NBA Draft Questions, Harper vs. Fox, and the USMNT’s World Cup Ceiling

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Tim Legler to preview the NBA draft. Then, Anthony Dabbundo joins the pod to recap the World Cup matches so far, including the USMNT’s impressive 4-1 win against Paraguay, and discuss many other topics related to the tournament. (0:00) Intro (2:27) NBA draft questions with Tim Legler (01:02:42) Harper vs. Fox (01: 23:57) Favorite Giannis landing spot (01:33:13) World Cup talk with Anthony Dabbundo Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Tim Legler and Anthony Dabbundo Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.comThe 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:06Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. We are also presented by The Ringer Podcast Network, where it is from Hell Month on the Rewatchables. We put up Hand That Rocks The Cradle this week. I think we're putting up Domestic Disturbance, The Good Sun, and Pacific Heights, all before the end of June, because this is from Hell Month. So you have all that to look forward to. All those movies are on Netflix, by the way, as well. I'm gonna be on Netflix on Sunday night with Zach Lowe. We might have a mystery third with us as well. So probably 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM ET range, we'll be going live for an hour and a half, getting you ready for a big NBA week that's coming. Speaking of, Tim Legler is coming up in one second, and we're gonna be talking about the draft, what we learned from the finals, how does that help team building, predictions,

• 1:51Bill Simmons?

  all kinds of things. And then, I'd love the World Cup. I've watched a ton of it, so I made Anthony Dabbundo come on, and we talked about USA's semifinals chances, final eight chances, some sort of chances. Things are better. Things are optimistic. A huge game coming on Friday. I hope you're gonna be out at a bar or somewhere fun watching it. So we talked to DiBundo, and that is the podcast. We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Tim Legler. 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. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal.

• 2:32Bill Simmons?

  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/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuer's terms and conditions.

• 3:27Bill Simmons?

  All right, so we're recording. It is Thursday afternoon, late Pacific time. Tim Legler is here. He did not join us during the finals because he was calling the finals and we were coming live after every finals game. I want to, what's, I want to do some draft NBA stuff and then at the end of this, I want to talk about what it was like to be there for such a crazy series. I was so excited today. I read that you're involved with the NBA draft this year for ESPN. I had this whole plan for stuff to talk about. I didn't know we were able to, I didn't know you were prepped for the draft. This is unbelievable.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Um, well, they, listen, to be, full disclosure, I'm not fully. I still have a few days to get there because this was kind of also a late in the game ad for me. Yeah. To be part of it. I mean, it gets fun, it's exciting, but at the same time, yeah, like there's a lot to acclimate yourself with. And I've been doing nothing, honestly, with the last, over the last couple of days, but watching a lot of film on a lot of guys. Just, I saw my new, seen enough of, kind of had a feel, but even those guys, you know, to really get into the weeds, you need to see more film on guys. And then there was a bunch of other dudes, when you start getting down, you know, anywhere from 10 through 30, because I'm just doing the first night. So, yeah, I'll be involved with the first round. So like, you got a, you got a lot of catch up to do. So I'm kind of in the midst of doing that, more or less.

• 4:42Bill Simmons?

  I did the draft two years and I had an incredible amount of fun just diving a half hour in each guy and then basically making a decision on how I felt. And I remember one of the, one of the drafts I had Giannis and I'm like, I don't know, man, he looks, he looks pretty good, but it looked like he was playing against 13 year olds.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  You know, you know what? I'm gonna tell you something though. Here's, here's the truth. Like, you know, the new thing, and I don't think this always was the case, but the new thing is with the draft is like, the player comps.

• 5:11Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Right? So drop a player name. And it's funny because, and I'm looking and, and so in my research and in my film work and I'm pulling different stuff up and you're seeing different player comps dropped by whatever source. I'm not going to get into those, but whatever the source may be. And, and I'm just like, man, I don't like these, I don't like the comps because I feel like, I really feel like you're either, as an analyst, you're either going way out on a limb.

• 5:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Like, damn, man, that's a big reach because we have, you have no idea ultimately how a guy is gonna swim at the next level. And a lot, there's a lot that goes into that, man, like fit, early, just heart, work ethic, handling pressure, maturity. And, and like you can do all the homework you want. You don't know, man, until those guys put an NBA uniform on. So some of these comps, I'm going, wow, okay, that's a big bite. But then there's other guys, I'll be like, oh, that's not fair enough to the guy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think the comp is enough. So, and I, and I feel like either way, five years from now, like you set yourself up to just get absolutely taken apart. Like if you, if you, if you put a cop out there of some guy that's like a perennial all-star and dude's bust, like you're gonna hear about that in a big way.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  The other, so I'm not a big fan of the comps. So I'm just, I'm just, I look at these guys.

• 6:27Bill Simmons?

  I have some bad news for you.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  All right.

• 6:30Bill Simmons?

  I was the one, my draft, that was my big idea for the 2013 draft to do the players comps. I'm Dr. Oppenheimer of this whole thing.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Wait, are you the guy?

• 6:39Bill Simmons?

  I was, I was, I was Dr. That was my big idea. I was like, each player will do a comp of whatever. And then the second year I did it, we blew it out even further and.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  So you're that guy.

• 6:50Bill Simmons?

  I am. I started it.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Who stares off, Oppenheimer in the movie, like he stares off and he's seen math theorems and all that stuff.

• 6:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  You're seeing, you're seeing former players. Like just bouncing around in your head.

• 7:00Bill Simmons?

  I thought it would be a good way for the audience to understand what they were doing, but it's, and we do, we did it for the Grantland Draft Guide. We do it for the Ringer Draft Guide. It's, it's really hard because if you do the wrong comp or you, you don't put enough thought into it, it can go as sideways as possible.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Have you changed your opinion then on, on, on like even giving the comps like?

• 7:21Bill Simmons?

  You know where I've gone.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Unless it's just blatantly obvious.

• 7:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, I, I rarely do, but it's almost like there's pieces of different guys, right? Like when I watch Caleb Wilson and I just, his, you can watch 20 minutes of him on YouTube and think he's going to be one of the best 15 players of all time. Like you just see, see the way it's edited, you're like, oh my God, this guy's Yanis crossed with Bam, you know? And the problem with this stuff is you're seeing like the absolute best of the best, it's the greatest hits of whatever the college season was, which is why you have to go watch like,

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Well, that's true.

• 7:56Bill Simmons?

  You have to watch the last five minutes of different games, like to really do this correctly, you gotta see them in different presser situations.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  That's a great point and I also, the other thing is like the guys that you're comparing them to when they get the comp, that's that guy at his very best. And you're going, okay, with these guys, most of these guys are 19.

• 8:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Like, man, you know, so whatever, if there's some things that are clearly obvious with their physical profile. And maybe in addition to like, sort of like stylistically, okay, but like, that's the problem I have is you start throwing out guys that are, you know, every year an all-star, Hall of Famer, all-league players from the past, I'm like, man, that's a lot for a dude that's 19 when you've just go back and look at the last 15 years of the draft. There's a lot of dudes that were picked in the top 10 and that you can't, that had all kinds of comps from all-star players from the past.

• 8:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  And a lot of those guys weren't even in the league in three or four years.

• 8:56Bill Simmons?

  With all that said, if you watched Aaron Peterson's high school tape, he kind of looks like Kobe. Like those are the comps where you're like, hey, he kind of looks like Kobe, like, like that's, I don't know, is that a player comp or is that just what my eyes are telling me? I, uh, I have gravitated, I've been fascinated by the draft my whole life and even doing it those couple of years was really helpful, but I've landed at the point, I really value what I just watched in the playoffs when I think toward the draft and that's where I've landed the last couple of years and I feel like there's basically like three buckets of players and I want to figure out like, like just the pure studs, right? The first four guys in this draft, I think flag was like this, Dylan Harper was like, just like, these guys are

• 9:41Bill Simmons?

  studs, they're gonna make it, they're gonna be at the very least starters, they have all NBA potential, like that's a bucket. And then I think the next group for me is playoff guys and playoff guys to me means wings that can defend and hit threes and not hurt you offensively, but can switch on defense and just can fit in a series, bigs who can defend the rim and rebound and maybe even stretch the floor a little and then guards that can give you offense and not kill you. Basically those three buckets as playoff guys and if you look at the draft last year, Murray Boils, I think went, what do you go, nine or 10?

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, 10th I think.

• 10:19Bill Simmons?

  Maybe 10th, Coward went 9th, Carter Bryant, who I thought actually could have played probably a little more, San Antonio 14th, but we're always taking these guards ahead of these guys and sometimes I wonder like, is this just the undervalue over and over again every year? These guys that we know are gonna be playoff guys and yet they always go three, four, or five picks too late.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I think it's a good point. I also think like Carter Bryant's a fascinating guy to me and I went, you go back to like last summer, first time I saw him, had seen a lot of film, then I called his first game in Vegas.

• 10:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  In summer league and I was like, this guy was, he was so much more athletic than everybody else out there to me.

• 10:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  And he's so rangy and bouncy and like hyper energized and I'm like, man, this is the type of dude, if he figures out how to shoot a little bit, this is the type of guy that you look at down the road for five years as like an elite, elite perimeter defender. And I still think he's got a chance to get there and the good news for him, his perimeter shooting really came a long way. This year.

• 11:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Now, you know, and Mitch Johnson clearly like shrunk trust a little bit once they got deeper into the postseason. And look, he did play in the one, the one game we called, you know, against Jalen, three straight possessions and Jalen Brunson just went right into the paint and just bodied him up and footwork him to death and made three straight buckets. And it was demoralizing probably.

• 11:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  For this young kid. But look, my point is that he's another dude that we didn't talk much about because we were spending so much time on Harper. This is another guy they got that's going to be a big part of their future. There's no question in my mind.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And that's a guy that in a playoff series, he makes sense to me. It's clearly like a four. He could guard different positions. So when I look at like Res Johnson on, on Michigan, and he's all over the place, right? Like he's in our draft guide, he's 13. I've seen him in mock drafts. He's like 10 to 14, and yet he's the kind of guy like, okay, so you'll take him at 12. And he'd be like, of course, of course, of course they took him. That's going to be uh,

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:15Bill Simmons?

  who it is. But let's, let's do, we could talk about some of the neat stuff later. The top four is so much fun. And I'm always a big, take the guy that you think is the best guy. Like,

• 12:29Bill Simmons?

  figure it out. You have months and months to study these guys, how they would fit in with your team. Just go out on a limb and take your guy. This is one of the only times I ever remember looking at a top four like this and thinking, I'd kind of be okay trading down to four. Like if I was Utah too, and I couldn't decide, it's like, I might be okay moving backwards two spots and getting even more stuff if somebody was super excited about Peterson. But who's your favorite out of these four?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  DeBonsa is my guy. DeBonsa is the guy. I, I believe that. I think that'll be the pick. That should be the pick. I think what we're hoping for, you know, is that he's enthused about the situation. I mean, he's hard to tell. He's very stoic.

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  He actually came into the green room in, I think we're in San Antonio. I don't remember what game during the finals. He happened to be there that day. They brought him in. I think his dad, they came in and we met him and talked to him a little bit. And I was joking. I'm like, hey, man, I give you good restaurants in Washington, but it's been, you know, 30 years since I played there, 26 years.

• 13:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  So I think they've probably changed. We had, kind of had a joke about it. He's very serious. This guy, man, you know, and I'm just like, maybe that's just kind of how he's wired because I know a lot of people read into, you know, the, when the lottery happened and the Wizards got the first pick and he was there and they showed him and he just looked so serious, borderline unhappy. And I just was like, man, let's just give him, let's just give him a little bit of slack here, right? This is overwhelming to him. He is now gone from, you know, in the last two years, you think about, you're trying to find your way as a high school player, hitting the AAU circuit, climbing the charts, and now you're the number one pick, presumptive number one pick in the draft. You know, going to a team that's had, you know, hasn't won a lot in a long time. It's a lot to process and maybe the people are viewing you a certain way. So I'm not going to read into that. He's the guy because I think

• 14:11Speaker 02

  his, his, what he could do from a skill standpoint, combined with the physicality that he brings and some of those metrics, that combination and versatility in his game, I feel like he's got a greater margin to find his lane. Because I'm not sure exactly what ultimately his ceiling is, but I think he does kind of like everything well. And he's very athletic and he's strong and he's tough and he seems serious about this. He's a worker. He looks like a guy to me that like you go, okay, we bring him in because we think he's the best guy. Not exactly sure how we're going to plug him in, how we're going to use him, what his ultimate strength is primarily early offensively. Doesn't matter because there's a lot to work with.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  I think for me, combination of size, the toughness, athleticism with the skill set, I think this is the right pick.

• 15:03Bill Simmons?

  I landed there early February. I watched these guys for a while and at some point it was like, what are we doing? He's got to be the first pick, especially because you don't know what his body's going to look like five years from now, you know, that like, he already looks like he's 26. And you think about, you know, some of the guy like the Tatum, Jalen Brown, guys like that, how they grew into these adult bodies by the time they're 25, 26, 27, like the muscle he's going to put on, he can play their position. By the way, Washington's taking him. That's, that's how this is playing out. They're going to take him and I don't.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  For sure. And he joins a group. I mean, look at, look at their roster and the number of like top 10 picks on their roster. They've got a lot of lottery picks there.

• 15:43Bill Simmons?

  Fits in with what they have.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Developing nicely. He does. And the one thing they don't have though. They do not have a face of the franchise type of guy. They don't. They've got some, some former number one pick or former lottery picks. Um, and, and like Sarri at the top of the list for me, like he's grown tremendously. I really like his game, but this, this guy is different because of the nature of the position. This is a guy that you could put the ball in his hands in the open floor in the half court. He can go get his own against guys. That's a lot harder for a guy as, as tall as Alex Sarri. He's never going to have like that type of handle to just go break a guy down. DeBonsa can do it. So they don't have this level of franchise guy, even though they've

• 16:27Speaker 02

  got some really nice young players. Trey Johnson was a guy I loved last year. Guy's a walking bucket.

• 16:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  But they don't have this. This is a different level. A guy that with that kind of size that can play off the dribble, shoot it, go get his own and break guys down. They, they don't have that combination.

• 16:45Bill Simmons?

  And is that a big spotlight on him for a while? It's the right pick. You know, there's a piece of me wonders if Boozer also was the right pick for them. Um, and we always talk with the draft that you always hear like floor, ceiling, floor, ceiling, every high floor, low floor, high ceiling, lower ceiling. And Boozer seems like he has both a high floor, but also potentially a high ceiling. Um, with his IQ and he's just going to produce. He's been.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  I like that. I like that way. When you put it that way, Bill, because we've seen too many guys in the playoffs, particularly the separation between floor and ceiling, the variance between floor and ceiling.

• 17:22Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel like there's variance with him. Yeah. And the thing I didn't like about him, he didn't have that little foul line jumper. I felt like he would be bowling his way to the basket over and over again, when he really wanted to get points, which he could in college. And in the pros, you're not going to do that in the same way. But he's, this is the 19 year old version of him, you know? When you think like he's, these guys, I think he has the competitiveness and the work ethic. I think AJ has it. And Caleb Wilson definitely has it.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  This was a comp, by the way, I did like. Can I, can I tell you the comp I saw that I did kind of like?

• 17:55Bill Simmons?

  What was it?

• 17:55Speaker 02

  With this, with, with, with Boozer. It's Kevin Love.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  I thought that was a pretty good comp. Think about Kevin Love at his best in Minnesota before he, you know, he went and, and, you know, sacrificed a lot to go win, but his first years in Minnesota, think about how productive he was because he's, you know, Boozer's not a guy that's gonna blow you away athletically.

• 18:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  He's more of a grounded game, but I think he's gonna stretch his shooting out to be a really consistent, deep NBA shooter. He's already got good shooting range, but that's gotta improve. Obviously, it's a huge thing, those extra three, four feet. Like, you really have to put some time in. I think he can get there. Any ball that he gets his fingertips on off the defensive glass is his, very Kevin Love-like. He's smart. He can outlet the ball quickly because he's got a high IQ off the glass. He gets it out of his hands quick to the guard. That's a Kevin Love trade too. So like, I don't love a lot of comps. I thought, yeah, Kevin Love. At first I saw it, it's like, hmm, let me think about that. And then I started watching more and more film on Boozer. I'm like, you know what? I don't mind that one.

• 18:52Bill Simmons?

  I loved Kat, like, heavier Kevin Love was one of my favorite rebounders of all time. When he had like the extra 20.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  You couldn't display some. If he was down there, no. If he got positioned, it was game over. Even though he wasn't gonna jump over you at all. He just got his back on you and you was done, man.

• 19:08Bill Simmons?

  One of the best offensive rebounders I've ever seen, that earlier version of him. Like, if you think about like the great, great, great rebounders that I've seen in person, and I'm sure you played with and against some of these guys, but Moses was an all-timer. I wrote about this in my book. Moses had this trick where he would kinda go under the basket, almost out of bounds, and then he would just back in, backwards, and then he would just be next to the rim tipping it in. Uh, Moses Barkley was incredible. Kevin Love was another one that.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Kevin Love also did very similarly to the big play in the game, what Mitchell Robinson did to Embiid on that big missed free throw, where he, they walk guys so deep, they can't react to the ball, gets beyond them. Kevin Love was great at that. I can see Boozer being that type of rebounder because they're not, they're not gonna get those ones where you're gonna run from point A to point B, cover 20 feet, because you're, you're tracking it with your eyes, and then you just go jump over two guys and get it. They're not gonna get those kind. It's gotta be done a little bit more with body positioning and then. Just IQ and just their sense and instincts for the ball so high. So I, I think, I just think Boozer,

• 20:16Speaker 02

  to your point, floor is pretty high with him. I, I'd just be hard to imagine him not being a really impactful NBA player, even if he doesn't turn into a franchise guy, which all 40s, top four, who knows, maybe they could. He might not, but his floor is so high, it's still, he's still going to be a really, really good NBA player.

• 20:36Bill Simmons?

  I think he's just gonna be excellent. And I, I said this a week and a half ago, I think Utah's gonna take him. I have no inside info. It's just as from watching how Danny Ainge treated the draft for the last 25 years, knowing some of the stuff that you need in Utah, like they, they know his family, obviously, because his dad played there and his dad works for them. To have a guy who could be this good, who would also be like, yeah, I'm fired up to be in Utah. I think that matters. And I'm not afraid of having him and I love him and Jaren Jackson together. Like to me, that, that, that's a combo that really makes sense. Whether marketing's there long-term or not, I don't know. And then Kessler as another shot blocker, he could play with him too. I just, I'm good with like doubling down on size

• 21:20Bill Simmons?

  over taking Peterson and hoping last year was just a weird year and he's more like the high school Peterson versus the freshman year Peterson. I think Peterson is one of the toughest evaluations we've ever had with this. I don't know what to make of the fact that he got worse in college than he was in high school and that he didn't seem as, he doesn't seem as twitchy, he doesn't seem as fast. I don't understand it. I didn't understand the creatine thing. Like, what do you make of all this?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  He is, first of all, I just, I'm just going from the pure, because a lot of the stuff, I don't think we have the answers to ourselves, but I would just evaluate the guy physically and his tools translating to the next level. He's, he's one of those guys, you know, I watch him, some of the stuff I've watched, I'm like, man, like, that's NBA ready right now. Like the guy can flat out score. He's got, he's got a, um, control about his game that is almost like, even though like he's out there with another, you know, two 19-year-olds paired or a couple of 20-year-olds or whatever, he just looks so much more mature in his movements that it's, it's, it's, it's obvious how easy it's coming to him.

• 22:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, you could see it on defense too, where just the way he's able to navigate around screens and stuff. He's the highest possible level.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  He's got control, man, but like I'm watching him, I've read stuff where he views himself and maybe some people are evaluating him as like a point guard. I don't see that. I don't see that. I mean, I think he's to me, maybe a combo guard that yeah, you could put him in ball screen. To me, I reserve the phrase point guard for like a different level of understanding of how you're organizing and how easily you're facilitating for other people because you're two steps ahead with any action you run. You already know two defenders away, what that rotation is going to look like and you're now you know what the next pass is going to be. And so you're processing all of that in real time. I don't see that when I watch him. I see a guy that wants to go score and get his bucket and maybe yeah, okay, you can

• 23:19Speaker 02

  run ball screen with him because scorers in this league run ball screen. But to use the term point guard, like this is going to be a point guard one day. That's going to be the guy that's like doing both, making the game easy for everybody while he's also going out getting 20, 25 a night. I don't know that I see him that way. So this to me is more like you want a raw scorer and a guy that's super confident. And look at all that size up front already that Utah has. A lot of your points are good about Boozer, like the fact, the connection to the organization, all that. Maybe that matters to them, maybe it doesn't. And he definitely could play with Jaren Jackson Jr. And it's actually something Jaren Jackson Jr. Needs is a guy next to him that can rebound the way Boozer can because he's not a big time rebounder. He likes to block a lot of shots. He spends a lot of time on the perimeter offensively.

• 23:56Bill Simmons?

  He's a terrible rebounder. He's six a game.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So but they but to think, you know, they already have Kessler, they have Markkinen who plays a lot of three. That's, that's like another 610 and up guy to add to the mix to play unless they had other plans for some of those guys and they want to move them. And, you know, that's, that's kind of almost beyond my scope of what front offices think sometimes. But I look at Peterson, I think he's just a natural raw scorer. So you look at the top of the draft, first team that thinks they need that, that's, that's who should take him.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  I think he's a two-guard. I agree with you. I don't think he's a point guard. Although I do think that line has blurred over the years with the NBA where it's kind of like, I don't think Shay's a point guard, right? But he is bringing the ball up a lot, but I like you and I, we grew up with like, point guards were actually point guards. They, their whole role was like table setter, almost like a host on a studio show or something. Their role is just to make everybody better, but in the guard position, they're shifted down.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  There are exceptions to it, and you're right, it is blurred more than ever. But there are exceptions to it for guys that are so dominant off-ball. I mean, off of their ball handling. They're so dominant that they're dictating terms of the defense all the time. And organically, shots are being created for people. Even if it's not necessarily in their direct wheelhouse. I mean, like Steph Curry would be an example. Is he a natural point guard? No, he's a guy that created so much offense through his movement and shooting. And like the depths to which you had to go to guard him. He created offense just organically by being like Shay with his dribble. Brunson even is a guy, is he a natural come-down table setter? No, but he's so good at breaking you down.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Organically, stuff is created around him. So you have to be on a certain level. If you're the lead guard, let's call it that, because some people prefer that terminology. If you're the lead guard in the NBA and you want to be a contending team, you better be so damn good that you, because if it's not your natural thing to find, that you're creating better opportunities to find because you're so talented with the ball. I'm not, I don't know if he's going to be there or not. It's way too early to know that.

• 26:01Bill Simmons?

  It's the toughest one. Because there's a, I mean, if you're going to say out of all these guys, who's going to haunt anyone that passes them up, it's probably this guy. Because I think he has the highest ceiling of anyone. Like he, the high school stuff from a year ago, which I've talked about in previous episodes is, you're just like, oh my God, this, this guy could be like the next guy. You know, and I don't know what happened to him in Kansas. I really get nervous with red flags before the draft. And I say that knowing I have a 21-year-old and 18-year-old and you watch kids change in real time. Every six months, every nine months, and all of a sudden you'd be like, wow, Mike. My daughter's completely different than she was six months ago. This is great. I can't

• 26:44Bill Simmons?

  believe it. It's like she's an adult. So it's so hard.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Very, very true.

• 26:48Bill Simmons?

  It's so hard to project this. Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  No, no doubt. And it hits. All of a sudden, you're just kind of like, wow, that's nice.

• 26:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  And it's like, it's like a friend of mine told me one time, we're talking about this parenting stuff, and he said, what you have to trust like as a parent is that you made those deposits a long time ago. Right? And so, and one day, like, wow, it hits. And then you cash in, and you're like, hey, it worked. They're a good human being. Like, you know, sometimes along the way, it's hard being a parent. But like, I think that's what it is. You just trust it. And then you're right, with some of these players, it's the same thing. This is so difficult, man, because of the way that top picks are scrutinized. If there's even any indication that you whiffed early, it could be overbearing for the player.

• 27:38Bill Simmons?

  Reese's Shane in Atlanta.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  There's so much at stake. There's so much. I'm telling you, Markel Fultz is a guy that I was, I was at the Curry camp, the top 30 camp, the year that he was getting ready to go into his freshman year. And I was watching this guy, and the Sixers had the first pick. And so all my friends are Sixers fans. And so I was like, man, I was out there in San Francisco. And I was, you know, I was working drills and doing stations and putting these guys through it, coached in the game. They have an All-Star game at the end of the weekend. I coached in the game. Like, Darius Garland was in that game. Like, and I'm like, watching Markel Fultz, and I'm like, man, this dude, this dude has it. Like, he's got the size. He's got crazy bounce, like way more bounce than he ever really even got to show to this point in his NBA career. Like, I would watch him after practice, they would have dunk

• 28:24Speaker 02

  contests. And I'm watching him with these guys. And I'm like, this dude is big. He's like, powerful. He's got shifty changes, change of pace. He's got a nasty step back, which is required. And he's got bounce, too. So I'm like, man, and I think going to that market. At that time, with what the organization had already been through, was I think overwhelmed him. And he had injuries too, that contributed to it, but I'm just saying like, these are so important. They're so scrutinized more than ever before. There's so much at stake for these organizations and you're trying to determine this off a very limited sample size of work. And you have no idea what this is going to look like at the NBA level. And you just pray that these guys want to put the work into the time, there's the talent there.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  And again, trust your deposits when you draft them. Put the deposits in now, five years from now, we hope this hits. Some guys obviously sooner than that, some guys never. That's kind of where we're at with these top, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 picks. It's tough, man.

• 29:22Bill Simmons?

  The only thing I've learned over the years, competitiveness, work ethic. If that's in there, like the top, the top of the top, you're that you're starting out in good shape there. And then the durability injury stuff is the third piece, right? Fultz didn't have that. Some guys come in and then you hear like the first guy in the gym, last one to leave, all that shit. Like those guys, there's a reason those guys become successful. Like you did that finals with Brunson. And then Brunson had that great interview after game five where he, where, you know, yet again, all of a sudden he scored a bunch of points in a row. And he was just like, I just go back to all the work I put in the gym over and over. I just pretend I'm in the gym. Like honestly, that's what, that's what this is about.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  You can have as much talent as you want, but you still got to work at it. I look at.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  But I will say this, one last, one last quick point on that. Like, but I do think in addition to the injury with Markel Fultz and whatever it was, it was a unique injury. They couldn't really get it, they couldn't get a handle on it.

• 30:18Bill Simmons?

  It was like a weird shoulder thing.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  With his shoulder and it changed, completely changed his mechanics into something that was unrecognizable. I'm just telling you, like being at a lot of those games and in that building and being close and kind of just observing. I also think there was a component of it was tough for him being the number one pick, dealing with the injury. And then when he would go into the game when he was healthy. It, I think it was like a lot of feeling that everybody, all eyeballs on number one pick that market, that's tough, man. And I think it was, it got to the point where like, they went like, hey, TJ McConnell, we took him out of the rotation at one point completely just because we're like, we gotta see if this guy can go. And after a period of time, they put TJ McConnell back in there and the crowd went crazy because it was like, we need a guy that can come out here and contribute.

• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  For whatever reason he was. And I was so happy for him actually when he went to Orlando. He played pretty well when he first got there. And I'm like, man, hopefully he's gonna end up having a long career as a productive NBA guard. But the number one pick, that was difficult for him from the beginning. The injury on top of it made it impossible.

• 31:18Bill Simmons?

  Ben Simmons was another one like that. Pressure, big situations. He had some sort of weird foul shooting thing. Didn't seem like he liked basketball that much. Um, with the, with the Peterson piece, there's some weird agency stuff too, where he has, he, he's represented by team, which also is George's agency and that, that people think that's why they don't want him to go to Utah. Um, so Memphis might be where he goes. I think Boozer's gonna go to Utah and I think Peterson will go to Memphis, but who the hell knows? And then we'll, we'll, let's take a break and then we'll talk about Caleb Wilson. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by my friends at FanDuel. On the biggest stage in the world, FanDuel is changing the game because sometimes your player gets

• 32:03Bill Simmons?

  subbed off and your bet goes with them. Well, not anymore. And it's already, it's already cashed in a few times here during the tournament with FanDuel's Super Sub. If your player is subbed out, your bet stays in. You just get the guy that's subbed in for him. That's right. If your player leaves the match, your bet continues on with the substitute. You just get that position for the whole match. So if you're still in it until the final whistle, you're still in it. Because in matches like these, anything can happen. And now your bet can go the actual distance of the game. Let there be goals this summer on FanDuel. Visit FanDuel.com/BS to get started now. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at

• 32:47Bill Simmons?

  sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right. So if you were the consultant to the Wizards and they're like, hey, Tim, I know you do the ESPN games. We're starting to waff on the banter. The owner saw this high school tournament where Peterson scored 48 and looked like he was the greatest player of all time. Um, is Peterson going to come back to haunt us? What would you do if you were us? You would just say, no, no, ride the course. Just stay with the Bance. Don't overthink it.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100% that you just, I would, you literally took words out of my mouth. That would be what I would say. Don't overthink this. And it happens all the time. Don't ever think this. I, I, I, I don't have really any reservation whatsoever that the Bance is going to be a star in the NBA. How long it takes? I don't know. Down the road. I mean, look, that's an organization that obviously, you know, I played at a long, long time ago. There hasn't been a lot of stability there for a long time. So like it's, it's in a situation, a bunch of young dudes. Now, look, you know, Trey Young saying, you know, opt out. I don't know what that means for them. Is Anthony Davis going to be bought into being there if Trey's not? You got all these other young lottery picks. I doubt Anthony Davis is going to want to be part of that. So, so it's this young group of dudes, all high picks, trying to figure this out together.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  He becomes the face overnight. So there's some, there's certainly some, like, there's not pressure, which is good for some young guys, but it's also like being part of something that's bigger in a winning culture. Like, that's also good for players when they're young and they're drafted high. They don't have all that responsibility on them. So I don't know exactly what that situation is going to look like. But I, I have no reservation that he is going to stand out. Barring injury, I think AJ DeBance is going to be a star in this league.

• 34:38Bill Simmons?

  We agree. That Trey Young thing I read as he opted out and he's going to get a longer deal for slightly less money.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I read the same thing and we'll see.

• 34:47Bill Simmons?

  That's my interpretation.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I saw other things that were like, you know, he's, he's relishing this opportunity kind of almost to like, he's got something to prove. And he thinks this might be a good situation for him to do that. They're gonna love him there. I can tell you that. If he plays and he does the things that Trey Young can do, he's a very entertaining player, a popular player, and he can put up some numbers. And he's gonna have a lot of athletes around him playing off of him. So it could be a good situation for him. But to get inside the head of a Trey Young at this stage of his career or an Anthony Davis, good luck. I don't, I don't have enough expertise to know.

• 35:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I would assume Davis gets traded. Trey Young, if I'm his PR agent, I would be doing the whole, hey, Jalen Brunson, small guard, discounted, changed teams, NBA title, champ. Why can't that be Trey Young? Build the right team around Trey. It'd be the Jalen thing. I don't think that will happen. Caleb Wilson, what were your thoughts?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Love him. I love him, man. I'm excited about Caleb Wilson. And because, look, there's a dynamic.

• 35:49Bill Simmons?

  Did I say Williams or Wilson?

• 35:51Speaker 02

  No, you said Wilson, I think.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  I did? Okay. I wanted to make sure. Caleb Wilson, yeah.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure you said Caleb Wilson.

• 35:58Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Love him because there's a lot of things I watched with him and he's got that like eyes pop factor. You're like, holy hell. And so now you look at the way the league is set up. And some of the spacing that exists in that league and a guy that's got this kind of just explosive power. Yeah, sign me up for that because I think anything else that you would want to look at his game. And if you wanna, if you want to tighten up his handle, if you want to tighten up his shooting, particularly his shooting off the dribble. I do think those are things that can be tightened up. It's not like for that, you either have it now or you don't. That's not the case. Guys add that stuff all the time in their first three, four years of their career.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  And there's, and then there's a whole nother ceiling for them, excuse me, as a scorer. But that's what I'm talking about. That stuff where he explodes off the floor like that, no, that's not something you either have it or you don't. I mean, that is something you either have it or you don't. And he's got it. That's not, you're not adding that later, not that degree of pop. And that's what he's got off the floor. And it blows you away because you're like, you're picturing him in any sort of, of open floor situation, or even offensive rebounding situations. And it gets a step on a guy. Like, that is what big time explosive finishing ability looks like at the NBA level. The other stuff will come. I'm, I'm, I'm a huge, huge fan of his upside.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  There's a relentlessness with him that almost guarantees he's going to be a really good NBA player. He just really gives a shit. The work ethic, the competitiveness he has, like, he, he just has it. I, to me, he's not like a runner jumper. I do think there's like some hoops IQ stuff in there. Like, he seems like he'd be fun to play with. And I think if he was with the right kind of guard, point guard, who could be looking out for him and trying to set him up. Hey, you know, he's different because Shawn Kemp had a different body. But when young Shawn Kemp came into the league, and you just saw people he was playing against, there was a lot of this, like, people looking up as he's going over them for rebounds and dunks. There's going to be some of that. And then it'll come down

• 38:08Bill Simmons?

  to whether he can add a shot, which, I'm not going to bet against anybody who's super competitive to eventually be able to add an 18 footer, right? Kid's 19. When he's 22, he's gonna have an 18 footer. I'm not worried about it.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  And I, and I've watched, I've watched him shoot enough in game situations where you're like, okay, it's not like you're watching it going, oh, man, you know, put a, put a, put a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen, viewer discretion is advised on his release. It's not like that. I mean, I've seen guys with, and it, it looks decent. By the time he gets to the release point, it looks pretty good. There's a lot to work with there. I, I would be strongly considering taking him. I don't know what the Jazz are going to do. I don't, again, because of how many bigs they have, I don't know. If they just want the best available player, and they don't care if it's another big or not. But if it is Peterson, it goes to the Jazz because they just want that, another scorer, that to, to go, you know, on the wing, then I would strongly consider taking Wilson to three.

• 39:05Bill Simmons?

  I, so Danny, all bets are off, because he famously was going to take Durant that one year if the Celtics got the first pick over Oden. And I think he was the only one who was going to do that. I'd rarely say this. If I was Utah, I would try to flip with Chicago and pick up extra stuff and just take Wilson. Cause I, he might end up being the best out of these four guys. I don't think there's any way to know. And I don't think you can go wrong with any of them. Maybe Peterson if, if last year the red flags kinda started to add up. But if you could move back, still get Caleb Wilson and then pick up like the 15th from the Bulls and other stuff, like I would think about that. I, I think Wilson's gonna be awesome. And we didn't even talk about this. You're the fourth pick in a, in a four player draft, basically before the drop off.

• 39:51Bill Simmons?

  Little chip on the old shoulder.

• 39:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh. You didn't think I was the, you thought I was fourth out of four? Okay. I'm gonna show you. And I was like those guys. Nothing like a competitive guy who got passed over.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  I hear you. It's, there's probably a lot of, you know, a lot of drummers that had, you know, a great solo career at some point, but they never got the credit. Right? Being in that band.

• 40:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  That could be the case. So I think that is something, you know, and that's how this has been framed for a while now, that it's these four guys and then there's a drop off. I do like some other guys, um, after them.

• 40:26Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it. Who's your, who's your next favorite?

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Going, I love Mikal Brown.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. That's my, I have, I'm terrible at figuring out guys like him. Make the case.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  You don't like him?

• 40:39Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's my weakness with draft evaluation. Cause he's a home run hitter.

• 40:45Bill Simmons?

  I felt, he feels busty to me, but then he also feels like he could be a five top my NBA guy. And I was like, I, those guys always scare me. What do you like?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  I don't know, man. I, I just like the fact that he's just, he's, he's

• 40:59Speaker 02

  a polished, proven scorer. Like he could just flat out score. He's got, he's got handle either direction. Um, some of the notes I wrote down, big time threat every time he touches, scores at every level, explosive finisher, deep range, and a lot of potential to grow. He's got good size. He's not like elite in terms of his size.

• 41:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Good enough size to get his own shot. I, and I've seen projections anywhere. I mean, he's anywhere of seven to 10, like most of the ones I've seen. So he's gonna go in that range. I think somebody's gonna get themselves like a, a, a big time NBA scorer down the road, wherever he ends up going.

• 41:35Bill Simmons?

  He's six, three and a half without shoes.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  He seems like to be the wild bear.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Fortunately, they don't play barefoot.

• 41:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, true. So put maybe six, five and a half with Susan. He seems like his range is basically like five to 12, which is pretty, that's what's so funny about like, once you get to that Clippers pick,

• 41:57Bill Simmons?

  they don't need a guard, right? They don't need a point guard because they have Garland. They just made this trade for them. And everybody seems to have Wogler and Acuff there.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Acuff's the guy I was just gonna talk about. He's the only guy like is kind of right there in that, in that territory. So like, and, and you know, he's, he's another guy that like, you look at, and both Acuff, Acuff and Brown, both of those guys, like really flashy scores. They can go get their own. And in some ways, kind of similar in that regard. Acuff's, I've noticed seems to me like one of the biggest just consistent jumps up this board, basically over the last month or so. It just, and to where I have, I've seen a lot of them where he's going to be the fifth pick. Like he might be the next guy outside that top four, you know? And that is, that's the Clippers with that pick. So I don't, I don't know where, if he's going to go that high, but to me,

• 42:47Speaker 02

  he was a guy that during the season, you come kind of paying attention. I start to dive in after the season. I start to look more at it after the tournament's over. It feel, I feel like to me, he's like solidifying himself on a, on a daily basis. Like he's going to be somewhere in there. If he's not the first guy taken, he's one of those first two or three after the top four.

• 43:04Bill Simmons?

  He was my, my crush guy in college. I really became infatuated with them and so did my buddy House. And we watched a lot of him and then he had the run in the tournament. He's just, every game he was 26 and nine, 25 and 12, 28 and eight.

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  He's a great shooter. He's, he's like a pure old school, big guy gets the rebound and looks for him. Like, like he's like a real point guard. Give me the ball. I want the ball all the time. I'm good on fast breaks. I think if you're gonna take a guard that high, who is clearly a smaller guard, who's gonna probably be not the, not the greatest guy on defense, you better think this guy's a home run. And I think he's that good. Like I, like,

• 43:50Speaker 02

  He could be.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  I do think he's the rare that good.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  He's one of those guys we're talking about. He, that's his style game. One of, some of the notes I just real quick, I wrote down just, great change of pace, like really keeps guys off balance. Explosive first and second dribbles, which is a big deal in the NBA. Like that first one, a lot of guys had that first step. He's got one and two, that second gear as he gets downhill, finishes with both hands really, really well. Like, so he can drive either way, gets into your body and he's got like creative finishing, because he's probably learned to, because again, he's not 6'6", 6'7", coming out, he was in that 6'3" range. So he's had to learn how to be more creative with his finishing. He's a lead guard with outrageous potential. So he would be right there. He might be five, like him and Brown, they're gonna be right there, uh, in that category.

• 44:34Bill Simmons?

  And Wagner is the other one that a lot of people have there. And Wagner's a tough one to me because we, like, we talk about, like, we do, doing the comps before. I look at Akoff and he just reminds me a lot of Kyrie. I think, I think he's more of a point guard than Kyrie was, but his ability to, to finish with either hand, how he uses the stop and start stuff, how he gets somebody on his hip and carries them, uh, sense of the moment. It's all stuff we saw with Kyrie. And same thing, like Kyrie was, he might be maybe a half inch, inch bigger than him, but, um, reminds me a lot. I don't know who Wagner reminds me of. I don't, I, I don't know what the roadmap is for him. He's so unconventional. Like, I don't think he had a dunk last year. Um, he doesn't finish at the rim. Everything's like this herky jerky. You know, and that team was built around

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  just what a unique player he was, but he wasn't a top, I don't even think he was top 100 or top 150 heading into college and had this meteoric rise. But I don't know who he reminds me of.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  One of the things I love about him, um, I'm, cause I'm always kinda really honed in on evaluating shooting mechanics and release and how that's gonna translate. He's got tremendous extension. There are, believe it or not, a lot of guys make shots in college and, and they're gonna be drafted in these drafts and they don't, they don't really extend on their finish. And I think to myself, well, it's fine when you feel, you're the best player on the court and you're creating a little bit more space than you're gonna create at the next level. That, you're just not gonna be as consistent.

• 46:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Because I think if you're not, if you don't have full extension now, that's gonna shorten up even more as the windows shrink to get the shot off. And now it's, you're just never gonna be gonna get a lot of front rims. Wagler has tremendous extension. Like he gets full extension and it's quick. He gets into a shooting motion quick and he's got full extension, elbow lock, wrist lock at the same time. I look for that kinda thing. That's, that translates like this is who this guy is. That's not gonna change. He doesn't need to work on that. He's already got that. He's coming into the league, he can make shots now. And then now he's climbing because people are looking at him as being more than that. Like he's more than a shot maker. He can do some other things for you as well. He's got, you know, pretty good size as well. Better size than the two guys we were just talking about.

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  And came through on a big stage, which isn't nothing. You know, like I, I really thought he got, in that tournament, him and Acuff both were really great. Part of the problem with this is,

• 46:53Bill Simmons?

  so when you're starting with pick five, basically the next four best guys are, are point guards. Or smaller guards, cause Flemings is the other one from Houston. And as we know with the draft, not everyone needs a point guard. Like first of all, we have a bunch of awesome point guards in the, in the league already. There's four more. It makes me think one of them's not gonna make it. And then Burris, have you studied Burris at all?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I have. Yeah.

• 47:17Bill Simmons?

  And then Burris is the one who is the best two guard available.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  No question about it. The thing I love about him better than any of these guys and he had to because he was more off ball than the other few guys. And I think we didn't mention Kingston Flemings. Is that the other guy you're talking about? You said the next three, you were talking about Acuff and Brown and Waggler and Flemings. Like those four guys?

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  Those four guys with Burries, yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Burries is more of like, what I love about him, you can run pin down action for him. He is, he comes off down screens and he's getting, he's getting his hips turned and swiveling into the catch and it's gone quicker. So like that is like another element to use a guy like that. He can, he can create offense off his motion because he's such a threat off down screens out to deep. He doesn't necessarily need to play with the ball first to get into a shot. I think some of the other guys we've talked about, that's just more natural for them for that rhythm. They need the rhythm first. He's a guy that you can put off the ball. So maybe his usage isn't as high. Maybe he goes to a situation where he can't have high usage because of who they already have, but he could still go get shots up because

• 48:22Speaker 02

  he doesn't need a lot of time to do it and he doesn't need a rhythm dribble or a live dribble to do it first. He, to me, the best of this group at that kind of stuff. Getting his hips turned off a down screen and letting it fly from deep.

• 48:34Bill Simmons?

  And he's going to be a really good defender. He, now he's a year older because than some of these guys, but was a big LA, like he won the high school state title here where he was like the lead guard for that team. But I, I've said this, he's been my favorite guy out of the top four, other than Acuff because it was saying, a lot of the same reasons I liked Castle two years ago. Cause he's on that great Arizona team, right? And they didn't really need a lot of what he, so he was just like, all right, well, what do you need from me? All right, I'll do this, this. And he just kind of figured out how to fit in, hit a couple big threes when they needed him, play defense, do, do like all like the nitty gritty stuff, which is exactly what Castle did at UConn. And then

• 49:18Bill Simmons?

  when Castle went to San Antonio, like he was able to, and I think Burries has that in him. He makes the most sense for the Clippers. My question is, you don't necessarily need to take him at five. Could you trade back? Could you flip spots with the Kings? Who everybody thinks they want in Kev? Could you flip spots with them? Pick up one extra asset and then take Burries at seven?

• 49:41Speaker 02

  You'd have to, I mean, it, listen, as we know, all these guys we're talking about, it's beauty is in the eye of the beholder because I haven't personally, a lot of the different mock drafts I've been studying and looking at, haven't seen him really that high. So you'd have to be just one of those things where what you see is like, man, what he does, these particular, specific things, better than some of the guys we've talked about who are like, yeah, man, they got a lot of junk in their game. They do a lot of stuff. They're scorers, natural scorers, but we like this specific skill better to take him that high. Most of the ones, mock drafts I've looked at have not seen him as high as five. So I don't know where, you know, he ends up.

• 50:17Bill Simmons?

  But what do you do if you're the Clippers though? Because you have Kawhi who's gonna be 35 next year. You have Garland who's your point guard. And if you're taking another point guard, you could talk yourself into it and just be like, look, we're gonna be a little unconventional. We're gonna have these two scoring guards and, you know, we're not, there's gonna be some bad stuff on defense, but that, that's why we have Ty Lou and a coaching staff. I just find hard to believe they're gonna do that. Which is why I feel like they're gonna trade back and take Burries would be, there's one other trade I love. I gotta throw this at you. This is just in general, something I've been watching. And you, you didn't do the Western Conference for playoffs this year, right? Did you do the OKC?

• 50:57Speaker 02

  We did the Eastern Conference.

• 50:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you did the East.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  We did the Eastern Conference.

• 50:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you had the stinky, stinky sweep.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  We had, we had the Knicks just treating people like a wood chipper.

• 51:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you had that one. I don't know what happens with Wallace and OKC. Where you have these, you have Shay and now you just gave Max's to Chet and you gave a Max to JDub. And you have Wallace who after the season, he's very interesting. He had a little moment in a press conference where he was, basically like, it was interesting when I, or he said something about when Shay was out during that stretch and Wallace had the ball. And you and I talked about this in a pod where it was like,

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Did a couple of games during that time.

• 51:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a lot more with Wallace here that we didn't really get to see. Then the playoffs happen. He's back to 25 minutes a game. I mean, he averaged eight points a game this season, right? It's year three for him. All right, well, what's he worth? Cause you're talking extension now. After year three, you can extend a guy. And if I'm him, I'm like, there's more here. I could be the lead guard. I'm one of the best defenders in the league. I'm a $30 million a year guy and I don't think OKC's gonna play it, pay it. So what about Wallace in the 12 for five?

• 52:04Bill Simmons?

  Clippers get Wallace, they move back seven spots, OKC moves up to five. Is that too much?

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're outside the top four. I mean, I think.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Is that too much to give up?

• 52:18Speaker 02

  To, for that pick?

• 52:19Bill Simmons?

  For OKC, yeah.

• 52:22Bill Simmons?

  How much do you like Wallace?

• 52:24Speaker 02

  I like Wallace a lot, but they have, to me, in their system and the guys that they have, he's one of the better on-ball defenders in the NBA, but he did ramp his game up a little bit when he got more of an opportunity. But they've also got, you know, A.J. Mitchell sitting there, like, so these.

• 52:40Bill Simmons?

  You know, I love him too, yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Right, and he's a guy that's just much more dynamic offensively with what he can do. He hasn't even scratched the surface of how good he is going to be. So, I like him, but expendable? Absolutely. And this was the problem all along for OKC, like, well, not even a problem, it's a good problem to have. They won a title, and they had, like, this perfect system, and they had a superstar, and then they had coupled, like, two and three were, like, really good players, and then they had a bunch of role players interchangeable, a lot of nights really deep. You're not going to be able to keep all those guys. You're just not going to be able to, and you're not going to need to. Because of who's at the top, you can find guys, I think, that can replicate what those guys do, maybe have a little bit more scoring punch to them. You know, even look at what they went out and found in McCain, like, that move to pick him up, and what the offensive punchy game where he's playing

• 53:27Speaker 02

  heavier minutes than some of the guys we're talking about that were staples for this team for two years. And they picked him up midseason coming off an ACL injury. Because they identified it better than just about any organization. So, if they looked at that and said, you know what? We're not, we think that we can move up and get the guy that we desperately need. We can replace a Kason Wallace. And then who knows at 12, man, you can start getting down there, it's a crapshoot anyway. To go get the exact guy that they want, whoever that player may be? No, I don't necessarily think that is. But I, again, I don't know. Like, do they view any of those guys outside the top four as that?

• 54:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know. Because it's almost like a math problem. Like, at some point, Wallace on a rookie contract is perfect. But now with Wallace with a contract looming as you have to pay him basically as like not even better than a fourth guy because he's he's probably worth like 25 to 30 on the open market with with what his ceiling is. They can't pay that. And the whole point of having all of these picks and taking swings and grabbing McCain and locking down AJ Mitchell to this great contract is that you have to build this like cheap apparatus around your three guys. You can't pay, you can't pay Wallace 30 million. So really the time to trade him is now.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Committed to the top three, something like that, right?

• 54:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you can't. So you got, you have to use him and move up and maybe even then if you have five, now maybe it's easier to try to even move up into that top four. But it was one I was thinking because if, you know, I have Clipper season tickets, I want them to at least be decent next year before aspiration annihilates them. But if they got Kason Wallace and then the 12th pick, I feel like they'd be better off.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  And if they don't get into that, you know, get into that situation where they're going to move that pick or whatever, which I thought there's no question they're going to listen to all that because they're not in the top four and and we think there is a difference there. That's seems to be, you know, they see that Akof's the guy, like if that were the guy and they just looked at him like he's better than everything else. And we think, you know, I'm taking the best available player. I don't care that we have Garland and we've got guard play. I don't care because this guy ultimately is going to be a guy that can flat out play at the NBA level and he can play quickly at that level. And maybe they hold it and they take that just to take the best available player. But, you know, they're, they're, they're like a veteran team. So it's like, you know, you don't know what their thinking is. Like they're not, they don't have time to develop guys that they draft.

• 55:53Bill Simmons?

  That's why, that's why Akof doesn't make sense to me because you have Kawhi who's 35 and you're going to play him and Garland. Like, I'm not winning the title with that as much as I like Akof. Or you have to trade Garland at that point. It just opens up these different doors. They, what do you, did you, did you study the center yet, Mara?

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just going to ask you about him because we didn't talk about any bigs really, like real centers. We talked about some bigger guys, but like he's different. Um, here's the thing, man, I watched him. It's so hard for me because even like I go back to a guy like Edie and they're like a little bit different. And I looked at Zach Eadie and I was like, I don't, as dominant as he was in college, I don't know how he's gonna change into the floor at the NBA level. Like, it's a big deal. Like, he's lumbering up the floor now. It was a turnover. Now you gotta get back and run. And like, is he gonna be too methodical to do anything offensively? He answered this question first. He leaned up, he worked with their player performance team, and like, even his running stride improved, everything improved. So it's like, no, this is fine. He can keep up with this and actually do a lot of damage offensively, kind of stays in a

• 56:57Speaker 02

  limited lane. But he's an effective NBA player. So now I look at Mara, different body types, they're a little bit different. Mara's like more agile, certainly. The thing I like about him, I was like, watching, like, he's got a really, really good feel for like, passing and dribble handoff game, and he can find guys from the elbows. He's, he's just really clever with his passing. He's thinking one step ahead. It's another dimension to your team. He's a really good rim protector. The guy's 7'3", so he's gonna protect the rim, and he moves well. You know, guys like that, there's gonna be limitations there offensively, you know, unless he becomes a really good three-point shooter. And then there's more opportunity for you there. And even like, a guy like Klingon is trying to do that in Portland, like, he's taking more threes,

• 57:39Speaker 02

  because he knows, if I don't, I'll never, ever get anything other than a rim run lob or offensive rebound. So I better learn how to do it. Can Mara do that? Can he extend out there? He needs to. I'm sure that's probably all he's doing this summer, in trying to extend that range. But I just like his feel for the game, his IQ, his touch, and his finesse with his passing. I think that translates to a lot of different systems. You can play him, he's gonna help make other guys better. Particularly if he learns how to shoot the basketball, he just has more upside.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  I love the passing, too. I like him in general. And at one point, I was convinced he had to go in the top 10 because he's somebody I could just see in a playoff series. Then I did some more research. The minutes really scare me with him. So when he went to UCLA, which everybody agrees didn't go awesome, he played basically 10 minutes a game and 13 minutes a game for them in the first two years. Then he went to Michigan. Played 23.4 minutes a game last year.

• 58:38Bill Simmons?

  If I'm taking, if I'm using the eighth pick in the draft, like to me, that, that means like, oh, I can see he's going to be a big off the bench. Like Edie played big minutes, had points, rebounds and was a proven like you can actually put now he got hurt in Memphis. But I just think top 10 is too high for him. The more I look at it. And maybe OKC can get him at 12 and that's a great pick for them. But this draft is so good. And if I have a chance to get somebody like Burris at eight or nine or Kingston Flemings, I, I can't take a guy who played 23 minutes a game last year. I just can't.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  No, it's, it's a fair point. And I think just in general, you're just looking at him and you're going, well, there's other guys that I think you're just looking at offensive upside. You know, three, four years from now is so much greater. It's, it can be hard to justify that unless you have glaring hole, like a glaring need. Like we, we're so undersized up front. We don't like the bigs that we have. If it's so glaring and he's available and he's in that 10 ish range, somewhere in there.

• 59:39Bill Simmons?

  OKC 12. That's, that's like the perfect one.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  You could take a flyer on him.

• 59:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but like, I don't think Golden State can take him at 11 because they need athleticism. They need, they need young guys. They need pop. They need somebody that can kind of tilt their team a little bit. And we don't know what they're going to do this summer with, they have, you know, I still think LeBron's going there. Like, who knows? Who knows what they're capable of this summer? But like, this is a luxury pick. I don't think this is somebody you can take in the top 10 with, with this many good players. And we, we didn't really talk about Flemings. I can't decide on him. Like what the ceiling is for him because he's not, he's not huge. He's like 6'1". He's fast as shit. He's really competitive and he's a good defender. But we've also.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  Got some bounce.

• 1:00:27Bill Simmons?

  We've also seen those guys, like people really regret taking those guys like seven, six, eight, these 6'1" guys that unless, unless you have a chance to be one of the eight best point guards in the league, it's just not worth the pick. I'd rather have somebody that I know can play big minutes.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that that's look, he's I've seen him in the top 10 like the bottom two or closer to 10. I've seen him on a lot of draft boards like he's in that area. Some of the other guys I think are clearly more like polished right now. Akoff and Brown and guys like that. I think are a little bit different category. He's an interesting one because you start getting to that pick and like he's the next most talented guy on the board. So I'm curious to see like how that ends up. I do like kind of like athletically, the way he competes. Like you're going, okay, that translates like he's going to be able to hold his own and hang athletically. It won't be a problem for him. He's right there. Same category with those other guys.

• 1:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta at eight. I actually think point guard makes perfect sense for me for them. Sacramento desperately needs one at seven. Brooklyn needs anything. And then Dallas at nine is a fun one because it seems like Kyrie is going to be back. They have flag. They have a bunch of like expensive, really polished swings, right? They're going to have Lively back. They have Gafford. And everybody has Burries going there to them at nine, which makes a ton of sense to me. But it's when we get to like 10, 11, that range, I think the draft gets.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Burries going there to me would be an ideal pick, an ideal fit for him. It fits a need. They need guys that can shoot the ball off of guys they have now that can absolutely collapse a defense and break them down as primaries. To have a guy that you can plug in, that's going to get clean looks and shoot them at a high rate. That makes a lot of sense.

• 1:02:17Bill Simmons?

  Have you have you done Steinbach work yet?

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Uh, did do Steinbach.

• 1:02:23Bill Simmons?

  Big, big rebounder, pick and roll guy, like classic in the right spots.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got here's what I wrote down for him. Very strong in the open court dude, sort of bounce off him, runs well, athletic, very, very tough. Yeah, he's a guy. He's a guy that just kind of stood out just because of he was just like so physical and so strong, the way he plays the open floor with dudes. Sort of he's just making space organically as he moves up the floor. Yeah, it's impressed, particularly just his competitive toughness.

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  He seems, I'm not 100% sold on him because I do, I just can't get the Spurs, OKC and Spurs Knicks out of my brain. I'm like, where would he have played in those series? But he feels like a perfect Charlotte pick for 14.

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

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• 1:03:51Bill Simmons?

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• 1:04:35Bill Simmons?

  Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. All right, we got to play quickly. I sent you a list of all the favorites for the 2027 title. And just, and it's a good time to think about this because we're heading into trade season, the draft and free agency right now. So just quickly, Spurs are the favorites right now on Fanduel, plus 250. And their big question is the Keldon expiring? And then they have 20 and 35, 40, 42. So they have stuff to move around and do stuff. You were there. You were in the house for these games.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Bill Simmons?

  They have Fox, whose extension hasn't even kicked in yet. You have a bunch of Spurs fans like, let's get this guy the fuck out of there. It's Dylan Harper time. What do you do? What do you do with Fox?

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  It's tough because his number's gonna be big. I'm not, listen, I don't overreact to the extent, obviously, a lot of people do, particularly Spurs fans right now, the way they're feeling about the series he had. It's a big moment specifically, but the guy can still play. And he's gonna be getting a big number. He still does add a dimension with his speed. He's a high caliber NBA guard that had a terrible finish to his season. I don't know that that's gonna carry over. He wasn't 100% healthy. He'll get healthy over the summer. Nobody was really feeling this way about him most of the season, so it's a terrible way for him to end. He's going to be part of the mix here. So, but now, the question is gonna be this, and I, people that were watching the finals heard me repeatedly, particularly in the last game.

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  How are you going five, six possessions in a row, and Dylan Harper is off the ball, kinda hanging out when he was by far, to me, the most comfortable player on the Spurs in that game? And, and it just in general looks that way all the time, but think about the stakes in that game. He, you cannot keep this dude out of the paint with one defender. You just can't do it. His shooting streaky, it's, it'll get there, I think, Harper's. He, but the thing is, he can also make plays for people. He's a great defender. Is it time to go, that's our starters, we're not gonna start all three of these guys, is Fox at that number? Something is gonna be smart to bring him off the bench and be more of like a second unit guy to go get his offense? Rather than continue to start him and bring Dylan Harper in, even though a lot of nights now you're playing him starters minutes.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Doesn't make a lot of sense. So I don't know what exactly the solution is going to be. Clearly, this is Harper and Castle going forward, particularly the sooner that Harper becomes a more reliable shooter. Cause Castle got better as the year went on. He was over 40% after the All-Star break. It slowed down his wheelhouse. And he can be very streaky from there, and Harper can too. That's tough. And if you want Fox a little bit more, is a bit more consistent with his mid-range pull-up, even with his three-point shot, most of the time, certainly not there late for him, but I don't know what the answer is. I just know this is Harper and Castle. Is it next year, the year after, whenever it's gonna be? I don't think Fox is going anywhere at that number, coming off of that series, so you better kinda wrap your head around it as a Spurs fan.

• 1:07:35Bill Simmons?

  Could you feel it being that close, sitting courtside? Could you feel Fox starting to waiver confidence wise?

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I think it was it was more than just whatever he was going through physically. There's no question. It's it got. Here's the thing I'll say about De'Aaron Fox. I've I don't think I've ever seen him miss as many makeable looks for him. It's not like this dude was getting draped because he couldn't separate because he was that injured. He was getting to his pull up. He was getting open three point looks. There's little spins that he likes to take. He he was getting to that little quick pull up when he when he said when he gets like a ball screen like at 22 feet instead of 30 and he comes off and he's just stops on a dime at 18 feet. I mean, his release was clean most of the time. And so that told me all I need to know. Like it's it's definitely in here.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  He's feeling something and now string together with like bad performances. Now you start to overthink it. I got a lot of respect for the guy. He's unbelievably smart. He's a good teammate like we interviewed him a lot during the series. Guy's just got a lot to say that's meaningful as a leader. He had a terrible series, man, and he had some moments that were very difficult for Spurs fans to swallow. I get it. You you don't just take put this guy out at the curb with the recycling can't like you. You know, you can't do it.

• 1:08:56Bill Simmons?

  But do you feel like a, I don't know, it's a small piece, medium piece or big piece of this? Is you have this fucking prodigy behind you? Who deep down you probably know, even though he barely knows what he's doing, is probably better than you a point guard. And you have that piece too, where it's every time this guy comes in, he's swinging the game. And swinging the energy of it, getting to where he wants to go and he's not scared. And you know, the fact that he played 31 minutes a game in that series and Fox played 36. That might have been the difference in the series. If you flip, if you flip that? I don't know.

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  After game one, Mitch Johnson admitted, because they didn't remember that was mostly Fox in the fourth quarter, Harper didn't play much in that quarter.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  Four minutes.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  And he said, basically, and he basically, Mitch Johnson owned it. And he said, that was a mistake, man, you know, looking at, he's a young coach, he's allowed to make mistakes. I like the fact that he kind of answered it that honestly, yeah, I probably need to look at that, I didn't handle that well. And then it was never gonna, he said, it was just, it's probably not gonna happen again going forward. And what he ended up doing was playing them both together a lot in the fourth quarter. But the one, the game five was, was kind of where I couldn't understand. And I said, I don't know how many possessions in a row, probably in that broadcast. How is Dylan Harper right now off the ball?

• 1:10:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  As you start your, why is he not the initiator of this?

• 1:10:18Bill Simmons?

  Why is Castle bringing the ball up?

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  There's, well, even Fox was doing it.

• 1:10:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  When, because Castle, because Castle does find himself repeatedly like in foul trouble. I thought he looked absolutely exhausted in that game. He had a terrible shooting night himself, didn't really impact the game offensively at all, which is rare for Castle, because I love him. But it got to the point, it's okay, he looks gassed, he doesn't have it tonight, he's expended so much energy guarding Brunson, maybe we gotta go with Fox and Harper. Okay, cool, if you want to do that, go ahead. Harper needs to be the initiator. Because they hadn't figured out a way to keep this guy out of the lane. And they just couldn't do it, and whatever, it is what it is. Here's the thing, you're gonna have these three guards next year, and you, I don't know exactly what the plan is gonna be, because like you said, Fox is a big number and it kicks in.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Harper is on a rookie deal, palatable, but it's obvious to everybody what this guy's going to be. He's going to be one of the major forces at that position in the league. Soon. Like, if not next year, the year after. So, how do you handle that from a playing standpoint and a, like a fit standpoint of who's on the court at the same time with Wemby as well? So, it's a tough decision, I'm glad I don't have to make it. Harper is going to be the future, but Fox is a guy that's a big part of the mix, man, you can't just get, get rid of it. He, and, and the guy can still play, trust me.

• 1:11:40Bill Simmons?

  And Wemby will probably have a little say into this, too.

• 1:11:45Bill Simmons?

  I, I mean, Harper was...

• 1:11:49Bill Simmons?

  I would take him over everybody in this draft and I think this draft is better than last year's draft, but to me, he's like, I think he has a chance to be one of the best guards of the last 30 years. Like, I really do. I think he's that good. I thought the stuff he was doing and how unafraid he was was nuts.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's a big statement and I like him so much. I think I probably would agree with you, but that's, that's what I know now. So let me ask you. So like going back to before last year's draft, did you feel that way about him then? Or are we so, everybody was so overshadowed by Cooper Flag. It was like, we knew that was a no pick. Or are you saying like, kind of like what you know now about Dylan Harper and then especially the way he grew late in the year, that you go, okay, kind of know now, like what this dude's ceiling is and we might actually be underselling him.

• 1:12:37Bill Simmons?

  That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Cause last year in the draft, the Rutgers season was so weird. I had no idea what to make of that. It's like, all right, this team's gonna have two of the top five picks and they couldn't make the tournament. Like what, what happened? Then you watch the clips and, but, and we talked about him a few times when he came on my pod during the year, but I saw in the preseason, I was like, oh my God, what's going on with this guy? And then every time he would just jump out of the TV.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  And he's got, the thing that surprised me is this, in this, in this particular stage, as much as I already kind of believed, right there in front of my eyes, when I'm, when I was watching a guy with the stakes that high, with that much pressure and if game was so physical, you know, the, the way it was, it was defended on both teams, like he didn't speed anything up when he, when, when most guys that age get any daylight, you're gonna rush it. Yeah. He missed a layup in game five. It wasn't because of that. He just missed a shot. He didn't quite extend his arm fully. He missed a layup. That was a big play late in the game, but I'm not, I'm not, you know, that wasn't because of stress or pressure or playing too fast. He could play as fast as he

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  wanted, as explosive as he wanted, and then when it came time to control his body and put English on the ball, even with a bunch of, of traffic at the rim, he was so far beyond his years and his ability to finish under those circumstances with English and reverse layups. When you think there's no way he can extend and get there and he made it look so routine that I was like, man. It's amazing to me, this guy has arrived at this level this fast in his rookie year. He's like, he's making a statement like this is kinda what it's gonna look like for a while.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  And was getting big rebounds and I really liked his defense. I thought I loved how him and Castle, that's what made Brunson's series so crazy. I thought Castle and Harper defended him great. I loved everything they did and Brunson just kinda solved it as the series went along and figured out how to score on him.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  Bill, what he did, we haven't even talked at the finals, what Jalen Brunson did in game five? Against that level of individual defender in front of him, and by the way, it's not just Castle or Harper. Vassell more than adequate. Champagny could do a nice job on him as well and I know by the way.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's.

• 1:14:59Speaker 02

  If you get past all that, Wemby's back there. To drop 45 points on them efficiently in something that important against that caliber defense, defense in front of you. It's one of the greatest finals performances of all time and. And again, he did it very matter of factly and very routine. And he was so smart in the way he attacked and the way he kept guys off balance, including Wemby a couple of times at the rim where he'd start stopping. Wemby would bump him and then couldn't, couldn't gather to jump to go get it and Brunson would just extend because he's not jumping very high. And he's 6'2" and he's just laying the ball in wherever he wants and shooting mid rangers like it was nothing. It was amazing, amazing, amazing to watch a guy with that kind of composure as a scorer against that level defender.

• 1:15:45Speaker 02

  When he's not blowing by you or going over you in any way.

• 1:15:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:15:49Bill Simmons?

  So a Bucks fan friend of mine was like, well, you mentioned, you said Brunson had one of the greatest finals performances. Like, why didn't you mention Giannis five years ago and Giannis had that 50-point game in the closeout, which was a great game. The difference with what Brunson did in game four and game five was the inevitability that you could feel with the scoring. Like, I was texting Nick Franz, like, here comes Brunson. This is it. He's gonna score. He's gonna go on a heater right now. And the Spurs, by game five, I feel like they kinda knew it too. And he broke their will in a different way. That's like that, you know, he's obviously not Michael Jordan, but there's very few players over the years that got that to that break your will level. And I do feel like

• 1:16:31Bill Simmons?

  he fucked with the Spurs. Like, it was just over and over again, you fucked up again. We're only down seven with eight minutes left. I'm gonna score the next nine. Like, it's just worth the level he got to. But to do it against that team, I thought, I thought that was one of the most amazing things I've seen in the finals.

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  It's one of the greatest finals performances of all time. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna waver from that. And it's because of, again, what was in front of him. And as, as, as good as it might have looked to a lot of people on TV, like, in terms of the pressure on him with these defenders.

• 1:17:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Trust me. Trust me, sitting there, watching it. To watch guys that big and physical, and the game was so physical, and they're, they're quicker than him, and they're gonna beat him to spots, and they're taller than him, and they're stronger, and he just did whatever he wanted to do. And it was, it was, it was mind blowing in the moment to be able to call that and to watch like that level of greatness when you look at like the physical profile of the player. And it's all just, it's all just strength and balance and footwork and touch and IQ. And then the final component, which is really what separates him, his, what he is processing and the feeling in terms of pressure of the moment. It's

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  not what other people are processing. He doesn't feel it. It actually, in some ways, it actually increases his adrenaline in a good way in those moments. And there's been a lot of guys, obviously, over the course of the history of the league, that also kinda fall into that category. But in this series, it stood out so much from everyone else. That he wasn't feeling what everybody else was feeling with this energy in these two buildings. And it was like the force and physicality of the defenses. And he's just like, no, I'm just gonna kind of do my thing. And I know where I'm gonna end up at the end of this possession. It'll be in a place that I like.

• 1:18:18Bill Simmons?

  Not to mention he's, he's carrying six generations of Knicks fans and 53 years of history and just. I got a great.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  And like 35 former players like at every game. It was like incredible, man.

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  I got a great email from a listener who was saying that it was almost like watching, um, when they would talk about Prefontaine, Steve Prefontaine, the, the runner. How he would, he would hang behind, hang behind, and then he would make his move. And everybody knew he was gonna make his move and he would just kind of wait. He'd let everybody run himself out and like, okay, now I'm gonna do it. And then everybody he was running against would know that he was doing it and he would still do it. And that's where the Knicks got with these comebacks. Like they were, I've never seen a team more comfortable down 10, down 12, where you never felt like the game was gonna get away from them. Usually when you're down 12 in the third quarter, you're like, fuck, we give up one more three. Like this, this game's a wrap.

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  The Knicks kind of liked it and they, they liked this come from behind thing where you could feel the momentum shift. And then, you know, we, we talked about Fox earlier, but the Spurs not having that settle down guy. It's just wasn't, you know, obviously Wemby's not there yet. They just didn't have that one guy like, I got this, guys, I got this. They didn't have it.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  That was my point on top of what you just said was just so true about the comfortability factor for the Knicks. And part of that was because they were observing the uncomfortability factor on the other side in those moments. Because they didn't have a clear defined identity offensively, either individually or collectively. And part of it is because there's, there's, these guys are growing as players. There are holes in their games. And, and I think, and I said a lot about it the other day on, on, on our All City Pod. And I believe it, I think the biggest area of growth for Wemby is going to be answered that going into next season. And how do you answer that? You answer that by dominating from 15 to 20 feet.

• 1:20:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Speaker 02

  That's the area of the floor that he doesn't really yet. Know how to fully utilize his shooting ability and length and it's in a simple jab step. A Dirk Nowitzki type of closing ability from that area of the floor. It's also hard to double team him. From that area of the floor. He could play one dribble. He's at the rim from the top of the key easily with his length. But he doesn't really go there and catch the ball. He either runs to the rim. Or he pops back behind the three. Those are the two things he does. He doesn't really screen short roll and they hit him there. Not to mention such an easy target to hit on that short roll because you could throw it high. He can just catch it up here. Even if there's traffic for the guard, just throw it up. He'll catch it.

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  And now he's got it one on one. Give him some room, one strong side shooter and now let him practice that jab. And get guys off him just a little bit. Boom. Make four or five of those jumpers a game. Couple swing through and goes. And, and, and I think the game will be easier for him because he didn't know really where to go. In those game defining, series defining.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  He was thirty, thirty feet from the basket. Running pick and rolls on Fox. Yeah. Well, I always thought that Duncan spot. That's where he has to figure out like 12 feet to the side, pick a side. You have your bank shot. You can swoop into the paint. Do the Dr. J.

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  Agreed.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  You're a lob threat from the side. Like that's what he's got to figure out. He doesn't have a spot.

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:34Bill Simmons?

  And I don't, it bothers me that he doesn't have a jump hook either. I don't know why he doesn't have a little.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, when's the last good reliable jump hook? We've seen, I, I, I gave up when. When I would see seven footers coming to the league with some skill and I'm like, how do you not? Practice like a two dribble to the middle jump hook over either shoulder.

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  Al Jefferson?

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Cause it's damn near unstoppable. Al Jefferson had a great one with his, even his was more almost like a.

• 1:21:59Bill Simmons?

  It was like a little push one.

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  Full body. It was a push, right? Cause his shoulders were square to the rim.

• 1:22:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  Yao Ming had a decent little jump hook. Yao Ming was, was like, he, he kind of mastered that.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  Duncan had one.

• 1:22:10Speaker 02

  Not to the extent that you would think.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  Guys would. And I think for, for Wemby, I think that that's not bad, man. Cause you could, you know, look at some of the distances that Kareem shot it from like. It doesn't have to be a five foot shot. He might have a hard time getting guys that deep. So, okay, what if it's an eight, nine, 10 foot shot? And it looks smooth and you practice it enough. Who's stopping it? So I, I agree. Look, and I think this is what really to me separated the two teams. The Knicks going into game five, I said, had the most precarious three, one lead in the history of team sports. Because they, they'd been outscored 70% of the minutes in the series. They were, they, they, everything had gone right in these key moments that had to. So now here you are, they're up three, one, but man, it could easily been three, one the other way. We all know that.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  The difference in this series was how these two teams managed the last five, six minutes of the game. Birds were kind of looking around like, what, what are we going to do this time down the floor? Because all their best players have a little bit of a hole in their game. Too young, not a good enough shooter, maybe if, if you're Castle. Wemby, we just talked about, doesn't get those spots to the floor that are comfortable for him enough. Guess what? Best learning lesson, losing that series. That's, that's the best thing that could happen to them for long-term success here in the foreseeable future. Because they're going to remember how that felt and they're going to address that exact situation.

• 1:23:29Bill Simmons?

  I a hundred percent agree. And yet.

• 1:23:33Bill Simmons?

  They're going to look back. I mean, that's one of the all-time squandered series.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 1:23:37Bill Simmons?

  I haven't forgotten, so many things happened in those five. In those five games, so many things happened. I forgot that, that, uh, Wemby missed an 18 footer just to win game one. That was a pretty open shot. You just go through that.

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  Clean look.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  If you're a Spurs fan, you're just torturing yourself going all summer.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Even like that shot, I said, you know, like even that. They ran good action. He, they ran, it was him and Fox. Fox came off, they, it was, they knew exactly what they wanted to get. High ball screen. They knew, they knew you're going to have to give some sort of help or what, or Fox is going to walk into an 18 footer to win the game. So they, you knew the big was going to shade, which meant it's going right back to Wemby at the elbow. The only, but the only thing I don't understand is this. And Mitchell Robinson, they got a lot of credit for his contest. I don't really think it affected him. I, but why did you, why, why fall down backwards? Like you, you're shooting a shot to win the game.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  Stay on your feet and stay with your extension. Because he went up to shoot.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  Just, just stay, nothing else, stay upright to give the ball the best chance to get over the front of the rim. Your momentum going back to that extent that you can't even stay upright, of course, the ball's gonna, it's possible to track that to the center of the rim. So that's even that. Again, it's youth, it's young, it's going through it for the first time, you know, figure out a way next time in that situation, stay on your feet and shoot an 18 footer because there's not a person on the planet that's gonna really bother you on that contest if you stay upright.

• 1:25:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, he asked us to figure out how to play more than 29 minutes a game. Cause I think

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 1:25:14Bill Simmons?

  That 10 weeks, now he knows, now he knows what that 10 weeks feels like from start to finish. And I just thought, there were a couple of those fourth quarters where he was just wobbling around. He made the, obviously the huge mental mistake at the end of game two and it's all part of the process. He's gonna have to figure out, how do I ramp up to 37, 38 in the playoffs?

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  It was game two, you know, that's, you learn, learn, they gotta learn from it. They didn't know exactly what they wanted to do. Castle looks at him and then goes, oh, oh, you're gonna bring it up? Okay, I'm out of here. And oh, no weight, hits him in the back. It's just because it was like they weren't completely in sync because they're so young.

• 1:25:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Collectively.

• 1:25:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, now we know, don't bet on young teams. Now we know, again, this is what we said all year. They're too young. Been, been there. It's like, I'll.

• 1:26:00Speaker 02

  And here's the thing, it's what's scary for like, maybe the league is just a fact that, okay, yeah, they lost one series, but like, nothing will expedite their learning curve like that. Nothing. No way their season could have ended. Any, even losing game seven at Oklahoma City is not coming close to expediting the learning curve with the way they navigated the ends of those games and knowing how tight they were. The margin for error was so slim. And the Knicks were making all the plays. They weren't making any of them. Nothing will expedite their growth more than the way that their season ended.

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  Before we go, where do you want Giannis to go?

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  Man. Probably Golden State would be like, you know, hey, man.

• 1:26:42Bill Simmons?

  Golden State, are they even in this?

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  I, I don't know, but I, they, they always came up, for Yanis, over the last, you know, two years. And it was like, you'd love to see Curry get something of that level here at the end of his career. That's why I said that. That's more like, from just my heart standpoint, because I love watching Steph Curry so much. And I want a potential for like deeper playoff runs for him, not play in stuff where he's gone in a game or two. Or even if they make it out of that, what, what, what's, what are they facing? A buzzsaw? So more help for him to give Steph Curry a greater chance to have meaningful series and playoff moments at the end of his career.

• 1:27:25Bill Simmons?

  I like that. Um, I, my guess is they end up with Anthony Davis, Golden State.

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why. It's just, it's just in the back of my head. Uh, I've landed on, I don't want the Celtics to trade Jalen Brown for Yanis. Which I felt, I felt that way the whole month, but the more I, I, I just, I can't, I can't, can't get there. I also don't think Miami, I don't like the trade for Milwaukee or Miami, that trade that everybody's been batting around. I, I actually don't like it for either team. If I'm trading Yanis, I don't like what I'm getting back. I'm not getting one thing I can point at. And if I'm Miami, I've traded all this stuff away so I can have Yanis and Bam, and I don't know where I'm going with that. Can I even win one playoff round? Not to mention the Yanis, like how many more years? But then that scares me. It's just how many more years can he be elite when he's already been banged up and?

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a question. What percentage of the people that love the Celtics, right? Fans would agree with what you just said about you're cool not getting him because you would rather go with Jalen Brown?

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  People like the Jays. The only, I would say it's probably like three, four Celtic fans would probably rather just not do anything. And run it back with Hakeem Tatum.

• 1:28:41Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  Here's the problem, and here's the question, and I don't, the Celtics are going to have to evaluate this. You had Jalen get a taste of being the guy. And now he has to go back to not being the guy. And once you have the taste of being the guy, can you go back? I think that would be the fear. And maybe he just wants his own team. He hasn't said anything. The Celtics haven't said anything. And I, I would much rather see those guys keep playing together. I don't even like that Klay's not on Golden State anymore. Like even that, I wish Klay and Draymond and Steph had just managed to, I know why they didn't. And I know it got acrimonious, but it's so rare for teams to stay together.

• 1:29:19Speaker 02

  I hear you, man. I hear you. Like they keep, they have it and they, they're winning and they're fun to watch. And like us, you know, guys like us that are watching this and analyzing it and have to do this every night and watch these teams. Like you guys, like you're a fan of the group, the style, like whatever. And it's like, there's more there, there's more meat on the bone.

• 1:29:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  There, like, why, why are we, why are we ending this now? I think for, for me with the Jalen Brown stuff, I think it's, it's, it's a good point. I mean, and this is kind of how I felt during the year. This for me was probably how I would process it if I were good enough to be Jalen Brown. I went through that would be, yeah, you know what? Bottom line is, man, like I got call, I got, I slid over one seat and that's what it looks like.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  There's a hell of a lot, there's a hell of a lot that comes with that seat. So like now you, okay, he goes back and it's, it's, you know, obviously I don't think he has good guys. It's more like Tatum's, you know, the guy, Jalen Brown's a great, great player. But at the same time, he's like, okay, listen, I rang the bell, man. I validated what my ceiling is, what I believe it is. And, but it's okay here to be like one A next to Jason Tatum too. Because Tatum's going to get ultimately most of that playoff pressure is more on his shoulders than anybody else. And so I do wonder how Jalen Brown feels about all that. Is it like, he's like, no, no, hell with that. I don't ever want to go back. I want a team of my own. I know what I'm capable of doing and nothing's ever going to satisfy him again. Or is it, no, I like playing here. I like Boston.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  I like Jason Tatum. I showed what I could do when given the chance. That's good enough for me.

• 1:30:50Bill Simmons?

  If they were going to trade him, Milwaukee would not be my Janlin trade. I would be looking at New Orleans or Atlanta and trying to, you know, especially New Orleans. That's a trade that makes sense in my head where you get Trey, you get Trey Murphy back, Herb Jones, one more contract, maybe you get a pick, but you know, you're recreating basically a different version of what you had with Tatum and Brown, but your contracts are a little better and you, you get more flexibility. Like I'd be thinking that way. To me, I don't, do they win the title if they get Giannis? I just, I don't know if that's the magic elixir. And I don't know physically where he is, you know?

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I, I would look at it if I were Boston like this, the way that the, the, look, the Knicks jumped on it and they played incredible basketball at the end of the year and they peaked at the right time.

• 1:31:36Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  But you still have to go back and you have to be honest and just look at the Eastern Conference. Like the, the path was cleared for them with the injury to Tatum. And you know, that was like trying to figure that out late in the year. Know how Le Burton, obviously the Pacers went there a year ago. Detroit doesn't have enough shooting yet. The Pistons, the Cavs are a team that's got, you know, they've got issues in the postseason, like handling that pressure. Philly's hurt all the time. So if I'm Boston, I'm just looking at it like, yeah, okay, the Knicks, to me, I've seen a lot of lists out there where they put OKC, San Antonio, one, two, again, in terms of league expectations to win it, Boston three, Knicks four. I mean, to me, the Knicks have every, have the, have the case to be made that they're going to run it back and win the Eastern Conference. I think, I think

• 1:32:21Speaker 02

  they can absolutely make that case. But if I'm Boston, I'm not sitting here looking at any teams in the East and going as currently constructed without the Giannis trade. Like we can't hang with those guys. So I think, I think that's why the comfort zone comes from fans. We know what this looks like and it's pretty damn close. And now we get Tatum for an entire year coming off the injury rather than just a partial year. Yeah, we'll take our chances of that. Of course you need to improve your roster. They're going to need to improve and we'll see what ways they can do that.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  They have a $27 million trade exception. They have some tradable smaller pieces. Like they'll be better than they were last year. Last year was, they always called it the quote unquote gap year. But in some ways it was. They got rid of

• 1:33:02Speaker 02

  But I'll tell you this, I'm putting the Knicks as the favorite right now to win the Eastern Conference.

• 1:33:07Bill Simmons?

  You should.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  I'm putting the Knicks as, I mean, it's like, but it's amazing. I'm looking at some stuff that's written out there. They're not doing that. I'm like, I don't get it, man. The way that they just played and like that last series was a grind it out. They fell behind, but they still found ways to win. But prior to that, like they were playing damn near perfect basketball and, and they end up winning a championship in five games against the team that won 62. With that kind of young talent, like for me, the Knicks should be the team that's placed at the top of the pecking order in Eastern Conference going into the season. Now let's see what these other teams do to address their needs.

• 1:33:41Bill Simmons?

  Also.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  And close that gap.

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  Brunson's the best player in the conference. He is, it wasn't just, oh, I had this great postseason. He's done this four years in a row now. He's averaging 29 points a game for four straight playoffs. Like this is who he is. They have a team built around him. The only thing I would worry about with the Knicks is, you know, Pat Riley called the, the disease of more. Everybody's super unselfish. When you're trying to win a title, you're doing everything. You put your ego aside, but now you won. Um, Doc Rivers, I had Doc Rivers on the pod the other day and he, he called it, uh, trophy tour syndrome. You get your trophy for the day. You go back home every, you have your day with all your people and, you know, then you come back the next year and you're like, all right, now it's my time. And that's usually what happens with this, with champions. And that would be the fear.

• 1:34:28Speaker 02

  I'm going to tell you though, I'm going to tell you, I don't think that, I don't think that's the makeup of this group of guys. They're, and I've got to spend a lot of time around them.

• 1:34:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  Um, covering them, you know, all the way through the playoffs, basically. And then certainly the finals. They just look like they're perfectly in sync with where they're slotted, where they're slotted, each guy and what they're required to be, and then perfectly fine with this other incredibly special player that they have settling things. And will contribute to that heavily. And in some nights be one guy more than another. I don't think they're going to have that particular problem with this group. I, I just don't think that's the makeup of this team. I think you're right.

• 1:35:09Bill Simmons?

  But I'm not positive because this is the league we have. They also, they're not gonna be able to pay Mitch, I don't think. Dolan basically said he's not going second.

• 1:35:17Speaker 02

  Doesn't look like it.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  So Mitch is out.

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  Doesn't look like it.

• 1:35:19Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna have to luck out with the 24th pick, get some sort of big man who. But small problems. All right, Tim Legler. Have fun at the draft. I'm excited for your player comps. Just rip them off, like boom, boom, player comp, boom, player comp. Good to see you. Always a pleasure. Thanks for spending the season with us.

• 1:35:36Speaker 02

  Let's, uh, let's catch up when the smoke clears from the draft and free agency and see where everything's settled. All those trades take play, all that stuff.

• 1:35:43Bill Simmons?

  Can't wait.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  We'll reconnect.

• 1:35:44Bill Simmons?

  All right.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  All right, man. You got it. See you, Bill.

• 1:35:48Speaker 03

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• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching, just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. All right, so we're recording this. It is Thursday afternoon, Pacific time. There's still some World Cup games happening, um, tonight, but we only care about the one by the time people hear this. Friday. America, who looked awesome, really, truly awesome in the first match. And now Australia on Friday, it's a holiday, it's gonna be a great day. Anthony DiBundo came on a couple of weeks ago.

• 1:37:18Bill Simmons?

  And he reminded us, I was skeptical, I wasn't that excited about our chances. And you reminded us, hey, we haven't really been healthy in four years. Like, we have our guys, like, there, there is a path here. So you're watching that first half, what are you thinking?

• 1:37:33Speaker 04

  I didn't think it would go that well. I don't think even the most optimistic US fan in the world thought that it would go as well, as dominant as the first half was. They made it look so easy. This is a, this is a country that usually struggles with Trinidad, that usually has had issues beating Panama over the last few years, and they're just washing away a pretty good South American team. So, I, I mean, it was the most exciting I've ever been. It was my first ever time going to a World Cup game. First time ever seen the US score a goal in person. Like, amazing. Amazing stuff.

• 1:38:03Bill Simmons?

  All the 1v1 stuff, a striker just like creating holy shit goals and then actually finishing the kick. It was, it was unbelievable. And even Reyna comes in at the end, right? It, the, the guy from, from a few years ago where he became the polarizing, like, they became the big argument guy. They did the documentary. It was barely covered. But even he had a moment, and he might have, have to have a moment in this Australia game because, of course, we can't have good things for that long. Pulisic is, who knows? When I see that training by myself story, that makes me nervous. But he was so good in that first half. We thought they took him out because they didn't want him to get hurt in the second half.

• 1:38:46Speaker 04

  That's what I thought, too.

• 1:38:47Bill Simmons?

  You assumed Paraguay would be doing the, okay, we're down 3-0. We're, we're gonna start taking your guys out. But it turned out he was, he was maybe a little hurt. So what do you, what are you thinking? Or how worried are you?

• 1:38:58Speaker 04

  I'm definitely worried. I mean, there are only one or two players that the US can't truly replace, and he's one of them. And it's funny because I was thinking today, okay, so if he doesn't start, who are the guys that replace him? And there is no like for like. I mean, in a perfect world, Gio Reyna can do a lot of the things, but Gio Reyna has barely played soccer for the last three years, and he has had some good moments for the US men's national team, like that last minute goal. But expecting him to just walk in and replace what Pulisic has done is just not realistic. Then it's like, well, maybe it's Berhalter, and they play a little more defensive. That's gonna be divisive. Maybe it's Aronson, and they go for the pressing. He's not very creative. So, like, all of

• 1:39:43Speaker 04

  a sudden, all the excitement, they don't really need Pulisic, though. For this specific game, they do. But for the tournament, like, this is not their most important game anymore. They need to shift expectations and realize that the, the later on games... Are what we really are playing for here.

• 1:39:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, so they're gonna probably do the park the bus a little bit, right? Do some counters.

• 1:40:05Speaker 04

  For Australia?

• 1:40:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah. Try to, try to do the one, nothing final. Try to rope us in. That's what their, their first win was like that. They didn't have the ball a ton. But when they did have the ball, they made stuff happen. So that would be the recipe. You also have Seattle, a great soccer city. Everyone's gonna be so fired up. It's a holiday. There's so many good things about this game and I don't know. I've just seen soccer games like this where it's like, oh my God, we've had the, oh, oh, no, what, what's happening? Oh, my God. Um, what did you think of Australia when you watched them that first game?

• 1:40:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a classic example of like, does this say more about Australia or more about Turkey? I mean, they sat very deep in a very compact block and just made Turkey send in prayer after prayer after prayer, cross after cross, long range. I mean, you know, Turkey has a superstar player, Artur Guler, who attempted seven shots, all of them from long range. None of them had a chance. Uh, they were really frustrating and really effective defensively. And in this system, in this tournament, those kinds of teams can be really freaking annoying to play against. But I mean, I do think the US, what they showed against Paraguay shows me that they have new ideas for how to break down this system, but it is so reliant on Pulisic, on his ability to retain the ball in dangerous areas.

• 1:41:22Speaker 04

  His ability to keep possession in the penalty area is, is always been his best skill. And now it's like, well, without him, who's gonna be the man that beats the man? Is it Dest? Are they gonna start Tim Wea? Is it just Balogun kind of like muscling his way through Australians? Because they're a big bunch in the back too.

• 1:41:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Pulisic was so good in that first half. It almost seemed like we were gonna get the rare first half sub for their right back. Like we gotta get this guy out of here. He's getting torched. And then he wasn't out there in the second half. So the, the two guys that make me nervous on our team, Dest, I just, I wish there was like slightly more there. I don't know. I felt like there was a lot on the table for him in the game I went to. And then Ream's 38. Like Australia has a 20-year-old flyer who's, who had a goal in their first game. And I just. I just can't imagine that's not going to rear its ugly head at some point during the cup. The fact that we feel like we're like a great defender short, right?

• 1:42:18Speaker 04

  Probably, yes. And I think that's the big question that like Paraguay and maybe even Australia aren't going to test is like Tim Ream for all of his now faults as a defender is still very good at picking passes out going forward if you just let him stand there on the ball and ping passes all over. And he had seven long completions in the match against Paraguay, which is nuts.

• 1:42:41Speaker 04

  Australia will probably do a better job of marking Tim Ream. They'll probably do a better job of pressing him a little bit. Better teams will do a better job of that. That's where it's like, okay, can Tim Ream hold up when teams start to press more? That's going to be kind of the stress test that like Paraguay just really never gave to the defense. I mean, they scored one goal off a set piece, but there was at no point any stress on this defense. So that's the big question mark. But you know, I think that's why they're playing a back three. It's the idea that if you put two really athletic dudes in Richards and Freeman who cover a lot of ground and who are super smart guys next to Ream, you kind of cover for him as much as possible.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:43:20Speaker 04

  You know, and so you hide him. And then, you know, Des is a funny guy because I love Sergino Dest. I get why he's easy to be like, he's always in dangerous areas and he often screws it up. But the fact that he's always in dangerous areas means you just cannot forget about him because he will show up in a big moment and create a chance or dribble past a guy. And he really did dribble past players a lot in that game Friday night. It just, the final touch was rough. It was rough.

• 1:43:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, the big question was what we got from Richards and he was awesome in that game.

• 1:43:50Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  And he passed, basically, he passed all the injury concerns that we had heading into the cup right to Pulisic. Where it was because I, did you see that, that stat? Like he, what did he complete? Eighty-three of eighty-three passes?

• 1:44:04Speaker 04

  Pitched a perfect game.

• 1:44:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the soccer defender perfect game. We never see that very often. But he also, he's such a badass. The way he carries himself, it's really funny. He carries himself like he's like a Ravens linebacker or something.

• 1:44:15Speaker 04

  And he did have a header on a set piece too that came close. The scoring.

• 1:44:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:20Speaker 04

  I mean, he is such a, I mean, like, we talk about, you know, the classic example of like, what does it look like when the Americans are finally developing bigger and better talent?

• 1:44:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Speaker 04

  And like, having a center back who starts every week on a good Premier League team, just ho-hum, goes about his business, nothing flashy, like that, those kind of players are what, it's not about having all the superstars in Europe, it's about having more of Chris Richards.

• 1:44:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  You get like, three more Chris Richards across the line, and that's, you know, that's the perfect example.

• 1:44:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's almost like when, like, preparing for the NBA draft right now, doing my whole process, and over and over again, you come to the same conclusion like four days before where you're like, you know what's really nice? Like, swing men who can defend and hit threes.

• 1:45:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:01Bill Simmons?

  It's just.

• 1:45:01Speaker 04

  OG Ananobe?

• 1:45:01Bill Simmons?

  Guess what? You can't really go wrong with that. So, like, uh, Merez Johnson now, the Michigan guy, and he's like, oh, he might go 15, 14, like, wherever he goes, somebody's gonna be super happy with him, because that's just the kind of guy that plays, and it's the same thing with soccer.

• 1:45:13Speaker 04

  Plug and play.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  There are these certain guys. With that said, Jedi is probably, um, he's another one that, when you, in person, really feels like the atypical American, just like, fucking freak athlete, flying.

• 1:45:25Speaker 04

  He's everywhere. He's everywhere. And look, I mean, like, I know the running joke is like, a lot of these guys were not developed in the US, Balligan, Robinson, Tillman, uh, you know, like, a lot of these guys were not quote-unquote "traditional homegrown players", and we could do a whole podcast on that, but like, Jedi in the Premier League is consistently one of the most active, aggressive, all-over-the-place defenders on that left wing.

• 1:45:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:49Speaker 04

  I remember they played Liverpool, like, two years ago, and he completely shut down, like, a prime Mo Salah, and I was like, what am I watching?

• 1:45:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:45:56Speaker 04

  This is crazy, and then he also had 10 assists that year. I mean, he, he is, he's a special player, and I think he'll be important, because inevitably, they're gonna need more wide production if they don't have Pulisic in the middle, so Robinson and Dest become even more important than they were in the first match.

• 1:46:11Bill Simmons?

  And then the striker, might be the most talented striker we've ever had, and I like, Clint Dempsey, I think, was really reliable, good, I loved how tough he was, and he, I thought, was really important, just for where US soccer was and where it was trying to go, but this guy's like,

• 1:46:25Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:46:26Bill Simmons?

  This is different.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  It's different. It's amazing. And, you know, the one thing with him has always been, and I remember, you know, when I first joined The Ringer, Bill, we, we did, uh, the Copa America, remember, two summers ago, when we were a disaster?

• 1:46:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  And Balligan only played, like, half the minutes because he got hurt. And even you texting our group chat, like, watch how he's moving. It's so different from how the other guys are moving around the pitch. And that's how you feel when you watch him. And no matter what his finishing has always been, he's always had the shots. And the analytics nerds and the scouts will always say, if you get the shots, we'll worry about the finishing later, just get the shots. And his shot numbers have been amazing in France. And now he's carrying that into, into the US and two goals. I think he had four shots in the first game, so just amazing.

• 1:47:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, like you, all I've been doing is watching World Cup. I love it. I love gambling on it. I just love that. There was that one game the other night that was on at like midnight Pacific time. That was amazing. What was it, Jordan, Austria?

• 1:47:23Speaker 04

  Austria and Jordan.

• 1:47:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's all starting to blend together. It was a really good game though, for how late at night it was. But, you know, and you're just watching all these different guys. And the ones that jump out over and over again are like the, the left or right back. That's just fucking flying up and down constantly and never gets tired. Or like, you know, the forward who is just kind of hanging around. Then all of a sudden he's got that stop, start, boom. And that's what Balgon has, like he's kind of lurking, looking boom, he's, he's off. But then, and then on top of everything else, you get to watch what Messi did the other night. And it's like, oh yeah, that's, and that's the other version of the sport where he's just levitating above everybody. I mean, that was one of the great random sports experiences. I certainly wasn't expecting that to be like the highlight of the summer.

• 1:48:08Bill Simmons?

  But it was even up there with the finals games. That was unbelievable.

• 1:48:12Speaker 04

  You talking about Messi?

• 1:48:13Bill Simmons?

  The hat trick, yeah. Just, just.

• 1:48:16Speaker 04

  Poor Zidane watching his son in the goal.

• 1:48:21Bill Simmons?

  He played my daughter whenever, you know, my daughter was always a striker. And we always had this joke called, it was called Rufus' goals. Cause our, our dog Rufus had died 10 years ago. But if you put food on the counter, if you left it for two seconds, he would just kind of sneak over and grab it and go. And so we always talk the same with soccer, like the best strikers, like they're best forwards, best anything, they're always in the position to just kind of jump on the counter and grab a goal. And that second goal he had was my favorite one of the three because he's just kind of over there. He's reading, oh, this might be a rebound bounce and he's already moving to where the bounce is and nobody's even reacting yet and he's just putting it in.

• 1:49:03Bill Simmons?

  It's like the easiest goal he had, but he's just a second and a half ahead of wherever else is mentally.

• 1:49:08Speaker 04

  And that's despite the fact that he just wa- it's so funny when they don't have the ball, right? When you watch him and you see him in the corner of the screen and he's just walking around like it's a Sunday men's league. Like he's just trying to get his steps in and then the minute he gets the ball.

• 1:49:20Bill Simmons?

  But he's calculating everything.

• 1:49:22Speaker 04

  He makes two little runs, one little dart, one dribble, one shot, and you're like, oh shit. I mean, Argentina in the first 28 minutes of that match did not have a touch in the penalty area of Algeria. But they were up 1-0 because Messi's like, I don't need to go in the penalty area. I'll score from 25 yards out. Screw that. Why bother with that?

• 1:49:41Bill Simmons?

  And on top of it, like the, I mean, the thing that makes the guys truly, truly great, no matter what sport you're talking about is like, it's performance, but also like performance. It's the artistry of it. It's all these people in Kansas City. It's Mahomes in the luxury suite and they're all there to see him, right? And that's like, almost drives him up to make him greater, whereas like poor Ronaldo, he's out there and you, you called it on the pod we did before the cup started, but it's like, yeah, this is Aaron Rodgers Pittsburgh kind of territory potentially. And it was worse than that because he, he cost them the game. I mean, he, he had, I felt like opportunities that normal people would make at this level and he just didn't cash in on any of them.

• 1:50:22Speaker 04

  It's so funny because you, a lot of the people that are trying to defend Ronaldo are saying, "Well, it's not just his fault, right? The performance was bad all around." And like their wingers have problems, Portugal has issues. But it's like what you said, the best strikers always find ways to get shots, to get space, to make those little runs, those little movements, where they can get separation and get shots off. That's just always been true. And that wasn't the case for Ronaldo yesterday against Congo. They, he was never able to separate. He's not running in behind. He's not coming short. He's not linking the play. It's like, hopefully the cross finds his head, uh, because they had a lot of the ball, they did a whole lot with it. Uh, but I mean, you know, a couple of days ago, when, when Mbappe scores

• 1:51:05Speaker 04

  twice, and Haaland scores twice, and Messi scores three times, all in one day. And then, like you said, we get the, the Austria-Jordan midnight. I mean, it's one of the greatest days for stars in the history of the World Cup.

• 1:51:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:51:17Speaker 04

  And we get four games every day. And then pretty soon it's going to be six games a day for a few days.

• 1:51:20Bill Simmons?

  And you didn't even mention the England game. Kane was incredible in that game, doing these 40-yard fucking dart passes. I got to watch that one with CR. We were enjoying it. And then, uh, and the corner kicks for England. I mean, I know that was, the guy was on Arsenal, that was one of their calling cards, but, um, nothing, nothing really floats my boat. Like, just a great corner kick, right in the, right in the box.

• 1:51:42Speaker 04

  A routine. They ran a pick and roll.

• 1:51:44Bill Simmons?

  Fucking boom. And the guys are wide open over and over again somehow. And it's the most underrated part of this, but there's no, what else is like this? It's almost like maybe special teams in football, where Belichick was trying to get like advantage with special teams. And it's the thing that it's like, "Oh yeah, and you should be good at special teams." And he's like, "No, actually, we're going to like flip games with special teams." That was one of the biggest reasons the 0-1 Patriots won. And these corner kicks, free kicks, you see it over and over again in the World Cup, like the, putting the ball in the box in the right areas and doing the little...

• 1:52:15Speaker 04

  Boxing out the keeper.

• 1:52:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:16Speaker 04

  John Stones literally set up, if you go watch the replay, like, oh, John Stones is setting what would, what would be called a moving screen.

• 1:52:22Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:52:23Speaker 04

  In the NBA, just so he can get Kane free a little bit. And all he needs is a couple of yards, one header, 2-1. Uh, it's so funny because I watched with the FozCast guys, Ben Foster, and they're, they're awesome. And... Getting into the psyche of the English fan, I mean, you were with CR, so how was CR feeling before the match?

• 1:52:40Bill Simmons?

  Um, confident. He's a little worried about the back three. Um, but they have a lot of firepower.

• 1:52:46Speaker 04

  They do.

• 1:52:46Bill Simmons?

  They really do. They have all kinds of ways that they can create goals and they're really fun to watch. I think if you're an England fan, it's weird to watch this team that can be kind of explosive, but they feel a little bit explosive. Right?

• 1:52:59Speaker 04

  So with the Fozcast guys, none of them were that confident. I talked to a random England fan outside of SoFi. He was like, yeah, you know, I think we can make the semis. I'm like, you don't think you can win? He goes, no. Like, English fans, I think more than maybe any other fanbase, and maybe because they've been, you know, so close yet so far. They just don't have the same level of irrational optimism about their team. So a lot of nervous energy. And then Kane misses the penalty and they're all like, oh shit, here we go again. Like this is how it's gonna go.

• 1:53:27Bill Simmons?

  The rarely seen callback. They nailed the goalkeeper. It never happens.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  He was, he was about a half of a toe off the line. Nothing, you can't get away with anything anymore. But, and then in the second half, they went for it. I mean, England fans have been crying out for this. They have so much talent. They play scared under Gary Southgate. It's all like, defend the lead, defend the lead, defend the lead. And Tuchel went into halftime and said, F it. Like, we're going for this. What do we have to lose? And they came out and played an incredible second half. So I think England has vaulted themselves into the favorites conversation if they weren't already there. And I think, you know, them, Spain and France are still a tier above, but maybe, maybe USA should be in that second tier. I don't know.

• 1:54:05Bill Simmons?

  One thing they did, England, that I loved, I loved the hockey line change for the forwards. It's one of my favorites. You can't do it if it's like a Premier League team probably, but if it's the World Cup and you have a deep roster and a bunch of awesome guys, it's just kind of fun. Like, hey, we're going, you guys go all out 20, last 20 minutes of the game. And, uh, and they were able to get one, but that was fun. Who was the best team? What's weird about the World Cup is like Paraguay might actually be good. We just got a goal early on them, right? And their whole strategy is like, you know, they want it to be 0-0 after 70 minutes and and all of a sudden they're on their heel. All of a sudden it's 2-0 and like their game's blown up. I don't know if they're good or not. So we, we've only seen, you know, 90 minutes of each of these teams, but who really jumped out to you?

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  France for the last half hour put together, they showed a ceiling that I don't think any team has. And they made some tactical changes. The first half was embarrassing. They were terrible. Michael Elise, who is one of the best players in the world, was just kind of standing out on the wing all alone, like, hey, hey, guys, I'm over here. And then the coach was like, all right, let's move you centrally in the second half. Let's get you involved because you're our best passer. And then the whole game changed. I mean, he's dribbling by past guys. He makes the pass to Keleon Mbappe for the first goal. He just changes the game. And it's like, well, you know, France, you could do this from the first minute. You could play like this all the time. But Deschamps is like, we like to defend. We don't like to press.

• 1:55:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, the halftime was funny. Thierry Henry at halftime was fucking sullen. It's really interesting. These halftime shows with the, you know, they just gravitate toward just famous guys from different countries.

• 1:55:44Speaker 04

  Oh, it's great.

• 1:55:45Bill Simmons?

  And they're so bitter if it's fifty games. They're going, well, he almost couldn't talk. That he's gonna snap a lot.

• 1:55:51Speaker 04

  Zlatan might kill Lalas.

• 1:55:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:53Speaker 04

  At the end of the tournament. I don't, I almost, I don't usually like to watch, but now I kind of feel like I have to watch because I never know when Zlatan's just gonna start throwing haymakers at Lalas. It's been an interesting tournament for the Fox studio crew.

• 1:56:05Bill Simmons?

  If you watch the body language, and I've been on these shows, like, Zlatan is like, you know, Lalas is here. Zlatan's like this, and it's almost like he's turning his back on him. It's really nuts. He really has like, it seems like he despises him. Who knows?

• 1:56:22Speaker 04

  And then Landon makes the comment, right, about how he felt France was, was, quote, arrogant in the first half, which, you know, I thought there were tactical issues more than than their effort. And then Lalas tried to back him up and repeat it. And Zlatan has this incredible moment where he's just like, and by the way, it's not arrogance, it's confidence. It's confidence. And I'm just like, what is going on? These guys are gonna like, this is uncomfortable. But it's also electric at the same time because Zlatan does not give a shit. He doesn't care at all.

• 1:56:54Bill Simmons?

  Yes. Usually the studio show should feel like people were invited at a dinner to sit at the same table together because you knew the conversation would be good. The Fox studio shows, they feel like it was a dinner where everybody pulled numbers out of a hat. It's like, oh, I'm at table 18. I'm table Zlatan's over there. And then, then there's just like no chemistry at all at the table because they've never ever hung out. The, the, I had the plus one in that France game with the underdog. I forget all these.

• 1:57:21Speaker 04

  Senegal.

• 1:57:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Senegal. And then they got it. They got the goal and then Mbappe fucking like a minute later killed it. But the World Cup, there was a day where, what was it, four draws in a row? It was like,

• 1:57:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:57:34Bill Simmons?

  A hundred thousand bucks if you bet a hundred dollars on the, on the parlay.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  The 2026 redrawables World Cup edition. Yes.

• 1:57:40Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable. Yeah, that was fun. Okay.

• 1:57:42Speaker 04

  Not all draws are created equal. I mean, Cape Verde drawing Spain. That was so.

• 1:57:47Bill Simmons?

  I only saw the second half of that game. The guy was, the guy was levitating over the goal, just blocking shit. He was doing it in the SP.

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  He's up to seven and a half million Instagram followers.

• 1:57:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was great.

• 1:57:59Speaker 04

  After he had 50,000 before kickoff. He's 40 years old. And then apparently the, the department, the secretary of state, like they arranged for his mother to get a visa so she can make the trip for the next game. So she gets to see him live. In my, the, the World Cup is, is a really cool, really cool thing because these random pop up stories just come out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, we're like enthralled by it.

• 1:58:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, the number one thing that happened for people in my life was Scotland taking over Boston in the best possible way. And it was just a, a week long love fest. Everybody loved them. They were just drinking and walking around and having a great time, basically drinking all the beer out of Boston. And it went so well that, um, they announced there's going to be some sort of partnership between Glasgow and Boston. The Boston Bear announced today, like, we're going to actually try to figure out some sort of thing. It was really amazing because Boston's pretty Irish, you know, but that.

• 1:58:52Speaker 04

  Pretty Irish.

• 1:58:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I didn't know how the Scots were gonna go. But the Scots were like, hey, we love drinking too. And then, and from that moment, it was on and they really took over the city. So that, that was really fun. All right. So tournament, we're doing this. It's Thursday. There's two games left today. Uh, France is now plus four, 10 on FanDuel is the favorite. Spain's five. To one, England six to one, Argentina is eight to one, Portugal's plus nine fifty. I'll book that bet myself. Brazil eleven to one. I didn't think they looked great either.

• 1:59:22Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 1:59:22Bill Simmons?

  And then it kind of goes on down. You were, you know, there's a couple of those middle teams like Morocco. I think US is now in that US is down to forty to one. That maybe there's more there than what we saw in the first game.

• 1:59:38Bill Simmons?

  But that that top, top four feels like before, right? France, Spain, England, Argentina.

• 1:59:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:59:46Bill Simmons?

  That would be my four. So if you had to cram one other team into that four, who would it be?

• 1:59:51Speaker 04

  Germany.

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

  Okay, Germany's way down there. They're fourteen to one. What'd you like about Germany?

• 1:59:56Speaker 04

  So the, we didn't learn a ton about Germany when they played Curacao, right? Germany traditionally is a flat track bully. They like to pummel the teams that are a little bit lesser. And they are built to do that. The reason Germany's odds are so low is that if they win their group and France wins their group, they will play each other on the, on the fourth of July in Philly in the round of sixteen. So we have this clash of, of two, what I think are top five teams. And I would put Brazil and Portugal in the kind of figuring it out phase. Potentially playing each other as early as the round of sixteen. France could then also play semifinals against Spain. So like Germany's path will be very, very difficult. And I'm not really sure if their defense is good enough.

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

  Is that a possible, let's finish second instead of first situation?

• 2:00:44Speaker 04

  It is. It is. That's hard to engineer.

• 2:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:47Speaker 04

  Because then you don't really know where you're going to end up in the bracket and things get a little bit weirder. And like, you know, France is going to play Norway on the final day. So would they tank it? Like, I can't, I can't imagine that. Like, I don't think they're, they're thinking that far ahead. But it would probably be wise to, if you were Germany, like we'll, we'll avoid France. Thank you very much. But that would be a fascinating matchup. I just don't know if Germany's defense is good enough. It's been their problem for multiple cycles. That's why they haven't made it out of the group stage the last two World Cups. But they have an incredible manager. They have an incredible attacking group. They could score on anybody. They're going to be in the mix.

• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because US is in this situation where if they finish first.

• 2:01:25Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:01:26Bill Simmons?

  They play the runner up from BEFIRJ. I don't even know what those teams are.

• 2:01:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, the third place team. Right. Yeah.

• 2:01:32Bill Simmons?

  If they finish second.

• 2:01:35Bill Simmons?

  They play the runner up of Group G, which is Belgium, Egypt, Iran and New Zealand. I mean, that sounds great.

• 2:01:43Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 2:01:44Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I'd rather finish first, obviously, but that, but even finishing second, that sounds like an ideal situation.

• 2:01:51Speaker 04

  So if they come in second, though, here's where it gets trickier. Your round of 32 game is probably easier, but then in the round of 16, it's probably Argentina.

• 2:01:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh, God.

• 2:02:00Speaker 04

  So we would prefer to avoid them. If they get first, maybe a little tougher round of 32, because you could, the third place teams, I mean, who knows, it's too early. But the round of 16, you could potentially play Belgium, who showed a lot of cracks in their first game against Iran. So, or against Egypt, rather. So you're like, well, now we're talking. Like you get Belgium on home soil, revenge for 2014, Chris Wandelowski revenge game, the Tim Howard ain't walking through that door game, and you beat them. Like, I mean, like, if you put betting odds up right now, I don't think they would be huge underdogs at all. I think they'd be close to a toss up with Belgium. So.

• 2:02:35Bill Simmons?

  If you knew Pulisic was 100% healthy right now, and he's obviously not, but if he was, if we were just healthy right now, like, what's the ceiling for you with how excited you would be to like, final four, final eight level run for this team just off that one game?

• 2:02:52Speaker 04

  It's, it's literally how far can we go until we have to play France, Spain, England, or Argentina? Like, that's it. It's quite frankly, a matter of like, okay, there are levels to this game, and the US is going to need some luck to beat one of those teams. And I don't know if I trust the defense and the goalie enough for that kind of challenge. Right? That's where Paraguay doesn't really test you. So we're going to have to find out. But yeah, like, if they're in the round of 16 against Belgium and they win, why not? And then maybe there's an upset, and instead of playing Spain in the quarters, you're playing Uruguay or Colombia. Then it's like, well, we'll take our chances there. So I think it really comes down to the draw. It's too early to say, but a Dershowne performance alone, it would be hard to not say the US isn't playing in sort of that back end of

• 2:03:35Speaker 04

  the top 10 range, because the Dutch looked just okay, Belgians looked just okay. Like, none of those teams are jumping off the screen.

• 2:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Not at all. Um, on Fandel, USA to make last 16, minus 220.

• 2:03:49Speaker 04

  Did you bet, did you bet with us last week?

• 2:03:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the minus 130, right?

• 2:03:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:54Bill Simmons?

  So that's minus one, minus 220. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to have any money on US. I just wanted to enjoy it. I didn't feel like I needed that, but I might actually go in on, uh. On that, uh, if, if they finish first in the group that game. Quarterfinals is plus 180 and semis is plus 550, which is

• 2:04:13Speaker 04

  I mean, think about that.

• 2:04:14Bill Simmons?

  That used to be 12 to one.

• 2:04:16Speaker 04

  Betting odds are saying we're roughly 37% to make the final eight of the World Cup.

• 2:04:24Speaker 04

  It's not that far off.

• 2:04:24Bill Simmons?

  So where Do you know off, off top of your head where the last 16 in the quarterfinals games would even be? I guess we would know because of the groups yet, but is there, is there a way to have any idea?

• 2:04:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. So if they win the group, their first knockout game will be in Santa Clara.

• 2:04:42Speaker 04

  Uh, that, that will be the first game. And then once they won that, uh, they would play in Seattle, July 6th. Now we're going once they win that, but we're very

• 2:04:51Bill Simmons?

  I like this. Okay.

• 2:04:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:52Bill Simmons?

  You're doing the Jalen Brunson.

• 2:04:54Speaker 04

  When they win the first round of 32 game, they would go back to Seattle on July 6th for their round of 16 game. If, now we'll go if, if they won that, they would be in the quarterfinals, July 10th, back in SoFi.

• 2:05:07Bill Simmons?

  So July 6th, Seattle.

• 2:05:11Speaker 04

  Round of 16.

• 2:05:11Bill Simmons?

  An absolute dead time of the year for sports where all the NBA free agents have signed. Wimbledon is still, we're, we're getting near the end or, yeah, we're almost at the end with Wimbledon.

• 2:05:24Speaker 04

  Holiday weekend.

• 2:05:26Bill Simmons?

  We're, we're at the point where we're, we're wondering where all the really fun tennis players went. That's around July 6th. Oh, man. Wish we had like two more fun tennis players.

• 2:05:35Speaker 04

  Like Serena and Venus Williams?

• 2:05:38Bill Simmons?

  We talked about that the last time you were on.

• 2:05:40Speaker 04

  And they're playing doubles.

• 2:05:42Bill Simmons?

  We're going to see Serena at the US Open. I, I wish, I wish that was a Fanduel bet. If she comes back, I actually would, my wife would want to go to that. We love, we're a big Serena house. So I, uh,

• 2:05:53Speaker 04

  Get together with Schreger. He'll be in town, I'm sure.

• 2:05:56Bill Simmons?

  This was before you were born, but the, the two great moments of, and I used to love tennis, but, uh, McEnroe at the open and Connors at the open were the two runs where I felt like the crowd just kind of grabbed them and grabbed them by the neck and pulled them through some of the points in the sets. And I, the Serena thing would be the same. The crowd would be, can you imagine playing against her? And the US Open, like, like you would have to be one of the best five players in the world, like locked in. I don't think anyone else would be able to beat her.

• 2:06:27Speaker 04

  So I had the luck, the absolute all time luck box of my friends and I decided one year, we're going to go in on Friday night tickets on Ash before the draw, before Serena said, we bought those tickets and it ended up being Serena's last match.

• 2:06:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:06:43Speaker 04

  Got to go to see her play Isla and like that crowd was the coolest tennis crowd I've ever been a part of. Even when she, you know, when she came back and she won the one set and it was like, holy shit, she's going to win again. Then she loses the third set and it's kind of sad, but like the whole crowd, the euphoria of that night was one of the most special nights I've ever had as a tennis fan. So the fact that we're going to do it again, like four, what is it, four years later?

• 2:07:09Bill Simmons?

  It's the only thing in tennis you're allowed to do from a non-sportsmanship standpoint is if it's a situation like that. If it's the old lion trying to hold on, it's just understood. The crowd just gets to root for them and cheer when you double faulted and all that shit comes into play. Otherwise, otherwise no. Well, the USA thing will be amazing. And then you were in New York today for the parade.

• 2:07:31Speaker 04

  Sort of.

• 2:07:32Bill Simmons?

  Just randomly there, you were in the office.

• 2:07:33Speaker 04

  Technically around.

• 2:07:34Bill Simmons?

  You were in like, uh, where everything was, was starting, right? Just the entire city?

• 2:07:39Speaker 04

  I made the mistake of, of not thinking ahead. I was like, I want to go to New York. I'm going to watch England with the Fozcast guys. I have a couple of friends I wanted to see when I was in New York. So I got together with them last night and then this morning, but once I got to the office yesterday, people were talking about the parade. I'm like, oh, where's the parade? They're like, oh, it's coming right down this street. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

• 2:08:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:01Speaker 04

  Like this is going to be an absolute madhouse tomorrow morning. So I managed to get in and out. I saw parts of it and I was very happy to kind of escape.

• 2:08:09Bill Simmons?

  What was the madhouse on a scale of one to 10, like a nine?

• 2:08:13Speaker 04

  Like I said, it's not my team, so nor were the Eagles, I guess, when they won. But I compare it to that in the sense that when the Eagles first won, I was in Syracuse at the time, and I was the only one that had a car of my freshman friends from Philly. So I was like, okay, I'll drive home. We drove home at 2:00 in the morning. We get there at 6:30, 7 o'clock. People are already drinking. By 9 o'clock, you can tell people are already drunk. And it's just a huge party for something that had been so much time in the waiting. So I'm so happy for all of my Knicks friends, and now I'm back to disliking the Knicks again. Glad they had their moment. Happy for them, was rooting for them. It's over.

• 2:08:49Bill Simmons?

  It's one of only like maybe 10 excuses to just be hammered at 10:00 in the morning.

• 2:08:53Speaker 04

  Yes. In New York, it's like the Big East Tournament and the Knicks.

• 2:08:58Bill Simmons?

  Football tailgates are great. All right, so give us your USA predictions before we go.

• 2:09:02Speaker 04

  I am predicting, okay, go ahead.

• 2:09:06Bill Simmons?

  No, go. Australia.

• 2:09:08Speaker 04

  For this specific game?

• 2:09:09Bill Simmons?

  No, just give us, give us your updated predictions.

• 2:09:12Speaker 04

  Okay. US is gonna make the quarterfinals and lose to Spain. That is my official prediction. They are going to win their first two knockout games, get to that quarterfinal, and then, you know, maybe water finds its level and they were like, okay, yeah, like, there's a gap here. Like, their midfield gets a little exposed, their defense, trying to watch Jedi against Lamin Yamal would be really fun, but I think Spain gets past them. So that's my official now prediction. However, like, I think they're gonna win the group, and a draw tomorrow is not a bad result. On Friday, if they get a draw against Australia, they keep control, they stay in first place going into the final match, Ballistic stays healthy, maybe he gets the night off, that's fine, that's okay, it's on the other world. It will kill some momentum, but in the grand scheme of the tournament, it's fine, I'll take it, we move.

• 2:09:54Bill Simmons?

  All right. DeBundo, good to see you. Enjoy the game tomorrow, have a great weekend.

• 2:09:58Speaker 04

  Go USA.

• 2:10:00Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Tim Legler, thanks to DeBundo, thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm gonna be back on Sunday, going live on Netflix at some point during the day. I'll tweet out the exact time. Go USA. I'll see you on Sunday.

• 2:10:37Bill Simmons?

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• 2:11:22Bill Simmons?

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