A Finals Pick, Greatest Knicks Ever, ‘Made’ N.Y.C. Stars, and Big NFL Trades With Max Kellerman

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Max Kellerman to discuss the blockbuster Myles Garrett trade to the Rams (02:35) and the Patriots trade for A. J. Brown (16:05). Then, they preview the biggest storylines heading into a highly anticipated Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals (29:35). Finally, they discuss the greatest Knicks of all time (56:20), what’s next for OKC (1:39:30), and much more! Host: Bill SimmonsGuest: Max KellermanProducers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, Tucker Tashjian, and Chris Wohlers Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com Bundle and SaveBook now on Expedia.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.

• 0:06Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new rewatchables on Sunday night. It might have been the best one we've ever done. It's at least in the running. It was 2001: A Space Odyssey, me, Sean Fantasy, and the one and only Steven Spielberg. Just an incredible episode. We thought we were gonna have him for like 75 minutes. He stayed for two hours and just put on a film school clinic for us. What a rush, what a great time. Claims he's coming back to do Jaws next year. We'll see, but we loved having him. I'm really proud of that episode, so go check it out when you have a chance. We're gonna have another rewatchables episode this week. We have a mailbag coming on Thursday, so stay tuned for that one.

• 0:51Bill Simmons?

  I am going to be doing a podcast right after game one tomorrow night. That's gonna be live on Netflix, so get ready for that as well. The Knicks are in the finals. Had to have Max Kellerman to just talk about football trades, the Knicks, Wemby, what should OKC do? Greatest Knicks of all time. We tried to cover as many things as we possibly could, and you can check out Max as well on the Game Over Podcast with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul. So that's coming up next. We're gonna take a break. We're bringing our friends from Pearl Jam, and then two hours with Max Kellerman, next. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one? A no look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal?

• 1:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now, you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator. And save offers before you check out, earn unlimited rewards. Plus, you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewards/. Credit card points subject to issuer's terms and conditions.

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• 3:35Bill Simmons?

  Max Kellerman is here. We are recording on a Tuesday morning, Pacific time, a day before the New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals. A day you never probably thought you'd see again in your lifetime. Had you given it up?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Getting to the Finals? Possible.

• 3:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Winning the Finals, something else.

• 3:52Bill Simmons?

  Impossible. We're gonna talk about that. I have a whole bunch of Knicks stuff for you, but I want to talk about football first, just because I didn't get a chance. Like, the NBA, every time they think they have the stage, they have Wemby coming in, vanquishing OKC. We have a Knicks Spurs wet dream Finals.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  The face of the league, everyone loves him, oh my God, worldwide sensation.

• 4:12Bill Simmons?

  And the NFL's like, hold my beer.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Versus the biggest market and like, center of the known universe that is basketball, starved. And that is, by the way, a basketball town above all things.

• 4:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Perfect for the NBA, and they can get bumped off the back page.

• 4:27Bill Simmons?

  Hardest ticket in probably the history of New York sports. And the NFL's like... Two monster trades for you today. How about this? We're gonna take it for one day from you.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  A buck thirty-five per seat, the first seats that sold. Up two hundred seventy thousand dollars for two courts.

• 4:44Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about that. My dad was always in this, but like my dad in the oh eight finals. You know, he said season tickets in seventy-four for the salts. But it was bad for, I don't know, fifteen years. I mean, they had one like decent team. And then the oh eight finals, they play the Lakers and it's like,

• 5:01Bill Simmons?

  it's a lot of money I could get for these tickets. I could basically pay for the last seven years. But it's like, well, what's the point of having the tickets if I'm not gonna go to these games? But you do have to do the mental math for it.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  You gotta go to at least one.

• 5:12Bill Simmons?

  I feel like you gotta go to all, but I would understand if people sold.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, we never had season tickets growing up. It was always like, yeah, I got box seats and I'm like, well, what are we doing up here? Well, when I was a kid, box seats, man, you sat down there. So, so like I was a bleacher creature.

• 5:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Football, Myles Garrett.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:31Bill Simmons?

  For Jared verse a one, a two and a three in three different years. In a lot of ways, a much bigger trade than Parsons because Jared verse is awesome.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:41Bill Simmons?

  I was, I was kind of stunned by this one. The Rams, they're zagging every year. They're always trying to, they're, everyone's doing this. We're doing this. We don't care about first round picks, whatever. We'll just try to pick up guys later in the draft. We're gonna go in over and over again on these guys in their prime. And it's mostly work. They got, they won a Super Bowl. They're always relevant. They always feel like they're one of the five or six best teams. I wanted to hate this trade for them. Cause it was like, man, verse is really good. Like is that, is that upgrade worth all you're giving up? But then I kept thinking back to all the Browns games I watched the last couple of years, especially last year. He's just, Garrett's getting double teamed and the line is just going backwards anyway.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  He makes everyone better.

• 6:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  But versus, look, when I first heard about the trade, I just assumed it was draft picks. I'm like, oh, they gave up this, this, this. Oh, wait, and verse, and verse. Got to do it if you're the Rams.

• 6:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess you have to.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  First of all, Myles Garrett's wearing the crown. Right? So like, there's a lineal champ in football too on the defensive side. It went from J.J. Watt to Aaron Donald to Myles Garrett. This is the Myles Garrett defensive era right now. And he's in his prime. You'd like, so.

• 6:56Bill Simmons?

  That's a fun championship belt, by the way. Reggie White had it for a few years.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  L.T.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Reggie White, Bruce Smith popped in there.

• 7:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Maybe between those two. Um, yeah, there's like, it is, and every era has that guy.

• 7:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Occasionally, it's like, well, Khalil Mack never had it. This guy never had it, but actually, it was really always Aaron Donald's. And maybe you can find a few years, but by and large, J.J. Watt.

• 7:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Aaron Donald, Myles Garrett. When, and I'm sure that that's not the first thing they had in mind. Hey, let's, let's make verse into an even better player, right?

• 7:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  But if the opportunity presents itself to get a special player, you go all in, you figure out the rest later.

• 7:37Bill Simmons?

  If you. Especially with how close they were last year.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  It were, that was a Super Bowl, like, you know, no offense, Pats fans, but like, it was very clear sometimes.

• 7:45Bill Simmons?

  I take no offense. I'm not even sure we should have been in the Super Bowl.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Out of the, out of the, out of the AFC or something.

• 7:51Bill Simmons?

  I was talking to my buddy Gus Ramsey yesterday, who's a huge Broncos fan. And I was just like, I can't believe you guys didn't beat us. Like, that Bo Nix thing was such a crazy.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:00Bill Simmons?

  End of the game fluke, and I just, Denver gets to 20 points if they have Bo Nix in that game. That's not a 10-7 game.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  No, but that's a pretty evenly, it's pretty even match. It's like, it's like the, it's like the junior varsity Rams Seahawks.

• 8:13Bill Simmons?

  Right, right.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Pretty even matchup, could go either way.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  We couldn't block, though.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 8:17Bill Simmons?

  The further I get away from the playoffs, I'm like, I can't believe we thought we were going to win the Super Bowl.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, you went on it.

• 8:22Bill Simmons?

  Both sides of our line couldn't block. And then Seattle was like, oh, Will Campbell, we're going to go attack this side too. And they just destroyed us.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  And Drake may look like a deer in headlights in the Super Bowl, but there's the A.J. Brown trip. Okay, what, first things first. So, so this is what I love about what the Rams did.

• 8:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Is your faith misplaced? Yes or no? Or have you put it in the right place? Hey, I know what we'll do. We'll trade for James Harden. That'll win us a championship and we'll give him everything he needs, right? Misplaced faith.

• 8:52Bill Simmons?

  Especially when it comes out they could have had Drew Holiday instead. That is brutal. How did they decide on James Harden over Drew Holiday? That's insane. I couldn't believe that.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So the Rams trade. Let's back up before Stafford.

• 9:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  They used a lot of draft capital to get Jared Goff.

• 9:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Jared Goff's not just like we had the number one pick. Jared Goff represents multiple high level draft picks in order to move up to get Goff. And it worked. You made a Super Bowl.

• 9:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  But you didn't win a Super Bowl. So then you put even more draft capital, multiple high end picks to turn Goff into Stafford. Thinking that is the difference between making and winning a Super Bowl. And it worked.

• 9:37Bill Simmons?

  And they were right.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  And it almost worked twice.

• 9:40Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  So like, is the faith placed in the right place?

• 9:44Bill Simmons?

  Would they give up for Devante? Was that second?

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it wasn't a first.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no. I'd have to check that.

• 9:51Bill Simmons?

  Or they signed? No, they signed him.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  They signed Devante. They signed Devante. I knew it wasn't a first. They signed Devante. But, but like that is, when you think about what that took to get Stafford, the draft capital, people would say you're insane. They won a Super Bowl. They came this close to winning another Super Bowl. So you have a two year window right now. And who knows if he'll be good two years from now?

• 10:11Bill Simmons?

  They also really, they draft well in the later rounds, which I wonder like when you know you don't have picks. You're basically crossing off the first 30 guys on the board, right? And you're spending way more time on the next level guys.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  If you're good at that.

• 10:24Bill Simmons?

  Like Puka Nakua.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  If you're good at that, you can trade draft picks.

• 10:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Right?

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  Which they've been good.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  They've been real. And then even the McDuffie thing is like, they'll be better there.

• 10:35Bill Simmons?

  I forgot they did that.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  They'll be better there than they were. Like the real, the real separation, okay, special teams, Seahawks had a big advantage going into the Super Bowl. And the secondary, Seahawks had an advantage. Well, the secondary is kind of shored up now. And then you add Myles Garrett, like, even if it doesn't work, it's worth the shit. Like, take a swing. That is a swing worth taking.

• 10:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, I also like, we're old enough to remember when this moves like this over the years, when you put a guy that. Couldn't get over the hump and also wasn't getting enough attention for how great he was. And then you put him on the right team in a big city with a chance to win. You always get the bump.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  You get the bump. With Stafford, it was so unclear. It was like, he's always considered top five arm talent. Right. But then after, he got to the point in his career where it really wasn't clear. You know, usually a great quarterback, even in a bad organization, keeps you at a certain level. And he did for a while, but not always. And it was like, well, is Stafford a little overrated by the real football heads? Or is this just a bad situation for him? Stafford is.

• 11:39Bill Simmons?

  That's Trevor Lawrence now.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:41Bill Simmons?

  It was the same thing where the, the nerds were saying he was better than he was, but the eye test was like, all right, well, where is it? And then he finally made the playoffs, but Stafford, I, I could never figure out, cause he was on the Lions, the worst football team of, you know, run franchise. But he did have receivers. So it was always like, what is this guy?

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:59Bill Simmons?

  It always seemed like he was getting the shit kicked out of him.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  But he put up numbers.

• 12:02Bill Simmons?

  He did.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:03Bill Simmons?

  But it, there was a point I remember when it was like, he's gonna be a Hall of Famer someday and, and the counter was like, really? He's a. Matthew Stafford? I mean, now.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Surefire Hall of Famer.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  Now, now he's a surefire.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  And even to win that Super Bowl, you think about, I think we've discussed this here, but when Brady is defending the title in Tampa.

• 12:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  And he leads the team down and scores at the end of the game. The reason Brady wins all those championships, the reason like, like guys like Kobe and these guys won a lot of games, like you think about like the Sacramento game with Lakers. Is because everyone on the court believes that that guy is destined to win, right?

• 12:43Bill Simmons?

  Kind of what the Knicks have.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  With Jalen Brunson?

• 12:45Bill Simmons?

  Stumbled into with Brunson. They just feel like, if we can hang around, he can win this for us.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  That guy, but, but does the other team believe it too? Cause when Brady's on the field, everyone, both teams believe it.

• 12:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  And like, okay, here comes, like they win now and Stafford drove them right back down the field and won the game. And then went on to win the Super Bowl. He's a special guy. Like to overcome that kind of stuff, that's a, it's like, like Kurt Schilling. Whatever you think about Kurt Schilling, should be in the Hall of Fame, obviously. And, and when, when, when guys like a. Brochus and Tino hit home runs at the end of games. That signals this ain't your year, especially 2001, nine 11. And like in New York and the Yankees are destined to win. But a guy like Curt Schilling's like, not so fast, right?

• 13:30Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  I don't, what was it Destiny, whatever in Destiny or? What, what do you have? It was like we're strippers or whatever. Mystique and Destiny or, or I forgot what two words it was, but everyone was using that in New York that the Yankees are gonna win.

• 13:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  And they, and, and the, the, the retort was those are, you know? That's all they are.

• 13:52Bill Simmons?

  I kinda still can't believe they didn't win that year. Because part of it was because Rivera got dinged up in the ninth, which was inconceivable in the, in the moment.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Actually.

• 14:00Bill Simmons?

  I know, it was like a couple of singles.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Even worse than that, Rivera, who's one of the best fielding players at his position of all time.

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Turned around, game was over, double play ball, turned around and threw it into center field. Right? Like stuff like that happens and then you bring the infield, then you get a little, and pop out. But the point is when you have a guy like that on your team, it, it like, the, all that kind of team of destiny stuff on the other side goes away. Stafford's that kinda guy.

• 14:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  He had to overcome Brady to do that. That's why I, when Stafford has the ball late, I, I thought the Rams were gonna win the game late in the game. Even though Seahawks you knew were a little bit better than them, but it's like they got Stafford.

• 14:39Bill Simmons?

  The Myles Garrett piece.

• 14:43Bill Simmons?

  I don't think most people know what he looks like. Now you could say this for most football players, but like if, I don't know, Karl Anthony Towns walked into a restaurant. Most people know what he looks like because we see him on a basketball court. And football players, for the most part, we don't know what they look like. I think people know what the quarterbacks look like.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  You don't think they know what Garrett looks like? I think so.

• 15:03Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, Mo, like would my son know what he looks like? I'm just thinking like the recognizability.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  First of all, he had his helmet off on the field. We know famously. So.

• 15:13Bill Simmons?

  I think there's just a level of fame that he doesn't have that this Rams thing is gonna immediately solve. He was this underground, he's playing at Sunday, one o'clock ET, getting the shit kicked out of, his team's getting the shit kicked out of them every game, basically. He's on one Thursday night football game a year, probably against the Steelers and maybe a crappy Monday night game. And then everyone is telling us how great he is, but you know, sometimes this happens. I remember this happened to Moss in the mid 2000s when he just became irrelevant for like. Three years when when you're just on shitty teams year after year.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Moss went from is he gonna challenge Jerry Rice as the greatest wide out ever to.

• 15:52Bill Simmons?

  Which seemed debatable.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, at the time. And then it was like, well, I guess that didn't happen. And then it was like, oh, wait, maybe it did happen when he went to New England.

• 16:00Bill Simmons?

  It was that we got him for a fourth round pick.

• 16:04Bill Simmons?

  But that's how bad he was on the Raiders. I have him. We might have talked about this. I have him second.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, who would be second over Moss?

• 16:13Bill Simmons?

  I I feel like Rice one Moss two is kind of set in stone.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  No question.

• 16:17Bill Simmons?

  People try to push the Terrell Owens case every once in a while. And it's just like, doesn't team murdering matter?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  I love T O, but.

• 16:24Bill Simmons?

  Murdered at least two teams, right?

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Well, the thing, T O gets a little bit of.

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't that matter? The chemistry stuff has to matter a tiny bit when you're talking about the greatest of the greats.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Fine, but then you also have to give him credit for it. And this was tripped me out when he plays in the Super Bowl. Hurt.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  With a broken leg.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  He is the best player on his team.

• 16:44Bill Simmons?

  I think he had eight catches, seven or eight catches.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Arguably the best player in the game.

• 16:48Bill Simmons?

  We couldn't cover him.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  And he was criticized heading into that game. It's he's a selfish play. And I was thinking, wait, this guy's rep is so bad in the media. That playing with a broken leg, he's criticized for being selfish, and then he's the best player on the field.

• 17:03Bill Simmons?

  Was tough. It spoke a lot to how annoying he was in the 2000s.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  But also how great he was.

• 17:08Bill Simmons?

  The A J Brown pieces has just a whiff of that because he was unhappy with the Eagles, but watching from my TV in L A. He should have been unhappy. I didn't understand anything about their offense. So the Pats get him.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Not last year.

• 17:22Bill Simmons?

  Rumored for, I don't know, three months. It was pretty. Once the Eagles started drafting receivers, it was pretty clear it was gonna happen. They gave up a. Twenty eight first. I wish they had top 10 protected it, but they don't do it in football.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, why don't they do this? Are they allowed to do it in football?

• 17:36Bill Simmons?

  They are allowed to do it. They just, you could have done it where it's like.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Make it top 15 at least, right? Because if Drake May gets hurt, something happens, you wind up in the middle of the pack, that's the NFL.

• 17:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, it was interesting that they didn't make it 27 because I think. If I'm the Patriots, I wouldn't have because of the schedule, Super Bowl hangover.

• 17:55Bill Simmons?

  If you're gonna stink in 27 or 28, 27 is probably the safer bet.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  You think that's the Pats? I figured that's the Eagles.

• 18:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I think that's the Pats.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  I figured that's the Eagles saying, all right, we don't want a late first round. It's practically like a second round pick. Why don't we roll the dice and see? Maybe something happens in the next year or two.

• 18:13Bill Simmons?

  I think it was the Eagles because they're they're playing the percentages of what happens to the team that loses the Super Bowl and gets the first place schedule and had everything go right there before.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  You think it's the Eagles wanting the next? Yeah, I agree. I think the Eagles want not this year, but the.

• 18:29Bill Simmons?

  No, I think I think the Patriots wanted it to be 28. Cause of some fear of 27, what could happen? If I was the Eagles, I would have wanted 27.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Really?

• 18:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  No, I want 28 because the thing about A.J. Brown, and this happened with Jalen Hurts, what was Hurts' big problem before they got Brown? Was that he couldn't see the middle of the field, right? Then you get a guy who, and like, is A.J. Brown a little past it? Yeah, he's probably not as good as he was a couple of years ago. But he's never.

• 18:56Bill Simmons?

  We don't know. They didn't throw him the ball.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. You don't know. But he's also, it's his age, it's the whole thing. He's never a guy who relied on, it's not like, oh, my God, A.J. Brown is a one-on-one matchup nightmare because he gets all this separation. He's a nightmare because he doesn't need separation. He's gonna catch the ball, right? So a guy like that who's tough, who can go across the middle of the whole thing, makes a guy like Jalen Hurts go from, hey, is he gonna work out to almost two-time Super Bowl MVP? And you got a guy like Drake May, who was in a version of the situation Hurts was in, he looked lost in the Super Bowl. You get a receiver like that, and that could make it, that can easily have him taking the next step, especially in the moment of truth.

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of good stats with A.J. Brown against man-to-man where he's basically like the most unstoppable guy in the league.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, because.

• 19:44Bill Simmons?

  That was the biggest issue with the Pats. Like, they, none of the receivers could get open as the year went on. You could feel it. And then in the playoffs, when they start going against these awesome defenses, you know, not to make excuses for Drake, because he, you know, I don't think he was healthy, but he was also really bad in the Super Bowl. But then they do that, all 22 shots, and you watch what he's looking at.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:04Bill Simmons?

  And everybody's just blanketed. They would have like the straight line guys open. Then every once in a while digs, but it really, the second half of the year wasn't open as much.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  But that's the thing about AJ Brown. He's kind of never open, but he's always open.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Like wherever he is, you can throw him the ball and there's a good shot, he's going to catch it. And that, that is like the perfect player for a young quarterback who needs to take a step forward.

• 20:26Bill Simmons?

  He had 145 targets and 22 and 158 and 23. And then the last two years was 97 and 121. And it added up when you watched it because, and I, I get it. Like they were doing that weird math thing with the possessions where it was like, we're going to shorten the game because we have a better team. Every play felt like it was 35, 40 seconds and the pace of the team just seemed way off. But if I'm AJ Brown, I'm, hey, like he clearly got fed up with it. Now he's on this Patriots team that desperately needs him. He's going to have Dobbs next to him. They have a bunch of young receivers. The offensive lines. Okay.

• 21:05Bill Simmons?

  It's going to be slightly better.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  The Eagles, the Eagles just had, their offense was ridiculous last year.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Right? And there was no real reason for, I mean, you can, you could try to rationalize, it was a bad idea. In, in, you, empirically, it was a bad idea, right?

• 21:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, which part? Like how, because to me, it's like, you're going to pay 50 million a year to Hertz. And you're going to pay 60 million to two receivers. And then you're basically going to walk the ball up the court? Like you've built this team that's supposed to do this.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  That dominates both sides of the line.

• 21:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then, and now you're playing a different style than the team you built, which I never really fully understood. I know it's frustrating with the Philly fans. So the best case, and he's a Vrabel guy, which we, you know, is a big piece of this. Vrabel loves his guys. Vrabel needed this, by the way.

• 21:53Bill Simmons?

  It needed something good to happen.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  He got AJ, it was all worth it.

• 21:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you know, it's been two weeks without a story and now he's got AJ Brown.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  But that's good when coaches should go get their guys.

• 22:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, I was looking at the wide receiver trades because best case was Moss. When it gets in trouble, when you give up like big capital, like a first round pick, the Cowboys gave up two for Joey Galloway that year and he immediately got hurt. Roy Williams, Percy Harvin, people like that. That's where you get into trouble. You don't get into trouble when you're getting one of the best receivers in the league.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Actually, everyone thinks that like forever now, it's like quarterback's the most important guy, obviously, right? And then everyone's thinking, well, then his protection is the sort of left tackle. And then it's defensive end off the right side because pass rusher because that and that, no, it's actually quarterback one, one A. Is a legit elite receiver.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  At least one.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  A. That's, that's, it's so much more valuable than every other position. It's, that's what the league is now. And like, by the way, you bring up Randy Moss. When the Giants got Plexico Burress, they won the Super Bowl. Then the next year, he literally shoots himself in the foot, right? And they don't have Plexico Burress and I'm thinking at the time, well, no one receiver. No, it was night and day difference, right? Like when you have an actual elite, top five guy, a top 10 guy. It's other than the quarterback, the most important position on the field, but a lot of those guys.

• 23:25Bill Simmons?

  The 11 Giants so annoying to me. You didn't even have that. Their second Giants Super Bowl.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  No, we didn't have that, but, but we had, we had some good receivers.

• 23:33Bill Simmons?

  Terrible loss. To me, that loss is much worse for me as a Pats fan than oh seven.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Can I tell you?

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh seven, they beat us.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  That second one.

• 23:43Bill Simmons?

  11 is ridiculous.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  That second one was so amazing as a Giants fan. I was more exhausted after watching that game than I remember at any point in my life. Because.

• 23:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, you stole a Super Bowl. You didn't have a better team.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I could imagine a little kid growing up in Boston somewhere, watching that game. And all he knows, his first memory is that they somehow, the perfect season, they're about to be anointed, greatest team in the history of sports, right?

• 24:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  And they somehow lose in the most unlikely way, like the Tyree catch.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  It's happening again. Again, it like, it's like a train wreck for a Patriots fan.

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  Did you go to that game?

• 24:24Speaker 02

  I did not.

• 24:25Bill Simmons?

  I went to that game.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  I was in L A for that game.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  From the moment Brady had the safety on the intentional grounding, that I'm still, don't know how that was the call. And the game was just off. We had Gronk on one leg. The Giants, I, who was it? Brandon Jacobs was like, it was just a weird Giants offense.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  The.

• 24:42Bill Simmons?

  It was a lot of like, the score was always weird, the whole game. It was like, one of those games where it was like 15 to 12.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  You let him score intentionally to try to.

• 24:50Bill Simmons?

  Every, every piece of that game was kind of off.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  The, and then the Manning head, like you hear Belichick say, and this is what Belichick did at his best. Take away your first and second option. Beat us with your third option. He did. Like, that's, okay.

• 25:05Bill Simmons?

  I was in the end zone where Eli had that throw.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:09Bill Simmons?

  The throw was incredible.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's one of the, it's one of the best throws ever.

• 25:11Bill Simmons?

  I think he, what was he on? Like his own eight or his own nine? I don't remember, but he just like, it was a fucking frozen rope.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  It was unbelievable.

• 25:18Bill Simmons?

  35 yards, catching the guy like this in the one spot where he could get it. And that's, if you're making the Eli Hall of Fame case.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Which I do.

• 25:27Bill Simmons?

  It's whatever he was doing on that last Giants drive, even though he tried to throw it to us three times.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  It was.

• 25:32Bill Simmons?

  But he was scrambling for his life and just creating shit and it somehow worked. And then that Manningham throw.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  The same reason that Peyton, a lot of his career was bad in the playoffs.

• 25:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Is because when you are the chosen one and you are expected to be perfect, right? Man, there's a lot on the line in those moments. When you're his kid brother, it's like, there's no, like, if I fail, big deal. So why not go for it, right? Like, there's no fear of failure for a guy like Eli.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  Do you think now that, now that we have Dart, he's the face of the Giants? Does he get compared to Eli or is it, is it too far gone now?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  He's more talented.

• 26:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  You know, it's a different game now, but no, I mean. The Giants-

• 26:15Bill Simmons?

  Eli's just kinda over here.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  He's a Hall of Famer. First of all, he had an Iron Man streak. He was playing in bad weather city, like with the wind and everything. Meadowlands was not-

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  So that's the real Hall of Fame case, is him in the playoff games. The freezing cold in Lambeau, the candlestick.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Twice, against Favre and Rogers.

• 26:35Bill Simmons?

  And taking huge, huge, huge punishment in those games.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Tough as nails.

• 26:39Bill Simmons?

  The toughest motherfucker. And that's, I don't, see, I have trouble with the Hall of Fame in general because I feel like we've just increased the capacity of the restaurant to ridiculous.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  It's just, the basketball's been ruined now.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  But it's inevitable because whoever the worst guy is who gets in, that will now be the benchmark. And people say, well, he's better than this guy. Why isn't he in?

• 27:01Bill Simmons?

  All due respect to Michael Cooper, but that's where the NBA Hall of Fame is now. Like, Michael Cooper's in. So if you go through the Knicks team right now, it's like, who could make the Hall of Fame from the Knicks? It's like, who wouldn't make the Hall of Fame from the Knicks? So maybe five of these guys-

• 27:13Speaker 02

  You've got three starters who could do it.

• 27:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I mean, Towns is probably a Hall of Famer at this point, and it's nuts, but it's-

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Brunson?

• 27:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  And then the question would be OG.

• 27:21Bill Simmons?

  Right. If OG could stay healthy for a couple of years. And then it's like, what if Mikal Bridges plays 1,700 games and is the number four guy on a title team?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think-

• 27:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't know anymore. I don't know what a Hall Famer is.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  But, but you have to like, Cooper, you could hang your hat on something that defined him at a certain level.

• 27:36Bill Simmons?

  He was an awesome role player.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Right. Like, you know, so, but although if Bridges, if Bridges keeps playing, like, he's two different guys, regular season playoffs. He's like, during the regular season, it's like, you five firsts on that? Are you out of your mind? He's a nice three and D guy, but that's it. Three and D plus-

• 27:53Bill Simmons?

  Halfway through the Atlanta series, it seemed like a catastrophe.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Every playoffs, he's like this though.

• 27:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Like, his defense is unbelievable. He's hitting shots.

• 28:02Bill Simmons?

  He was great on Maxey. I love how he figured out how to play with Brunson and Towns in the playoffs. For some reason, it clicked. Like, he's just popping in the right spots.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  They changed the way they use Towns, really. That's the whole thing.

• 28:13Bill Simmons?

  We gotta talk about that, the finals. We're gonna take one break and hit the finals. All right, the 2026 NBA Finals is here. New York, San Antonio. We're gonna make some picks. I am going to probably share picks for at least a few of the games on my Twitter feed from FanDuel Sportsbook. For the series, though, since we're doing this on a Tuesday. I like the Spurs to win this series. I like the Spurs in six, which is five to one odds. But I think the Spurs would be my, uh, my series pick as well. I wouldn't mess with the, Wemba Yama is almost definitely the finals MVP. You're just better off taking the, uh, taking the Spurs money line at that point.

• 28:54Bill Simmons?

  So, uh, game to game, I would definitely take San Antonio in game one. Uh, and then we'll see how it goes. Usually home team wins game one. Game two becomes a little bit of a test around slugfest. When I bet, I bet with FanDuel. It's a brand I trust, easy to build NBA bets on FanDuel as well and find futures, all kinds of things you want to do. You're getting great odds, payouts on your parlays, boosts every day. Get your winnings instantly. FanDuel, play your game. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. Family vacations are great. My, uh, favorite family vacation ever. I went to cover the 2012 Olympics in London and I brought my family.

• 29:36Bill Simmons?

  My son was five, my daughter was seven, and we were in London for three weeks and we went to Paris for another week and it was just awesome. Uh, our kids were the right age to travel. That's my number one family vacation I've ever had. But we've had plenty of those trips where everyone's excited, but you hit the planning part. Suddenly it feels like there's too many moving pieces. You start talking yourself out of it. Can't find the right flight, can't find the right hotel. That's why Expedia is a total game changer. Flights, hotels, vacation rentals, cars, activities. Everything's in one spot, which makes the whole process way easier. And the bundle and save feature is huge. The more you bundle, the more you can save because you can book what you need now, add more later, keep saving on the way.

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

  Book your flight today, attach your hotel tomorrow and you're still good. So if you're thinking about your next family getaway, bundle your flights, cars, hotels, vacation rentals and save. Savings vary, members only. Book your next trip with Expedia.

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• 31:20Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says The Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, opens in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles, nationwide October 30th today. Who are you picking for the finals?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Just close to taking the Knicks.

• 32:04Bill Simmons?

  They check a lot of boxes for the nobody believes in us pick.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  They're like, maybe one guy short on the bench right now, but it doesn't.

• 32:12Bill Simmons?

  I wish, we don't know the Robinson situation.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  That's the whole thing. He's really their sixth man. He doesn't, but like, he's really.

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

  You've, you've seven guys.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:21Bill Simmons?

  Including Robinson.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  I, Shamet and him off the bench, McBride, we'll see. We'll see what McBride looks like again. I know, but we'll see what he looks like against San Antonio.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:32Bill Simmons?

  But Robinson you need for, because you need fouls and.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  He's also a great playoff performer. Like, he really is a great, defensive guys you don't always think of like that, but like, watch him play in the playoffs, you go, champion. Player. I want him on my team.

• 32:47Bill Simmons?

  He's Wemby kryptonite too, because Zach and I talked about this a little on Saturday. The way to kind of hit and Hartenstein did a little bit in the last series, but when Wemby's playing that box in one zone, whatever the fuck he's doing. And he's especially with Brunson where they'll have guys on Brunson and then Wemby kind of shifting over. And you leave the back of the basket open and that's like Mitch's specialty. It's like, you're not going to box me out. I'm just going to get 10 offensive rebounds. And that was what OKC, anytime they felt like they had momentum, it was on the offensive board. So they need Mitch for that for anything.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Knicks are good on the offensive glass.

• 33:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:22Bill Simmons?

  OG would be the other one. Knicks seem like they're healthy, except for Robinson. Um, the, the game three, game four crowds are gonna be crazy.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  That's a huge part of it too, by the way. That's a huge part of it. Like health this time of year. They happen to be very healthy right now.

• 33:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, not playing basketball always helps.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  No question.

• 33:38Bill Simmons?

  You're just like getting the nine days off.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  And as the, as the road team, the long, like if you have a long layoff, I hate to have home court. Because you're gonna, you could give it up game one before you get that out of your system, you know, the rust gone. But if you're on the road, so what? You lose game one. Now you're rested. You have a good shot at take, at splitting on the road and taking home court. So it's like kind of working out in their favor and they beat them in the cup on a neutral site. They, they came a possession away from beating them in San Antonio.

• 34:06Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  They, they, they have a way of playing the Spurs.

• 34:09Bill Simmons?

  Teams are even.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  They're even and because the Knicks slow it up and, and be, when they have their version of the death lineup on the floor, they can hit shots late in the clock. So they're slowing up the pace and scoring late in the clock. And that's kind of stymies the Spurs offense, I think.

• 34:26Bill Simmons?

  Here's what, I'm going to pick the Spurs. Here's what I think really hurts the Knicks in this series is all the layoffs between the games. Cause they have this two, two, one, one, one schedule and they've spaced stuff out. And I think that's really helpful to Wemby.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 34:41Bill Simmons?

  I felt like in the OKC series, it was a constant battle of, you know, there were just games where he just seemed like he, he was dead.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Know why they won the series? Cause they could play him 28 minutes in game six.

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Right? If he had to play 34, 38 minutes in game six, they may have lost.

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  That trip, that double overtime game in game one, which just wreaked havoc on both rosters, but you could really feel it that, I just think, especially after seeing him in person a couple of times and you've seen him in person too, right?

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  It's just, he's not really meant to run up and down a basketball court. Like, that's not what God created a seven foot seven guy to do is just run up and down on a wooden floor.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  But he does.

• 35:22Bill Simmons?

  And he does it, and he's about as graceful as you can. Like him and Kareem are the two tall guys I've ever seen who seemed graceful as they went up and down. But he started throwing 42, 43 minutes. All the stuff he has to do defensively, all the hard rolls they do with him to kind of create three points. And it's just.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Even the way he closes out, like he'll close out, the play is lost. Like, the guy's gonna hit the shot. But just because Wemby gives the effort to close out and put his hand up.

• 35:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  I think they're shoot, I, I'd love to know what the numbers are. I'll bet you shooting percentages get cut in half. You have a guy shooting a three. Wemby's just, he's not in position. He's not gonna get there in time. But just the fact that he can kind of blot out the sun, like you can't see the basket. And at the last second, guys who you expect to hit the shot don't hit the shot.

• 36:08Bill Simmons?

  There was a great clip that somebody took a Chet in game six. Where in the same possession, he tried to challenge Wemby twice and just kind of bailed on it the second time. It was like, okay. Like, he was gonna take a three from the corner. And part of the problem with Chet in that series was his, he's got one of those long developing jumpers. And Wemby was always able to come out and challenge it. So then he decided, all right, I'm gonna take him off the dribble. And he beat him off the dribble, did a spin move, and it's like, oh, he's gonna block this. And he just kind of bailed and.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Chet's seven foot one, he's not used to be like, he's.

• 36:39Bill Simmons?

  Nah.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  It, you know, it's like, why can't a lefty hit a lefty? Because I never see the lefties, right?

• 36:44Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  When does Chet see a guy who's him but three, four inches taller? And, and you gotta credit Wemby, I love this about Wemby. When he threw that elbow, exactly. If a guy's hitting you low and the ref doesn't do anything about it, hit him low back. Do it harder, right? He'll get the message. Wemby swung that elbow and it changed a little bit the way they were playing him, right? Oh, excuse me. And the.

• 37:06Bill Simmons?

  The elbow helped and then when he ordered his team.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  And then the hits. Yup, code red.

• 37:11Bill Simmons?

  He did it. Little fuck you from Wemby, which I think people like.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. So like, yeah, like can't handle the truth. He, and then he has this thing in him where he looks at, everyone's like, well, it's come from the, the, where kids and, and, and Chet got MVP of this tournament. Wemby sees Chet, he sees the team he's on, he knows that's my guy, that's my rival. And he let him know at every chance, I own you. To the point where Chet started believing it, right? Like everyone's writing Chet off now, but I don't know, he could learn from this. Like you could, he could actually grow from it, but he got his heart, like when Wemby took his heart and everyone, the whole world saw it, right? So he did that intentionally. He knew like, that's my guy. I gotta, I gotta make sure he knows he doesn't have a shot.

• 38:01Bill Simmons?

  We talked about it on Saturday night about the Drexler Jordan. That was a little like that too, where Jordan, you know, the people like, these guys, who's better? And that was a real thing that was happening for about a week. And then Jordan was just like, all right, I've had enough of this.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  He took it personally.

• 38:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So the reason I'm picking, all due respect to the Knicks and they do check a lot of my nobody believes in us. The Robinson thing worries me. I do think they have a really good team to play the Knicks. Like if you were creating a team to kind of stop Brunson, especially in the fourth quarter, you would say you want these defensive guards and swings that could switch. Combined with this big tall guy in the back to challenge all like the 12 to 15 footer stuff. I just think it's a bad matchup. So the way, the way for the Knicks to beat them obviously is hope Wemby wears down. Hope the Spurs three point shooting isn't there. Hope the crowd is going to come through in your home games. And then just get an awesome OG Bridges combo.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  If Josh Hart is, if Josh Hart is hitting from outside, Knicks are hard to beat.

• 39:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, that's going to happen one of the games.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Right. The question is how many times it's going to happen?

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  And then can you get the offensive rebounds? Like I see the path for it. I just think this is like a generational thing now and I'm not going against it. And I I felt the whole year I was like, are the Spurs really since December, are they the 90 Bulls or the 91 Bulls? And I think they're telling us they're the 91 Bulls.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, the 90 Bulls were the best team in basketball. Pippen got a migraine in game seven.

• 39:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Right? Like, you know, otherwise they probably they everyone's like, oh, Jordan had to win. No, he didn't. He needed one other All-Star with him. He didn't. And then in game seven, he didn't have him. You can't beat the champs by yourself.

• 39:49Bill Simmons?

  But they weren't they weren't dominant in the playoffs that year.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  No, no, you're right. They took a jump.

• 39:53Bill Simmons?

  Next year, they fucking destroyed everybody.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  That was also baby Pippen. Like Pippen made his first All-Star game, but he wasn't what he would be the next year. He became into his prime, right?

• 40:01Bill Simmons?

  Hundred percent.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  I I would say that I agree with you 100% about your analysis of why the Spurs would win. The what got me thinking the Spurs like I was, I said all season, but from from like the middle of the season. I said the Spurs are the best team in basketball. They're going to win the championship. But by the time the Knicks were finished playing them the third time, I thought, if the Knicks come out of the East, they would have like a 40% shot of beating the Spurs.

• 40:27Bill Simmons?

  I think 40% is the right number.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  For what you identified, which is, and it occurred to me in game seven, actually. Really, the number one name is Castle. Castle and Harper are puppies and they're even like out in front of themselves like a puppy gets out in front of himself.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  But like they're pure bred puppy like they these guys are already dogs, right? They're already a problem. They don't even know what they're doing yet. They're overly exuberant on defense. They're they can wind up in foul trouble because of how they're bumping around out there.

• 40:58Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  But because of Castle's size and his tenacity, it's like you kind of don't want that overgrown, you know, eager puppy at his size on these smaller Knicks players, you know, like.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Brunson.

• 41:14Bill Simmons?

  They could also put champagne on him.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  And they're big and strong.

• 41:18Bill Simmons?

  Who's taller.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  They're also like big, strong guys like Brunson. Yes, he's, he's strong, but he's short. Mikail Bridges is not built like those other guys. It's like, there's a, there's a lot of kind of size and strength and, and like youthful exuberance on the, on the perimeter defender types on the Spurs that I think are a bad matchup for the Knicks.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  We talked about on Saturday night, mentioned on the podcast I did with Zach. We were like, what is Castle? I don't even know what he, who is, who's the Castle doppelganger? So a bunch of people sent emails. These were the candidates. This is what got sent to me. Guard Kawhi.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, Kawhi.

• 41:58Bill Simmons?

  More defensive Dwyane Wade. More explosive Drew Holiday.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  That's a good one.

• 42:06Bill Simmons?

  Springier Artest.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Oh, that's, I hadn't even thought of Artest. That's a good one.

• 42:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, early Artest.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  But Artest could shoot for his time, better than Castle can shoot for like, I don't know what the league averages are off the top of my head, but Artest was a better shooter in his day than Castle is in his.

• 42:23Bill Simmons?

  Guard Jimmy Butler.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Another good one.

• 42:26Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Latrell Sprewell. Didn't really see that one, but it, it made me think.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Well, Spre was a good defender. He was energetic.

• 42:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  But he was, and I guess I see that because he was also athletic, leaper guy who didn't shoot it especially well. But I, I just get the feeling like Castle's going to be a shooter, a good enough shooter when it's all said and done.

• 42:48Bill Simmons?

  Better offense, Marcus Smart and Heinz Ward. Those were, those were all the comparisons I got from all these various.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Like a basketball player.

• 42:58Bill Simmons?

  Just like Heinz, how Heinz Ward was just like.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  He's a football player.

• 43:01Bill Simmons?

  Athlete, I'm physical, I can do everything.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Receiver, he's a football player.

• 43:04Bill Simmons?

  I can block, I can do in traffic.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  I like, um, who did you say who was second to last?

• 43:09Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Marcus Smart.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  That's interesting. If Smart were bigger and.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  I think he's a better offensive player and a better athlete than Marcus Smart was, but I like.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 43:20Bill Simmons?

  The way he, the way younger Marcus Smart, how balls to the wall he was all the time, which I think Castle has. Also, one of the things I love about Castle and the Spurs team in general is they don't seem to wear mistakes or like bad shooting or get psyched out.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Or value possessions.

• 43:36Bill Simmons?

  They just kind of go.

• 43:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's true. Short memories.

• 43:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, when you're talking about like puppies, purebred puppies, like they're just kind of running around and they don't, they don't really carry their past with them.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  And it, it, it's like, that's why you say they're the 90 or 91 Bulls. And my, like, the way I interpret that is, is that short memory? And like, is that gonna go too much on the side of not valuing the possessions in crunch time? Cause they just go?

• 44:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Or is that actually good for them? Cause they don't worry about it. And if they don't score on that possession or they turn the ball live turnover and it leads to, to, to two or three points, they're fine. It's gone and they're gonna do it again. And because they're so aggressive, sometimes it's gonna work.

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  The other reason I think I'm taking the Spurs, and I know I feel great about it, but um, the competition in the East, it has to be said, like, they beat, they fall 2-1 to Atlanta. They changed their offense. I love the way they played. They, to me, they looked like the 2014 Spurs crossed with,

• 44:37Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  whatever Brunson's doing. Um, but that Atlanta team, when you look back, it's pretty brutal to, like, they had like five guys, like, that were playable. They had one center. Um, couldn't really rebound. McCollum died as the series went along. They had no kind of guy who could calm the runs.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  By a point, though.

• 44:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and they could have, probably should have gotten swept. They played Philly the next round and Bead's already, Embiid put one week of the season, he was done, right? And now you do is shut down Maxey and you're good. And then that Cleveland team. They're just a mess.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Well, the, yes, but the Knicks weren't.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  That game one loss was just one of the most egregious blown.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  You knew it was a sweep after that. After that, it's a sweep. It's when you lose like that.

• 45:22Bill Simmons?

  The coaching combined with like them not running back and they, they just rolled over. So you go from that and meanwhile, here are the Spurs who are just going through this gauntlet. Even Portland was like, you know, he, he, they probably would have been like a five or a six seed in the.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  They're a tough team and they, and they showed up.

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And I don't know that OKC team they beat. I just, I, I take that seriously. I thought OKC was an incredible team, missing one of their best guys. Yeah. One of, missing one of their best guys.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  It's missing their second best player.

• 45:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  That's a lot. It's a lot to miss your second best player. Like if, if this, well, the Spurs don't, if the Spurs didn't have the Aaron Fox, they'd have lost. Right? Like the live ball turnovers were killing them.

• 46:05Bill Simmons?

  The thing. So the Spurs didn't have Fox for a couple of games and then he didn't seem right really until game seven. And then the Harper thing, Harper in the middle of the series is just useless and then kind of came back as it went along, but.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  But so, so the thing about the Knicks.

• 46:21Bill Simmons?

  I think the Spurs have 91 balls. So I'm, I'm going Spurs in five.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  The, the thing about the Knicks is, I think it's going to be a long series. I do think that, but I, the thing about the Knicks is they're not beating these teams by 10 or 12 points.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  I get it.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  You're feeding everybody into a wood chipper, right? They are destroying teams. They have two losses, each by a point. And they're beating the brakes off of everyone. And, and the team that they are not compared to enough is the 2016, they did lose in the finals, Warriors. They have a death lineup.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Except it's a better shooter. They don't have the two greatest shooters of all time in the death lineup, right? When Josh Hart is hitting his shots, that's why I say, if you want to look at a few key things, if Josh Hart is hot more often than he's cold in this series, the Knicks are virtually impossible to beat because, because everyone, like all five guys are killing you at that point.

• 47:21Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  How do you guard that, especially with the offense running through Towns? Who's like not only the best shooting big ever maybe, but he's also like. Kind of Jokic in a way that I didn't understand, right? I'm not saying he's as good as Jokic, I'm saying he's doing some of that stuff.

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  There, it was impressive.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  So, so like, I think that's really what it comes down to. If Josh Hart is hot in this series, this is going seven games and the Knicks might win.

• 47:45Bill Simmons?

  You're probably right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna amend to Knicks in six.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  To, to the Spurs in six.

• 47:50Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, Spurs in six.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Freudian slip.

• 47:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna amend to Spurs in six, because you're right, I forgot to factor in the one Josh Hart game.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  That's it. And if there can be two or three.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  Five for seven from three or something stupid.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:01Bill Simmons?

  So, correct score, Spurs in six is five to one. That also sets up for the, uh, the devastating, everyone at MSG trying to send the series to a seventh game and just the all-time gut punch of.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  By the way, this is, and I, I think.

• 48:17Bill Simmons?

  So what did you have, Knicks in six or seven?

• 48:19Speaker 02

  If the Knicks win, it'll be a seven-game series, I think. But, but, but by the way, what you said about Wemby, when you said about, what you said about Wemby, is the thing about him, because he's so big, so everything's magnified, you can see all the detail, is it's very apparent when he's fatigued, right? He looks uncoordinated all of a sudden. He's like the most coordinated big guy you've ever seen in your life. First of all, you've never seen a guy that tall, right? But he's so coordinated at that size. And when he is fatigued, you can see, oh, where's, where'd the coordination go? You know, even on lobs and stuff, you can't do it.

• 48:52Bill Simmons?

  A little like, almost like a little kid where little kids start falling down and slipping.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  For a nap.

• 48:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Because, but the guy's physiology is just like, this is unexplored territory. And he is doing everything in his power to make, to, to give himself the best possible shot. But that schedule where there are essentially no travel days was brutal in the Western Conference Finals for him. And more rest is.

• 49:14Bill Simmons?

  It's also why.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Good for Wemby.

• 49:16Bill Simmons?

  It's also why guys like LeBron, as they hit their late 30s, it just becomes impossible to put together four straight rounds to win a title.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Definitely on the defensive end, forget it.

• 49:26Bill Simmons?

  You have to have younger players. And that's been the thing over and over again that we've seen this decade, is the, the combination of how the regular season got much harder, it became harder just for guys to carry big minutes. But then you get into that every other day in the third round.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Brutal.

• 49:42Bill Simmons?

  You have to have the younger dudes for that.

• 49:46Bill Simmons?

  So you have Knicks in seven, that would be eight to one. Let's talk about, um.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  I, I, I have not yet made my pick. I do think like I.

• 49:53Bill Simmons?

  Are you gonna make it on game over with Rich Paul?

• 49:55Speaker 02

  I think I will make it on game over.

• 49:57Bill Simmons?

  Do it, do it, make it, make the pick.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  I, I would say that it's the, if I had to handicap it, I think it's a 60, 40 type series favoring the Spurs. But 40 is a pretty damn good shot for the Knicks and I have to think if I like their chances.

• 50:10Bill Simmons?

  I, so I bet on the Spurs for, I had the Spurs before the series. And before, uh, after game five, I did a hedge on OKC for game six. Cause I thought the Harper Fox thing, I just didn't think those guys were there. And of course, San Antonio won. Then I doubled down and bet on San Antonio game seven.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Smart.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  Just because of the Wemby piece. And I think ultimately like, I was thinking about, I was like, I just think Wemby is the best player in the league now. And I don't want to go against him in a game seven.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  I've been, I've been saying this since like the All-Star break.

• 50:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but you still, you have to do it in the playoffs. It's a different level. You gotta see like the ebb and flow of the games, the fatigue, the, how do you handle foul trouble? How do you handle when the, handle when the refs aren't giving you calls?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  But you know what he has?

• 50:57Bill Simmons?

  But now I think he's, now I think he's there. He's tasted it. That OKC thing was such good seasoning for this finals.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  It, look, it's a hunch until you see him do it, right? My hunch was he's the best player in the league, but you're right. You have to see him do it in this circumstance. But the thing about Wemby that I love that like I thought, I thought middle of the season, he's better than Jokic. Right? Better than SGA. I don't think SGA is in the conversation with Jokic and Wemby. But he's better than Jokic is, there's a floor to Wemby's game because of the defense.

• 51:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  He can't really have a bad game ever. He's such a defensive presence. So when his offense is clicking, it's like, well, he, he, he might, he's a very good chance if he stays healthy.

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  Right. If he hits a couple of threes and a couple of turnarounds to get some fouls, this is.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  That's all it takes.

• 51:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  But, but there's a good chance he winds up the greatest player of all time. But health is going to be a big thing just because we've never seen a guy this size before. Right? So, and, and the other thing about Jokic, Bill, is you're down two possessions in the playoffs. Your season's on the line. There's like two minutes left. Okay, overcome it, right? And Jamal Murray was taken out of the series, who's normally a very clutch player, because you have a six foot eight wing defensive specialist.

• 52:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Who's doing the, an unbelievable job on him. So now you have Gobert, who's also a great defensive player on Jokic. And it's like, okay, Jokic, do it, though. It's two possessions. Can you make up two possessions in two minutes? We've seen this from super great players throughout history. And Rich and I play a game nowadays on the show, where it's like, do you, does this player need to win? Or does he love the game? So for example, or love to play? Need to win, love to play? For example, the player that best epitomizes needing to win and loving to play on the highest level possible is Magic Johnson. That dude, like Larry Bird, needed to win more than he loved to play. Same thing with Michael Jordan, right?

• 52:52Speaker 02

  There are other guys who love to play more than they need to win. For example, Kevin Durant, right? Clearly loves to play. Does he need to win? It doesn't seem that way, right? Or he would really, people who put him above Bird and they should not. It's because of that. No, he doesn't need to win like that.

• 53:08Bill Simmons?

  This was the LeBron issue for years.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Yes, he loved to play more than he needed. He, I think LeBron does need to win, but not as much.

• 53:14Bill Simmons?

  2011 finals.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Then he flipped it.

• 53:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Jokic, I don't know if he, he's a basketball genius. I don't know if he loves to play or he needs to win. I don't know if he has either. I know Wemby has both.

• 53:27Bill Simmons?

  Jokic ripped through everybody in 23.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Because he's.

• 53:30Bill Simmons?

  He's got to get credit for that.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  He, he's one, he's one, he's among the greatest players of all time.

• 53:34Bill Simmons?

  I'm giving him loves to play. I think you guys are wrong.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Does he?

• 53:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think he does.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  He seems so pissed off at the press conference.

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  I just think that's his personality. And he's from fucking Serbia.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  He is, there's, listen, his basketball brain could be like studied. It's ridiculous. He's, he's LeBron James, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  I'd move him more toward a problem that was a problem for Shaq. Is it fun to be you when you play? Shaq was, you know, I never, Shaq was immensely frustrating for me because I never felt like he was in shape the way he should have been. I never understood the free throws. It always felt like there was more there, but he still ended up being one of the best 15 ever.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, do the Rick Barry. Come on, like do the grandfather.

• 54:14Bill Simmons?

  Just figure it out. But I also think it would have been incredibly unfun to be Shaq for eight months a year playing basketball when everybody's like, we can't stop you.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  So we're allowed to do X, Y, and Z.

• 54:25Bill Simmons?

  The refs are gonna be like, yeah, this isn't fair. Do, do what you need to do. Bang him in the back, pull his shoulders down. And I honestly think with Jokic, it's, it's becoming a little similar where the way he's defended, Wemby, we're starting to see it. Like some of the stuff OKC was doing against him, I just don't think is legal. I don't, you should be able to-

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Through the elbow in the previous series.

• 54:47Bill Simmons?

  You should be able to run to your spot without somebody like pushing back like they have a blocking sled. But it's because he's 7'7", they let it go.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  I've had a big problem with the officiating all series. I feel like they officiated it straight up and down at San Antonio and gave the Thunder the whistles in OKC. Like-

• 55:05Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  And, and like, it is so, it's already, there's already a rule on the books about, it's a, it's a non-sportsmanlike tech if you flop. Come on, ref. Everyone, everyone can see it on TV in real time with like-

• 55:20Bill Simmons?

  That SGA sideways three?

• 55:21Speaker 02

  90% accuracy, you know. Maybe not every time, but like, and then go review it afterwards. And, and, and where did I, someone, maybe you said this, someone said, maybe Zach said it.

• 55:31Bill Simmons?

  I had a flopping, flopping points. That's what I want them to do.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  You review it after, oh yeah, you did. But I, I really think just, it's a tech, it should, two of them, and you should be suspended a game.

• 55:41Bill Simmons?

  Or like a yellow card. Yeah, like yellow card in soccer. Just like, I didn't like what he did there, yellow card.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. One more of those and you're out, right? Like, and then it would just stop and the product would get better. And also, you're right, any kind of- A guy who's seen as having an unstoppable physical advantage like Shaq or like, um, I'm sure this happened to Wilt, but I didn't see it.

• 56:03Bill Simmons?

  It 100% happened to Will, who started, that's when he developed that awful turnaround he had. He'd have this little spin because he didn't want to get fouled and he was tired of getting hit.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  By the way, with Kareem, they were just like, uh, no, you can't dunk.

• 56:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, and so he comes up in the sky.

• 56:20Bill Simmons?

  Kareem would be interesting now because if you're allowed to do this stuff in the seventies and eighties that we can do now with shoving a guy before he can get to his spot. Mikail would have been in trouble. Hakeem would have been in trouble. It's just, it's this new thing that I don't really know why they have allowed it the way they've allowed it.

• 56:35Speaker 02

  I hate it and it seems so fit, so like, so to legislate out tanking is difficult. And I don't know, they're trying to address it. I don't know if they did successfully. We'll see empirically whether it works or not, or it helps. But this is like, there's a problem. The fans don't like what's happening. There is a, there are like a million easy solutions and they just refuse to do them.

• 56:57Bill Simmons?

  Right. All right. The real reason you're here is coming up after this break. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a three, one series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three Cancun, or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you.

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  So they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21-plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods.

• 58:25Bill Simmons?

  See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. And now it's time for Embracing the Era, brought to you by New Era, the official cap of the NBA. Take a trip back through some of the most iconic, court-defining moments with the New Era NBA Hardwood Classics Collection. We're going to talk about the 2000s today. Some amazing players, unforgettable teams and logos, aging quite nicely a couple of decades later. I really loved those Steve Nash Suns teams, especially as the years passed when the league was getting very physical. Not as much fun to watch game to game, and yet the Suns were playing a lot like some of the style

• 59:07Bill Simmons?

  that we have now, fast-breaking, freewheeling, unselfish. So when I think about 2000, I think about them. I think about the 2008 Celtics winning the title, obviously. The Pistons shocking the Lakers and then those three straight Lakers ones in a row, three titles that I still have trouble swallowing because I don't like the Lakers. But the best team of that whole decade was the 2001 Lakers, which almost swept the playoffs that came within an Allen Iverson overtime loss of actually sweeping the finals. So anyway, that was quite an era. Relive vintage logos and timeless icons from that era or any other era with the New Era NBA Hardwood Classics Collection,

• 59:51Bill Simmons?

  available in a wide range of silhouettes, including the iconic Fitted 50-950 or adjustables like the 940 a frame and 970 and some great hardwood classics apparel, too. Visit newera cap.com to shop now and use one-time code RINGER for 20% off your first order. All right, Max, it's education time.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:17Bill Simmons?

  We need to, I have a nice big pitcher of settle down juice for everybody.

• 1:00:27Bill Simmons?

  Head in the fridge, it's freezing cold.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  It just happened. This is the moment we became old, right? Like it just happened.

• 1:00:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, but we used to do this when we were younger and we were kids where you just think what you're seeing recently has to be the greatest thing that ever happened.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  A pitcher of settle down juice?

• 1:00:43Bill Simmons?

  A big pitcher of settle down juice.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Did this happen in your house? Was this an expression in your house?

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Bill, if you don't pipe down, you're gonna have a-

• 1:00:53Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna have a big pitcher, big helping glass with ice cubes.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brunson, there's two separate things happening right now. There's two paths for him. One is New York immortality. And then the other is where do you rank in the greatest Knicks? He's not the greatest Nick yet, just because they made the finals.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:01:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't think people, there's people out there that are like, he's the greatest Nick. They made the finals. It has to. So I want to go through some of the history of the actual greatest Knicks. But let's move into the New York side. Who is?

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Can we, can we establish a criteria for greatness and before we do this?

• 1:01:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we, I'm ready to do whatever you want.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  So let, I want to just establish a criteria for greatness.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, do you want to do the New York side first or the Knicks side first?

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Any way you want, but like, like, let's establish like what we're, I think part of the problem is when kids, it's not just recency bias or, you know, you give a guy a book and he reads the book and it's the only book he ever read. That's everything he knows, right? Like, you know, it's something, um. There's a conflation between better and greater, right? And, and kids correctly intuitively understand everyone now is better than everyone before. That is, kids, you're right about that. Everyone now is better, just about, more or less than everyone before.

• 1:02:12Bill Simmons?

  It's the, it's the cars analogy. If I had a 2026 Porsche, it would drive better than a 1982 Porsche.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Because you built that new platform on what came before.

• 1:02:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  You didn't just invent it from whole cloth. You saw it, you improved, you improved, you improved. Okay. If you, in the one sport that can be objectively measured, track and field, you can put a stopwatch on Jesse Owens and the stopwatch on the 10th best sprinter in the world today and know objectively that Jesse Owens is not as good as the 10th best sprinter.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  But that's, I don't think that's how, this is why I wrote my book. I don't think that's how you can think about it. I think you have to measure greatness by how you compare it to everybody you were going against.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Correct, because I'm talking about better.

• 1:02:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  And the conflation is between better and greater. The reason it sounds ridiculous to say the 10th best sprinter in the world, whose name you don't know, is, is better than Jesse Owens is because, yeah, duh, no kidding. That's not what we're talking about.

• 1:03:07Bill Simmons?

  Does boxing work this way, though?

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, but there are influences in boxing. For example, the number of fights and stuff like that and the number of rounds that, and the number of participants in this country that selected out for different characteristics once upon a time than it does nowadays. You needed to be tougher, you needed to be more resistant to cuts, you needed to have a better chin. You needed to, you know, like, there's more stamina.

• 1:03:32Bill Simmons?

  Fights and, yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  But the, but the point is that we are talking about greater everybody. We're talking about how you did against your contemporaries. Now, does it matter if you're playing in a league with eight to 12 teams, as Bill Russell did? Do you discount him? Yes, you do. But then, do you discount Babe Ruth?

• 1:03:50Bill Simmons?

  I disagree on the eight to 12.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  But, but how much of a discount? Even when you discount Babe Ruth.

• 1:03:56Bill Simmons?

  Babe Ruth gets a real discount because he was not playing against plenty minorities, basically.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  And he was, and he was a black player on top of it, yeah.

• 1:04:02Bill Simmons?

  Or Latin American players, anybody.

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  He was played against nobody other than whites.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  But, but no one who ever lived in any league ever dominated that league, nearly to the extent that Ruth dominated his league. So even with the discount, he comes out number one. I think with Bill Russell's discount, he probably comes out four, something like that. I would say Jordan, LeBron, Kareem, Bill Russell. If you want to argue Bill Russell's.

• 1:04:27Bill Simmons?

  It has to be those four in whatever order you want, but those have to be the first four.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  I think Jordan has to be one, and then you can argue the, right, the next.

• 1:04:33Bill Simmons?

  I have Jordan one as well.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  But, but that, okay, so that gets, so first of all, we're talking about great or not better. Let's establish that first. And we're talking about, you do take discounts on the Babe Ruths and the Bill Russells. The question is, after the discount, where is their greatness? Sometimes it's still number one, sometimes it's no longer. Now, the next thing.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Are we mostly valuing career or mostly valuing peak? When I got Bill James's historical baseball abstract, volume two, as a bar mitzvah present when I was 13 years old.

• 1:05:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  It it taught me comparative analysis, really, in a new way. And and the thing I loved he did is he separated it into two lists, peak versus career, right? Sandy Koufax's peak or Nolan Ryan's career. How do you compare Koufax and Ryan? If you just weigh their value, Nolan Ryan did a lot more. Is that really what we mean, though? Or are we talking about as long as they sustain their peak for a reasonable amount of time, peak? I favor peak. I think that's what we're really talking about.

• 1:05:30Bill Simmons?

  I had, when I made the Earl Monroe, trying to figure out where he ranked.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Bill Simmons?

  I called it the Bill Walton corollary. If a guy peaked for just two or three years as a truly great player, that's more appealing than someone who never peaked at all. That's the difference of Bernard King versus Ewing.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  OK, agreed. Then the question is, how close? So so we both value peak over career, right?

• 1:05:53Bill Simmons?

  So Bill Walton peaks for a year and a half, and then as the sixth man on the 86 Celtics, and that's it. I still had him in the top 35 of my book.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Because at his best.

• 1:06:02Bill Simmons?

  Because his best year, he was the best guy in the league and took it to Kareem.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  I had a, I had a, um, this is not exactly the same thing, but I had a producer, John Crystal, at HBO. We talked about Roy Jones in his prime. And he said, I know what I saw, right? Like, you watch Bill Walton, I know what I saw.

• 1:06:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, what was that, the Tony fight? What was that, 94?

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he beat him with one hand. No, he beat Hopkins with one hand. He beat Tony with both hands. But so, so.

• 1:06:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's Aaron Pryor, too.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Aaron Pryor's peak was absurd. So this is the LeBron Jordan argument. If you just weigh their win totals, right? Their win shares. LeBron played twice as long. I don't think that's what we're talking about. At least, it's not what I'm talking about.

• 1:06:41Bill Simmons?

  A good question is, OK, you can have one guy who played for 20 years. Or you could have another guy who played for 13, but the 13 years and the peak of the 13 years was better than the 20.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 1:06:55Bill Simmons?

  What would you rather want if you were starting a franchise?

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  What would, well, what kind of fan are you? Are you the kind of guy who wants to be a powerhouse team for 20 years with no championships? Or would you like to maybe not be a powerhouse team for 20 years, but you wind up with three, four championships? I'll take the championships.

• 1:07:12Bill Simmons?

  Like Bird was, Bird came in the league in, in October 79. And for the next nine years was either the best or the second best player in the league every single year. And then was the best player three years in a row. You were always in the finals or near the finals with him. That's basically what Jokic is doing now.

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  Really was, and no one really, because their styles weren't the same. He, more than anyone, was the original Michael Jordan.

• 1:07:38Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Because their styles are so different. And, and also racial, obvious, like there are differences in the style of play. The one's a white guy, one's a black guy, the whole thing. And Bird was compared to Magic and Dr. J seemed to be the guy who, who like Jordan was the evolution of. No. There was Larry Bird who ran shit. And then there was Michael Jordan who ran shit. Like that's, that, that.

• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  And honestly, I think Wemby's gonna do that too.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  It seems to me that that's the case.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  I just feel like he's, especially when you think this is probably the worst he's gonna be over the next seven years unless he gets injured. It just feels like the way, when you're impacting every part of a game, that's kind of the last level. I do feel like LeBron got there when he was on Miami.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 1:08:20Bill Simmons?

  Unquestionably.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  The closest I've ever seen in terms of value of a player to a prime Michael Jordan, like the one who made me think, hmm, that's getting close, was years two and three in Miami.

• 1:08:32Bill Simmons?

  The twenties, I really, I've talked about this before. I love the 27 game winning streak. In a way, like, I like that more than either title for them.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  Because they started slow?

• 1:08:44Bill Simmons?

  I just thought it was such a cool streak because it was just so atypical to, it was in the middle of the season. It wasn't like, like the Warriors had that 24-0 or whatever they, they had to start. I think when you start a season with continuity, it's a little easier. When it's just the middle of the season, when you're just ripping off wins and you get a bullseye in your head around 16 and you can't rest anyone and it's the rhythm of the schedule, you're playing four and five nights. I don't think we're ever gonna see that again.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  That was LeBron defending, defending, not just switching on, defending all five positions. You could put LeBron on all five positions on the defensive end. Shoot, he knew exactly where his spots were on the floor. He's a basketball genius. He was, went, but like you, that's an unsustainable style of play for your whole career, I think, right?

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  I think.

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  But you could do that for two or three years.

• 1:09:34Bill Simmons?

  I had this thing, the wine bottle team, where it's like, pick a greatest team, but you have to pick the vintage year of what, what bottle of wine you'd want to order from that player's career. 2013 is the LeBron year.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Clearly.

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  Like, you could put that version of him on any team with any teammates and he would just be the most additive player possible.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  Right. He, no player ever could take a lower level group of guys farther than that LeBron James.

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  Or fit in with a better group, like, to me, it's like.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  With other all-stars.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  Cause you always think about like, who are the best guys you could just put together? And you kind of have to have LeBron, Bird, Magic and Jordan

• 1:10:15Bill Simmons?

  on that foursome and then just pick the fifth.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  I love Magic Johnson. I love Magic Johnson.

• 1:10:20Bill Simmons?

  You would just worry about the defense?

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  No, um, the shooting, because to play in any era.

• 1:10:26Bill Simmons?

  Shooting better, the shooting would get better.

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  Point. I'd have LeBron run the point, Jordan at the two. I'd probably wind up putting Bird at the four and Hakeem at the five. And then, and then maybe KD at the three, because he doesn't need to really, he just kind of gets in the flow. He can defend. He's tall. He's, you know, if I'm trying to win.

• 1:10:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Duncan would be in the conversation for me.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  Right, Duncan or, but not over Bird, because I want the shooting.

• 1:10:49Bill Simmons?

  No, but if you just gave me Duncan, Bird, LeBron, Jordan and Magic, I'm pretty confident.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  The thing about Duncan is. Hakeem needs the ball a little more, number one. And Duncan for more of his career was a better passer. Hakeem wasn't a good passer till later. The problem with Hakeem is, because I've done this before and every time I take Duncan, someone's like, "Hakeem." And I'm thinking, yeah, he just made my team a little bit better. He's just like, by the time Hakeem, if we're talking prime, not just career.

• 1:11:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the two-way stuff with him is nuts. I just feel like the 03 Duncan gets slept on. Like, he basically beats the Lakers by himself.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  He was unbelievable. He was, you know what Jim Lampley told me?

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  Just crushing everybody.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  That if you want to know who Bill Russell was, he's Duncan, but not as good a shooter. And I never, I never saw Russell play or will play. So I was like, oh, okay, I get it. That's pretty damn good.

• 1:11:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's another thing with Wemby, because I think Duncan had it. Everyone said Curry had it. And it feels like, feels like Wemby has it too of this culture they create, like the leadership. And I always called it with Duncan, it was always the arms around the shoulders. There's certain leaders where they're just, they're constantly touching their teammates. And they're just very inclusive and, and they're like den mothers almost. And he has that already at age 22. All right.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  He's a serial killer, you realize that, right? No one's this perfect. No one, like, like.

• 1:12:14Bill Simmons?

  No, but when you say he's a serial killer, like, he kind of is as a competitor. I, I do think he has that side of like, I think he wants to destroy everybody.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  Look what he did to Chet. But, but, but I mean, like, Wemby is so perfect in terms of the, what he's doing, how he's preparing himself, how he's going after it, how he's using his talents, the whole thing, that it's like, there must be something really wrong with this guy that I don't know about yet, because he's perfect.

• 1:12:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, when was the last time you saw somebody celebrate like he did after they won game seven? Where you felt like it was completely authentic?

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Jordan after he won the first championship, maybe?

• 1:12:49Bill Simmons?

  Right. Because like, intent, like, this is one of the things that's been terrible with tennis. The, and I don't know who started, maybe it was Agassi, but it was like, you win and then you just sink to the ground. You have to do that whole thing.

• 1:13:03Bill Simmons?

  And now it's like this whole performative thing and you never.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Cause people are self-conscious, like everyone, even that.

• 1:13:08Bill Simmons?

  Wemby's not self-conscious at all, I don't feel like.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  He's not. He knows, like, he, yeah, he's, he's, there's nothing not to love about this guy. That's why I'm suspicious. No one's this perfect.

• 1:13:18Bill Simmons?

  Okay, so greatest Knicks. So we've established the peak versus sustained career.

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  But we're also.

• 1:13:24Bill Simmons?

  And then also, we, about, the greatness has to be when you're comparing to the other people in your era.

• 1:13:30Speaker 02

  But, but we should take a slight discount if you get past a certain, like, I'd say, modern NBA starts, obviously, absorption of the ABA team's three-point shot, right? So you want to say 79, 80, you want to say 76, 70, you could pick. I'd say 79, 80 is the start of the modern era.

• 1:13:46Bill Simmons?

  That's fair, but I, I had, when I did my book, which was 09, did the paper back in 2010. Willis was the highest Knick I had at number 30. I now have him 38. But Willis was two-time finals MVP, 70 MVP, went, like, one of the things that, one of the.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  He was two-time finals MVP, but.

• 1:14:05Bill Simmons?

  But Frazier should have been the 71. It's fine. One of the things I value with him, he's, his prime is right against all of these great centers. He's against Kareem coming in the league, he's against Will. And he's going head-to-head with all these dudes for a couple of years there, and.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  I'm not saying, I'm not saying that he's like this player. I'm saying the position he occupies and the way history has recorded him unfairly, in terms of where he's ranked, is similar to Moses Malone. Moses Malone.

• 1:14:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Moses higher.

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  Right, Moses, but Moses Malone was the best, like, we talk about Larry Bird, how amazing he was in the very beginning. Best player in the game was not Kareem or Larry Bird back then.

• 1:14:48Bill Simmons?

  For like five years, Moses is the best guy. 79, 83.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  At least two or three, he's among the two or three best for five years. And at least two or three years, you're like, that's the best player in the game.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  And, and, and, like, kind of the guy you want, even though, yeah, Kareem is better, we get it. But he's kind of the guy you want. Willis Reed was sort of that.

• 1:15:07Bill Simmons?

  So, he was also the biggest enforcer of that era, which you need. And then the game seven, playing with that injury he had, is one of the, I had, did a whole thing in my book about it. I had him when I did my book, when I did all the work, I thought he was the greatest Nick because of the titles.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  More than Clyde?

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  What he did game seven.

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  I would put Clyde.

• 1:15:27Bill Simmons?

  I had Clyde right after him. I had Clyde at 32.

• 1:15:29Speaker 02

  I would flip that, but you're enough years old. I'm 53 in August.

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  I never saw you there on play.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Okay, all right, but you're still a little closer to it. You know, I have this theory that the weakest

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  knowledge base that one has in terms of history is the era that occurred in the 20 years before, 10 years right before they were born. Because that's not history yet. So people assume in the world, the world just assumes you know all this, that everyone knows this. But you don't know it. You didn't live through it. So like the 70s, I was born in 73. That Knicks era is kind of my weakest era of sports history in a way.

• 1:16:08Bill Simmons?

  I had, I saw Clyde probably last couple of years in the Knicks and then when he was on Cleveland. But I did have my dad who went to all these games.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  My dad, my dad, listen to this, this is embarrassing for me. My dad used to root for the Celtics when they had Bird and McHale and Dennis Johnson and Robert Parish and Ainge. And I was to be like, I hated the Celtics. And I was like, what are you doing? He'd just be watching TV. He didn't go to the games. He'd just watch. He'd say the remind me of the Knicks. The way they play reminds me of that Knicks dynasty. And that was over. It wasn't coming back. And the closest thing he could get to it was watching the Celtics.

• 1:16:49Bill Simmons?

  So my dad

• 1:16:53Bill Simmons?

  had Jordan and Frazier. This is in 2010. This is all time backcourt. And he said, Frazier killed us. He was an assassin. You didn't want any part of him in a big game. He was always been the best guy on the court. I've never been happier to see anyone retire.

• 1:17:10Speaker 02

  Isn't it amazing, like, when you think about if

• 1:17:12Bill Simmons?

  And he's just gone now. Like, people just know him as the announcer.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  And also, well, there's so many things about, well, first of all, his style was so flashy off the court.

• 1:17:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Speaker 02

  Right? He was, he was him and Joe Namath, right? But on the court, he was textbook of by that, by the standards of that era.

• 1:17:28Bill Simmons?

  He was one of the best big game guards ever. He was the best defensive guard.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  In the league?

• 1:17:33Bill Simmons?

  Of, for the first thirty-five, forty years of the league. And then game seven, seventy finals, Willis comes out and he's done after a minute.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Thirty-five, seven?

• 1:17:42Bill Simmons?

  Thirty-six, nineteen, and seven, and five steals, and took it to Jerry West.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  To Jerry West. And Will was playing.

• 1:17:49Bill Simmons?

  So whether you want to go Willis or Walt?

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  I go Walt.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  They're right next to each other. I had Willis slightly head just because center was more important, but Frazier's fine, but those are the top two.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  That's interesting. Like, now guard play is so important, or backcourt is so important.

• 1:18:04Bill Simmons?

  You had to have a center, you weren't winning anything.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  But I just feel like

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  it's like Magic Johnson. I guess Kareem is greater than Magic, I get it, but Clyde Frazier did in game seven against the Lakers in a more unlikely situation, what Magic did in game six.

• 1:18:22Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Against Philadelphia, right? Like, you look at those, even the lines are similar, forty-two, fifteen, and seven versus thirty-six, nineteen, seven, and five, whatever it is. Both guards missing their big, the iconic guy and the big. And, and I guess, I guess you're right. Kareem is ahead of Magic a little bit. Maybe, maybe Willis Reed's ahead of Walt a little bit.

• 1:18:44Bill Simmons?

  I had, I wrote about this in my book. So they had game seven in the nineteen seventy-three Eastern Conference Finals, Celtics-Nicks. Havlicek separates his shoulder halfway through. It's the best of all the Celtic teams, even though they won in seventy-four and seventy-six. Everyone says seventy-three team is the best team. Havlicek gets hurt. Celtics still have game seven at home to win. And Frazier just murders them in the second half. But the, the NBA had, this is crazy. They don't have the game. Because there would just be games that would just, that just don't exist. But they had a game with no audio. And they sent me the game for, when I was doing my book. Was it just a DVD of the game with no audio?

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  Whole movie or something?

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's like a whole movie.

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  That's the only way I've seen Sugar Ray Robinson fight it well, to read whole movies.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  And it's just Frazier coming down, backing down whoever to like eighteen feet away and just hitting jumpers. And it's the whole second half in silence. I was just like, oh my God. So anyway. Brunson, so Frazier was-

• 1:19:41Speaker 02

  Is it, but by the way, isn't it amazing how you like, your dad puts Frazier in the backcourt with MJ?

• 1:19:47Bill Simmons?

  Like, not even blinking.

• 1:19:48Speaker 02

  Right, when you are, if someone says, who's the most clutch player I've seen? It's always gonna be the guy on the other team who killed my team, right? Like, you can't tell me, if I'm making my all-time baseball team, George Brett is playing third base. George Brett, I don't care who you tell me, whoever you want, I'm taking George Brett at third base. The DH is David Ortiz. Like, these guys killed me. So like, those are the guys I want on my team.

• 1:20:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had, I wrote, this is what I wrote in 2010, and I'm interested to see who you'd add to this list. In my basketball-watching lifetime, only seven guys were crowd killers. Jordan, Bird, Kobe, Bernard, Isaiah, Andrew Tony, and strangely enough, Vinny Johnson. And those are my seven in 2010. Who would you add to the crowd killer list since then?

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 1:20:41Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think, I don't think LeBron always had it, but he could summon it every once in a while, but I don't think it was-

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  It's usually gonna be a shooter.

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  It's usually a shooter who's like, oh, fuck. I feel like SGA is right on the border of having it, but hasn't really crossed over yet. But the funny thing, the reason I bring this up is, I think Brunson's on this list.

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  I was, the closest thing today, I think, is Brunson.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  It's Brunson, right? Over, and I, I think Durant would be another one.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  On paper, but I don't know if I'd put him on this list.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  It's a guy who you know rises to the occasion.

• 1:21:18Bill Simmons?

  And Durant didn't always have it.

• 1:21:20Speaker 02

  And also like, a guy who rises to the occasion, but physically, well, how can, why is it him, why he's rising to the occasion? You know, like, Durant's seven feet tall.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  So I think Brunson's on that list.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  Um, but anyway, the point is, you have somebody like Frazier, who was first-team All-NBA four times, second-team All-NBA twice, was all-defense, basically from, they created the award in the late 60s. He was all-defense for the rest of the time.

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  I'd have him one and Willis Reed two, but, okay, those two are the top two.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  So Brunson wins the title?

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:53Bill Simmons?

  They win the title, he beats San Antonio as a two-to-one underdog. Would you have him ahead of those two guys?

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  No, not, not-

• 1:22:01Bill Simmons?

  But he'd be third.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  He'd be, he'd unquestionably be third.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  He'd be third. One chip, third. Those guys won two. And also, when you mention all NBA, back then, you're not talking about first, second, third team. You mean like,

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  You only have two.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  He's one of the two best guards in the league. And by the way, he's contemporaries with the logo.

• 1:22:22Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Right? That's the other best guard in the league every, like, you know, that's the level he's on. And as, the one thing I will say is that in a league where two thirds of the team are still playing when the season is over.

• 1:22:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:36Speaker 02

  Right? There's, there's no point in a regular season award. The only season that matters is the very long and very high leverage playoffs, right? Postseason. And when you say a guy, and this is like the Jimmy Butler rule for me. When every year, you're like, when the playoffs start, you're like, you know, Jimmy Butler is one of the top five guys in the playoffs. What you're really saying is Jimmy Butler is one of the top five guys in the NBA.

• 1:23:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  That's really what that means. So Brunson is not first team all NBA, but he is first team all NBA, at least this year.

• 1:23:13Bill Simmons?

  But if you ask any basketball fan, who would you rather have in the playoffs going forward? He would, he wouldn't be one of the first three picks, but he might be four or five.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  But when you look back at it and see what actually happens, it may be that we say, well, that's how we felt at the time. But in fact, he was the number one guy you'd want. Like, I did this on the show the other day. How many guys in the NBA are you taking over Brunson right now, heading into a series? Who do you want over Brunson? Brunson or SGA? They both, SGA is taller.

• 1:23:44Bill Simmons?

  I'd rather have SGA.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  SGA is taller. He's a much better defender. I would rather have Brunson. I would rather, like, this is not, oh, it's Knicks bias. I'm just telling you.

• 1:23:53Bill Simmons?

  Brunson could flip that for me in this series.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  But I think SGA, like, he won the title last year.

• 1:23:57Speaker 02

  He wasn't good just now. I mean, he wasn't awful, but he wasn't that good in this series.

• 1:24:01Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't.

• 1:24:02Speaker 02

  You know, and, and the different, and, and when, when we talk about like,

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  I thought he was awesome in game seven, even though he died in the fourth quarter.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  For a while. Yeah, he, he kept the,

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  I just thought what he was doing in that game was sick.

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  He, The difference between SGA and I'll say James Harden too.

• 1:24:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 02

  And let's say MJ or Kobe. When they are looking like when they get the whistle. Is the priority for MJ and Kobe were hit the shot. And if I get the whistle, fine. The priority for Harden and to a lesser extent, SGA is the whistle. And if I hit the shot, fine. And it's not the same thing.

• 1:24:40Bill Simmons?

  Brunson, second team all NBA three times in a row. Three year peak of 27 and seven.

• 1:24:48Bill Simmons?

  Four year playoff peak counting this year. 29 points a game. Four rebounds, seven assists, 46% field goal. 29 for four playoff years is really good. I mean, that's so the case for him now is best part in a finals team, which I value. I have to do my pyramid at the end of the year. I want to, I always redo it every year.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  After the playoffs?

• 1:25:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's sniffing around now in the top 100 because of the peak. I mean, he'd have to do it for a couple more years, but this is. This is a pretty special.

• 1:25:19Speaker 02

  There's also something about winning a championship for a franchise that hasn't for 53 years.

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  But that's where you get the Wilton. I mean, the Willis and Walt. That's why you have to value those because of what that team meant to the city. And Patrick Ewing, I have third. I had him 40th in the book now.

• 1:25:36Speaker 02

  Because Brunson hasn't won a title yet.

• 1:25:37Bill Simmons?

  Now I have him 47. Yeah. I mean, Ewing was top five once, top 10 six times playing during an era with. Hakeem and Shaq and David Robinson.

• 1:25:50Speaker 02

  David Robinson was better. I get it. I also felt like Ewing maybe had the edge in that matchup when they played each other. Just experiencing those games. I thought it was close, but maybe Ewing had the edge. Obviously not against Olajuwon or Shaq. But who could against Olajuwon or Shaq?

• 1:26:05Bill Simmons?

  The, the 94 finals is tough for him. If you're talking about Ewing, big picture, where he ranks, like, he just got his ass kicked against Hakeem, his 18.9 points a game, 36% in that series, seven game. They just needed him to be better. And it came down to like, you know, a couple of plays.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  He was very good defensively. Like, people forget, he was, he was, he had like something like six blocks in one of those games.

• 1:26:29Bill Simmons?

  Just the offense never.

• 1:26:30Speaker 02

  He was, he had the best, he had a guy who's in the conversation for greatest defensive player of all time.

• 1:26:34Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 1:26:35Speaker 02

  On him, on his, at his best. Like, that's the best Olajuwon ever played.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  But it's a good example of like, if he flips that, and they actually win game six or game seven, and he wins the title, then Ewing's the best thing of all time.

• 1:26:51Speaker 02

  Well, how about this? Olajuwon doesn't get his fingertips in game six on Starks three, and it goes in.

• 1:26:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but you think that shot was going in?

• 1:26:59Speaker 02

  I don't know. I have no idea. Like, Olajuwon blocked it.

• 1:27:02Bill Simmons?

  My third at 94 Knicks team was always, you didn't win the title because the ball was in John Starks' hands in the biggest moments of games for you. And that's the reason you weren't a champion.

• 1:27:15Speaker 02

  But the bigger issue is, John Starks is a sixth man.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  Pressed into action because they didn't really have an all-star caliber scorer.

• 1:27:22Bill Simmons?

  Because you didn't have Doc Rivers. Well, you didn't have the, Doc Rivers would have been, didn't he tear his ACL that year?

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, but even.

• 1:27:28Bill Simmons?

  Or was it Blackman? One of the years was Rivers, the other was Blackman.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  That was Harper.

• 1:27:32Bill Simmons?

  Harper.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  That was Derek Harper.

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  What was the year?

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  Rivers was pre-Harper.

• 1:27:36Bill Simmons?

  But Doc told me this whole story about how he was hurt, and then they could have put him on the playoff roster, and they didn't, and he might actually help.

• 1:27:42Speaker 02

  But Doc was post-prime at that point. But how he gets to the Knicks, he's a good point guard for the Knicks. He, no, they were, they only had one all-star scorer.

• 1:27:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  Like, John Starks was an all-star sixth man type. He's like a, he starred in the role of sixth man. He should not have been the starting shooting guard. He had to be because the Knicks didn't have Reggie Miller or Allan Houston at that point, right?

• 1:28:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  If they have that guy, they probably win that series. They didn't have that guy.

• 1:28:07Bill Simmons?

  That was the flaw of the team, though.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  100%. That's why I said, this starting five, this last year, best starting five, starting five of my lifetime watching the Knicks, there's, there's, in other words, there's no, all the players are at least league average, and you have a couple of all-stars, and you have a guy who's the next thing to an all-star, and multiple players have an offensive game.

• 1:28:32Bill Simmons?

  So I have Willis 1A and Frazier 1B.

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:28:34Bill Simmons?

  Ewing 3, DeBusschere 4.

• 1:28:38Bill Simmons?

  Bernard five.

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  DeBusher over Bernard?

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  Cause the Bernard, he just wasn't on the Knicks long enough.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  I mean, and his peak where he's the second best player in the league. The Piston series taking the Celtics toe to toe for seven, which was an awesome Celtics team with multiple guys to throw at them. Didn't matter.

• 1:28:58Bill Simmons?

  But the peak was.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  Here's, here's where you're gonna, okay.

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  Here's the DeBusher case though.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  Best defensive forward of his whole generation.

• 1:29:08Bill Simmons?

  Too early, born too early.

• 1:29:11Bill Simmons?

  Three point shooter, but they didn't have a three point line. So if you put him in a different era, it's actually more interesting, but everyone was just like, this guy was just the all time winning player to throw on your team. And so it's tough because I love, as you know, I love Bernard more than anybody, but I just don't think it was a long enough thing to put him ahead of DeBusher.

• 1:29:30Speaker 02

  Here's the thing that you'll run into with DeBusher, the DeBusher pick. It was a different league. It's pre-modern basketball in the sense it's, it pre, as you say, there's no three point shot. And Carmelo Anthony was on the Knicks long enough at a point where he was still among the 10 best players in the league. I don't know that DeBusher was ever considered one of the 10 best players in the league. Like is he, the role on that.

• 1:29:58Bill Simmons?

  He made one all NBA top 10, 69, all defense six times.

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:30:04Bill Simmons?

  Third best player on two title teams.

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's kind of of that team, the OG Ananobi, who you love having on your team. But I don't know that 50 years from now, we'll have OG Ananobi ranked fourth on the all time.

• 1:30:17Bill Simmons?

  So I had him for, I had DeBusher 46 in my book, re-ranked to 57.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  You, you loved DeBusher. I mean, my dad loves DeBusher.

• 1:30:25Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. I was, I was really riding with what the old guys were telling me and DeBusher was the guy over and over again, that they talked about like reverentially.

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  You gotta like, by the way, one day, years from now, someone will look at Draymond Green and be like. Right, but Draymond Green changed basketball.

• 1:30:40Bill Simmons?

  Right. Um, the Carmelo thing I think has been overblown and um you could pick it apart pretty easily. I would not have him in the top five.

• 1:30:50Speaker 02

  I think we have to make allowances for Carmelo and for Kobe. Who tend to get underrated, they're overrated by some and underrated by others. Because the game changed from under like underneath their feet, the the ground was moving. And because they were featured offensive scorers, the analytics will tend to underrate them. You know, they didn't like Carmelo didn't evolve his game the way Vince Carter did, let's say. Not that they're the same kind of player, but like Vince Carter evolved with the league and had a 20 year career. And Carmelo didn't, but the analytics are gonna underrate Carmelo.

• 1:31:33Speaker 02

  Because the game changed out from underneath his feet, like he was.

• 1:31:36Bill Simmons?

  He just never had the one run. The closest was 09 against when they made the conference finals.

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  He won on the right team.

• 1:31:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, part of that was his fault, though. I gotta ding him on that. Like he could have waited a sign with the Knicks and instead he made them trade a whole bunch of shit for him. And goes to a team that and then he has no help and he's like, I don't have any help. It's like, yeah, because you forced them to trade all these dudes to get you and you could have waited.

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  Well, by the way, Dolan didn't need to intervene. Donnie Walsh was gonna get him for a lot less, you know, like. But like the the the argument that convinced me about Carmelo is what if Detroit? Just has a normal draft and drafts Carmelo Anthony. What are we saying about him now? Right, I know it didn't happen, but nothing had to change about the kind of player he was. He just needed to be in another situation. How many times is Carmelo all NBA?

• 1:32:24Bill Simmons?

  I would, oh, I have that. I was a big Carmelo defender. Because I always felt like the best thing about him was that he thought he was as good as LeBron and Wade. So if I and Kobe, so if I had that in a series. At least I know I'm going to war with somebody who's like, I'm as good as he, whether it's true or not, he believed it.

• 1:32:43Speaker 02

  He he was as he was as good as like back end of the career Kobe, like the the more kind of post up game Kobe that Carmelo was as good as that.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  Carmelo, two first team NBA or two second team NBA's, three, uh, four third teams.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  Seven times one of the, yeah, it's pretty good. He wasn't a defender, you know?

• 1:33:02Bill Simmons?

  I thought in a. Maybe 2013, he was the third best player in the league.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:33:07Bill Simmons?

  It was him and Durant and LeBron. LeBron and Durant were above him.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  He just had a game that was tailored to the previous era. Like, you don't have to go back three eras, just go back one half an era.

• 1:33:20Bill Simmons?

  They're 2-2 in that Nuggets series.

• 1:33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Bill Simmons?

  Nuggets Lakers in '09, right? Series tied at 2. He's playing really well in the playoffs. And then, last two games, whatever. And then the Indiana, which everybody blames on Tyson Chandler. But Carmelo was in that series too. He just kinda never had the moment.

• 1:33:38Speaker 02

  I agree. I don't know, I'm just saying like, DeBusschere over Carmelo is... You can argue it, I don't know if you win the argument. I don't know if you win that argument. But by the way, the Knicks fans, like, who actually lived through the DeBusschere era, will agree with you.

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I really trusted the old guys, because I was, and it was what we talked about earlier. And there were a couple guys that they were just fanatical about. DeBusschere was one of them.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Like, we're talking about greatest Knicks. If you say greatest player, it's hard to argue DeBusschere over Carmelo. But greatest Knicks, you could argue DeBusschere over Carmelo, yeah.

• 1:34:14Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, like, I don't 100% understand the romanticism with Carmelo and the Knicks. Like, was that, was that an incredibly fun time that I missed? Like, even Linsanity was probably the most fun part of the entire Carmelo experience. And he drove Jeremy Lin out of New York.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  I was defending Carmelo to Knicks fans that whole time, like, "Oh, when Carmelo gets back, he's gonna stop the ball." I'm like, "No, Carmelo's a winning player." But I, listen, I was hearing about TJ Ford all that year. And I saw Carmelo Anthony play for Syracuse once, and I said, "They're gonna win the championship. That guy's the best player in the country." Not close, Carmelo Anthony. And, and they did. So I thought of him as a winner. I mean, he had little McNamara and, like, winning players on that team. And then he doesn't get drafted by Detroit, where he probably would have won multiple championships. And, and then, but like, so I'm like, "No, he's not gonna stop the ball." He did. And he did drive Jeremy Lin away. In the end, though, was Jeremy Lin gonna win you a championship? He was not.

• 1:35:10Bill Simmons?

  The Denver stuff isn't great either, when you go back, and there's just a lot of first-round exits and...

• 1:35:16Bill Simmons?

  You know, he, basically, until the '09 Finals, that's like his sixth year in the league. Then round two, just not enough.

• 1:35:23Speaker 02

  Carmelo was unlucky and then was a victim of his own hubris later on.

• 1:35:27Bill Simmons?

  And made the mistake, which the other guys didn't do of signing the longer contract in 2006.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Oh, believe me.

• 1:35:34Bill Simmons?

  And those guys all had the outs, but he didn't. He was stuck with the Knicks for that extra year.

• 1:35:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, the second part of this conversation is the keys to the city conversation.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:35:46Bill Simmons?

  Guys who just minted in New York. Namath, Jeter.

• 1:35:52Speaker 02

  In order?

• 1:35:54Bill Simmons?

  No, no order. Namath, Jeter, Eli, Reggie Jackson?

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, he is. There's a but with Reggie, though.

• 1:36:03Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:36:05Speaker 02

  Thurman Munson.

• 1:36:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had Munson next.

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  Was so beloved that, that the fact that Munson couldn't stand Reggie because of what Reggie said early on.

• 1:36:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:16Speaker 02

  Even though it's not, he didn't need to make it about Munson. Reggie showed up with a baseball bat after the Yankees had been swept in the World Series by the Big Red Machine and said, "No one will ever embarrass the Yankees again as long as I'm holding this in my hand."

• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  And then hit five home runs. Three of them in a row in the deciding game six. Then they gave him the candy bar because he had said the thing, you know, Baby Ruth, he thought it was after Babe Ruth. And it was actually after Teddy Roosevelt's kid, Baby Ruth, right? Ruth, his daughter. But everyone thought it was named after Babe Ruth. So he said, "If I ever play in New York, then they make candy bar after me." So after no one did embarrass the Yankees with the bat in Reggie's hand, they gave him the Reggie bar. And on opening day at Yankee Stadium, 78, after they won the championship, he hit a home run. They had given out Reggie bars and everyone threw the empty wrappers on the field like confetti.

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  Like, I know Bill James and others will argue that it's either very difficult or maybe clutch hitting doesn't exist. Look at Reggie Jackson's record in the World Series. It's a big sample size.

• 1:37:31Bill Simmons?

  That argument is ridiculous. Because how do you explain Ortiz then?

• 1:37:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:37:36Bill Simmons?

  Did you think Ortiz was getting hit against you when Ortiz came up?

• 1:37:39Speaker 02

  Every time. He's still getting a hit somewhere.

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  I have Reggie and Thurman. I have Mariano.

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  But, but there's a distaste that as much as people love Reggie, they're unlike everyone else you just mentioned. There's an undercurrent of because of Munson.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  Not with Mariano.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  Mariano, come on.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  And I think Messi is there.

• 1:37:58Speaker 02

  No question Messi is there.

• 1:38:00Bill Simmons?

  Is there a Met?

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  I mean, I would say Tom Seaver once upon a time, probably.

• 1:38:11Speaker 02

  You know, he's not around, but.

• 1:38:14Bill Simmons?

  I Seaver was the one I had. I didn't know if you'd wanna, there was an 86 Met.

• 1:38:18Speaker 02

  I'm trying to think of who the 86.

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  Hernandez was like, close.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  That's the, the Gary Carter. Um, and, and by the way.

• 1:38:26Bill Simmons?

  Not on that, not on the level of the guys we just ripped off.

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  You know what the real is? Here are the two guys.

• 1:38:30Bill Simmons?

  Gooden and Strawberry?

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  Gooden and Strawberry.

• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:33Speaker 02

  Gooden and Strawberry were the biggest stars in New York at the time.

• 1:38:37Bill Simmons?

  Would you have any of the Yankees from that 96 to 2000 run other than Jeter and Mariano?

• 1:38:44Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I have a personal favorite.

• 1:38:46Bill Simmons?

  No, but for the city, this is the exercise.

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  Paul O'Neal. Paul O'Neal got the keys to the city. Paul, the P. Paul O'Neal is beloved in New York.

• 1:38:58Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  And then the other guy who people have a love for in New York, like other people outside of New York don't understand is Bernie Williams.

• 1:39:06Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:39:07Speaker 02

  Bernie Williams on my all time clutch team. Remember, if your all time clutch team a lot of times didn't play for your team. Cause they, but like, if I was the fan of another team in that whole era. In fact, of everyone in baseball in that era, the last guy I'd wanna see come up of everyone in any situation in the clutch would be Bernie Williams. Because he was a switch hitter. He was patient. He was clutch. Look what he did in the playoffs.

• 1:39:34Bill Simmons?

  He was calm.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  He was calm. He fouled off. He always wasted the good pitches.

• 1:39:38Bill Simmons?

  Bernie Williams.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  He had plus power. He would hit 300 plus every year like, and he's a switch hitter. He always had the matchup. So Bernie, I would say Bernie. For, for me, it's Bernie and for the people I know, it's Bernie. Hard for me to talk for all of New York there, but it, he's up there. Jalen Brunson wins this thing. Forget it.

• 1:39:57Bill Simmons?

  Reed and Frazier would be the two Knicks.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  So many young people don't understand like the reason that right Brunson is going to be the greatest of all time is because they don't. One of the most treasured memories I have in my life is bumping into Clyde Frazier downstairs the day of the decision.

• 1:40:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:18Speaker 02

  And having breakfast with him. At this little place across the street from Madison Square Garden. And while we're lamenting the state of the Knicks and the fact that all I can think about is breakfast with Clyde Frazier on the day that LeBron like this is the Knicks and goes to Miami, oh my, I'll tell my grandkids about this, but I don't think a lot of younger fans in New York care.

• 1:40:40Bill Simmons?

  I think there's for a specific generation Bernard is on that list, but it's only like, it's an age window of like 15 years.

• 1:40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  But the Bernard in 84 and then the first part of 85 was like.

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  Go watch.

• 1:40:55Bill Simmons?

  I was, I love Bernard.

• 1:40:56Speaker 02

  She's gotta have it, right? Like, you know, he's arguing Bernard King, Spike Lee in She's Gotta Have It is arguing Bernard King over Larry Bird. That's who we had in New York at the time.

• 1:41:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so Brunson has a chance to elevate to that level. No other Knicks from this team?

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  Oh, I'll tell you another guy with the keys to the city.

• 1:41:13Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Don Mattingly has the keys to the city.

• 1:41:17Bill Simmons?

  Without the title?

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  Without the title, Don Mattingly.

• 1:41:19Bill Simmons?

  The Hitman?

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  He is so beloved in New York, like between Jeter and Mickey Mantle, he was probably the most universally loved Yankee and that includes Reggie and Thurman, even though those guys won World Series and he didn't. And Lawrence Taylor, just because he was the best ever, right? Like Lawrence Taylor is you.

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  LT is a good one, I should have had that.

• 1:41:42Speaker 02

  You can't tell anyone in New York anything about Lawrence Taylor.

• 1:41:46Bill Simmons?

  He's the best defensive player I've ever seen.

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  Best player, yeah, best defensive player of all time.

• 1:41:51Bill Simmons?

  I think he might be the best football player I've ever seen.

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:41:56Speaker 02

  Like if we're, if we're doing, if we're doing a draft to try to.

• 1:42:00Bill Simmons?

  Him and Jerry Rice and, and even Brady, like I'll divorce myself as a Pats fan, but just like got non Patriots. Jerry Rice and Taylor were the two best parts I ever saw.

• 1:42:10Speaker 02

  The thing about Brady is if we're choosing up an all time, let's draft an all time team, right?

• 1:42:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  If you take Brady, I'll take Montana. I'm good, right? The two players I don't think.

• 1:42:19Bill Simmons?

  The drop off of LT to the next guy.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  It's LT and the other guy for me is Deion Sanders. If we're strategically, like if we're drafting short stops and catchers because there's gonna be a run on them. Like there's no, I, I know, I know the advanced metrics, like other guys better than Deion Sanders, but I know what I saw. Like I don't think there's anyone close to Deion at his position. I don't think there's anyone, you can't approximate that. You know, you want to take Reggie White, I'll take Bruce Smith or I'll take, you know, I'll take, I can, you want to take, I can take Aaron Donald if I just want a guy on the defensive line. If you want to take Jerry Rice, I could take Randy Moss. Yes, I would much rather have Jerry Rice, but Randy Moss is, you know, basically, you know, but I don't know what to do. If you take Lawrence Taylor, I'm like, well.

• 1:43:01Bill Simmons?

  You're looking into Derek Thomas, like you're already over there.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  Outside linebacker who can drop into coverage, like forget about the pass rushing.

• 1:43:09Bill Simmons?

  John Hannah is like that for, for guard.

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  It's like, if I get John Hannah now, it's a huge drop off.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  That's true. That's, and by the way, that's the strategy. You always go for like scarcity at the position.

• 1:43:22Bill Simmons?

  Um.

• 1:43:24Bill Simmons?

  What should OKC do? I had in my notes as well for you. Zach and I talked about this for a while. There's. I was thinking about this. Um, and I don't know if it's the time we live in now. We have to overreact to whatever happens at all times, right? And how if that had been the case in the eighties.

• 1:43:47Bill Simmons?

  Like the, would the Lakers have traded Magic after the 84 finals?

• 1:43:52Speaker 02

  After tragic Johnson?

• 1:43:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Especially when he wanted to trade?

• 1:43:56Bill Simmons?

  The Pistons, when Isaiah, the, the bird steals the ball and they blow it in game seven. It's like, what do the Pistons do? They gotta blow it up. They gotta do this, that. It's kind of the mentality we have. The more I look at it, I think the, the move is just to ride it out. You won the title last year. You went against a crazy freak.

• 1:44:13Speaker 02

  Without your second best player.

• 1:44:15Bill Simmons?

  You didn't have your second best player. You had a big bullseye on you all year. Just like, let's take a deep breath. It's a marathon, not a sprint. It makes me think of what, uh, what Riley said when he was trying to Jedi mind trick right before LeBron left to go back to Cleveland and Riley had that press conference. And he's like, winning's hard. Only one team wins every year. Like the hard part is now, when you don't win, and you stay together. He's basically like sending this coded message to LeBron.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Well, Jordan ruins basketball that way.

• 1:44:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Speaker 02

  The problem with the standard that Jordan set is he's the greatest of all time. And people know that they're going to be compared against that. And when you dig into the numbers, it says that Jordan's the greatest of all time. And when you dig into the analytics, it says Jordan's the greatest of all time. And when the analytics get more advanced, it furthers the argument that, remember real box plus minus used to say LeBron had a slight edge over Michael Jordan. As it's become more sophisticated, Jordan now has the edge even in that stat, like a kind of point guard stat over LeBron James. So he set that bar. How do you beat that? Well, you at least, like, he also never lost a championship, right?

• 1:45:27Speaker 02

  He was six and oh, and three-peated twice. And the only times he ever lost, when he had another All-Star on his team, even won, was the year he played baseball, came back and didn't have his legs. And the year Pippen got the migraine against the Pistons. Otherwise, if you gave him an all, so LeBron and everyone is being measured against that and they're aware of it. And if you look at the stats and the advanced analytics and everything like shit, not quite. I gotta get him in championships.

• 1:45:54Bill Simmons?

  You could beat him on game and and duration of career is the way LeBron's trying to beat him now.

• 1:45:59Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, like you just do what you can. Kobe was like, I'm gonna do MJ better than MJ. And he took the number 24. He should have taken the number 22 because he got super close, right? But not quite. So it ruined because like before MJ, you were allowed to lose championships.

• 1:46:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:17Speaker 02

  And if if people and it's like it's it's um what Harold Bloom, the literary critic, wrote about uh Shakespeare, about how there's an anxiety and it stopped me if I've done this with you before because this is from my greatest hits, volume three. But it's it's um every writer since Shakespeare because writers, great writers are always aware of what came before them. And in fact, they're kind of having a dialogue with what's come before them. Right? And so and or they're involved in this dialectic as time goes on. And they and and every writer understands that Shakespeare covered it all. There's nothing, there's nothing new you can do. So you have this anxiety of influence. And um that's Michael Jordan.

• 1:47:00Speaker 02

  He has created an anxiety of influence in basketball that has warped the way we think about basketball. In terms of Chet Holmgren, he has shown that at this point, he is at best the third best player on a championship team. And but he's very young. He he ran into a guy who may replace Jordan one day as the GOAT if he can stay healthy, maybe. And and he can grow from this. And I compared it to, oh, Warriors fans mad at me right now, but I I just mean in this way. When LeBron blocked Steph in game six and screamed on him and Steph kind of hung his head. In 2016, I was thinking, oh, I mean, not in retrospect, at the time, I'm thinking,

• 1:47:44Speaker 02

  that's not how you react to that, right? Like, he knows he's better than you, you know that too? And then in game seven, yeah, I know Steph was hurt, I know he was tired, everyone's tired, you know? It's game seven, 73 wins at home, fourth quarter, five and a half minutes left. You can't score a point? You can't set up a teammate to score a point? You're throwing the ball out of bounds behind your back? And you lose like that at home to LeBron James?

• 1:48:13Speaker 02

  He told you he was better than you and you believed him. There's something about that, I believe that. And Wemby did that to Chet. He's been prepping it this whole time. He, at every instance, I own you. Now, Steph, I think consistently underperformed in the finals. Earlier in his career, in 15, in 16, I looked and I thought, this is not the same guy as the regular season. It's slightly worse.

• 1:48:38Bill Simmons?

  Different, uh, you've seen a guy every day for two weeks.

• 1:48:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:48:43Bill Simmons?

  You can start to shift stuff against him.

• 1:48:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:48:45Bill Simmons?

  It took him a while to unlock that.

• 1:48:46Speaker 02

  They shifted against Jordan, they shifted against Larry Bird.

• 1:48:49Bill Simmons?

  But in 22, he answered that one.

• 1:48:51Speaker 02

  Even before then, I started to see him turn the corner against Kawhi. I saw him win games where it looked like, okay, Kawhi is telling everyone, I'm the best player in this series, look at this, look at this, look at this. And Steph answered him right back and won a couple of games at home. And, and then, and then by 22, he's the best player on the team. In other words, he got where I wanted to see him get. Truly as the best player in the world.

• 1:49:12Bill Simmons?

  The Durant thing kinda screwed it up too. In a, in, in this way. I, I kinda wish Durant had just gone somewhere else. Even though that 17 Warriors was the most fun, or the most successful team we probably had since oh one. But I thought that Rob Curry of like his Rocky III moment.

• 1:49:30Speaker 02

  If you know.

• 1:49:30Bill Simmons?

  Coming off the 16 finals and, you know.

• 1:49:33Speaker 02

  Coming back and beating Clubber Lang.

• 1:49:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:35Speaker 02

  But, yes, maybe, maybe, but the fact is, this is how it happened. But my point is, Steph matured and figured it out, in my opinion. And.

• 1:49:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I gotta push back slightly in the block. I remember the moment. I just, I don't, I just don't think Steph, I think that team was banged up and tired from going for that 73 wins from winning the year before. I just thought they were running on fumes. You watch those games and it doesn't even, it looks like a, like Draymond has 35 in game seven and they still lose.

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  He was gonna be the MVP of the season.

• 1:50:08Bill Simmons?

  They were gonna lose that game by 20 points if he doesn't do that.

• 1:50:11Speaker 02

  I saw, yeah, I saw that moment. Maybe you're right, but.

• 1:50:15Bill Simmons?

  Because I thought, the, the key to me with that series is game four, Cleveland brought it. It, that's an awesome game that's been lost in NBA history and Golden State won the game. And at the tail end of it, Draymond got punched in the balls, but I think Golden State was gonna win that series in five.

• 1:50:30Speaker 02

  I, I, um, well, I think that's LeBron goading. Like, he knows this guy, one more tech and he's out.

• 1:50:36Bill Simmons?

  He won't admit that he did it.

• 1:50:37Speaker 02

  I know. But, well, I don't know why. It's to, it's to his credit that he did it. It's super smart. It's like Muhammad Ali level psychology.

• 1:50:43Bill Simmons?

  He should say like, yeah, I knew maybe I could get to Draymond and the game was over.

• 1:50:47Speaker 02

  And, and, and it, but I, I would say this about, about your pushback.

• 1:50:49Bill Simmons?

  But that's like the John Starks 94. The Achilles heel of that Warriors team was Draymond.

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. When you have that kind of Dennis Rodman type.

• 1:50:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Speaker 02

  What side of the line is he gonna be on? And if you, he fished and he got it, but I'll say this about your pushback. It could be that I'm confusing correlation with causation. Like, for example, if I saw a dark cloud and thought, oh, there's gonna be an earthquake, and then there was an earthquake, the cloud didn't cause it, but hard to tell me.

• 1:51:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Speaker 02

  When I, when my, when I, you know, my great grandfather told whatever it was, that this in my family, we always knew if this, there's a dark cloud, it's gonna be like, hard to tell me that that's not the case if it happens, right? Whatever. It's a bad example, but you get the idea.

• 1:51:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  When I saw that moment, I thought, uh-oh.

• 1:51:37Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:51:38Speaker 02

  In, that's my reaction to it. And then, so that, I linked it to the last, but Bill, it wasn't the last minute, it wasn't the last two minutes. They didn't score six points and, and the other team scored eight points with 5:22 to go. I believe it was 5:22. In the fourth quarter of a game seven at home, they didn't score a single point? So maybe you're right, but hard to tell me that because it's not like I looked back and connected those two things. At the moment, I'm like, what is this?

• 1:52:15Bill Simmons?

  It's funny, it's such a fascinating game. Cause the Warriors, the Bogut injury happens. And then Harrison Barnes, over the course of that series, basically just dies and becomes unplayable. Right?

• 1:52:26Speaker 02

  Unreal, couldn't hit anything.

• 1:52:27Bill Simmons?

  If you go back and watch, it's like an all time game seven rock fight. Curry doesn't really have his, just doesn't seem like he has his mojo in the same way. Draymond's keeping them in it. And they have Azili out there with like six minutes left.

• 1:52:39Speaker 02

  Who's also not good, by the way.

• 1:52:41Bill Simmons?

  Who, I don't think ever, I'm pretty sure he never played another NBA game.

• 1:52:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:45Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm almost positive that's true.

• 1:52:47Speaker 02

  That was an all time choke.

• 1:52:48Bill Simmons?

  Um, but they had to have Azili out there. He didn't know who to play. He needed to buy somebody minutes. And LeBron sniffed it out. And the first time he got, you've got Azili to fall into him for three free throws. And the second time Azili was afraid to come out on him, he hit the three. I always felt like that was the game. It's like you have Festus Azili out there with five minutes left in a game seven. Cause your team is just depleted or whatever.

• 1:53:11Speaker 02

  I mean, and then also.

• 1:53:12Bill Simmons?

  That was it.

• 1:53:13Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, maybe, uh, yeah, sure, sure. I mean, obviously it takes.

• 1:53:16Bill Simmons?

  I just think they ran out of guys as that series went along and, you know, they weren't that deep to begin with.

• 1:53:21Speaker 02

  Fine, hit a shot. You have five and a half minutes is the greatest hash court offense of all time.

• 1:53:26Bill Simmons?

  Guarding Curry is the, is the worst moment of Curry's career.

• 1:53:28Speaker 02

  Hit a shot or, or use your gravity to create a shot for a teammate. Like, or try this, don't have an unforced turnover. Like throwing the value of possession.

• 1:53:40Bill Simmons?

  But that is the only finals he ever lost.

• 1:53:43Speaker 02

  Well, okay, except the only reason they won in 15 is because LeBron's second best player with Matthew Delavadova. There is like, we, look, two years ago, last year, the Pacers were better than the Knicks. Clear, it was clear, they're better than the Knicks. Two years ago, the Knicks were better than the Pacers, but injury allowed the Pacers to win. We all saw 2015. That was injury. You know, that was injury. Now, we are in a time in the NBA, and maybe it's always been like this, and I don't know. And I'm, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm not remembering.

• 1:54:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't chalk that up to an injury finals.

• 1:54:16Speaker 02

  What, 15?

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  No, I thought the Warriors were good that year. I think, I honestly think they would have figured it out.

• 1:54:20Speaker 02

  Bill, so if you think the Cavs are good that year, it's because they have LeBron James and Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.

• 1:54:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:27Speaker 02

  And if you took Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving off the team, you'd be like, well, they're not so good. Right?

• 1:54:31Bill Simmons?

  But. But they had to change how they played in that finals in a way that I thought actually weirdly helped them a little bit with what they did with LeBron. The difference was.

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  In other words, LeBron, because he didn't have his two guys, they played in a way that got the most out of the rest of the group.

• 1:54:47Bill Simmons?

  I thought it fucked the Warriors up. And then when the Warriors figured out the lineup with that thing, that flipped the series back. But there was something about how that series, it was so weird that I actually thought it kind of, I still feel like the Warriors, if you're just putting that those 15 teams together and the newness of that team and what was going on with Kevin Love. That, you know, the Kevin Love thing was weird those first two years.

• 1:55:09Speaker 02

  Kyrie was a big game player, though.

• 1:55:11Bill Simmons?

  He was, but he never, he'd never really done it before the.

• 1:55:14Speaker 02

  And he couldn't have a chance, like that's, that's LeBron on the 07 Cavs. He basically took the 07 Cavs, Cavs, six games against, against the Warriors.

• 1:55:23Bill Simmons?

  I feel like the right team, so if you're gonna go 15 and 16, going 1 and 1 was probably the right outcome.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  Yes, but, right, but you have to flip them.

• 1:55:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it's just like, each team probably should have won once.

• 1:55:35Speaker 02

  Okay, here's the best argument for Steph Curry, for all the Steph Curry fans. Not only are the individual stats great, but he created an environment, both a culture and in terms of the space that he provided every, and the way he could play off ball, on ball, the whole thing. Where, where it's like in chess, if you dominate the middle of the board.

• 1:55:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:56Speaker 02

  All tactics will tend to favor you, right? If you have Steph Curry on your team, if you have Steph Curry on your team, all these situations will tend to favor you because of the structurally what he creates, both in terms of the culture and in terms of the spacing on the floor and all that kind of stuff. Fine, I would not take that away from Steph. I still think that he is an example of how a player can mature in the clutch. And, and not that Chet is Steph Curry, but I wouldn't be so quick to move off Chet. Here's another, unless you just think at his size, we were worried about the longevity anyway, given his frame, blah, blah, blah, maybe. Even then, you're still selling low. If you look at a guy like Igudala, who was miscast as the number one in Philly, right?

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  Eventually, he's a number four in Golden State, but you still want Igudala on your team.

• 1:56:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:46Speaker 02

  If Chet is a three or a four. I get he's a very expensive three or four, but he like it seems to me is one of the things that makes that team really good.

• 1:56:56Bill Simmons?

  That's the biggest part of this, though, is can you afford three expensive guys if you're not sure about one of the three? That's, that's how.

• 1:57:03Speaker 02

  Or could you turn them into, into a, into a?

• 1:57:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, let me ask you this. If they called the Clippers and said, give us the fifth pick for Chet, what do the Clippers do? Cause they have the cap space to make it work.

• 1:57:17Speaker 02

  I think the Clippers would. I think the Clippers would.

• 1:57:21Bill Simmons?

  I think they would too.

• 1:57:22Speaker 02

  Would Milwaukee do it?

• 1:57:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm not, Giannis isn't answering the question. The question for me is, would OKC want to turn Chet into the fifth pick in the draft, making $30 million less? Then you bring Hartenstein back. You have Hartenstein and J Will as your centers.

• 1:57:39Speaker 02

  And then try to go get Porzingis or someone like that?

• 1:57:41Bill Simmons?

  Or maybe you try, yeah, or you try to get Robert Williams of free agency. Maybe at five, then try to trade in the top four. Maybe you could talk Memphis and then going back two spots or Chicago. It's just, that was the most interesting fake trade of all the Chet fake trades for me. Could they get to five for the Clippers, a team that has Kawhi, Darius Garland, submergency, not, not knowing what the aspiration settlement's gonna be and all that shit?

• 1:58:06Speaker 02

  Without running plays for Chet Holmgren, he's giving you 17, what? Eight, two blocks?

• 1:58:14Bill Simmons?

  He's like a 19 and 9.

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  19 and 9?

• 1:58:16Bill Simmons?

  But he was the second best defensive player in the league this season.

• 1:58:18Speaker 02

  I mean, like, Chet's a lot. He's, and also, you want.

• 1:58:21Bill Simmons?

  You're just, you're paying $41 million for him.

• 1:58:24Speaker 02

  And he's a.

• 1:58:24Bill Simmons?

  A year.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  He's a three, four, really. Like, like, like Wemby's really a three. He's playing four or five because he's very tall, but he plays kind of like three.

• 1:58:31Bill Simmons?

  Gives you rim protection. I don't know, I would think about it.

• 1:58:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:34Bill Simmons?

  But that, that's it. I would have to get major salary cap relief and I would have to get some sort of big chip.

• 1:58:43Speaker 02

  The Warriors are gonna, sorry, the Warriors, the Thunder are gonna have to do something is the, is the general feeling about things because of the way Chet came up small?

• 1:58:52Bill Simmons?

  And the money.

• 1:58:53Speaker 02

  And the money, sure. Right, of course.

• 1:58:56Speaker 02

  If they have Jalen Williams, maybe they win this year. They went seven games without their second best player.

• 1:59:01Bill Simmons?

  That's I think where you land after the wounds, after licking your wounds, cleaning up the blood off the floor. You're like, fuck, would we have won that series if Jalen Williams was 100% healthy? We probably would have.

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  It's more really preparing for what the Spurs are likely to become. You know, like you win the win the Super Bowl in Madden and then the next year, all your, all your young players are rated 10 points higher.

• 1:59:22Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:59:23Speaker 02

  Like all of a sudden Steph and Steph Castle and Harper and everything start to blossom and it's like, oh, we needed to do something then.

• 1:59:30Bill Simmons?

  Here's the, you'll love this analogy. I love to bring in boxing with you every once in a while, just so, you know, okay. It's puts the hair in your arms standing up. Um, Frazier couldn't beat Foreman.

• 1:59:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:59:42Bill Simmons?

  Frazier was awesome. Put Frazier against anybody else. It was a great fight. He was the worst possible guy to fight Ali. Something about Foreman, he had no chance.

• 1:59:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's rock.

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

  And they did it twice.

• 1:59:53Speaker 02

  Rock, paper, scissors.

• 1:59:55Bill Simmons?

  He's had no chance. There, I don't know what the, like, I don't think Frazier at any point in his career would have figured out what to do against Foreman.

• 2:00:01Speaker 02

  Foreman would have knocked him out every time.

• 2:00:03Bill Simmons?

  And the question is, is that shed against Wemby?

• 2:00:05Speaker 02

  But styles.

• 2:00:06Bill Simmons?

  Is he Frazier against Foreman?

• 2:00:07Speaker 02

  Probably, but styles make fights. So Ali, the boxer, has a hard time with the volume pressure fighter, Frazier. Because the, the guy who wants you to miss, yeah, you make Frazier miss five times. Who cares? Here come another 10 punches, right?

• 2:00:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:19Speaker 02

  Hard for Ali.

• 2:00:23Speaker 02

  Frazier versus Foreman, the pressure fighter has to come inside against the puncher. He gets clipped coming in. He's knocked out. Hard for Frazier. Foreman, the puncher, trying to swing one at a time against Ali, the guy who can make you miss, bad for Foreman. Right? So it's, it's rock, it really is rock, paper, scissors. And if you're saying that the problem is that the rock is going to be sitting there in, in your path every single year.

• 2:00:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:47Speaker 02

  You know, that's true, but I, again, I don't, that, and but no one, who's going to match up with Wemby? Like you're not going to find a matchup.

• 2:00:53Bill Simmons?

  That's what we said Saturday night. It's like, everyone's going to have this problem. So do you just accept that there is no Wemby answer? And maybe you did the best job you could have done against him, but every team is going to have this issue. So just put your best possible team together.

• 2:01:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. If I'm the Thunder, I don't think I'm looking at that matchup. I think I'm looking at it.

• 2:01:15Speaker 02

  I think we're better than them. We were missing our second best player.

• 2:01:18Bill Simmons?

  And we needed one more shooter.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  If we have him, we're good.

• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And one more shooter, I think is the other thing. Because it was a team that when they couldn't hit threes, felt like they could lose to anybody.

• 2:01:27Speaker 02

  If they lose Dort, then they're gonna, you know. But, but.

• 2:01:31Bill Simmons?

  Could they make a run at somebody who's just a more reliable, he checked, three-point guy that?

• 2:01:36Speaker 02

  But I think really what you're preparing for is not, Wemby's gonna, Wemby's always gonna be better than Chet. Even if Chet does better, he's still gonna be better than Chet. You're preparing for the evolution of.

• 2:01:44Bill Simmons?

  Different though. This was.

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  Yes, he, he, he.

• 2:01:47Bill Simmons?

  Chet was a puddle.

• 2:01:48Speaker 02

  Yes, he was.

• 2:01:49Bill Simmons?

  I didn't realize when we did the pod Saturday night, Chet took both of his shots at the beginning of the game. He went like 28 minutes without taking a shot.

• 2:01:56Speaker 02

  Late possession where he, he thought about shooting, he didn't shoot. But I think really if you're the Thunder, you're, you're, you're thinking, how do we counteract the evolution of Castle and Harper, really? That's really what you're gonna have to deal with.

• 2:02:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:10Speaker 02

  And that's, I, I wouldn't worry about.

• 2:02:13Bill Simmons?

  And also like, what if Carter Bryan all of a sudden is good in two years?

• 2:02:16Speaker 02

  He's good now.

• 2:02:17Bill Simmons?

  I know, like, but it could be like a 35-minute-a-game guy. It's pretty rough.

• 2:02:21Speaker 02

  It's rough.

• 2:02:21Bill Simmons?

  I think they're set up, it's so funny because we were saying this about OKC last year. And somehow San Antonio's set up even better. And it's really just, can Wemby stay healthy at seven foot six or whatever it is?

• 2:02:31Speaker 02

  If, if, if, I, I was thinking, I said this on.

• 2:02:34Bill Simmons?

  Because we remember when Sampson got hurt.

• 2:02:36Speaker 02

  And, and Wemby's plays a much, he's playing in space more than Sampson ever did. It's a different time.

• 2:02:42Bill Simmons?

  And when he, now he's.

• 2:02:44Speaker 02

  But Sampson didn't train with the Shaolin monks either.

• 2:02:46Bill Simmons?

  Or like train how to fall. That's another thing. Like Wemby actually works on how to fall, how to land, which I don't, they just didn't know this shit. Like Sampson 40 years ago, nobody was working with them on, here's what happens if you're starting to fall.

• 2:03:00Speaker 02

  Right. So he has a three-year prime and that's what people are thinking about.

• 2:03:04Bill Simmons?

  He fell in the Boston Guardians. Never the same. He fell on his back, led to all this other shit. Um, all right, Max Kellerman, you go and, uh, you're gonna go to at least one Knicks home game.

• 2:03:13Speaker 02

  I, I gotta go do the show in a minute. Um. I don't know if, like, let's see if I can get into a home game. I think I might have to catch him in San Antonio.

• 2:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Hot ticket.

• 2:03:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:23Bill Simmons?

  Good luck, though.

• 2:03:24Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:03:25Bill Simmons?

  Ever since I've known you, this seemed like an inconceivable conversation. That the Knicks might have the greatest Nick ever on their team? That they might win the finals?

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  It's not since, like, when people say 99, it's so annoying. They didn't have a shot in 99.

• 2:03:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Ewing was.

• 2:03:39Speaker 02

  Like, Ewing, Ewing didn't play, and then, and they were an eight seed. Like, you know, Camby and, and, and, and, uh, Camby's kind of forgotten it. He was excellent. That was a great trade.

• 2:03:48Bill Simmons?

  He had a great run.

• 2:03:49Speaker 02

  That was a good, but, but like, it's Sprewell and Houston and those guys. But, um, they didn't have a shot. This is the only shot they've ever had since 94.

• 2:03:56Bill Simmons?

  I said this on a pod a couple of weeks ago, where I said, this Knicks team had the best chance to make the finals, um, since the 94 team.

• 2:04:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:06Bill Simmons?

  And people were like, what about the 99 team? They made the finals. And it was like, they lost Ewing. Like, it was a miracle they beat the Pacers.

• 2:04:13Speaker 02

  They wouldn't have won with Ewing, but they would have gone six or seven games.

• 2:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like, that was crazy that they even got out of round three.

• 2:04:20Speaker 02

  But I would say that in a way, this Knicks team is playing with house money that that, the 94 team wasn't playing with. Cause in Jordan's absence, it's like, okay, now. Like, we, we, we were taking the Bulls, no one in the West took them seven games. We were taking them seven games. We took them seven games with Jordan and Pippen and Grant, right? Now is the time. And this is Patrick Ewing's time. Here we get to see the parallel universe with no Michael Jordan. The Knicks are gonna win a championship. So it felt, you, you weren't playing with house money. You were like destined to do it. And it was so bizarre when they didn't. It was like, wait, what? They lost the championship? How is this possible? This is house money. The Knicks were not supposed to be here. Right? Like, they became this new team in the playoffs.

• 2:05:04Bill Simmons?

  I agree and I disagree. Because I also think this is going to be your best chance this decade to win the title.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the best chance.

• 2:05:10Bill Simmons?

  You're probably not going to have Mitch next year. He's going to leave because I just don't think they could pay him 20 to 25 million bucks. You had no Indiana this year. You had Boston with Tatum coming back. You're going to have other teams in the East getting better. You don't know where the next challenger is coming from. You have younger Wemby who's only going to get better or OKC. Like this is.

• 2:05:30Speaker 02

  If the Knicks can.

• 2:05:31Bill Simmons?

  This is it.

• 2:05:32Speaker 02

  I think it's not as much about they didn't have the gauntlet as it because I think they would have.

• 2:05:36Bill Simmons?

  You have all this rest you got.

• 2:05:38Speaker 02

  Based on what I've seen, they would have beaten all those teams. Based on what I've seen these playoffs, they wouldn't have swept everyone, but they would have won. I think they were.

• 2:05:44Bill Simmons?

  No, Indiana had your number though. If it was the same Indiana team.

• 2:05:47Speaker 02

  But they're not winning by 12. They're winning by 40.

• 2:05:50Bill Simmons?

  I get it. The math says yes.

• 2:05:52Speaker 02

  Who knows? But that's my feeling. I feel like they're really, really good. The question is, is it sustainable for more than a year or two?

• 2:05:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:58Speaker 02

  Right? Like, so is this it? And they're firing on all cylinders?

• 2:06:02Bill Simmons?

  Guys that, I wrote about this, the Pat Riley disease of more, which was one of my favorite things to write about in my book. You have all these guys sacrificing this year because they're trying to win the title. Once you win the title, you're not as excited to sacrifice. Towns is like, yeah, eight shots a game. I don't know. I'm ready to take some more.

• 2:06:21Speaker 02

  You know what? I don't think that's his problem. I think he has the other problem. Towns, shoot more. I think that's really, he's such, he's such a team guy. It's like.

• 2:06:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:30Speaker 02

  You know, like I, I just think it's the, when you say the 2014 Spurs, they had largely the same cast, but it never came together like that year.

• 2:06:39Bill Simmons?

  It was awesome.

• 2:06:39Speaker 02

  Right? And so this is, now it does seem like they caught lightning in a bottle. They didn't have to run the gauntlet. Their gauntlet, they're rested. They're mostly healthy. We'll see if Mitch can play. They just happen to be, and maybe they're catching the dynasty a year before it becomes a dynasty.

• 2:06:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:06:56Speaker 02

  Right?

• 2:06:57Bill Simmons?

  So I'll do Spurs in six. I don't feel great about it. You'll talk about your pick on Game Over with Rich Paul and Max Kellerman.

• 2:07:04Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 2:07:05Bill Simmons?

  Good to see you. Thanks for coming in.

• 2:07:07Speaker 02

  Thank you. Always good.

• 2:07:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Max Kellerman. Thanks to Eduardo and Chris and Gahow as well. Don't forget, I am going to be coming back right after game one of the NBA Finals tomorrow night. We're going to be live on Netflix. And new rewatchables mailbag, mailbag coming on, uh, on Thursday. And then I'm not sure if I'm doing another podcast that week after the Wednesday night pod. We will see. Don't forget about the new rewatchables with Steven Spielberg and Sean Finacy as well. 2001 A Space Odyssey. So I will see you tomorrow.

• 2:07:59Bill Simmons?

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• 2:08:35Bill Simmons?

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