1:52:24Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. The league controls who comes in and the estate has to live by the league's rules.

• 1:52:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  The estate doesn't get to choose at the, you know, over the will of the league.

• 1:52:40Bill Simmons?

  Zach brought up something that I'm going to apologize for. I... We did the winners and losers of the LeBron signing with Philly and I said BJ Edgecombe because he's going to be pushed to the side and whatever. He said, "Look, you're the guy who's talked up the virtues of playing for USA Basketball, being around winners, how it changes guys. Young, talented guy like BJ, you learn the habits and mentality of one of the game's greatest ever players. Doesn't this set the stage for a culture change? I don't think it's a stretch to call him one of the biggest winners." You agree with that?

• 1:53:12Speaker 02

  I sure do. And I think I really... I think it applies across the board. This is going to be, at least by intention and will and attitude, the best version of Joel Embiid that we will have seen. He really tried super effing hard on Team USA. I think of his Team USA performance as one of the things that goes on his resume. He was healthy. It came at the expense of two, two more years of terrible knee and injury ailments. And, and, you know, we will forever

• 1:53:46Speaker 02

  be able to make fun of the Sixers for giving him an extension, immediately coming off of that Olympics performance. But that, that is like proof of concept. And I think that LeBron, the whole thing, it just adds a layer of, we use that, we're going to overuse this, the word gravity. But it, it makes it, it's a serious situation now. We're not just showing up and effing around. This is a show and the guys all want to show up. I think it's really going to be interesting.

• 1:54:15Bill Simmons?

  11-1, they have the fourth best title odds now.

• 1:54:20Speaker 02

  Just going to wait.

• 1:54:21Bill Simmons?

  Regular season.

• 1:54:26Bill Simmons?

  They're now minus 120 for 50-plus games.

• 1:54:31Bill Simmons?

  I think there, there's a way that they, they're probably in the low 50s. Even, even if you told me 40 Embiid games and 55 LeBron games, just because the other three guys will be able to carry so much load.

• 1:54:42Speaker 02

  Maxey, Edgecombe and JB could get him there.

• 1:54:49Bill Simmons?

  Rich, I was saving this one for you. Rich from Melbourne, Australia. The Australians always have good emails.

• 1:54:55Speaker 02

  Love the Australians.

• 1:54:55Bill Simmons?

  They're fucking crazy people. They're, they're really like Boston on the other side of the world.

• 1:55:00Speaker 02

  Have we never been to Australia?

• 1:55:01Bill Simmons?

  We have to go.

• 1:55:02Speaker 02

  We really do.

• 1:55:03Bill Simmons?

  Just have great experiences.

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  Do a Simmons podcast from Australia.

• 1:55:07Bill Simmons?

  Your enthusiasm for Caleb Wilson got me thinking, who are this year's Jizz Room All-Stars?

• 1:55:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm thinking it would be Dylan Harper, Con Knipple, Jalen Brown, Caleb Wilson and Wemby. But Caleb Wilson's the captain. I don't think Jalen Brown would be in the Jizz Room All-Stars.

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  I agree. No, that's the only one that doesn't fit.

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who the small forward is for the Jizz Room All-Stars.

• 1:55:30Speaker 02

  That's, let's, let's, let's workshop it.

• 1:55:32Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's your guy, maybe it's your guy, uh...

• 1:55:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sure could be. The bouncer.

• 1:55:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, your guy AJ.

• 1:55:38Speaker 02

  Could be AJ. Yeah.

• 1:55:40Bill Simmons?

  Jizz Room first team?

• 1:55:41Speaker 02

  What if he starts doing stuff? He's, he's, he might show us something.

• 1:55:45Bill Simmons?

  First team Jizz Room?

• 1:55:46Speaker 02

  He's not going to be afraid to show us what we want to see. I know that much, right?

• 1:55:51Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's the Jizz Room All-Stars or All Pros in the NFL are already starting to form. I don't know if you've seen any Denzel Boston training camp footage for the Browns.

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Uh-uh.

• 1:56:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. It's Caleb Wilson-esque.

• 1:56:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:56:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he looks like Terrell Owens, basically. That's good one. Darian Price on the Seahawks. I think he's...

• 1:56:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, Price. I already bet Price Rookie of the Year. Just so we get that out there.

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  Smart bet.

• 1:56:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:16Bill Simmons?

  I didn't understand the Rookie of the Year odds at all. We, we, we've been texting about this because I jumped on Boston when he was 45 to one.

• 1:56:24Bill Simmons?

  But that, but the quarterback situations are going to be weird. Like, I don't think Mendoza. I don't see either quarterback. The guy in the Cardinals love is, as they have two other veterans that are there. So, yeah, I like Boston. I still think his odds are great.

• 1:56:42Bill Simmons?

  Need you for this one because I got a, I did Meanest Pod and we somehow talked, we're talking about the NBA comp for Lamar Jackson. And I was saying it's, it's, I didn't think there was a comp, but there's some Embiid in there because you don't know whether he's going to play or not. And just a bunch of people were like, how, how is the answer not James Harden?

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:57:02Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like you got MVPs, you have a ton of regular season success and then playoffs now.

• 1:57:09Speaker 02

  It's pretty good.

• 1:57:11Bill Simmons?

  The problem is Harden played. Harden was durable and was out there all the time and Lamar, I think, so it's almost like

• 1:57:21Bill Simmons?

  75% Harden, 25% Embiid, maybe? The Embiid durability?

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  Both of those, by the way, that says a lot about the regard with which we hold Lamar, which is, I think, appropriate.

• 1:57:34Bill Simmons?

  He won two MVPs.

• 1:57:35Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:57:36Bill Simmons?

  He really broke our hearts gambling wise a couple of times. I mean, really like absolute gut punches.

• 1:57:42Speaker 02

  Not even really him. That lost to Buffalo two years ago. Not Lamar Jackson's fault.

• 1:57:47Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:54Bill Simmons?

  A lot of people have asked if this is the end of the process. Regardless of what happens. I keep getting an email about that. They, different variations of that email. The process starts in 2013 with the NBA draft. And now we're heading to the 26, 27 season, 14 years later. The process is already at a bar mitzvah. The process has already gone through puberty. And is this win or lose? Is this the end of the process? Do you feel like the process has to end when Embiid leaves? What is the official end of the process?

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  I, I like this and I'm subscribing to it and I know that I can do a better job I'm going to do right now. But I think LeBron's arrival means that it's over. The, the process, Philly has become so, you know, they've, they've built themselves into something that's so attractive that the, you know, one of the top three players in history chose that team to go to that team, to play games with that team. So I, I, I think that that is a kind of success, right? Like, what are the high, since, since the, uh, since winning in, in 83,

• 1:59:09Speaker 02

  there, there aren't a lot of high watermarks for the Sixers.

• 1:59:12Bill Simmons?

  They've had a lot of fun players and the high watermark was probably Iverson beating the second best team of this century by himself in a finals game.

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  In one game.

• 1:59:23Bill Simmons?

  And maybe Embiid winning the MVP.

• 1:59:24Speaker 02

  I think it's fine declaring the process over.

• 1:59:28Bill Simmons?

  Did LeBron choose the Sixers or did he just not have a better option?

• 1:59:33Speaker 02

  Why can't the answer be both?

• 1:59:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Speaking of the Sixers.

• 1:59:38Speaker 02

  He clearly, for the money that he agreed to play for, he could have done that for any team in the entire NBA.

• 1:59:45Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:59:46Speaker 02

  Every team has $8 million available.

• 1:59:50Bill Simmons?

  Benson from Canada says,

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

  Kawhi hitting the game-winning shot again in the 2019 playoffs against the Sixers.

• 2:00:01Bill Simmons?

  Leading to the Raptors winning the title.

• 2:00:04Bill Simmons?

  LeBron has beaten Toronto like a drum for two decades. There's a fun LeBron versus Kawhi where they went together in the two finals, 2013 and 14. Kawhi wins the finals MVP.

• 2:00:17Speaker 02

  Good.

• 2:00:18Bill Simmons?

  So you have

• 2:00:21Bill Simmons?

  Toronto fear of LeBron.

• 2:00:24Bill Simmons?

  LeBron fans kind of afraid of Kawhi a little bit, plus Sixer fans' memory of getting their guts torn out by Kawhi. Potentially them playing, being rivals. I didn't think about the rivalry part with LeBron going to the East and how fun this is going to be as much as I probably should have. Celtics, his biggest longtime rival, right?

• 2:00:45Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 2:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Knicks.

• 2:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Right. He's going to live in New York City, but they just won the title. Worldwide West and Leanne are there, his old agents. You got all that. You have Toronto. And then you have Cleveland.

• 2:01:00Speaker 02

  Cleveland, then Miami, both.

• 2:01:02Bill Simmons?

  And you have Miami. So five teams that he has like actual real history with that when he goes there with the Sixers, it's going to be like a thing. Now, we'll see how good he is. Like, at some point, this has to start fading a little bit, but it did, did start to get me excited.

• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's really it. That's all I got. That's all I have for... I have one more that I'll read for, uh...

• 2:01:29Speaker 02

  Put the cherry on it.

• 2:01:31Bill Simmons?

  Just to keep the El Chepo heat going, just from John in Austin, Texas. He thinks El Chepo is like Mr. Blind in Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madsen's character in the movie. Where he cheeps out in the coaching search, doesn't let two-way players travel, lays off the employees, breaks up the broadcast team. And now is the city of Portland tied to a chair in a warehouse, but stuck in the middle with you playing. Well, he dances around with a straight razor, which is the threat of the Blazers moving away. And Adam Silver is Mr. Orange in this scenario that he has to get there before they slices the Blazers ear off and dumps gasoline on them. I'm only reading this to say, but yep, these are my listeners.

• 2:02:15Bill Simmons?

  But also, this is incredible email from somebody comparing El Chepo, Tom Dundon, to one of the scariest characters of any movie in the 1990s, who actually tormented and mutilated a character in the movie that they had to cut away from.

• 2:02:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:02:30Bill Simmons?

  That's where we've gotten with this Portland situation.

• 2:02:33Speaker 02

  A vile, depraved torture scene.

• 2:02:36Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 2:02:37Speaker 02

  That's what the Portland fans are living through.

• 2:02:38Bill Simmons?

  The NBA is fantastic. How are you feeling about the Washington Commander season?

• 2:02:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I would have felt, I felt better 24 hours ago before Laramie Tunsil tore his tricep.

• 2:02:51Bill Simmons?

  That's like a four-month injury, right?

• 2:02:53Speaker 02

  Oh, it's just, I mean, the only thing that I cared about coming into this season was can we just show up with the 11 intended guys on both sides of the ball, more healthy than not? We know that injuries are going to happen. Injuries do happen, that's, it's part of football. But god damn it, can we just get to the first game of the season without one of these linchpin guys? Now, Washington has been, you know, sort of collecting offensive line talent and they're going to try. This looks like Brandon Coleman is going to be the guy. But he, they just extended Tunsil because Tunsil was effing awesome last year.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  And Tunsil and David Blau and JD5 are all on the same page. And man, I'm just, it's a kick in the nuts. Even with Tunsil, though, I do think that this is going to be a tough season for Washington.

• 2:03:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you did the Dig signing a couple of days before that.

• 2:03:54Speaker 02

  Welcome home. Happy to have Diggs.

• 2:03:57Bill Simmons?

  Diggs in the DMV, buckle up.

• 2:04:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, he's, he went to high school here and went to the University of Maryland. He's from this area.

• 2:04:05Bill Simmons?

  So your regular season wins right now. Six and a half is minus 140 on Fanduel and seven and a half is plus 115 for the overs.

• 2:04:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they're going to win eight games. I think they're, they're good enough to win. The defense especially has been completely renovated, recalibrated. It's a, it's a brand new 11 nearly. And it's a brand new defensive coordinator. We got, you know, the apprentice from Minnesota, Durante, and he's also a DMV guy. So I do, I think the defense is going to surprise people. It might be the, the most interesting defense that Washington's had in a decade.

• 2:04:56Bill Simmons?

  I'll definitely be surprised because I don't think they're going to be good. One of the only things you had is like, well, the offensive line is going to be even better this year. Daniels, keep him healthy and see how it goes. And now.

• 2:05:08Speaker 02

  Yes, yep, that's all true.

• 2:05:10Bill Simmons?

  That. I was just reading that Brandon Thorne a couple of days ago had said, he does those offensive lineman rankings.

• 2:05:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:05:16Bill Simmons?

  Put all of them out. Tunsil was, I think his second left tackle.

• 2:05:19Speaker 02

  Super high up there, yep.

• 2:05:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was a good trade.

• 2:05:21Speaker 02

  Deservedly so.

• 2:05:23Bill Simmons?

  How much homework have you done?

• 2:05:25Speaker 02

  I'm doing it, you know, by division. So right now I am knee deep in the AFC North.

• 2:05:30Bill Simmons?

  Did you notice the Bundo on the AFC East pod, the Bundo kind of kicked the tires on a soft, maybe Miami's not that bad?

• 2:05:40Speaker 02

  He, it felt like a zag.

• 2:05:42Bill Simmons?

  It felt like a zag, but I also, it did, did kind of make me go, huh? So it's going to be, last year, we did not have the shitty team that came out of nowhere. Like with the really bad odds to make the playoffs that actually did. The usually there's like a plus 400 or worse. And last year it didn't happen.

• 2:06:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 2:06:01Bill Simmons?

  Which means we're due this year.

• 2:06:03Speaker 02

  Carolina to win that division was at nine to one at one point in the season and Dream did play that. So they might, they're probably the one that fits.

• 2:06:13Bill Simmons?

  They were the closest.

• 2:06:14Speaker 02

  They won the division, so.

• 2:06:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm really excited at football back. I can't wait.

• 2:06:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, finally.

• 2:06:21Bill Simmons?

  Like honestly.

• 2:06:22Speaker 02

  Your listeners feel the same way.

• 2:06:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, this has been a good, you know, the World Cup followed by the Red Sox. I've had a really fun sports summer, but I'm, I'm getting ready. Getting ready to talk football, wager on football, do the whole thing. All right, House.

• 2:06:36Speaker 02

  Good times.

• 2:06:37Bill Simmons?

  And we have, we have FedEx coming when?

• 2:06:40Speaker 02

  The playoffs start, we're talking about professional golf. People, it's still on, something to watch through the balance of August. They will be in Memphis, they'll be in Chris Vernon's backyard next week. The first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs underway. The top 70 players in, on the, on tour. And then they cut it down from 70, I think to 50 at the next event, which is in St. Louis. But yeah, all the best golfers will be playing golf down in Memphis a week from now.

• 2:07:13Bill Simmons?

  Has anyone complained about the hotel he had in Memphis or no? That's just NBA?

• 2:07:19Speaker 02

  The tour guys don't, I haven't heard a lot of complaints out of tour guys.

• 2:07:22Bill Simmons?

  By the way, I forgot to mention WNBA before we go.

• 2:07:25Speaker 02

  Oh my, oh no.

• 2:07:27Bill Simmons?

  I've been watching, no, I've been watching, I've been enjoying it.

• 2:07:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:32Bill Simmons?

  And I've even tweeted this about how nobody needs a commissioner more than the WNBA right now. The WNBA, which is for some reason turned into the Twitter for you page as a league. And meanwhile, has all of these amazing stories going on. The league's fucking deep. Even like the teams that aren't good, like Seattle and Chicago, like you watch them, you're like, they have some good players. See, you know, it's.

• 2:07:55Speaker 02

  You know who's good? Washington.

• 2:07:57Bill Simmons?

  Right. The, the not good teams are actually like not bad to watch. And then they have, you know, the Olivia Miles keeping Minnesota straight the whole time. And now Collier's back, they're even odds to win the title. But Asia's the best player in the league still. She shut down Caitlyn the other night. Indiana's really fun to watch, New York. Like the league's like legitimately fun to watch and yet all anyone talks about is dumb shit. And then everyone who participates in this.

• 2:08:24Speaker 02

  Nonsense.

• 2:08:25Bill Simmons?

  Anyone who participates in the shitty discourse about the league, like I think that speaks more about them than the league. But what the league really needs is a commissioner. And I don't, I would personally bet anything that we will not have this commissioner next year. I will, if that was on Fanduel, I would be loading up.

• 2:08:46Speaker 02

  You'd have to lay in an enormous amount of juice.

• 2:08:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm thinking about throwing my hat in the ring. This, this, this league either needs somebody who thinks outside the box or it needs a therapist for everybody. It might need to be, the league might need to get Brene Brown as, as the commissioner, just a therapist to heal relationships.

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  Not you, anybody but you.

• 2:09:09Bill Simmons?

  Fine, fine, I'll sit out, not me. But I've never seen a league that needs just an adult to help them.

• 2:09:17Speaker 02

  An adult, oh god.

• 2:09:19Bill Simmons?

  Basic fucking situations.

• 2:09:21Speaker 02

  Yes, basic, the most basic situation.

• 2:09:24Bill Simmons?

  People like this league, not to mention they're on seven different channels, which was the same case for the NBA. But in this case, like I, I'd never know where the games are. At least the NBA, it's like, oh, I know this is an Amazon night. They've done such a terrible job of marketing because they had to grab money. God forbid, they didn't take every fucking dollar they could have. And you go to these games, it's like, I'd love to watch, I'd love to watch this Fever game tonight. I don't know where to find it. And now, now I'm doing roulette for 10 minutes looking for the channel.

• 2:09:54Speaker 02

  Well, I know where Ion is in my cable package now. Ion.

• 2:09:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Ion. Right, so the league's like cresting to, I think, a pretty good spot before football. But now they're all going to go away for like 10 days to do world champions, world championships. A team that somehow Olivia Miles isn't on, even though she's one of the most important people that's come in the league. I get it, they had practices and there's reasons for that. But I've never seen a league more determined to not push fun stars and fun storylines and fun people. Like this Olivia Miles, how many times do you watch her?

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  Only a little bit because I haven't caught a lot of Minnesota games.

• 2:10:33Bill Simmons?

  You honestly, you would love her.

• 2:10:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:10:36Bill Simmons?

  And she should be, like, if this was the NBA, this would be all anyone talked about. Like, have you seen Olivia Miles? She's on tonight. Oh my God, oh, I saw the commercial. And in WNBA, it's like, she's like an annoyance that she's just a good storyline. Like push your fucking players.

• 2:10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:52Bill Simmons?

  And then instead it's all this discourse stuff and they're just stepping in bear traps left and right because they have no adults in charge of the league.

• 2:11:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:00Bill Simmons?

  And, you know, I don't, I don't know where Adam Silver is either, but look, you're scared even talking about it. This is part of the problem of the league.

• 2:11:07Speaker 02

  I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say a word.

• 2:11:08Bill Simmons?

  Like terrified to even have conversations about it.

• 2:11:10Speaker 02

  The only thing that I will say, the lowest hanging fruit is getting, I don't understand enough. Why can't they get good refs in WNBA? That is like, is like more than anything else, that to me.

• 2:11:22Bill Simmons?

  They, I watched the entire Fever, the Chicago Sky Fever game.

• 2:11:29Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 2:11:31Bill Simmons?

  And Caitlyn was stumbling into the ref and the ref just gave her a tech that, yep, she's going to have to miss the game against New York on Tuesday. It's like, what? The game's on ESPN, you got to reverse this. So they reversed it, but.

• 2:11:44Speaker 02

  She clearly tripped. Now the question is, did she say something like, come on, you know, to the ref? Like out of frustration about how she ran into the, did Caitlyn say something?

• 2:11:53Bill Simmons?

  No, she said nothing and they reversed it. This is ridiculous.

• 2:11:55Speaker 02

  Of course, of course they reversed it. It was a nonsense tech.

• 2:11:58Bill Simmons?

  Can you imagine late 90s David Stern presiding over this league?

• 2:12:06Speaker 02

  Well.

• 2:12:07Bill Simmons?

  It would have some hits and some misses, but I think he would have been a little more involved.

• 2:12:12Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 2:12:12Bill Simmons?

  I mean, this commissioner they have now has no relationship with any of the stars. Just seems like she's like a businesswoman.

• 2:12:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12:21Bill Simmons?

  She is.

• 2:12:22Speaker 02

  And by the way, she did the thing. She got them a collective bargaining agreement with the, you know, with the increased revenue that the league has enjoyed since Katelyn Clark arrived.

• 2:12:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:34Speaker 02

  And on top of that, you know, they have the CBA in place and they have, you know, TV deals that are that are dramatically increased from what they had before.

• 2:12:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because they're on seven channels.

• 2:12:45Speaker 02

  They're getting eyeballs that people are interested in the WNBA. People are talking about it.

• 2:12:50Bill Simmons?

  Here's how stupid they are. Their finals are going to be on two different channels. Depending on the game.

• 2:12:57Bill Simmons?

  How stupid and desperate for money do you have to be to?

• 2:12:59Speaker 02

  It's also in, in during NFL season, right?

• 2:13:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that part too. But, I mean, look, if they got Indiana versus Minnesota or Indiana versus Vegas as the finals. That's just legitimately entertaining. And I don't care if you don't like women's basketball that much. I personally have grown to actually enjoy watching it. I like the style of it, but if those were the finals, that's going to be fucking awesome. And I'm sure they'll bury it. It'll be like, hey, is there a huge NFL game that we can put this finals directly against? Try to limit the audience because we don't want to make any new fans at all.

• 2:13:33Speaker 02

  Well, they do know that Tuesday night is a dead night. Friday night is a dead night. I mean, you know, historically, Friday night, that kid, you know, people are going to high school football games, but.

• 2:13:43Bill Simmons?

  Right, you could, you could basically make the two, the finals just be Tuesdays and Fridays to make sure they won't. They'll be like, oh no, it's counter programming. Okay.

• 2:13:55Bill Simmons?

  It's too bad though, because the league, they by far have the best collection of players that I, I think they've had.

• 2:14:01Speaker 02

  I agree with you.

• 2:14:01Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know anybody who thinks they're well run. So they have to fix this and I hope they do. That's the end of my rant, House. You see, you got out of this. We, we stayed at, we stayed out of, I didn't make you uncomfortable.

• 2:14:13Speaker 02

  Not once.

• 2:14:14Bill Simmons?

  Thanks for being on, House. I'll see you on Twitch and on YouTube and on Spotify and every other podcast platform for the Ringer Wise Guys Show, starting tomorrow with the Bundo and Rahim and so.

• 2:14:25Speaker 02

  It's gonna be great. It just can't wait. Nothing but winners.

• 2:14:28Bill Simmons?

  So that was today's mailbag. It was brought to you by ChatGPT Work, helping you work even harder. While it works on your projects, you could still call the plays so you're always in control. You could put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects, or even a couple of mailbag answers. Try ChatGPT Work today. Available to Plus and Pro Plans. I'm going to throw it right now to Amanda Dobbins, Rob Mahoney and myself, as promised.

• 2:14:59Speaker 03

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• 2:15:52Bill Simmons?

  We just taped the rewatchables. Jalen Brown press conference was today for the Sixers and Amanda mentioned she's very upset about this because she's married to a Sixer. So why are you upset about this? I'm a, I'm a long suffering Philly sports wife among my many other. You're the Kathleen Quinlan of sports wives. Is there any other kind? Yeah. And I, at the end of last season, and after the frankly humiliating playoff run against the Knicks, asked my husband and his close friends, who do include Chris Ryan? So, you know, I understand what I'm proposing here, but I suggested that we just renounce the Sixers, that we just take a break because I have watched this happen every year. They never have it.

• 2:16:37Bill Simmons?

  They, they just, they get there a little bit in April and you think, oh, maybe there's the juice or maybe you've got somebody else. They rope you in and then they absolutely do not deliver. I have to tell you that the darkest moments of my family life are on a Tuesday in February at 4:45 PM. When NBC Sports Philadelphia is on League Pass. And they're playing like the Hornets, do the, yeah, the Jazz, no, the Jazz are good, right?

• 2:17:09Bill Simmons?

  Do the Orlando Magic still exist? Magic, yeah. Okay. And no one cares. Everybody is just shuffling back and forth, trying to get this through this dark Tuesday in February. And we still have to spend our time watching this and investing this and reacting to this. And I just don't think it's a great way to spend your life. So I suggested this, I was pretty strongly rebuffed. Then the Jalen Brown thing happens with your absolutely incredible content. No one can do it like you and I, and I love you and I support you. Thank you. And then I am in my bedroom doing a workout with free weights next to my bed, which is supposed to be my time. That is just for me.

• 2:17:54Bill Simmons?

  When the door is closed, you don't come in until I'm done with the free weights. And the door opens on a Friday morning. My husband with a shitting grin on his face pops in to say, I just want to let you know that LeBron James is a 76er and walks back out again. And now I gotta deal with all this shit for another season. Is it gonna go well? No, the man is commuting from New York, which any sane person would do, by the way. Because have you seen Philadelphia in February? And I love everyone I know in Philadelphia. Like, we know that this isn't going to work. I don't know what's going on with Joel Embiid. Is he still a 76er? Yeah, technically. Like a third of the time.

• 2:18:38Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who Jalen Brown is, except for that he was traded during your medical treatments, which we're very plout, proud of you for getting. And I, it just, it does not seem like it's going to work. It seems like everyone's getting their hopes up again. And I would like to do something else with my time besides League Pass. Thank you. Well, I have some consolation news for you. The Eagles season starts in three weeks. I don't even want to talk about it. And the Phillies playoffs are coming. Yeah, and they're going to make it to October and then forget how to hit like they do every year. Wow, this is incredible stuff. Do you know what it's like living with a Philadelphia sports fan? You don't, you live close to them. You won a Super Bowl. You're friends with them. And then you won another Super Bowl. You won two Super Bowls. Can I tell you something about that Super Bowl?

• 2:19:24Bill Simmons?

  That was also my son's third birthday. And so we had his third birthday party in the morning. And then the entire Philadelphia family was there watching the Super Bowl together and ignoring the grandson on his birthday. That's three is a good birthday too. That's. Yeah, I mean, he was happy. I think it was also Saquon Barkley's birthday. So he knew that and like got into it. But so if he's happy, what's the problem? Well, the happiness never lasts. This is also, Sean is already letting go of the Knicks glow and is starting to bitch about the Mets again. And I just, like, I, I can't live like this. I just, I need them to control their emotions, you know? It's, it's tough living around all of you.

• 2:20:06Bill Simmons?

  Sean had such a glow for like a month with the Knicks and the return of movies. Yeah. It's gone. I'm gonna get in so much trouble for all the Philly stuff because I can say whatever I want. Well, I can't, I, I hear from Zach, but he doesn't mind when I represent his movie takes or our family life or things about our marriage. But anytime I weigh in on his Philadelphia fandom, like the people who threw snowballs at Santa come out, you know? I just need you to understand, if you did get him to disavow a Sixers fandom and they did somehow win, I think that you're cooked at that point. I know. That is grounds for divorce. And listen, to his credit, I guess, he just immediately rejected it.

• 2:20:47Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't going to do it, but it's just not how I want to spend January through April. It's not a good use of our time. You're stuck with your teams. You're stuck with your children and your teams. You can get divorced, but you, you can't divorce your team, in my opinion. I think you can get rid of the kids if you, if you really wanted to. There are people you can't. Force them off to an uncle, I get it.

• 2:21:09Bill Simmons?

  But you, you pick your team and that's it. The only thing is if they move. All right. So that's like, my dad was a Dodgers fan growing up because he grew up in Brooklyn, but then they moved. Okay. And then he went to college in Massachusetts and became a Boston fan. Yeah. Okay. Or if you live in Seattle and you were a Sonics fan and they move. What are you gonna do? But that, see, you didn't even, you glossed over the LeBron piece of this. LeBron's in your life now. He's always been in my life. No, but now you have to be like a LeBron defender. Your children will have LeBron jerseys. I don't have to do anything. You have to, no, I'm going to give you the playbook for be like, do you know how many records LeBron has? I didn't know I needed to spam text you LeBron highlights, but now we do, you know, like. Do you know how amazing this guy is?

• 2:21:55Bill Simmons?

  I had no idea. He's playing point guard for us this year. Are you, have you talked yourself into the Sixers yet or no? Of course I've talked myself into it. It's gonna be fun. This is gonna be a thing? It's gonna be exciting. It's the most fun, it'll be the most fun storyline the whole year. Okay, but that's different than it being fun to watch. I think they'll have moments when they'll be really fun to watch, yeah. Okay. It's just, they'll tantalize people and then it'll be like, oh, Embiid, where is he? He's not playing tonight. Uh, LeBron, LeBron's taking two weeks off. Just think of the glow that a good Sixers team could bring to that random Tuesday in February. I think this is gonna be great for Zach. I'll never trust it. It could be great for Zach. It, I think it is great for Zach. What this really is, is this is the end.

• 2:22:38Bill Simmons?

  This is the finish line of the process, which started in 2013. We need to trust it. And then throwing away seasons and building around Embiid. And now we've now culminated with this somewhat super team. Also, what if he brings my sons into this? It's going to happen. You know, they're Eagles fans a bit. They know about the Phillies. I like, they, they play baseball. It's tough. Mostly the kids gravitate to players. Okay. If they were in Philly, no chance, they're Philly fans. But they live here. Just don't know. Could go any direction.

• 2:23:11Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 2:23:11Bill Simmons?

  They might decide one day, I like Darius Garland. And all of a sudden, you're buying like a Darius Garland jersey. See, I think parents have a responsibility to educate their kids about Tyrese Maxey. And so like, you're just gonna have to bring him into your home. Yeah, so that's a great one. Maxey's great.

• 2:23:23Speaker 06

  You know what? We do have some, like, a portrait of Tyrese Maxey framed and hanging in my son's room. That was a gift from my sister-in-law.

• 2:23:31Bill Simmons?

  It's a good start.

• 2:23:32Speaker 06

  When I tell you I am living in crazy town, I am not kidding. We have a special name for the Philly Fanatic: Green Friend. I just, you know.

• 2:23:44Bill Simmons?

  You know what this is all really about?

• 2:23:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:23:45Bill Simmons?

  The three craziest cities for sports teams are all cold weather cities.

• 2:23:50Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Boston, New York, and Philly. Just fucking crazy.

• 2:23:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:23:55Bill Simmons?

  Because there's four or five months a year when the weather is just the worst it could be. And then in the summer, it's 100 degrees for six straight weeks.

• 2:24:02Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:24:03Bill Simmons?

  And everybody loses their minds. Only the cold-addled mind could have created gritty, you know? Like, it really takes some divine inspiration.

• 2:24:08Speaker 06

  Do we have a stuffed gritty? Yes. Do we have a gritty Christmas ornament? Yes. Do you know what our tree topper is? The Philly Fanatic. That's actually cool. I like that one. It was custom-made. But like, this is, this is what I deal with. And can the Sixers deliver on that?

• 2:24:22Bill Simmons?

  And you want to give it all away? Like, see, Rob and I know how this is gonna play out because we love the league and follow it religiously.

• 2:24:31Bill Simmons?

  In the second and third round, you have to play every other day, basically. And that's, will not be sustainable for 42-year-old LeBron and Joel Embiid. But between here and there.

• 2:24:40Speaker 06

  Or 42-year-old me, so, yeah.

• 2:24:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. That's where it'll fall apart. All right. Thanks for checking in with us, Amanda.

• 2:24:45Speaker 06

  Of course. Thanks so much. I'm sorry, Zach. I love you.

• 2:24:49Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wilds and House. Thanks to Dobbins and Mahoney for their cameo. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, two re-watchables episodes this week on Monday and Thursday, The Italian Job and About Last Night. And I will have another episode for you midweek, so stay tuned for that. See you then.

• 2:25:31Bill Simmons?

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