A Crazy NBA Month With Zach Lowe, Plus Taylor Sheridan on Building a TV Empire and the Problems With Hollywood

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe go LIVE on Netflix to give their thoughts on the latest Jaylen Brown trade rumors before breaking down the Hornets trades, possible LeBron landing spots, and much more. Then, Taylor Sheridan joins the pod to talk about his new book, ‘How to Survive in Prison,’ before diving into his beginnings in screenwriting, how he works differently from others, and the success of his films and television shows. (0:00) Intro (1:15) Jaylen Brown trade rumors (34:29) LaMelo Ball traded to the Wolves (54:23) Miles Bridges to the Suns and other trade news (01:26:40) Taylor Sheridan on his new book, screenwriting, and more! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe and Taylor Sheridan Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.com As the Official Beer Sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, Michelob ULTRA away $1million in FIFA World Cup tickets and prizes. https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 MICHELOB ULTRA® FIFA® WORLD CUP 26TM SUPERIOR ACCESS. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins on 12/1/25 and ends on 7/31/26. Multiple entry periods. Visit https://www.michelobultra.com/superioraccess/FIFAWORLDCUP26 for free entry, entry deadlines, and Official Rules. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:06Bill Simmons?

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• 2:15Bill Simmons?

  Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix here on Sunday. We have Zach Lowe right now. He's in a great mood. We have Taylor Sheridan, creator of Yellowstone and a bunch of awesome shows coming in the second half of the pod. Zach is coming off an incredible victorious day in Philadelphia where he celebrated a World Cup win with a bunch of tall Croatians.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Very tall.

• 2:38Bill Simmons?

  I was worried you were gonna get crushed in a group hug at some bar last night, but you made it. You're here.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I made it home. I may have gotten crushed. There may have been a lot of group hugs. Croatians know how to party and we move on to the round of 32. We're gonna be underdogs. That's fine. Like, look, I'm glad if this is it, I got to see Luka Modric summon one last great game, start to finish, and that was amazing.

• 3:04Bill Simmons?

  And you're 2-0 in the World Cup this year in person.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's been pointed out to be by multiple people associated with the Croatian football team that I like.

• 3:13Bill Simmons?

  Now you have to go to every game now.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  I might need to go to Toronto. It's being pushed on me that I might need to. And just, I'm just putting it out there. Mets play Blue Jays the day before in Toronto. I could do a double. Just skip NBA free agency altogether and just go to be a sports fan.

• 3:26Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna try to rip through NBA stuff in 75 minutes, which includes Jaylen Brown. I have not given any take yet on the LaMelo trade to Minnesota.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Can't wait.

• 3:37Bill Simmons?

  You did a whole podcast about it. We're gonna talk Charlotte Phoenix a little bit. We're gonna talk about what happened to LeBron and we're gonna talk about craziest prediction for the week. You have podcasts coming at least tomorrow and probably Wednesday, maybe two, maybe three. I'm gonna have at least one more on Thursday. So that is the schedule. Jaylen Brown, not traded yet. Information and misinformation flying around.

• 4:03Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if he has lost trade value because teams know they want to trade him or because of his contract or whatever. I thought it would be resolved a little bit quicker. He was in France. A little pissy about some advanced metrics tweets. Got mad at Bobby Marks for passing along something he heard from a front office. He's been doing panels. The word on the street on Jalen in France, and I know multiple people who were either in his vicinity or whatever, is that he was, was, was acting like he's done in Boston and that this is it. And I don't think he's very happy with this. Do you think Boston mishandled this in any way?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  First of all, you have sources on the ground across France, like at whatever region, the Bordeaux region. Oh, it was Cannes. Okay, so you have sources on the ground.

• 4:49Bill Simmons?

  He was, he was on sports panels there. I don't think he's really too happy about the last couple of weeks.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  What would the mishandling have been? Tell me what the mishandling would, because they won a, let's, let's not, let's lead with the thing. They won the championship with Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum.

• 5:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm just talking about this offseason mishandling.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  So from literally final buzzer of game seven until right now, what is the case that Boston has mishandled? Is it not trading him already? Is it even getting into the Yanis bidding to begin with? Because you can't not have that get out. And even, and it's only, and once it gets out that you're interested in Yanis, who is better than Jaylen Brown, older but better, and addresses, okay, fine, we can litigate that if you want. Once that gets out, there's no other realistic path for this to happen. Like you don't, it doesn't have to be reported anymore that the Celtics are offering Jaylen Brown. There's no other offer. That's it. It has to be Jaylen Brown. It's just math. And so you let everyone else put the logic together. So what should they, should they, I think your only alternative is you just-

• 5:53Bill Simmons?

  You just answered your own question.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Okay, just trade him right away or don't, or don't get involved with Yanis. Those are the two things.

• 5:58Bill Simmons?

  No, here's the issue. And I've been, I think the Celtics have done a great job this decade. I've rarely disagreed with anything they've done. They get into this Yanis thing and they make a real offer for him, right? And this is, I think, two weeks before he gets traded.

• 6:13Bill Simmons?

  They're anticipating that because of past dealings with Milwaukee and because of how the league works, that this won't get out. This is gonna stay between us. Well, here, there's a couple of different things that happened this time around.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  That's a terrible assumption.

• 6:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, okay. But new owner, we have Jimmy Haslam in there now. He wasn't really in there like when the Drew Holiday stuff was happening a couple of years ago. He wasn't in there yet. You also have Milwaukee not knowing whether they wanted to keep Jalen Brown or not. So obviously, they're gonna be stealth canvassing his value in a couple of different places. And that's how this shit gets out. It's the third team that always spoils this because they're delighted to tell people, oh, my God, they checked with us and whatever. So I think the mistake the Celtics made, if you're gonna do this, you're gonna go down the road and actually put Jalen on the table, which they did. And they only made one offer, which I've said multiple times, the offer for the Jalen, the picks. Anything else was a lie. Hugo was never on the table. They never beefed up their

• 7:10Bill Simmons?

  offer the last weekend, nothing. But if you're gonna do this, I think you just have to put Jalen on the block at that point. Because once he's out there, you have to anticipate how he's gonna react to it. This guy already feels like he's the Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch on this team, right? He already feels like he's the little brother. He already feels like it's Tatum's team, not his. A lot of the stuff that he was saying during and after the season, even the quote about he was the most proud of the season versus any other season. I actually understand his point on that, even though I don't think he should have said it that way. Everyone counted him out. Everyone, the over under was 41 and a half. He was the only reliable scorer and offensive weapon on the team.

• 7:50Bill Simmons?

  They went 56 and 23 the last 79 games. They were second in offensive rating. And I think he feels disrespected. So you put him in one trade, now you have to trade him. And now that there's blood in the water and teams know they have to trade him, you're gonna get shittier offers. So I would have just done it all at once.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying to figure out what you think they should have done. Cause I thought what you were gonna, what you were going to say when you started, what I thought you were going to say was, once you put him in for Giannis, you then just have to make the honest trade, which means swallow Shireman and Gonzalez or whatever it is. But you're not saying that. You just think, like, you're saying, just open it up and, and do it immediately. But haven't they opened it up? Isn't that what's happening right now?

• 8:32Bill Simmons?

  They did it now, but they did it now that he's upset about how the process planned out. And now that teams know they have to trade him, it's a little different than being like, hey, we're pursuing Giannis with Jalen, but we're also open for offers right now. And I just feel like it's a better market if teams feel like, oh shit, Jalen's gonna be on the table. I'm competing against the possibility that he's gonna get traded to Milwaukee for Giannis. Now I don't know who they're competing with, like, you know, and I also feel like having actually watched the Celtic games last year. And like most of the people who are online, just doing analytics and on off shit and stuff like that. Like, as you know, and I've said this many times, I really value the reliability of a durable star who over and over again,

• 9:17Bill Simmons?

  has to carry this burden that night after night, he's got to be the best player. He's got to match against the other team's best player. And it's like, oh, the on off was not great when he was the, well, the Celtics had an awesome bench. Right? That was one of the best assets of the team. When their bench came in, their bench was better than just about every other bench in the league. And that's going to skew those stats a little bit. What you can't capture and go back and look at his game log, going against Detroit, San Antonio, OKC, pick one of the best teams, the Knicks, pick one of the best teams in the league last year. He was their only guy that I knew was gonna show up in the game. I didn't know if Derrick White, I didn't, Peyton Pritchard's, you know, as good as he is, he's trick or treat. Sometimes he just doesn't have it. All of these bench guys, Kada, it was basically just Jalen.

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  So I, I think weirdly he's become underrated and I don't really understand it.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  I mean, a lot of it has to do, I, the, I, my brain is just can't do the analytics thing. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. So let's just park that over here. A lot of it is just the contract, right? And I think it like, this is the difference between the, this is one of, this ties into why the Hornets traded LaMelo Ball now, when he's on his second contract and not when they've potentially signed him to the third one that can get much bigger. I don't think it would get much bigger in LaMelo's case, but with Jalen, because he made all NBA and they won the championship and all that. It's now at a point where it's like 60, 65, like, these are just hard deals to trade for someone who's not one of the,

• 10:45Speaker 02

  I, I, I don't want to get into where to rank him, but he's not a top five player in like a no brainer with a bullet top five.

• 10:52Bill Simmons?

  But he's one of the top 15.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  He sure is. And yeah, I mean, he was last year, I, I, we would have to sit down and do it, but he was in my top 15 on the last Ringer 100 we did coming off last season. It's just a, it's, it's a hard trade to make and it's, if you don't get Giannis, now you're staring at, is there a deal out there that we can sell our fan base and we can sell the current players on the team that like, hey, wait, we traded him for, for what? Like that, does that not make us worse this season? Like, yo, it's cool that we cleaned up the cap sheet and got a couple of picks, but like, what's the headliner that we got that helps us now?

• 11:27Bill Simmons?

  And they threw away last season. So you're throwing away a second season in a row, basically a chance to contend after you've won the 24 title. I, I just feel like they must have known that, wait, listen, we, you and I have both talked to a million people about Tatum and, and Jalen and do they get along? Do they not get along? Is it, are they good like work relationship and not friends? Like you could go into it a million different ways. It's the people around them that always cause the problems, I think for the most part. I'm sure those two guys are fine together, but the circles around the people are the ones that start half this shit. I do think it's notable that, um, Jalen didn't really say a lot about Tatum during the season.

• 12:09Bill Simmons?

  It was not about, not that you never heard like a, I can't wait to get my brother back. There was none of that stuff. And then after the season, and especially the last three weeks,

• 12:19Bill Simmons?

  where's Tatum?

• 12:22Bill Simmons?

  He hasn't said anything. He hasn't said anything this offseason. Jalen said at one point, Tatum was coming on his Twitch or whatever. He hasn't come on. How about the last couple of weeks about, the guy who could actually squash this is the alleged leader of the team, the franchise, Tatum, who could come in and say, I don't want them to trade Jalen. We won the title together two years ago. I can't control the front office, but I want to try to win more titles with them, or that's my guy. Nothing. It's been dead silence, which makes me think that the team has felt at some point either during the season or right after that this is a rap and that Jalen just wants his own team and Tatum probably wants him to have his own team. And that's probably the answer, right?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  I mean, having your own team, being like, have we not reached the point where, I guess there's just no, what is the star duo? This is a great question for you. That has gotten the closest to being actual equal peers, like not 1A, 1B, but like 1A, 1A. Is it Shaq and Kobe? Like, what's the one that transformed from Pip and Jordan to some, because I look at these guys and I'm like, why can't they both average 27 points a game? Like, why does it like, is that not on the table? Does it have to be someone's team? Someone's always going to be considered better, right? A better all around player, whatever. But in terms of whose team it is, who controls the ball, like, I don't know. When Tatum came back last

• 13:49Speaker 02

  year, obviously he's easing into it, but I didn't feel like there was any sort of, oh wow, things have changed so dramatically for Jalen.

• 13:57Bill Simmons?

  You felt it in the playoffs, though.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  In some games you did.

• 13:59Bill Simmons?

  The pace slowed and it just felt a little more Tatum thing. To answer your question, I honestly have to go back to the 60s with Elgin and Jerry, I think. I think that's the last time where it's like, I don't even know who's better between these two. And Shaq and Kobe were there a little bit, but Shaq always had that trump card of like, in a playoff series, if there wasn't a team that could guard Shaq, he just ran amok. I mean, his three final stats were at a whole other level than Kobe.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  I mean, Steph Durant, but that team just existed on a plane of its own, you know, the other one was there.

• 14:30Bill Simmons?

  That was a good one, though, because. I think Steph is a better guy all time than Durant, but I do feel like Durant was the best guy on those two teams. Now, part of it was because Steph took that, took a real step back and really let Durant kind of be more of the guy on those teams. But that's, that's a good one though. And by the way, how long did those guys last together? It's true. And I think, I think that's a good parallel to this because I think the reason, I'm always going to think this and, and Durant, no matter how many panels he goes on with Rich Kleiman in different countries, talking about the future of sports and entertainment and business. I'm always going to feel this way. I think he thought after he went head to head with LeBron and beat, beat him in the 2017 title,

• 15:11Bill Simmons?

  that he was going to get his flowers and his just due as one of the great guys, not only of this century, but maybe the best guy in the league. And it didn't happen. And it was like, no, you joined Steph's team. That's why he won. And I think it got to the point where he's like, I can't win here. I have to leave.

• 15:30Bill Simmons?

  I wonder if Jalen's at that point a little bit too, where he's like, I, we won a title. I'm finals MVP. I'm conference finals MVP. I carried our team last year. And now the moment Tatum gets back, they're like, thanks, Jalen. We're going to trade you for Giannis now. And I, I think he wants to leave. I don't, I don't think he feels like he was respected in the right way. Now, there's a million things you and I don't know about, about, is there behind the scenes stuff? Are there signals that he sent? Did Jalen tell him, go explore a deal for us? But the reality is he's 29 years old. He had his best season ever last year. He's played 2,600 minutes in 10 year, 26,000 minutes in 10 years, almost 5,000 playoff minutes.

• 16:10Bill Simmons?

  The guy's really fucking good. Like even if you're going like, you know, he's 142 playoff games. I think he's 20 a game in the playoffs. And if you're going like 125 games and up, it's a list of like 15 guys and all of them are awesome. And I, I just can't believe some of the trades that I think people seem to think what he's worth. It's like Portland won't give up Donovan Klingon? They won't? For Jaylen Brown? That's going to be a deal breaker for you? Like, so I, Zach, I've never seen anything like this and I don't know how it plays out. I think it's more likely he ends up coming back to the team.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  I mean, someone has to play center for the Blazers, right? If they if they trade for Jaylen Brown, you need to have a functional center on your team. Let me make a couple of parallels and I don't think I don't think any of these are are good parallels. Um, people just today, when talking about the the challenge of trading a player making as much money as Jaylen Brown, who's a very good player, but again, not a he's a he's on the MVP ballot every year kind of player. Um, Anthony Davis was thrown out, Trey Young was thrown out. I rejected both of those out of hand. I'm like, he's younger than Anthony Davis, a million times more durable. He's much bigger than Trey Young and he's a two way player and he's in his prime. I reject them.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  The best one I heard was Karl Anthony Towns, um, who the Wolves felt like we have, we were like, this contract is really hard to move and we're in a financial prison with the apron and all the other guys we have. Um, this is the most palatable deal we have on paper. It's like really not that sexy. It's Julius Randall, DiVincenzo and one first round pick. Um, it's it's gonna land like a little bit of a bomb with our fans and it could go badly and it has gone badly. But they felt like they kind of had to do it and it's the best one they could do. And I thought that was a very good parallel to this situation, just in terms of where the player is or was in the hierarchy. I think Jalen's last season was better than any season Towns has had, start to finish.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  But just generally where they were.

• 18:14Bill Simmons?

  But here's the difference. Could Towns have ever gone 56 and 26 with the two through 15 that Jalen had last year?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 18:20Bill Simmons?

  There's any way.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  I I don't think so. No, I don't think so.

• 18:24Bill Simmons?

  And like, I just think Jalen should get more credit for the season last year. And I don't understand, like, he was 29 a game, played all the time.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  And he's a ball handler.

• 18:31Bill Simmons?

  It's just weird to see him being like, I don't know if he's, how good is he? I don't know about that contract. It's like, well, he's one of the 15 best guys in the league and all of those guys have max contracts. So why wouldn't he have a max? What's he gonna be playing for 35 million a year?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  I I get it. I get it and it it's gonna be, that's why all those parallels to me are either wildly wrong or slightly imperfect like the Towns one, but.

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Uh, I think the Celtics are going to have a choice.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  A very difficult choice unless something changes between now and whenever between taking an offer for Jaylen Brown that is going to be, let's say, not super well received by the fan base. Maybe not. I'm not saying it's going to be bashful. It's going to be poorly received, but it's not going to be like the Bonanza package that you would expect trading a player of this caliber or trying like hell to put the toothpaste back in the tube and just say, hey, you know what? We're gonna figure it out. You guys have played all well together for many, many years.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  That's Missoula. That, I mean, this is like, this is why Missoula behind the scenes is one of the most respected beloved coaches. Like this is a guy that during the 2024 Olympics, when Tatum, his playing time was getting yanked around and he wasn't like, Zul flew to France to make sure he was like, this is a guy who has been attuned with those dudes the whole time. I'm sure he's talking to Jalen all the time. And if anybody could just get those two dudes in a room and just be like, look, man, let's work this out. Like, we still have it. We can still be the best team in the East. Like, forget about all the shit that happened in the past. The problem is, I don't know if Jalen has just reached a point of no return because the difference here is that they've won the title. So it can't be

• 20:09Bill Simmons?

  one of those things like, I don't have a ring yet. He's like, he already has the ring. He already has the respect from last year. Now he wants the respect from the team in the city. And I think deep down, he probably knows like, that's going to be always going to be Tatum's town and not mine. That's just the way it is.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Can I throw a what if at you?

• 20:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  What does this look like if Tatum never gets hurt, but they lose to New York anyway in the second round, the year that he got hurt? And like, how does the next calendar year play out? Because like, it's still quote unquote, Tatum's team more than Jalen's team. But it's, they're both still healthy and play. Like, I just would be interested to see how that plays out because Tatum's injury is what has changed this dynamic. I mean, that's obvious, but I just don't like, do we end up in the same place anyway? Or, or, or not? I don't know the answer to that.

• 21:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, if we were one of Jaylen Brown's, every, every NBA star has funkies around them, right? Who's just like, you're great. Let's go to dinner. Oh, the checks are, you better pay. Um, if, if we were two of Jaylen Brown's funkies, wouldn't we be like, why, why are you the one being traded? Why wouldn't Tatum be traded? He's coming off a major injury. His contract's as big as yours. You just carried the team to 56. Like, you're just planning that stuff in his head constantly, right?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  I mean, I would-

• 21:28Bill Simmons?

  Why you? Why not Tatum? Why just you?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  I would like, I feel like I would be a more valuable member of, of-

• 21:35Bill Simmons?

  Of the entourage?

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Of a friend group than that. I would be a more reasonable member of the friend group. But I did, this is why, this is why I asked you, devil's advocate, two weeks ago or last week, whenever we said this. I said, if I'm Jaylen Brown, I'm looking around being like, why is it just assumed that if we have to break up, I'm the one that goes? Like, I, this guy just is coming off an Achilles injury. Now, I, I say that, I think Jason Tatum is a better all-around basketball player than Jaylen Brown. I think-

• 22:00Bill Simmons?

  I think that as well.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  That's been proven out. So I get why if the Celtics are making a choice, it is Tatum. But if, I also get Jaylen Brown being like, what else do I have to do? Like, what else do you need me to do to be of worth, of, of-

• 22:15Bill Simmons?

  He's there. He's, he's there right now. He's like, we, you guys were gonna tank last season. We were building our way to a top three seed, and you traded Zymans for the corpse of Vucevic to save more money. And then you, you threw JT back in there. You played him too many minutes and he couldn't even play in game seven. Like, there's no blood on my hands for anything that happened last season. Here, when you talked about what, what trade would the Celtics fanbase accept? An example of one they wouldn't, if it was Zach Levine's expiring and a boatload of, of Kings picks. Like, three firsts, two swaps, whatever. I, that's not flying. Same for Brooklyn, if it was Porter's expiring and a bunch of Brooklyn pick swaps, that's not flying either.

• 23:00Bill Simmons?

  New Orleans, which I think maybe you would have said a month ago, Murphy with Zion? And maybe even a pick? I think that price has dropped now and I think Poole has to be in it as an expiring. I think that's Murphy and Poole and maybe two firsts. And I don't even know if New Orleans says yes to that. Cause New Orleans is like, well, what are we gonna do? We're not gonna win the title with Jalen.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  You don't think New Orleans would say yes to Trey Murphy, Jordan Poole? Who is, Jordan Poole is just-

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  Jordan Poole's expiring.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Thirty four million dollars of expiring money. Plus two picks.

• 23:32Bill Simmons?

  And two unprotected picks, which seems like a pretty fair trade.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  No one in the league seems to know if New Orleans is like, open for business. If they're just like, if they're out, if they're out for the holiday weekend already, like with, anyone there?

• 23:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the Portland trade too. So these last three are the ones that I was centered on. That New Orleans one. For Portland, I think Drew has to be in the trade. I don't want Jeremy Grant. Can't put Jeremy Grant's contract for two years can't be in that trade.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  It's the same contract as Drew Holiday. It's the exact same contract, basically.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  I'd much rather have Drew Holiday, who's already been in Boston.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  I don't disagree with you, but I don't, I think, I mean, Jeremy Grant's availability has been an issue. He actually shot it pretty well last year. I don't, I don't think he's just sort of like dead money by any means.

• 24:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about this? Drew Holiday, Kamara and picks for Jalen. That's a trade I could talk myself into from a basketball standpoint.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  How many, how many picks?

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  Now I have three really good guards. I don't know.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  It's, look, I mean, that's-

• 24:31Bill Simmons?

  How many picks is Kamara worth? At least two, two and a half?

• 24:34Speaker 02

  But that's the kind of trade where you are going to be met with the talk radio or whatever backlash of like, we just traded a finals MVP for who's the headliner? The 36, 37 year old guard who we already had on the team once and he's fine. He's good and like, Tumani who?

• 24:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Tumani what?

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Like the boss, the Boston casual fans have no idea who that is. And like, okay, some picks, like that's what we got for Jaylen Brown? And I don't, like, I don't think you're off base pitching that is like the structure of a trade that makes some sense for both teams. Though I don't know if Portland loves the Abdi, Jaylen Brown fit personally, but.

• 25:15Bill Simmons?

  It's, it would be, I'll tell you this, it would be a bitch to play against.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Lot of downhill force.

• 25:21Bill Simmons?

  This is the trade.

• 25:24Bill Simmons?

  We've been texting about this this week. And there's a lot of, lot of smoke billowing around Denver in general. Some I believe, some I don't believe. Murray and Cam Johnson for Jalen and Hauser, which would save Denver $10 million this year. The Celtics could take Cam Johnson in their trade exception. Murray is 50 million this year, 54 and 57. So he's about 8 million behind Jalen in each of those years.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  But same amount of years.

• 25:57Bill Simmons?

  Same amount of years, but I'm shaving off 7, 8 million. I'm adding Cam Johnson, who I can either keep or spin in a trade. And I am getting somebody who I still think is one of the best 25 players in the league back for Jalen. And I think in, I think if I'm Boston, I'm signing up for that trade. If I'm Denver, I'm at least having a six hour meeting and it's a reconstruction of a, of a team because you're going to remove the Murray Jokic pick and roll. But you could run a lot of that offense through Joker. You re-sign Peyton Watson with the extra money. You have him more involved offensively and you could argue that that team's better. It's bigger, it's deeper.

• 26:39Bill Simmons?

  You have Jokic and Gordon and, and Jalen as your front line. You're just, you have more flexibility and you have somebody who can really step in if Gordon gets hurt, which he gets hurt every year. And now you're not getting destroyed if that happens and you're under the tax and you can get Watson. That trade makes a ton of sense to me, Zach.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  It's, it's a very, it's a good trade. It's a well, well done Picasso trade. Boston gets a little smaller. I think depending on whether Cam Johnson, you know, sticks around the team, they get a little, although they played with only one of the Jays almost all of last year anyway. It's a good trade. They, I mean, Jabal Murray addresses a need for Boston.

• 27:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, it allows them to go, it allows them to go three guards at the same time, which is something they could only really do last year when Simons was on the team and then couldn't. And also, like, the, the reason they got into this Yanis thing in general was because they felt like Hugos and Shireman, and maybe even Hauser, Walsh, like, they just felt like they could patch the minutes together that Jalen had with worse stats, but at least like two-way stuff. And then Tatum would take some of the offensive slack. But really, they wanted to unleash Hugo, which is why he was untouchable in that trade. So they would cover the wings, they're, they would still need a center. But it's an interesting team. And honestly, I think Murray's a great bet. I thought he had too much of a burden on the Nuggets. It was basically him or Jokic doing everything, and he's in the West.

• 28:11Bill Simmons?

  And I, I thought he was really good last year, and I thought he wore down as, as March, April, we got into the playoffs. Seltz could put him on a 30-minute game timeline with White and Pritchard, and I, I just feel like they could manage his minutes better.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Here's my obstacle if I'm Denver, is I have no, Christian Brown is now my only proven rotation playoff level guard on the whole team, out of, out of anyone. Now, I can do, maybe bring back Bruce Brown on the minimum, whatever. It sounds like Tim Hardaway Jr. is gonna have some suitors, uh, maybe out of their price range. Jalen Pickett is the only point guard on the team, like, the only one.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  And that makes me a little bit nervous.

• 28:53Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't they have their mid-level in this, though, or at least like some free agent stuff?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  It's pretty tight, but I'd, I'd have to sit and redo the math, but, um, they could, because they're shaving some money off. I mean, they'd get guys. Uh, I also think there'd be a learning curve of like, fitting Jaylen Brown's game with the point. You're going all in on point Jokic, like, almost all in, depending on who you get in free agency. And sort of fitting Jaylen Brown into that universe, I think would be, have a little sticky at times.

• 29:19Bill Simmons?

  They kind of went all in on that anyway, didn't they?

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Well, the Murray-Jokic pick and roll, and like, Murray is, is like a fail-safe, like, all right, let's, tonight's Jamal's just cooking. You can run that, all that stuff with Jaylen Brown. It's just, it just feels a little... A little different than me to to me than than and that's maybe that's fine and you obviously get bigger and there's something kind of fun about like Jokic and a bunch of wings and like tweener forwards just taking up the entire court with their arms.

• 29:45Bill Simmons?

  Right. A little more flexibility. That that was my favorite fake one of all those. Who do you think has a longer meeting about that trade? So it's just Murray and Cam Johnson for Jalen and Hauser. That's it. Who has a longer meeting about it?

• 29:58Speaker 02

  About that trade alone, I think Denver has the longer meeting because they are they are at some sort of crossroads where they need to figure out, we're really good. We fell short. We had a lot of health issues. Aaron Gordon, again, you know, the two teams that were above us in the standings are just so goddamn good that and we have this all time great player in the middle of his prime. Have has what we do grown stale? Is it is it time to make change almost for change sake? Is it time to just sort of risk a little bit of like instability in the way we play just to get our upside up a little bit? Or is that is that too risky? I don't I don't know. But I think they are at a major crossroads as a franchise. They also

• 30:42Speaker 02

  have to bring back Peyton Watson, by the way, which we had we didn't.

• 30:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I think that's that's part of that trade, right? That saving 10 million makes it way easier to bring him back.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  I mean, just imagine a lineup of Christian Brown, Jaylen Brown, Peyton Watson, Aaron Gordon, and Nikola Jokic. Like, I have no idea how that works on offense, other than Jokic should answer every question on offense that has ever been posed to him. But that's that's a pretty funky lineup. And that would be like, I would I would pay a lot of money to watch that. Watch them work that out.

• 31:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, basically, you'd be getting weird, which is we're going to talk about Minnesota after the break, but it's the same kind of principle. To me, if I'm them, I don't think the team I have, I can beat OKC in San Antonio and their fucking pit bull guards on both teams. And I don't think I can get Jamal Murray through two straight rounds of that. Plus, Minnesota, maybe two with McDaniel's and Edwards. Like, I just.

• 31:38Bill Simmons?

  You could see him wearing down in real time, I thought, last year. So that would be the reason. But that would be a weird one for me because obviously Jokic and Curry are my two favorite non Celtics and to have Jalen on a Jokic team and, you know, I'm about as pro Jalen as you're gonna find. He really, I thought he was just awesome last year and I love the fact that the best quality about him, and this is what advanced analytics isn't gonna measure, is he really is up for the challenge. If somebody else is a good team with a really good player, he takes it personally and wants to outplay that person in a game. And I, it sounds like a really dumb thing to say, but there's just

• 32:20Bill Simmons?

  not enough guys in the league that are wired like that. You know, where it's like, oh, this guy, I've circled this game. I've been dying to go against this team tonight. So anyway, all right, we're gonna take a break and then I'm gonna unleash my LaMelo trade opinions.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  I can't wait.

• 32:35Bill Simmons?

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• 33:32Bill Simmons?

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• 34:14Bill Simmons?

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• 34:34Bill Simmons?

  One last point I wanted to make on that Jalen trade. We didn't have a Houston trade in there because Houston has literally been telling everybody, we want no part of Jalen. We're not interested. That team was a Bravo show last year. How were they drawing the line at, oh, Jalen Brown would make us weird? You guys had the weirdest team in the planet. You know what Jalen Brown would do is actually show up for games and not roll over in a playoff series. Anyway, LaMelo. It's just like, settle down.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  What's the number one?

• 35:02Bill Simmons?

  You guys were a disaster last year.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Educate me. What's the number one Bravo show in your life? What's a Bravo show that you watch?

• 35:10Bill Simmons?

  Real Housewives.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  So all the Real Housewives of any variety, that's all Bravo. Everyone.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  I mean, they're just still spinning off cities. They did Rhode Island.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  If you go to rich Newport, Rhode Island, there's probably some good stuff going on there.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  Some good accents too. My wife's a big Below Deck fan. All right, LaMelo trade. You already gave your take.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  I did.

• 35:33Bill Simmons?

  Do you want me to give the Cliff Notes of your take? Or do you want to just give your 45 second take?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  No, I want to hear the Bill Simmons Cliff. Let's filter it through your ears.

• 35:41Bill Simmons?

  I listened to your pod. It was a very entertaining pod. I listened to it on a nice little power walk in very hot LA. And you were bullish on the trade for both teams, actually.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  I think it's like, I think it's like a B for both teams. If I were a trade grade guy, that's about what I would do.

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm at A minus or A for Charlotte and I'll go into the reasons in a second.

• 36:05Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't believe the trade from Minnesota. I fucking hated it. I hated it. I just couldn't believe it. You do this trade, I wrote down some notes. You do this trade if you want to become the most beloved NBA team with under 25 fans who play video games and are online a lot. It's a 2K merchandise jersey selling trade. I get it. You don't want teams to double Anthony Edwards anymore.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  I feel like, I feel like I get it is kind of an important qualifier too. I hate the fucking trade.

• 36:38Bill Simmons?

  I get it on paper. LaMelo Ball would solve a lot of problems that you had with Anthony Edwards last year. There's one problem. He doesn't fucking play. He's played two seasons of the last six. Last year, Charlotte brilliantly, only he, he played big minutes early, got hurt, came back. I watched a ton of Charlotte last year, as you know. They were using him like a race car on Sundays, just driving him slowly around the block. He averaged 27.5 minutes a game from mid-November on, Zach. They were really, really careful about not getting him hurt again. Almost like they knew they were gonna trade him this summer. Flawed mid-20s superstar.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  What's that mean?

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, just that's how you, that's how you're able to get a guy like this for Nas Reed and a first round pick and a swap. And I get it from the Minnesota side where on paper it makes sense. Now they could play LaMelo and Ant and Io together against these smaller lineups against San Antonio and against OKC, which didn't have the option to do last year. And the only thing I really understand from it is that they built, they built that previous team to beat Denver, right? Conley is like, we have to beat Denver. What is the team we can put together to beat Denver? And now it seems like they've built this new team to beat OKC and San Antonio, who are gonna have more talent than them. Well, how do you beat them? These two three-point shooters and we can guard with, with Io and McDaniels and Gobert, hopefully protecting LaMelo.

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  And we're gonna have three-point shooting variance with these two guys who in any game can get super hot. I just don't trust LaMelo at all. And if you're wrong, Ant's leaving. And by the way, Tim Conley might be leaving too. He's got a year left on his deal. And if I'm Tim Conley, I'm cool making this trade because if it doesn't work out, I'm seeing you guys anyway. I'm going to be out. He's got a year left on his deal. So this to me feels like a hail Mary trade that your fans are going to like because LaMelo is the best player in it. The Charlotte fans are mad because they love LaMelo. LaMelo doesn't fucking play. I wrote down, he's the least durable good guard of the last 25 years. Six seasons, 9,400 minutes, zero playoff games,

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  which puts him on this crazy list of guys who have averaged 20 points a game in their first six seasons, but have played less than 10,000 minutes. And it's basically just him and Ja Morant and Zion, and that's it? He's not reliable. He has a, I think he has metal in his ankle. Like this is not like, oh, Steph Curry had ankle injuries too. LaMelo's injuries are way worse than Steph Curry's were. And I just wouldn't have bet on it. I thought this was a crazy trade.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Okay. I mean,

• 39:21Bill Simmons?

  That's it. That's where I've landed. And I landed there right away.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  All that, like, all the availability stuff is 1,000% fair game. Also,

• 39:35Speaker 02

  something I probably should have mentioned more when I reacted the other day was there is this sort of like drip, drip, drip trickle down effect of Minnesota transactions kind of chasing their own tail a little bit, similar to how Dallas had to chase its own tail when like, all right, we left Jalen Brunson, we got to trade for Kyrie. The Grant Williams thing blew up in our face. We got to trade him and a pick to replace him with. There's like a little element of that of like,

• 39:58Bill Simmons?

  Phoenix too.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  We traded everything for Gobert. We're a little asset poor. And now we're really expensive. We're probably going to have to trade Towns. We trade Towns. Okay, that didn't really work. Now we have to do something else. So there's a little bit of element of like chasing their tail a bit. I get, I get all of the, the concerns. I guess my, if you're worried about Anthony Edwards' happiness level.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  I guess my question would be what you just hold for something else down the line and go and do you do not make the Randall trade like what do you what do you do if you're Bill Simmons Timberwolves GM?

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Randall trade they clear was clearly a money dump, right? And you could say it was a two part trade, but and it opened the door for LaMelo, but I also think they just wanted to get away from Randall and not not pay this crazy luxury tax thing. I have real questions about them spending a ton of money in general.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  I mean, they're spending right now. The payroll is is going to be high. I think they're going to add it. I think they're also not done. I think that's important to say they're not done rounding out the team for next season.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  But the Towns trade was a financial trade period.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:01Bill Simmons?

  That was it. They that was we got to get off some of this money and do it. And it turned out to be a really crazy trade. They have, I think, 11 million to spend on four guys. They don't have their own first, control their own first for seven years. What did you think of that IO contract was the other one that I was kind of shocked by? Five years, 112 million? What was going on there?

• 41:22Speaker 02

  I I what do you I mean, that's what

• 41:25Bill Simmons?

  I like him, but

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Kobe White got the same annual sale, actually a little more annual, less years, but same annual

• 41:30Bill Simmons?

  Kobe White got three for 74.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, less years, 25 a year. I was at like 22 and a half a year.

• 41:37Bill Simmons?

  For five years, though?

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Well, the yeah, I mean, this like, don't you want? So you can't win with these contracts, right? Like if they're too short, you're like, oh, man, we only got that guy and he's going to be extension eligible, this and that. And now it's this one's too long for you. They got what? How old is IO?

• 41:51Bill Simmons?

  I just if I had told I know I I like him too, and I thought he was really good in the playoffs. If I had told you in February, when he got traded for a second round pick, that he was going to sign for a five year, 112 million dollar deal in the second apron thing, I just would have been surprised by it.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  He's 26 years old. I you can't win like if it's a two or three year. Do you want a three year deal just right down the middle? That's it? That's the perfect length?

• 42:14Bill Simmons?

  I just thought it was interesting. They they properly, maybe even splurged a little on Io, but they've been cutting corners with some of these other stuff. And, you know, Randall was a guy who made multiple second team O M B As. And the reason that he went sideways after the All-Star break, because they fucking tried to trade him right before the trade deadline for Giannis. And he was never the same after that.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  The other drip, drip, drip thing I neglected to mention in the drip, drip, drip of assets is the Dillingham pick not working out was a big, a big.

• 42:43Bill Simmons?

  Right, but at least that turned into Io.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Right, but they had, again, they had to throw picks and all their, they're chasing. Not just mistakes, because I don't know if the Rudy trade can be classified as a mistake anymore, but they're chasing. They're just, it's like a, it's like a better that is losing and keeps chasing and keeps spending more.

• 43:00Bill Simmons?

  It's like a Ponzi scheme blackjack thing. First of all, they missed their title window. They were a conference finals team twice in a row and the West was weaker and they had a real chance and they couldn't get there. And you go back to that Dallas series, I think was really probably their best chance when you think about that matchup and they couldn't beat them. I didn't mention this in my LaMelo case or anti LaMelo trade case. And I really liked watching LaMelo last year and I enjoyed the hell out of the Hornets. We have zero. I repeat, zero evidence that LaMelo Ball can hold up for one playoff series with his hoops IQ. Or the physicality of a playoff series, much less for what Minnesota is trying to do with a trade like this.

• 43:45Bill Simmons?

  Win four playoff rounds or at least three to get to the finals. We've never seen him play at the level of the playoffs we just watched with the physicality of the teams that we watched and just what basketball is like. You're going to need, this is like the Wemby conversation. If this is your second best player, sorry, buddy, you can't play 27.5 minutes each game, you know, in a series like. We're going to need you for 37 now and it's going to be really physical and you're going to get banged down. You're getting knocked in the basket support. You can't take the 30 footer with 30, with 30 seconds left in the game, down one with, you know, 20 seconds left in the shot clock. Like you have to become a smarter, better player. I thought he made a lot.

• 44:23Bill Simmons?

  A lot of strides last year, but that Miami playing game was a roller coaster.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  It was a roller coaster.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  Think of how nuts we went after that game. Then the next game they got blown out, but I just, I, we have no evidence that this is a guy who could handle a playoff series against San Antonio or okay.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  But this is exactly why the Hornets traded him. It's exactly what I said on my show is like they, I just the physicality toughness, all that stuff you just said. Um, plus I do, and I said this too. I do think their record in the play in tournament of it's only been four games and three of them have been like absolutely disastrous blowout losses. And in the Miami one, he did have 30 points, but I think he shot 12 of 31. Uh, also fair to note, like he's a rookie, but Khan was a disaster and down the stretch of the season and including in those games.

• 45:07Bill Simmons?

  Khan was hurt though. I mean, Khan, Khan hurt his back. He wasn't the same the last 10 games.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  The playoff.

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  Don't you talk about my son that way.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Well, I don't, I was going to say, I don't know what would happen if.

• 45:15Bill Simmons?

  He was hurt though.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  I don't know. Like Hugo, Hugo, Hugo versus Khan is becoming like the battle for your heart is, is getting a little, it's getting, it's, they both have, they both have some work to do to prove themselves to you.

• 45:29Bill Simmons?

  Listen, I, I, I love them like I love both my children. We don't pick. When you, when you have two kids, you just support them.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  And so it's an easy out for you because when the Hornets play the Celtics, when their one team plays the other, you're going to cheer for the Celtics because that's your team. Like we need Hugo to get traded for another team. That's the true test.

• 45:45Bill Simmons?

  Hugo and the Bucks.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Of who, of who your, your real love goes to, but um, that's exactly why uh, the Hornets, I think trade, I think it boiled, you can make the case about picks and salaries and all this stuff. I think it really just boiled down to, we watched the playoffs and we just don't think he can hang at that level. And that, those are all fair. Those are all fair.

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  We don't trust him physically or basketball IQ wise.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Physically, physically.

• 46:10Bill Simmons?

  To win 16 playoff games with this guy.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  I think you can get over the IQ stuff because like you said, I think it trended well last year. I think being the second, the clear second best guy on a team is going to really kind of force him to recalibrate some of the ways he plays. But I think it's more of the physicality stuff and I, I think that's a completely fair bet for Charlotte. I think when you combine this trade with the Bridges trade that happened today, that. We're going to talk about. I think Charlotte has come out looking awesome just to to like put those together. Great work by the Hornets who continue to just kill it under their new regime. For Minnesota, I would just I would just ask again, what are what what path? I mean, according to John Krasinski, they tried to get Jaylen Brown and they couldn't get, you know, like this package was not going to get them Jaylen Brown.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  So what what do you you're trying to compete with San Antonio, Oklahoma City. You're on the clock with Anthony Edwards. What the status quo was not acceptable, right? Like that's that like we we clearly they didn't think so.

• 47:11Bill Simmons?

  But you're laying out all the you're laying out all the logic for some of the the worst big NBA trades we've had over the last 40 years. It's like, well, we got to do something. Okay.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  I don't disagree.

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  Something to LaMelo Ball.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  I don't disagree. First of all, I think LaMelo Ball. I think a lot of this has to do with what your prior is on LaMelo Ball. And you and I have disagreed about LaMelo Ball for like five years. I just think he's better than you think he is. I've always thought he's been better.

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  I thought you durability, though.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  That's fine.

• 47:36Bill Simmons?

  I like when guys play. It's like it's it's one of my weird things. I like seeing them on a basketball.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  It's not weird, but I I you gotta do. I I guess you're saying just do nothing and just figure it out later, which is a completely like a logical way to go about it. I think the Wolves had concluded that that wasn't an option for them.

• 47:55Bill Simmons?

  The case for it is.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  I think they're going to be good. I think this is going to work and I think they're going to be good. If your bar is, well, can they beat San Antonio four times out of seven or Oklahoma City four times out of seven? It's a pretty tough bar to hit, you know, I just but I think offensively, this is going to be a super.

• 48:09Bill Simmons?

  That's my bar for the for all the trades they made because I felt like last year, one of the reasons they didn't look better in the playoffs was they had a bunch of injuries at a bad time.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Well, they still have one.

• 48:19Bill Simmons?

  In the playoffs, I was got hurt during the playoffs and D. Fensel got hurt during the playoffs. Like, to me, this feels like an overreaction, all of that. And so the stat I had before first six seasons, less than 10 K minutes, just guys who average 18 points a game. Basically, merger on it's Ja, LaMelo, Zion and Clark Kellogg. That's it. Those are all the guys in the last like 45 years. He turns 25 in August. And if you're trying to make the case for Minnesota, you would say, look, we've seen a lot of success with immature, injury prone, talented guys in the first like five, six years of their career who went to a different team and put it together. And I think there's going to be nights with this team.

• 49:04Bill Simmons?

  And I'm sure the Minnesota fans will be on high alert and even people I have in my life, like Nate Tice who like Minnesota. There's going to be nights when they're on TV on a Thursday night. And they're playing somebody awesome and LaMelo hits eight threes and Ant hits nine and they beat somebody by 18 and they look awesome. And they're doing like chest bumps and all kinds of stuff in midcourt. People go, oh, how's that LaMelo trade now? I'm just telling you, talk to me in April and May.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  There's going to be Bill Simmons poo pooing it.

• 49:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. Just wait. Just talk to me, April and May. I don't care what happens October through March. I just don't.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Here's the real question with Minnesota and I don't. I think people think this question has been answered because they made two straight conference finals and, and there had been such a woe be gone franchise for so long between Garnett and those two conference finals. That people think the question has been answered definitively as a yes, they should have made the Rudy Gobert trade. If you just reverse time.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Like if you, if you assume that the Gobert acquisition is why they ultimately had to dump Towns. And we all said, when they traded for Rudy Gobert, a Towns deal looks inevitable because of the financial realities and the fact that he's a center and all this. Like we all said it at the time. Like as soon as that trade happened, even before it happened, I remember saying, if they do this, the Towns trade is the next domino that will come eventually. Did they give up on Ant plus Towns too early? By making the Gobert trade, I think is still kind of an open question because it not only robbed you of a lot of assets. I think they over, they clearly overpaid for Gobert. Like it, it, it both got them team success. To a point that people have already stopped questioning whether they should have made the trade or not, and that's okay.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  But they clearly overpaid either way and it forced their hand on Cat. And we just didn't get to see all that much of like Anthony Edwards plus Karl Anthony Towns is the foundation of a team. I think it's just an interesting question.

• 51:05Bill Simmons?

  I hated the Gobert trade as much as any trade I've ever, ever that's been made. They made two conference finals with it. I don't know if I was wrong.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 51:15Bill Simmons?

  They didn't get to the finals.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  That's the thing.

• 51:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought they gave up too much.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  That's, that's the thing. I don't know if you were wrong. And like, I, I was on TV that moment and I, I said on ESPN, I am in disbelief at how much they gave up for Rudy Gobert. And I was as puzzled as you were. I maybe didn't hate it, hate it as much as you did. And I'm not even sure you were wrong despite the conference. I, I guess you are wrong because of the conference finals, but like this, this, all of this starts with that trade.

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  With all that said about the LaMelo trade, I never would have done it. I would have thrown my body in front of it. I'm really excited to watch them this year. I think they'll be really fun.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Well, so.

• 51:52Bill Simmons?

  But that's the problem. They'll be really fun as a regular season team and I don't think as constructed, I think they've reduced their odds to win three straight playoff rounds in the West. I don't think they have the same odds. They added variance, but I don't think they, when the durability and I just don't trust LaMelo.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  How high, how high do you?

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't it scare you that Charlotte's like?

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 52:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're good. Yeah, take him. He's not even on a max. He's at 43 million and Charlotte, Charlotte, by the way, just could have brought back Kobe White and tried to do what they did last year. And they're like, we're good. We're, we're, we're going to move on now.

• 52:27Bill Simmons?

  It was a classic selling high.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  There was something else I wanted to ask you. Now I forgot what it was.

• 52:32Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry.

• 52:32Speaker 02

  No, about, about this trade.

• 52:35Bill Simmons?

  By the way, the other thing with this trade that I thought was interesting that everybody missed. Josh Green was just shoved in this trade. I mean, he's like 15 million a year. He was irrelevant for the Hornets.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Well, I was listening, I was listening.

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  Dump him in the trade.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  I was listening to one pod where they were like, oh, this is a great, like, you know, they, Josh Green, you know, Minnesota got a lot of depth in this. That was a good get, but like, good get. This was like a must. You have to take him. That was like Charlotte. If you're doing this, you're taking this. Oh, that's what I was going to ask you is let's, let's try. To just put this trade in a vacuum, I know that's not possible, but like in a vacuum, both with Timberwolves history and like cap ramifications and all that. Do you think LaMelo for Nas Reed and one unprotected pick and a few swaps that may not even, like it's unclear if they're gonna, is that actually too high of a price for LaMelo Ball? Like, is that that much that you're giving up if you're Minnesota?

• 53:34Speaker 02

  A sixth man of the year who's now gonna start and is a good player, has some defensive issues, some swaps that may or may not be anything, a really good pick and some seconds. Is that actually that high of a price?

• 53:47Bill Simmons?

  Think about where we were in September, October, when we were talking about LaMelo, Ja and Trey Young all together.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  When I was the one saying LaMelo has the most value of the three and it's not close, we had this conversation.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  I thought, I thought it was a little closer than you did, but I thought those were the three and it seemed like he had the best chance to be redeemed and maybe traded instead of giving away. Trey Young was given away. Ja Morant, not only can't be given away.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  That's, that's the other subplot is like.

• 54:13Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna have to add a pick to get rid of him. LaMelo, they rehabilitated his trade value enough to where they got, I thought, you know, I, I think you would have taken that in September, even if it would have made the fans, man, it's like, look, we don't know if this dude's ever gonna play. They were able to get 2,000 minutes out of him and they were able to trade him.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  My only point is if you isolate the trade, which you can't, I get that, but I, I don't think they like overpaid for LaMelo Ball to some crazy level. I think it's like a fair.

• 54:42Bill Simmons?

  But you have to throw the Randall into it.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:45Bill Simmons?

  Randall has to be part of the trade. They traded Randall, Nas Reed and.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  I guess that's fair.

• 54:50Bill Simmons?

  The pick and the swap for Josh Green and LaMelo is the trade. Right? And that's, I don't know.

• 55:00Bill Simmons?

  I feel bad for the Minnesota fans. They haven't won a title since 1991 and LaMelo is this is going to be a very seductive combo. I'm telling you, there's going to be nights where you're like, holy shit. Ant and LaMelo had 23s combined. This has never happened in the history. There's going to be nights. They're going to be really fun together. We'll see. We'll see how long he can play. From a Charlotte side, and they did another trade today. They so they traded Miles Bridges for Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neal and won that trade. They won that trade just with the three players in it. Just Miles Bridges for Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neal. I've won the trade. No, how about this? I'll throw in the worst of my 2029 swap. You'll get the

• 55:42Bill Simmons?

  less favorable version of that. And you give me your unprotected first and 33. And Phoenix is like, that sounds great. Let's do it. What a fucking terrible trade by them. That was why I mean, I just the picks I explain it to me.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  I mean, do I have to? Are you making me do that?

• 56:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, how can nobody? How about top? I guess you can't put protections on the picks anymore, but.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  I checked. I checked. I was like, I texted lots of people. I was like, no protection on it? Not anything? Top? Nothing? Top? Okay.

• 56:20Bill Simmons?

  For a year of Miles Bridges. He's a free agent next year.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  So here's the thing. It's not going to be a year of Miles Bridges. You know that. They're going to resign Miles Bridges and you have to price that into the trade as well. And that could make your evaluation of it, Bill Simmons, even worse, depending on what the number is. And they're probably going to extend Dillon Brooks too. And all of a sudden, this team's going to be pretty expensive. I don't want to explain the trade to you. I don't like the trade for Phoenix. They did it because they didn't have a real power forward. They got one now. They did it probably because Miles Bridges is a Michigan State guy. Great. Congratulations. And they did it because they saved money. They saved money this year and they get $29 million of Grayson Allen plus Royce O'Neal, who they view as just sort of fungible, whatever, seventh guys off the books. And they get a starter. He's gonna, he's gonna start.

• 57:05Bill Simmons?

  Who signed those guys? Just out of curiosity?

• 57:08Speaker 02

  Uh, the Suns signed both of them.

• 57:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so the Suns now have to get off the money that they gave to these guys?

• 57:14Speaker 02

  I'm again.

• 57:15Bill Simmons?

  If I was a Suns fan, I'd be losing my mind.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  I did.

• 57:18Bill Simmons?

  Why did you give these contracts?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  You made me be Ishbia spokesperson. You assigned me the fucking job, so let me do it without interruption. So I tried my best to do it. I don't like the trade. I think it's an awesome trade for Charlotte, who loses LaMelo Ball, right? So they lose like the, the high wattage star. A guy that I think should have gotten all NBA consideration this year, like third team all NBA. He was in the mix for that. They lose, they don't get back a player in Kobe White re-signing, plus Grayson Allen, plus Royce O'Neal, that's anywhere near as good as LaMelo Ball. But Kobe White's good and is a viable starter. I think they lose some playmaking and passing. They're gonna have to make up, but what they have now is so much depth. If those guys are all healthy, that they don't have to speed up Steinbach.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  They don't have to speed up Christian Anderson, but those guys maybe already, they have like a lot of good players on this team. And in the regular season, that's really important and just sort of getting through the season and they kick the pick out they owe to 2029. So they're not under a huge amount of pressure and it's a swap thing anyway. So it's not like a huge risk.

• 58:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, they have the best collection of picks probably in the Eastern Conference now.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  And Phoenix that unprotected 2033, I get what they're doing. What they're doing is we're exchanging a future pick for a now pick because we've traded all of our now picks, our near window picks for Durant, and we need, we need to be able to do stuff in this period of time when Devin Booker's approaching 30 or whatever he is. That 2033 pick, just like the 2031 Suns pick that Memphis, I believe, has.

• 58:48Bill Simmons?

  Or these Bucks picks that Portland has that it's like, oh, that's nine years from now. What do we care? And then it's like, oh, now they're coming.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Important to state, we don't know what the rules are going to be, uh, in terms of trading draft picks and lottery and all that stuff.

• 59:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Uh, but, but those picks are going to be extremely valuable trade chips and I don't, I, it's not like Phoenix has any roadmap to being a title contender in the next three or four years. So I don't.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have a follow-up idea for them that you're gonna do the thing where you. Can't speak for a minute.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  But Charlotte's picks. So they have the 27 Dallas first top two protected next year. They have a Miami pick that's going to be unprotected in 28. They can swap with Minnesota in 28. They have a bunch of swap stuff. And they have unprotected Minnesota Charlotte in 2033 on top of a shitload of flexibility that they have now because Zach Lowe. They traded LaMelo Green and Bridges, $78 million. Turn that into Nas O'Neal and Grayson Allen, 52 million. And they also have a $41 million trade exception with all these picks. They have their mid level still. From some of the reporting, it seems like Kobe White

• 1:00:03Bill Simmons?

  was not a slam dunk to come back as like a third guard. And when they traded LaMelo, all of a sudden that Kobe White deal was done. They're going to have O'Neal who can play three, four. They're going to have Nas who can play three, four, five, really. Grayson Allen coming off the bench as yet another shooter. And by the way, where did Grayson Allen go to college, Zach? Where'd he go to college?

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  The team I always cheer against in the tournament, I think.

• 1:00:28Bill Simmons?

  Duke University located in? North Carolina. Where did Kobe White go to college?

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Where did Rick Schnall go to college?

• 1:00:37Bill Simmons?

  So they have coming off the bench, Allen, Nas, Anderson, if he's good, Kalkbrenner, Steinbach. A year of Grant Williams. They

• 1:00:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm so impressed by, I've been saying this for two years. I've been so impressed. Every move they've made, I'm like, another good one. Oh, like that. Great one there. Is this the team you would want to be in the East now for the next seven years over everybody else? Not next to your next seven.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Seven years, I get my pick of teams.

• 1:01:07Bill Simmons?

  Just for how they're loaded, locked and loaded right now.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  I like the city. I like the city too. I like the ownership. Okay, so let's, can I give you some candidates?

• 1:01:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, by the way, I didn't prep you for this because I wanted to see your agonized reaction.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  No, this is great because I love to imagine like this is like a, like where could, where would I want to work? Off the top.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Charlotte is definitely maybe number one. If I trusted the Reinsdorf's at all, the Bulls with Caleb Wilson and Swain are like now kind of interesting. And like if I were the person that saves, that's and Buzelis, if I could like save the Bulls, like what a legend I would be and how fun Chicago is and all that. But you know, I don't trust the owners.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  And they don't have the same level assets and you have owners that aren't going to ever spend.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  The Wizards, despite getting DeBansa and having all this stuff, they're just still the Wizards. I can't put them above these teams. Their uniforms stink. The arena is dead. I can't, I can't do it.

• 1:02:04Bill Simmons?

  Trey Young, Trey Young for four years.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  I'll tell you, I'll tell you two cities, a city I like. I mean, if you give me seven years, seven years.

• 1:02:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm saying seven years of assets, players you have now, chance to win a title. You got to factor all of it in.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  I just like Philly a lot. I like the city of Philly a lot. Seven years lets me ride out the Embiid thing.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  So you have VJ, Maxey, I'm going to have expirings with Embiid and George and you're, I have a fan base that the moment anything goes wrong, I'm going to be blamed and tortured.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:02:38Bill Simmons?

  It's weird that Boston.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Atlanta is a good one.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  It's weird that you've mentioned eight teams and didn't mention Boston, which I think speaks to maybe where Boston is right now.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Seven years, I'm just going fun. I want some warm weather too. So Atlanta is a good one. I want good weather, some beaches.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Clearly Charlotte. Charlotte flipped this around. They were the worst run team in the league or in the top three year after year for 15 straight years. Right?

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Long time. They haven't won a playoff series in like a

• 1:03:08Bill Simmons?

  The entire time I've known you. And now, one of the things I like about this is I, you know, I think there's a lot of reasons they probably, I don't have inside sources with Charlotte. Like I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why you would be like, it's time to move on from LaMelo. I would guess one of the main reasons would be we, what we saw from Miller and what we saw from Khan as a rookie, which is the worst he's ever going to be. Is there more there from a ball handling, playmaking? Can we run more of the offense? Can we have more movement? Can we be more unpredictable? Can we just have like a 12 man team? Can we, can we start to look a little OKC-ish without the Shea piece of it? Can we have depth, shooting, interchangeable guys?

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  And then you guys, I was really glad Krasinski talked about this on the pod. I thought he was excellent that you did on Thursday. Talking about Nas Reed, what a fucking great guy he is. I mean, other than KG, the most beloved, and I guess Ant, but probably a top three most beloved Timber Wolf ever. Unbelievable behind the scenes guy. Selfless, like was one of the, like really could have torpedoed a lot of what happened with them in the last couple of years and just didn't. And I'm just a huge fan. We know what he looks like in the playoffs. I just think that team needed more adults and less kids. And they feel like they have now flipped that with Kobe and with, with Nas.

• 1:04:34Bill Simmons?

  And I'm sure there's another vet coming, but I really like where they're sitting.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  They have, the Hornets are in an unbelievable position. And it's not like we, I don't think you're missing anything about why they did this trade in the myriad of factors, including faith in Miller and Khan to level up even a little bit. I think part of it is also like, um, we're not, we're not going to get carried away with what happened in the last three months of last season.

• 1:05:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  We're not going to push all in for 26, 27. We're actually willing, if we do end up taking a small step back, we're actually willing to do that and we're fine with that. And, you know, if we do miss the playoffs or something like that, like the new lottery rules are, are pretty good for us in a lot of different ways. And so we're not going to accelerate for, for short-term gain. We're okay with that if we think it's the right move.

• 1:05:26Bill Simmons?

  And we sold high in a guy that might never play 2,000 minutes again for all we know in LaMelo, right?

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  It's a big one.

• 1:05:34Bill Simmons?

  FanDuel only has regular season win odds for two teams, just by the way.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 1:05:42Bill Simmons?

  50 plus wins for Minnesota is plus 108.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  So that means they think they're right, right on the 50 win level.

• 1:05:49Bill Simmons?

  45 plus for Miami is minus 210 and 50 plus is plus 140, which means they think Miami is probably in the 46, 47 range.

• 1:06:01Bill Simmons?

  The more I think about that trade for Miami, I, have you really like just spent five minutes in your brain thinking about an offense with Giannis and Bam and where they go?

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Bill Simmons?

  Just, just the geometry of where are they going to be every possession?

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  Yes, of course. That's, I did a whole podcast about it and I said.

• 1:06:20Bill Simmons?

  I know you did a podcast, but did you come up with an actual answer?

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  The number one reason that I am skeptical that this is a championship contender. Now we got to see how they round out the, we don't know anything, right? We don't know Powell. We don't know Wiggins. We don't know, like, we're going to learn all about what their team's going to look like.

• 1:06:37Bill Simmons?

  By the way, Powell, I think they started cutting his minutes as we got closer to the playoffs and in the playoffs, I think he's out.

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, that was a Powell hero. We have no faith that we can defend with those two guys on the floor together thing. But I mean, it's going to be very hard for them to make a competitive offer to Norah Powell. I would also bet on him being elsewhere at the beginning of the season. So, but we don't, my point is, we don't know what the team's going to look like. But the number one reason I said I'm skeptical that they can build an actual contender out of this, like a true blue finals championship contender, is I just think at heart Bam and Giannis are too duplicative on offense. And I know that that sounds crazy because Giannis is this bulldozer to the rim and Bam shot seven threes a game last year and all of that. They, at their best, they are still guys who want to operate in the middle of the floor. That's what they do. They do it differently stylistically, but that's where they want to live. And despite Bam taking a ton of threes and all that,

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  that's where they really should live. Like, I don't think any, Bam's got to get much better as a three point shooter for defenses to treat him like he's a real threat out there. And even so.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't see that.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  I'm just like, do you want Bam out of, he's not Karl Anthony Towns. Like, I want Karl Anthony Towns shooting 10 threes a game. He's that good of a shooter. I don't want an interior bruiser like that who's just an okay shooter, shooting eight to 10 threes a game. I'm not sure that I want that. And so.

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  It reminds me a little when Houston tried to make it work with Hakeem and Barkley in the late 90s.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  You know,

• 1:08:00Bill Simmons?

  It worked somewhat and they did make the Western Finals, but Barkley had to move out and Barkley had to shoot more threes and he was never a good three-point shooter. And I just, I always thought was clumsy and then remember they had Pippen that one year and then it was like, oh my God.

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  And like, to be clear, I think Miami is going to be really good. I think defensively they have a chance to be special. I think the East is, is like, going to be very interesting, but also very deep next year. And I just, win the finals and that's the goal when you make a trade like this. I just, it's going to be really hard and that's before you get into the Giannis who seems to be injured at the end of every season for five of the last six seasons.

• 1:08:37Bill Simmons?

  I do not think Miami is going to be very good.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  I mean, I think.

• 1:08:40Bill Simmons?

  I think they'll be fine. I think they'll be like between 43 and 47 wins, depending on how much Giannis plays.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Again, the price is palatable and you just have to, you know, there's three paths. There's the status quo, which clearly wasn't going anywhere. There's this path which may go in any number of directions. And then there's the what if we use all these assets on someone else path? And I just don't know if they saw that path anywhere else down the line. And in the meantime, I don't know what the upside was. So I get it.

• 1:09:06Bill Simmons?

  I'll tell you, if I was 80 years old, I definitely would have made the trade.

• 1:09:11Bill Simmons?

  Steve, back to Phoenix for a second?

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:09:17Bill Simmons?

  Ja Morant for Jalen Green. What else do you want me to throw in if I'm Memphis?

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  Okay, all right. I mean, now we've reached a point where.

• 1:09:28Bill Simmons?

  Is it an unprotected pick?

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  So Memphis.

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  I have a lot of picks.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Memphis gets Jalen Green.

• 1:09:34Bill Simmons?

  Straight up. This is a one for one.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  Who has 36 this year and a player option for 36 the next year.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  And I get off of a rant and I have to throw in a first, an unprotected first?

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  I, I'm asking what I need to throw in because I have better picks than that. I could give you my best of Minnesota, Cleveland or Utah in 27.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  I'm just.

• 1:09:56Bill Simmons?

  I could give you my Orlando first in 28 or 30.

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  Let, let me.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  You, you tell me what you want.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  Let me flip it around. Why is Phoenix doing that?

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Because they could get an extra pick. And they can roll the dice with Ja Morant for a year and hope changes scenery. Devin Booker.

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  A really good fan base. And maybe we, you, you know, this is last stop for Ja, basically.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Here's my answer if I'm Memphis, I'm throwing in nothing. That's my offer. It's Ja Morant for Jalen Green. I'd, I'd probably do that just to clean the slate and I get an interesting prospect to, not even a prospect, interesting young player to take a shot on a player who has not really covered himself.

• 1:10:38Bill Simmons?

  So you're doing the Michael Corleone, my offer is nothing.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, my offer is Ja Morant. You either want him or we don't make a deal because I, if they have the equivalent contract, I feel like they're like just equally sort of unknown in different ways as, as just assets going forward or whatever. Like Ja Morant has obviously reached the level in the NBA that's well above anything Jalen Green has done, but he's older and has a whole boatload of issues that come with him. But like they have, their contracts are the same length and Ja makes $8 million more a year, whatever. Like, I don't like, I'm not, I'm, I'm not interested in, I'm, I'm not that psyched about exchanging him for Jalen Green, even if it's completely toxic with him on the team, then I'm throwing you any good draft assets. So you get nothing. That's a deal with that. You either want Ja Morant or you don't.

• 1:11:24Bill Simmons?

  Do you like the idea of Ja Morant, Devin Booker, Miles Bridges?

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:11:29Bill Simmons?

  All of their centers and a couple of other swings that can guard.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Let's just, how about Phoenix? Just chill, like feel good season. You brought back all your key role players who everybody fell in love with, Tom Gillespie and Jordan Good. Let's just take, take, take a beat now. Okay, take a break. Controversial transaction today on a bunch of different levels. Let's chill out, no more team Sparty, like let's just chill.

• 1:11:50Bill Simmons?

  I would do it if I could get a real good pick back from Memphis.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  You're not getting one from me if I'm Zach Kleiman, I'm hanging up the phone. Sorry.

• 1:11:57Bill Simmons?

  Zach Kleiman, Boozer.

• 1:12:00Bill Simmons?

  Coward.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  I'm happy. I'm, this is what I'm saying. I'm happy.

• 1:12:03Bill Simmons?

  I hadn't talked about this on the pod either. You already did, but they got beef stew. They're just back, baby. What do we, we had grit and grind Grizzlies. What do we have? What is this version of the Grizz? They need a nickname. Verneau, come up with a nickname for these guys. It's not, you can't do grit and grind again. It's got to be something else. It's like the don't fuck with us Grizzlies.

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  My favorite moment of your-

• 1:12:22Bill Simmons?

  It's just like three men in a front line.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  My favorite moment of your draft recap podcast with Groggy House and, and draft beat Nick, Jay Kyle Man. Just a great odd couple of guests. My favorite moment was it pivoted from House saying something housy to like about Cam Boozer and the pick and, and to, to Kyle Man being like, listing off the players Cam Boozer was going to help make better in Memphis. Like, I think he's really gonna, like Cam Spencer and Cam Boozer are gonna have a good, good chemistry again. Like we've, Cam Spencer, like that's-

• 1:12:56Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna be a big winner.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  I think it transitioned from all the foods that you had ordered and how you were trying to keep House awake by mentioning food to Jay Kyle Man, hard pivot into Cam Spencer and how that was gonna fit.

• 1:13:09Bill Simmons?

  And everybody woke up.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  I mean, I woke up. I was like, wow, we ordered a pizza too. That's a big night.

• 1:13:17Bill Simmons?

  Ja Morant is a no-go for you if you're any of the other 29 teams at this point?

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  I don't think they have anything for Ja Morant right now. I mean, who's the team, right? Like you go through the list of teams that need point guards. Toronto was an LaMelo. I don't sense that they're in on Ja Morant. Minnesota made its move. Uh, uh, I don't, I mean Sacramento just drafted a point guard. I don't think they need to be in the business.

• 1:13:40Bill Simmons?

  If you're Minnesota, would you rather, no, actually I would have rather done LaMelo. Just Nas Reed for Ja Morant, basically.

• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  I mean, I think Memphis would have been thrilled to do that, although now they have a whole bunch of people.

• 1:13:52Bill Simmons?

  Memphis would have been delighted. I think they would have thrown a pick for that. All right. Before we go, a couple of quick things.

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:13:59Bill Simmons?

  It's June 28th.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:01Bill Simmons?

  What happens with LeBron?

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  I I wish I had a hot, good answer for you. I don't, I don't know. I really don't know.

• 1:14:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm surprised how many people in my life have asked me what I thought was gonna happen with him.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  Why are you surprised?

• 1:14:15Bill Simmons?

  And that made me realize like.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  He's LeBron James.

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  I just, there's these giant chess pieces, either, you know, there's Kawhi might get traded, Jaylen Brown, Jamal Murray, Detroit has all this cap space, there are all these things as we head toward

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  Anthony Davis.

• 1:14:29Bill Simmons?

  July 1st, Anthony Davis, we, you and I think out of all of these ones, Anthony Davis is, that would be my bet, bet my, you hate when I bet my life.

• 1:14:39Speaker 02

  I don't, it just makes me nervous.

• 1:14:39Bill Simmons?

  I would bet my life on the day, on the AD trade this summer over all the other famous max guys.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  The only thing, the only time I ever said that phrase out loud about sports was when Croatia was in a penalty kick game in the last World Cup and Luka Modric walked up and said, I would bet my life on Luka Modric, baby. I bet he made it, of course.

• 1:14:57Bill Simmons?

  So I have said Golden State for three months.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  You're sticking with it.

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm sticking with it. I'm sticking with the expendables that includes Anthony Davis, which I guess that would have to be Butler and the 2027 first, or I don't even know what he's, I'm sure Washington has to get some pick back.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  But I think getting.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Have we bought House in Anthony Davis Wizards jersey? Like, we, we gotta pool some money and get him one.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  House is treating Anthony Davis like he's, like, like when somebody steps into the White House because the president got, you know, pushed out or died or impeached or something. And there's somebody like Gerald Ford, Gerald Ford. Anthony Davis is Gerald Ford for House. He's just here for a year. He's gonna do a job. Anthony Davis is inexplicably washed if he's not staying and they're gonna turn him into a pick, hopefully.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  What's gonna be more fondly remembered in the Anthony Davis era in Washington and all the great fashion on the bench?

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  Dallas, no, the Dallas.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  Or the, the one and a half quarters that he played in his Dallas debut where the Magic were like, this is why, this is why we did the trade. This is it.

• 1:16:02Bill Simmons?

  Wilt Chamberlain for 40 minutes.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  For, for like a year.

• 1:16:05Bill Simmons?

  That was their Super Bowl weekend.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  They clung to those like, remember those two quarters? That was the vision.

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  That was crazy. Um, so I would say Golden State. I wonder if the Clippers.

• 1:16:19Bill Simmons?

  Who have both cap space and flexibility and a bunch of different ways to add him.

• 1:16:25Bill Simmons?

  I just don't know if LeBron James would ever play for the Clippers. Now, he did, he did go to Miami. That was a surprise. He did go back to Cleveland and Dan Gilbert. That was a surprise. He went to the Lakers, which was Kobe Bryant's team. When he went over there and, and kind of, by the way, still is.

• 1:16:44Bill Simmons?

  So I, I, I wouldn't rule him out going anywhere. The Clippers solved the most issues for him for get stay in LA. Lot of golf courses, doesn't have to leave his house. But Golden State's a 50 minute flight from here. And Golden State, as you know, is famously lackadaisical about making sure guys are around all the time. So if LeBron wanted to kind of come in and out, I think he'd be able to.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  But to see in terms of living in San Francisco.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  The guy shows up five hours before every game and.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying like after a home game at night. I'm going to fly back to LA. I'll be back tomorrow. Okay, LeBron, we'll see you tomorrow. Like it's one of those teams. There's, there's flexibility built in with the vets.

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  The question for me.

• 1:17:35Bill Simmons?

  Because the most fun team for him to go to is San Antonio.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:17:41Bill Simmons?

  This is where Eduardo right now is like. Ding ding ding ding. Here's my social clip. What's up Eduardo?

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio, he solves actual issues for him, for them and could actually win the title with them. Would it be perceived as a ring chase or not to you?

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  Well, also, and I think this is important vis a vis the Clippers discussion. It's a franchise that is dignified and I think befits LeBron's perception, rightfully so, of himself and the kind of teams and franchises he should be on.

• 1:18:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you could sell that really fast. Like pops there, I've had a long relationship with him. This team's close. I could be the missing piece. I watched them in the finals for five games. They were missing that one veteran leader. And by the way, it could be a trade where it's like Cornet. And Kelton Johnson's expiring and then you could figure out how to pay LeBron 30 million a year for two years and. But do you think it would be perceived as a ring chase or not?

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  I think he's 41 and a half years old and anything he does in the direction of a ring is going to be accepted as like, it's pretty crazy that the guy is still a good player in the NBA. If he wants to chase another ring and have a new adventure, that's fine. I don't think it, this is not, not to go back, but this is not a 29-year-old superstar signing with a 73-win team. I, I just think if that's what it is, and that's what he wants to do, I don't think anyone begrudges him and people get more into like, oh, how's that gonna work? That's kind of exciting.

• 1:19:13Bill Simmons?

  Zach Lowe, we are 100% agreeance.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  Oh, we are?

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think if I was, if I was like his conciliary, I would, I would walk through San Antonio and Golden State. Denver's interesting too, but I, I actually don't think that cements anything. Just watching him with Joker would be amazing.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  They flirted with, I mean, you know, Denver has been interested in him before. They tried to get him in for a free agent meeting at one point, I think, or something like that. I can't remember exactly.

• 1:19:38Bill Simmons?

  But the money doesn't work. With San Antonio, it works because they actually have flexibility. They actually could pay him. Because the thing we always forget with these guys, they're not taking a pay cut. He's not gonna go work for $2.2 million veteran minimum extension. You did, like, this is why Kobe signed up for 40 and 40 the last two years. Like, these guys, they want to be compensated. They go to a franchise, like, they're gonna sell LeBron Spurs jerseys. I really like the idea of him on that team, and I wouldn't consider it a ring chase. Because if I'm him, I want to keep playing. I'm still really good. This Lakers thing has fizzled out. It's, they obviously don't want him to come back. They, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's been an uneasy dance for six months. They want to

• 1:20:19Bill Simmons?

  turn the team over to Luka. And San Antonio kind of needs him. If he'd been in that Knicks series, I think they would have won.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  All right, I'm not prepared to go reimagine the whole finals that we just had with LeBron James as a Spur. That's a bridge too far at this hour for me. The Knicks won in five games and I'm just-

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  Give him all the Kelton Johnson, Luke Kordat minutes? He's out there in crunch time?

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  You can't just let the Knicks be happy. We were already-

• 1:20:46Bill Simmons?

  All due respect to them, I'm doing a hypothetical alternate universe. I'm just saying, if they had LeBron last year, that was kind of what they were missing. Cause I don't think Fox plays at that point. I think LeBron is in the Fox spot and I think better decisions are made. But-

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  There were several poor decisions.

• 1:21:04Bill Simmons?

  Would he want to live in San Antonio? I don't know. The Golden State case would be, you and Curry ride out in the sunset together. The team is, especially if they got Davis too, the team is just good enough that it's kind of fun. You're gonna sell out everywhere. This will be like when the Eagles had their reunion tour in 1995. It's the hell freezes over tour. It's just every place you go, it's gonna be the biggest thing that happened in that city in a long, long time from a basketball standpoint. Really since the Curry Warriors in the mid 2010s.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  Unless it's a back to back on the road.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  Careful.

• 1:21:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, true. I forgot about that part. Maybe Curry and LeBron just alternate, but all right, so pick. Where do you want to see him go? Make a pick.

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  Where do I want to see him go?

• 1:21:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Where do you want to see him go? Basketball fan Zach Lowe.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  I think Golden State is the most fun. I think that him and Curry together is the most. I've transitioned from it feels like sacrilegious to see them go from like sometimes bitter rivals during those four finals. Like there was like some acrimony-

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  2018 was bitter, yeah.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  To what we saw with Team USA in the last two games at the 24 Olympics to let's just have some fun. And we're probably not gonna win, but it's gonna be fun. Like I think that'd be, that'd be the most fun.

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  The two times I've been the most shocked sitting in my seat for a basketball game, when Bird and Dr. J got in the fight. I was there. I still can't believe that happened. And then 2018, in the, I think it was the OT of game one, the JR Smith game, LeBron and Curry got really mad at each other. And there was like a split second where it felt like they might actually get into something. And it just watching was like, oh my, LeBron was so mad. He was so mad about the JR Smith play. He was so mad. He had just played the best game probably of his life and they were gonna lose. And he like hard fouled Steph or did something and Steph got really mad and, oh yeah, it was good. I think all camera angles have been destroyed.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  What I do remember is in the 16 finals in one of the Cleveland games, and I want to say it was game six. Um, he has a block on Curry at the rim and it's emphatic. And he kind of poses a little bit over and afterwards, not like directly over him, but kind of makes it, makes a show out of it, makes a meal out of it. And I remember thinking like, that felt like a, I'm the best fucking guy. I'm bigger than you. I'm stronger than you. And this has been cool. And you might still win this series, but remember, I'm the best fucking guy.

• 1:23:31Bill Simmons?

  Which is also what he did in 2018 in that first game. He just physically overpowered them like Shaq in the finals. It was nuts. Um, all right. So you're, we're both saying Golden State. I would like the San Antonio thing though.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  That'd be fun.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, if he went to Denver, I would talk myself into that in two seconds.

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  Hard not to.

• 1:23:49Bill Simmons?

  If they did the, the Jalen trade we mentioned earlier, and then they're like, oh, and our new point guard is, is 41 year old LeBron James. We're just gonna try to figure it out in the fly. Uh, what is your craziest prediction for the week before we go?

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  Craziest prediction for the week?

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't have a, but like, I'll go like.

• 1:24:09Bill Simmons?

  What's, is there gonna be something this week that makes you go, whoa?

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  Well, it's too late for Kawhi, a Kawhi trade, right? Like that's already been murmured about enough that that wouldn't be like, oh my God, Kawhi got traded. Unbelievable. I will say.

• 1:24:23Bill Simmons?

  I think Kawhi going to Toronto would get that reaction from me.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say Denver is gonna do something big and I don't know what it is, but I'll say a Denver moves that leaves people like, wow, that's what they did? I'll say that. I was gonna say, I was gonna say, imagine if the Sixers found a trade for Embiid, but I just don't, I don't, I don't think it's possible.

• 1:24:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna, I have Detroit as my wow team. I think they're up to stuff.

• 1:24:50Speaker 02

  Good wow team.

• 1:24:51Bill Simmons?

  The Stewart trade was really suspicious. I didn't really understand it. It felt like they were clearing some cap, but then they also got Isaiah Joe. So that only cleared half the cap. Maybe there was more to that story. Just feels like, I think they should have taken a swing last February and they didn't. And now, and now they probably will, would be my guess. And then, then LeBron going somewhere weird would be the other, the other wow thing. If it wasn't Golden State or some of the other teams we mentioned.

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  Would be wow.

• 1:25:22Bill Simmons?

  Wow, he's, he's going to Cleveland on the minimum? Can they even sign him to the minimum?

• 1:25:26Speaker 02

  Utah is a veteran mentor? What?

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  That would be, now that would get a big wow. My other wow would be Jaylen Brown just not getting traded, which I actually think wouldn't get a wow because I think it's conceivable he doesn't.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  That's definitely conceivable.

• 1:25:41Bill Simmons?

  We've seen them put the toothpaste back in the tube in the NBA a lot of times. It was like, this is done, it's over. It's like, eh, alright, let's, we, well, we had dinner and things are better. It's happened.

• 1:25:55Speaker 02

  This is like, this is like, you go and buy like a Costco case of like eight tubes of toothpaste and you step on all of them and it's all over your bathroom and all the tubes are out. So it's a lot of toothpaste.

• 1:26:07Bill Simmons?

  When's the next Croatia game?

• 1:26:09Speaker 02

  I believe Thursday versus Portugal.

• 1:26:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got a, we got a, we got a bad draw. We got a bad, and the winner likely plays Spain. This is the opposite of the draw Croatia got two World Cups ago.

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he got that bad of a draw. Portugal is, is, is tied to the bitter end. To a, to an aging star. We've seen how this goes.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  Spain.

• 1:26:32Bill Simmons?

  I think it's good for you guys.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Winner gets Spain is tough. That's tough.

• 1:26:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  But Croatia had a very good draw two World Cups ago when we got to the finals. Like the bracket broke exactly right. So like, you know, what goes around comes around. Comes around.

• 1:26:44Bill Simmons?

  I think you should do pods Monday, Wednesday. And you have to go to the game because you're 2-0 this year. I don't know. It's in Toronto. It's not like it's in.

• 1:26:51Speaker 02

  No, but it's gonna be free agency is going to be going hot and heavy. You're encouraging me to do this, to skip out on day two.

• 1:26:57Bill Simmons?

  Do it on Wednesday.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  Of NBA free agency.

• 1:26:59Bill Simmons?

  Do it on Wednesday. No, you gotta go to the game. You can't. This is once every four years.

• 1:27:03Speaker 02

  I've already been to two, man. It's more, two more World Cup games than I ever thought I would go to. So.

• 1:27:07Bill Simmons?

  You gotta go. I think you should go.

• 1:27:09Speaker 02

  All right. I'm gonna tell my wife, let's go.

• 1:27:11Bill Simmons?

  Um, all right, Zach Lowe, a true pleasure. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back with Taylor Sheridan. I want to warn people, he, he did this from his ranch in, uh, I think Wyoming and the wifi is a little spotty. So there's times when it cuts in and out a little bit. We did the best we could with it. I thought it was an awesome interview. Uh, I had a great time with him, but, uh, just, just bear with it. There's gonna be a couple of times where it gets choppy. Anyway, we're gonna take a break, come back with the one and only Taylor Sheridan.

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

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• 1:28:40Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, so I never ask for a lot of guests. We have a, we have a great booker named Allison, who's always like, do you want this person? You want that person? I always send her a very short list. And Taylor Sheridan has always been on the, on the list. I've always wanted to talk to you. Really admire your, your career, everything you've done and, and your productivity. And now all of a sudden you wrote a book too.

• 1:29:23Bill Simmons?

  Just when I was like, what's up with this guy? How does he keep doing it? How does he keep turning this stuff out? And now, now you're coming after books. I have so many questions for you, but what, what, what made you want to write a book on top of everything else you're doing?

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  Well, so it's, it's, it's a bit of a, a long story. Luckily you've got a long podcast, so we have time for it.

• 1:29:47Bill Simmons?

  It's true.

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  So, so you gotta go back to 2003 about, okay, yeah, about four. I'm living in LA and there was a gym about, oh, two thirds of a mile from this apartment that I had. And me and my roommate had run over there and work out every day because we're actors, we don't have anything else to do until we go to whatever shitty job we're going to. And there was a guy that started working out there. And, and, and this dude was, he looked very different than the typical West Hollywood gym crowd. I mean, this dude was jacked with all these trits and tats, not the, not the tribal bullshit that a bunch of Hollywood actors get. Like, like this stuff was done homemade.

• 1:30:32Speaker 04

  Anyway, so he would, he was very fascinated with fitness. He'd ask me this and I'd ask him that. We kind of became friends over, over the court, you know, just in the gym. And then he became a personal trainer there, got certified and did all that deal. And he actually trained my, he actually trained my wife. Um, so we became pretty good friends. One day we were talking and he just bullshitting over lunch and he kind of casually mentioned, I think I'd mentioned a movie or something and he hadn't seen it. And I mentioned, and I'm like, where have you been in a cave for the past seventeen or twenty years? He's like, no, I was in prison. And I said, oh, well, walk, walk me through that.

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  What happened was some kind of accident? He goes, no, no, no. I was a, I was a criminal. You know, I was a career criminal. I was a drug dealing, armed robbing, burglaring criminal. Um, and so I spent most of my life in, in prison and most of my adult life. And then I discovered fitness in prison and that's really, I didn't want to spend my whole terrible place. And, um, and so I got clean, got clean, got straight, really focused on fitness. And now I'm a personal trainer and someday you watch, I'm gonna have my own gym. And within, I'd say, five years of that, he did have his own gym.

• 1:31:52Speaker 04

  And, uh, and it became the biggest privately owned personal training gym in LA, which is saying something because there's nothing in LA but gyms. And, you know, friggin' laser surgery, they just, the stuff that's in LA.

• 1:32:06Bill Simmons?

  Coffee.

• 1:32:09Speaker 04

  It was very different than the gyms in LA. It felt like a gym, right? He's playing the muse, the only music he knew. So like eighties rock and seventies rock. And it was a really cool place. Uh, and he was doing really well. And, and, and I started having success with storytelling and then I got the hell out. I moved out of LA in 2013, moved up to Wyoming and, um, and we'd check in every so often. Uh, and he, and he actually wrote a screenplay about his life, right? His life of crime. Pretty good. He sent it to me once and I'm like, it's pretty good, man.

• 1:32:48Speaker 04

  Nothing ever came of that for him, but, but it stayed in my mind. Uh, keep moving forward to 2020 and COVID hits. And, and I'm the only film production, TV production in, in America filming. I'm the first one to go back to work. And the way I was able to convince the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild and all these guilds is the safest place this crew can be is on a big ranch in Montana. Right? There's no, if, if everyone's negative when we get there, we can't give it to anybody as long as nobody leaves. So they said, that's fine.

• 1:33:33Speaker 04

  Stay on the ranch. So then I wanted to, I, I wanted to, so we didn't all go crazy. I call, I wanted to build a gym on the, on the ranch. So I called Tom and said, hey, can you give me a connection to whoever you get your gym equipment from? Cause I need to buy a bunch. And mine, they shut me down. And, and, and I said, what do you mean they shut you down? He goes, we're closed. They shut, they shut down. Well, every business is shut down. You can't have a gym right now. We're on lockdown. And, uh, and I said, well, don't sell all your equipment. What are you going to do when it opens back up? Just sign up for that PPE stuff and, and, uh, and, you know, Newsom sending money to everybody else. They'll probably send some to you. And he's like, they're not sending it to White X cons, buddy. I'm like, I've already applied.

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  I'm not getting any money. And I said, okay, I'll send a flatbed. And I sent a flatbed down. I bought a pile of, so I didn't talk to him again, you know, years go by. And he reached out, um, and you know, by this point I got so many shows going. I'm so busy. It's, you know, someone's got to call me about 10 times for me to actually get a chance to call him back. And I finally reached back out to him and said, hey, how's it going? And he said, man, I'm in a, I'm in a real bad way. Julia, go kind of handle that. It's coming up the road, but.

• 1:34:54Speaker 04

  I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, they found a mass single father, his, his, uh, his partner had died. Um, and he's trying to raise this five year old girl and he's a, he's an ex-con, he's a felon. And, and he cannot find any work, reliable work that with enough daycare to take care of this kid. And so he was asked me about the movie business. Is there anything that he could do for me? And I said, I mean, I can probably get you some stunt work or, or something, you know, transportation depart, I don't know, something, but you're going to be working 14 hour days. You're not going to be with your kid. I don't know how that's helpful. And, and he asked me, he said, can you, can you give me a loan? I mean, I got one more month's rent.

• 1:35:38Speaker 04

  Can you give me a loan to figure it out? And I told him, I said, look, I have a 100% failure rate of loaning money to friends and them still being friends. So I can't do that. I'm not a bank. Um, I said, but let me think. There's, everyone has a story, right? And your story has value. So let me just think about what that would be. And there's a book that I had read many, many years prior to this called The World's Most Dangerous Places. And it was written by a guy named Robert Pelton Young, and it's the most fascinating thing I'd ever read. It's essentially a, a travel guide for war correspondents about every single

• 1:36:22Speaker 04

  place where there's a war going on in the world. Um, and, and this is a very accomplished war correspondent who wrote it. And it's, and then at times it was very cynical and at times it was, it was laugh out loud funny. And then at times it was, it was very thoughtful and I thought we're mad for a book. Uh, and, and, and he's not the only one who's done something like that. You could look at, you'll remember this from the eighties, the, oh, any, anything for dummies, right? House building for dummies, Spanish for dummies, you know, whatever it is. And they had taken a similar format and made it very digestible.

• 1:37:00Speaker 04

  So I just thought, how interesting and would it be if we wrote a travel guide for prison? And to be, for the most part, I think, is a really good deterrent to someone from going there, right? But also, if someone did happen to do something dumb, now they're a career criminal. This book isn't for them, and they know it anyway. It's really for a guy like you and me, because everyone's always wondered, if you've ever watched Locked Up or any of these shows, what would I do? How would I navigate that world if I find myself in it?

• 1:37:39Speaker 04

  And so here's an expert in that, right? Here's someone who spent 17 years in state and federal prisons, security prisons, and had to navigate the worst of the worst. And came out good, came out not a criminal, right? Made those choices, a success story. So I called him back and I said, "Look, here's what we're gonna do. And it's gonna be work.

• 1:38:03Speaker 04

  We're gonna write a book, and it's gonna be how to not die in prison. And we're gonna use your experience." And I've done a ton of research about prisons, because I've got a TV show about prisons. But that's research, it's not first-hand of a storyteller. And a guy who's already proven to me that he's good at telling stories, coming together to explore this world and how to get through it, or hopefully how to never go.

• 1:38:31Speaker 04

  And so that's what we did. So we wrote the first three chapters, and I write the intro, and then he writes the body, and together we shaped the body of that.

• 1:38:42Speaker 04

  And we took that out, sent it to all the publishers, and Simon and Schuster stuck their hand up. And Simon and Schuster said, "We wanna put this out, we wanna do it." And I said, "Great." And Tom rolled up his sleeves, and I rolled up mine, and we sat down, and we came up with this.

• 1:38:59Bill Simmons?

  So if we were doing this in person, I would have interrupted you like 10 times as you were telling that because I, I thought this book was so interesting. All of my experience from knowing anything about prison is just from TV and movies. Right. And it's, and it's like, it could go from like Shawshank to the show you did, or a million things, Jericho Mile, going way back. But this is like so detailed. It's almost like you have glossaries in there. You have all these, do not do this, do not. I thought it was really, uh, that was really interesting. And I've never read a book like it. It's one of those things where prisons are, have been such

• 1:39:40Bill Simmons?

  a huge part of, you know, any society, but nobody really knows anything that happens in there other than what they basically watch or read.

• 1:39:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, so, and I talk about this in the book. There is a scene in episode three of the first season of Mayor of where a, a man is arrested for killing a child and, and it actually is a parole violation. So the guy doesn't go to county. He goes straight back to, to prison immediately. And, uh, and when he comes in, there's this frenzy, right? Because a child killer is the one person in prison everyone can look at and say, I may have done this, but I never did that. Right? And so there's a bullseye on these guys.

• 1:40:30Speaker 04

  And, uh, and we filmed this scene where they, this, and after the first take, um, I start hearing buzz over the radio. Uh, we need a medic. Uh, actually we need two medics. And I run upstairs to see what happened. How, how, why do we need a medic? Someone have a heart attack? And most of the extras in, in this, in this scene were ex-cons who had actually stayed in this prison, which had been decommissioned. So now it's empty. Of course, we're paying, you know, a few hundred bucks a day to these guys. And there's not

• 1:41:12Speaker 04

  any work because it's COVID. Um, and, uh, so they jumped at it, right? And, uh,

• 1:41:19Speaker 04

  And two of them had panic attacks that were so bad that they had to go to uh they had to go to the hospital. And then there was a third one who, you know, we we closed them in and locked them in the cells. And this guy starts screaming, you gotta let me out. I can't do this. And uh we let him out and he's like, I starts taking off and and it's like, I'm sorry, I can't, you know, you don't have to pay me. I said, no, no, no. For what I just put you through, we're gonna pay you. Um, and and they left. They were done. They they wanted absolutely no part of of even reenacting it. So that was the first thing, obviously, we all can imagine and surmise that it's a terrible place, right?

• 1:42:01Speaker 04

  It's it's it's a it's not designed to rehabilitate. Um, eh, it's uh, it it's a whole lot of people have proven to society that they can't get along with society and we crammed them all together and along with each other. So it's it's a it's a model that that that is isn't designed to in in any way uh rehabilitate. It's just they're on a big old timeout for however long that may be, right? But it was so fascinating to me that I thought just what a really rich world to explore. And I I would imagine somebody reads this book and they're thinking about losing their

• 1:42:42Speaker 04

  temper or they're thinking about, I'll have another drink, I can still drive, ah, because here's the very real world consequences of that.

• 1:42:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Oz Oz beat that out of me, but my five days or six years, whatever it was watching Oz, I loved that show. So

• 1:42:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:42:59Bill Simmons?

  The story, the story with you, which everybody knows at this point, was you you came late into the writing thing, right? You were an actor, then you were acting coach, all that, and you didn't really start writing until forty one. And then you became

• 1:43:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:13Bill Simmons?

  Probably the most prolific writer of the last fifteen years in all the shows and movies that you've done, really in the last, it's been like decade and a half, basically.

• 1:43:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:24Bill Simmons?

  Did you, I have a million questions about this, but did you, were you writing before age forty, like, or did you just dive into it then? I didn't understand that part.

• 1:43:34Speaker 04

  No, no, not in any way that, no, it it's not, it's not a skill that I had developed. But you have to remember, I'd read I don't know by that point, five thousand scripts, ten thousand scripts. And of those scripts, nine hundred, nine hundred ninety-four were bad.

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  You know, I can recount, for the fifteen years that I was in Hollywood, I can recount to this day the excellent scripts that I read, right? I still remember. And there were very few that I read and I thought, wow.

• 1:44:19Speaker 04

  That's gonna be something.

• 1:44:23Speaker 04

  So, most of them are bad. And so I knew when I started writing was to simply not do what everyone else was doing. And what everyone else was doing was taking shortcuts. Essentially breaking all the very basic fundamental rules of storytelling. Because they couldn't figure out their story. And so by that, I mean this. With a movie, you're supposed to show me what's happening. The camera is supposed to move the story. The dialogue is supposed to tell me how the people in this world feel about what's happening.

• 1:45:07Speaker 04

  Or what they hope to do, or what they wish they hadn't done, or had done, right? So, if you stick to that one very basic rule from the beginning, never have a character tell me something that the camera should show me. And if you go back and watch movies that, maybe you liked the premise and maybe you liked the way it started and then toward the end, something happened, and it just felt a little easy. Because they couldn't figure out an intelligent way in the story to show me something, so they just had this character say it.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  All these Marvel movies do it, ad nauseam, where they will just have information dumps that you have to follow to get to the action, rather than actually moving plot with action, right? And then, the other thing that I did was basically find the most interesting thing, most interesting way to say anything.

• 1:46:10Speaker 04

  I'll take a scene from Hell or High Water, where, uh, where you have Jeff Bridges' character walk in and he's questioning, this waitress about the two boys that just robbed the bank across the street. And he says, uh, you know, describe them. Uh, and, and that she doesn't mention height or hair color. She mentions, you know, they, they, they look, you know, they're young enough to know better, but you're too old to know better and, but still, and, you know, and they look brokered in these guys over here, but the, but better than these guys over here. And, and so just find interesting ways of saying they're in their mid 30s and they were dressed casually and one's got blonde hair and one's got red hair.

• 1:46:54Speaker 04

  Right? So just what's the, what's the more interesting way of describing something or somebody?

• 1:47:00Speaker 04

  And then I think the other thing that I, that I try to do, and this probably comes from me having been a journeyman actor, which means most of my roles were smaller roles or guest star roles. I always try to make those acts to the overall story. In other words, those individuals that are just there to push the plot along somehow have an impact on our lead character. Whether they make them recognize something about this place or feel something or mirror something in their own lives, that these, all these little people have a big impact on our, on our main character, on our protagonist. And, and then that allows the audience to feel completely submerged in a world.

• 1:47:43Speaker 04

  Right? Because now everybody has a point of view, everyone. The guy at the gas station, the waitress, the-

• 1:47:50Bill Simmons?

  Right. You know, what you said about, uh, letting the people show you versus writing all the dialogue for them to tell the thing. Tarantino had this thing about Steve McQueen, about, um, how a lot of the stuff that he would do- Was just him reading situations and just him being a movie star and just the concept of like movie stardom sometimes doesn't have to be about dialogue, but just about seeming like you're a movie star on a screen and soaking things in and stuff you do with your eyes. I noticed like with your shows, a lot of times it's about even, even the show, the Michelle Pfeiffer show, which of course I loved because I enjoy all your shows, but

• 1:48:32Bill Simmons?

  a lot of it is sometimes it'll just be her staring out, you know, having a glass of wine at the end of the show and, and just trying to process stuff, you know, and thinking about things. Like there's moments like that. And I don't know if, I don't know if shows and movies are doing that in the same way anymore. They're always like, especially now in the streaming era, everything's in a rush. Everything's like they have to tell you, here's the murder that we have to solve and you're going to see the murder in the first three minutes and we're going to, but it, it seems like your shows are way more patient.

• 1:49:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, there, there, and there's, there's a few, I think, explanations for that. Okay. And one is, I think the most important one is who's writing these stories? Okay. And I'm, this isn't an indictment of other writers, but, but where are they? Well, if they're in LA or they're in New York. And, and, and, and if you're a producer, if you allow this business to do it to you, you are from the second you wake up till the second you go to bed, you are, you're going, you're meeting this, that meeting, this meeting, tone meeting, prop meeting, casting this, then I gotta go sit with my room of writers and we're

• 1:49:46Speaker 04

  going to put a bunch of stuff on a whiteboard and we're going to outline and you take this and I'll write that, you do this, and then I gotta go home to my kids and, or my wife or my husband or whoever, and we're going to try and carve out two hours of meaningful relationship and then off to bed we go. Where in that is the time to reflect? I live, I live in the country. I live in the middle of nowhere. So before I, I start writing every day, I take about a 30 minute walk. And there's no, there's no traffic because the road's mine. It's on my ranch. Uh, and, and I just think, and, and, and I'm, and I'm also not scared to leave my phone behind. So, so I had time to reflect and actually think like a character.

• 1:50:32Speaker 04

  The, the bigger challenge, and I'm very fortunate in this regard.

• 1:50:38Bill Simmons?

  When, when you're reflecting, are you thinking about ideas for shows or show, like, are you just thinking about life? Like, what are you thinking about?

• 1:50:46Speaker 04

  It depends. Uh, it, it depends. Sometimes I'm just, and I think this is with any storyteller. When you can get to a quiet place, and I don't mean a physical quiet place, a quiet place inside yourself, the ideas come. You don't have to go hunt them, right? They just come. So, you know, fortunately, I'm the only person around because if I wasn't, people would think there's this on this dirt road talking to himself. And, uh, and, but that's what happens. You, you know, I just, my, my routine is, is, is, is very set. And, and when I'm writing, I always return, I'm in the, this is the first place I ever bought this, this house

• 1:51:30Speaker 04

  up here in Wyoming, and it is an 1800 square feet. Um, and I always come back here. Cause this is where I can control the quiet. And this is where I can get the most done.

• 1:51:44Speaker 04

  So the second, probably greater influence upon writers in the industry, and it didn't used to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount, right? And Bobby Evans ran the, ran the studio because he, writers were turned loose, directors were turned completely loose. There weren't endless rewrites. There weren't meetings with executives about tone and mood and all this nonsense, right? And then you didn't have a lot of people. And by the way, the studio executives and the network executives, native group. In the industry, right? These are marketing executives for the most part. Uh, or maybe they, whatever they studied law, whatever, then they came and they got a job

• 1:52:29Speaker 04

  in the mailroom at C A A or W M E and hated that shit. And so then they ended up as an intern at some network. And then through attrition, they find themselves the head of development. Well, what do you know about developing story? You know, nothing. So, so they get terrified, panicked that the audience won't get it. Because they actually have no storytellers. So they don't get it. So it needs to be written on the page. There's all this stuff. They want backstory. They want,

• 1:53:00Speaker 04

  basically they want synopses of who all these characters' lives are before we meet the character. None of which is applicable, uh, to, to, to the whatever conflict the character's facing. I've had many actors come up and ask me, so what's my backstory? I said, you have carte blanche. You don't have a backstory. That character did not exist until I wrote them on that horse on that hill. Didn't exist.

• 1:53:24Speaker 04

  So I, I'm looking through very narrow windows. But, but our business, uh, at, at this point is truly governed by these executives. Because they're the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production. And they're going to try and control every element of that. The greatest thing that I have is I came up in independent film. Right? So, so the first movie that I made was Sicario. That's an independent movie. Uh, Thunder Road, Basil's Wanik, he went out and raised the money from, uh, and they just gave us a chunk of cash. And we went and hired who we wanted to hire and made it. Uh, the same thing with Hell or High Water and the same thing with Wind River.

• 1:54:08Speaker 04

  With Wind River, I mean, that money came from an Indian tribe in Louisiana. And they're just here. Go do it. Um, I never saw a producer. One time I was talking to my, my D P. We're standing on the top of this mountain and I said, you know, we've never met anyone who gave us this money, like. I've no idea, never met him, I don't know. We could just leave, we could go, we don't even have to make the movie. We're just, this is a tremendous amount of responsibility for someone who's never done it before. Um, but that, but I, so every decision that I got to make, I made. And I got to make it for what I thought was best for the story. And since I wrote the story, I felt the most qualified to do that.

• 1:54:50Speaker 04

  So when I made my deal with Paramount, I made that same deal. I said, this is not a democracy, uh, there's no committee. You're gonna pay me and you're gonna give me a bunch of money and I'm gonna deliver you these shows. One of them, because I'm just not that special. I'm pretty common and I'm gonna tell stories that common people are gonna understand. And that's most of America. You're not gonna win no Emmys with me, but I'm not trying to win Emmys. That's not my goal. My goal is to, is to sit somebody on their couch and move them. Make them think, make them laugh, scare the shit out of them, excite them. That's what I wanna do, cuz that's what I want from a show. Right? I don't wanna, I, I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be preached to.

• 1:55:33Speaker 04

  I don't want someone to tell me how to think or why I shouldn't think this or should think. Look through this rectangle box and go to another world and escape. And, and, and so I, I have such a streamlined system. Uh, that I'm able to create this massive volume of, of product. At, and I bet I work less than a guy who has one or two shows on the air.

• 1:56:01Bill Simmons?

  Wait, I wanna talk about that system, but something you said earlier. This is like the biggest passion point of mine with anything with TV. Because over and over again, the best shows or the best ideas or the most successful things seem to come from like one vision, one voice, maybe two, but usually it's one person. And those are the best shows that we care about the most. And over and over again, all the streamers and the studios, they, they seem like they ignore that. That instead of like the one voice, it's like, well now here are our ideas. And now, now it's like you're trying to do creativity by consensus, which is the exact opposite of all the greatest shows we have. Why, so why do we do it that way?

• 1:56:43Speaker 04

  The reason they do it that way is to justify their jobs. And they're not wrong. So when I first started at Paramount, there was a huge development department. Right? There were all these people. Whose job it was to sit there and give me notes and tell me what to do and how to do it and this and that and the other. And after four years. They got rid of that department. So all those people got fired.

• 1:57:08Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:08Speaker 04

  Because they didn't need them. They had no job. Cause I wasn't returning their calls. I, I, I wasn't, I, I wanted, I didn't, I didn't respect because they're not, they don't do what I do.

• 1:57:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:57:19Speaker 04

  You know.

• 1:57:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's job, job justification.

• 1:57:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:24Bill Simmons?

  It's like, what do you do out there? I give Taylor Sheridan notes. What do you give, what are you giving him notes for? He doesn't need your notes.

• 1:57:30Speaker 04

  No. And if you look at, if you look at some of the real bellwether shows. Right? Some of the, some of the shows that, that really, and there's a number of them. You can go back to, to early Steven Botschko, David Milch and these guys that, uh, that were, David E. Kelly's another one that, that. Right? No one gave that dude notes. And, and he was a one man band. He writes all his shows. That guy was writing Chicago Hope. That's 22 episodes of television. And what's the other one that he had on? Uh, he had three shows on the air at the same time.

• 1:58:06Bill Simmons?

  Ally McBeal.

• 1:58:08Speaker 04

  Picket Fences. He had Picket Fences. And he's writing every word himself. Making every decision. And he'd obviously built a very tight team of, of filmmakers around him. Right? Um, but shows was excellent.

• 1:58:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:58:26Speaker 04

  Excellent.

• 1:58:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, when, when, when you talk about your system, I think this is part of the genius of what you've figured out. You've had all the same people, basically, that you had. You know, your first movie. And you, you have this whole like infrastructure in place. So that when you're making stuff, you have like a shorthand. It doesn't need to be three months to set up. You can do it in four weeks and, um, and that's the biggest reason you have all these shows, right?

• 1:58:55Speaker 04

  It's even better than, you know, I have editors assistants that are now senior editors. I have, I have production assistants, you know, guys that were running around getting coffee that are now first assistant directors, this arguably one of the top three most important people on the set. I have camera operators that are now directors. I have an editor who's now a director. I have, I have directors who are now also producer directors and executive directors. I, I promote from within exclusively. I have a lead costume designer that used to be an assistant costumer. I have a, a, literally not even, probably not even supposed to be in props, a kid's like 15 years old, he's just helping his dad. Now he's a prop master. So is his sister.

• 1:59:39Speaker 04

  And they only know one way to do it. They only know the way that we do it. So there's no arguing or debating about what cameras we're going to use. There's no debating about, about the lens package. There's no, I don't have to teach anyone the color palette, nothing. They know what I like and don't like. And so the system is so streamlined. Our days are so much easier. I had to learn this, right? Wind River was incredibly difficult for me to do. Uh, the first two seasons of Yellowstone were incredibly difficult. And then I figured it out. And I, and I had to get rid of a lot of people along the way. I had to fire a lot of people who didn't see it my way and wanted me to conform to

• 2:00:22Speaker 04

  the way that the business does it as opposed to the way that I wanted to do it. And so all we really do is make everything the exact same way we made Wind River, just on a much larger scale, right? That was a, that was a guerrilla. Now we make $235 guerrilla, $35 million guerrilla television series.

• 2:00:43Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, one of the things you're good at is you're targeting people who have actors, lead actors who have had real success, but you somehow work well with them. And now because you've had success, they want to work with you. So now you have somebody like Billy Bob, you have Landman. He's like literally the perfect guy on the planet to be in Landman, but he also wants to be in Landman, which I don't, maybe in 2015, you're not able to convince him, but you know, now, now it seems like you're getting whatever actors and actresses you want, right?

• 2:01:15Speaker 04

  I was getting, I was getting whatever I wanted. From day one, as far as actors goes with Sicario, I mean, those are, those were our top choices. Right?

• 2:01:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, really?

• 2:01:25Speaker 04

  The same, oh yeah, same with Hell or High Water. I mean, I, I, I told, I told David McKenzie, I said, look, I wrote this role. I wrote it for, for Ben Foster. I wrote it for Ben Foster. And they kept looking for everybody and I said, I don't know, you could just, I'll let you do that. And then he actually went on a, on a, he got on a yacht and went for a week trip with his family. Uh, where he had no cell service and they still hadn't pulled the trigger on Ben. And I just said, fuck it, I'm hiring him. So I just called this agent up and said, he's hired. We got him. He said, really? I said, yeah. I had no authority to do it whatsoever. So then I got, just called the costume, where I said, call, call Ben Foster, get his sizes.

• 2:02:10Speaker 04

  Cause with SAG, as soon as the costume designer calls, you're booked. You're booked.

• 2:02:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:02:16Speaker 04

  So when he got off the boat.

• 2:02:20Speaker 04

  But it was the perfect choice. So yes, uh, I've been fortunate to get the actors that I wanted. But I was an actor, I write for actors, I write words that they want to say. And, and now I do it even differently. So with Billy Bob, with Kurt Russell and Michelle, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren. That's who I had envisioned for the roles, but I hadn't written a word. And I told Billy Bob, I said, here's my idea. This is the show I want to do. Could do it if you don't want to play the role. I'm not going to go try and fit a circle in a square, but I'll write it for you. And he said, okay. Helen and Harrison said the same thing. Michelle was a, a little bit tougher sell, but she finally acquiesced.

• 2:03:05Speaker 04

  And she was terrified to commit to something she'd never read a word.

• 2:03:11Speaker 04

  But when, when, when a writer is writing specifically for an actor, right? In a role that, that they were born to play, how can that not work?

• 2:03:22Bill Simmons?

  Wait a second, you have to tell the audience exactly what you told Billy Bob Landman was. Cause I actually know this and I thought it was great. So what, what did you tell him?

• 2:03:32Speaker 04

  I said, I want to make a drama with Bad Santa running an oil company.

• 2:03:37Bill Simmons?

  And he was like, I'm in.

• 2:03:40Speaker 04

  He's like, that's the greatest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, let's do it.

• 2:03:46Bill Simmons?

  So when you, when you're coming up with these ideas, do you have a piece of the idea? Do you have the whole thing played out or you're just, is it just as simple as that where you're like, bad Santa runs an oil company. Okay, that's something. Or is it like, are there cases where you're like, oh no, I'm way more into the.

• 2:04:04Speaker 04

  It's always a lightning bolt, right? Every time it's a lightning bolt. So for Landman, a buddy of mine from high school worked out in Odessa Midland and he, and he was, he was essentially, oh, some type of site manager would be the term, right? With the title, but essentially he's just a problem solver. He's a crisis manager, right? Of which they're, and I'm watching TV and some guy, some wing nut's driving through the streets of Odessa, shooting off a gun, shoots like seven or eight people before the police run him down and kill him.

• 2:04:45Speaker 04

  And I knew my buddy was in Odessa and I knew he's always driving around. So I just called him and said, hey, just make it sure you're good. He said, good. What are you talking about? And I said, well, there's some lunatic running around Odessa shooting people. And it's all over the news and he just starts laughing and he says, that happens here every day, every day. He goes, it just happens out in the patch. He goes, this place, you don't understand what this place is. He started telling me stories and that's when I got the idea

• 2:05:18Speaker 04

  for Landman. And then coincidentally, not six weeks later, uh, so I pitched the idea to Paramount.

• 2:05:27Speaker 04

  And not six weeks later, this podcast drops that Christian Wallace from Texas Monthly had done. And I, and I listened to it and

• 2:05:37Speaker 04

  My apartment, you know, the, hey, have you heard about this podcast? I said, I'm listening to it right now. It's awesome. And he said, we're worried that someone's going to try and buy that and make a competing show. And I said, well, then you buy it. I mean, this is endless stories we can explore. Let me talk to this Christian guy. So I talked to Christian who had been in it. He had been a roughneck and was a very thoughtful, good writer. And he didn't know how to write a screenplay, but I didn't need him to. I just needed, I just needed someone to help me manage the authentithist often and make sure that we tell the story. I'm a big believer in holding a mirror up to the world and writing down the reflection

• 2:06:19Speaker 04

  and not having any judgment on it and making it truly, truly authentic. Like this is what it is. If I make a movie about a ranching family in Montana, I have to make that movie for professional cowboys. Right? They have to sign off on it first. If I make a movie about the military and the CIA, those guys have to watch it and wonder,

• 2:06:44Speaker 04

  how did this guy know about? It has to feel that real. So the same thing with this. I need experts. I need experts that can help me get immersed in the world to deeply understand it. So, yeah, no, it, but it did start out, and that's kind of why it's tonally so schizophrenic, Landman, which I like. I like a show to make me think and then do something that's almost vaudevillian, right? That's cartoonish. Cause all of our lives are kind of cartoonish. If you think about it, right? So these ridiculous dinners that are, that are Angela's fantasy of what and, and they're so preposterous and nobody wants to do them. And which is a repeating theme, but she keeps doing it because

• 2:07:28Speaker 04

  it, you know, it's her fantasy of what, of what, of what a family's supposed to do. But her family's so non-traditional, it's so ridiculous. All these strangers living in this house together.

• 2:07:41Speaker 04

  So it's, it's a lot of fun to do that show.

• 2:07:45Bill Simmons?

  You also, another thing you do that I've never seen anybody else do, you'll grab these really good actors or known actors and maybe their schedule won't allow them to be in the show as much as you need them in the first season, or maybe you want them for season two. Like, how you used Demi Moore in Landman, it was like, she's one of the stars of Landman and she wasn't in it that much, but your whole idea for her was season two, that's when you were gonna need her.

• 2:08:11Speaker 04

  And I told her, when I met with Demi about that, I said, look, here's the thing, you're gonna be an extra in this show for seven episodes. You're an extra and the critics are gonna fuck. They are gonna come after me. I'm under utilizing this, can't write for women, all this nonsense. And then I'm gonna kill your husband and you're gonna have to run the oil company. But, but, I said, but, and I, and I have a very, you know, the critics in me, I don't care what they think and it annoys the shit out of them that I don't care. And I'll be the first to tell you that I, there are things I do that rage

• 2:08:55Speaker 04

  bait them a bit, and this is one of them, right? And episodes where they could have watched it and realized that flip, but I didn't. I just sent them the first three. Cause fuck them, honestly, right? And, and so with, with Demi, I knew that when we put it all on her shoulders, from an audience standpoint, you've just seen her in little snippets as this housewife, right? In the background, living this fantasy. So we've, we've set her up by omission to be someone that the audience has already predisposed to believe can't do this, capable of doing this job.

• 2:09:34Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:09:35Speaker 04

  And so not only does she have to overcome.

• 2:09:40Speaker 04

  Overcome every character in this world's opinion of her. But now she has to overcome the audience's predetermined opinion of her. And I let her do it in the first scene of season two. Right? I give her a monologue that basically says.

• 2:09:57Bill Simmons?

  You gave her two.

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  I'm meaner than my. Yeah. Yeah. Where I, where I say, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm essentially, I'm the bigger bear and you're about to learn it. How many questions it at times that she's a true wildcat or like her husband? Betting everything on this impossible drill, which is what? And that, and that's actually based on an actual, there's a woman who runs an oil company in Texas, a wildcat. And, and she, that was her rig that I filmed. That, that shallow rig and the story of that rig blowing. Uh, and then that insurance money being used to double down. That, that actually happened. And, and she's risking.

• 2:10:41Speaker 04

  Two billion dollars she does not have. Both the character and the real person, the character is based on. On a, on a lottery ticket. It's, and it's insanity, but if the lottery ticket hits, it's, you know, you're talking. You're talking not just generational wealth, you're talking. I don't even, it's so hard to comprehend the numbers you're talking. And it, and it's, and that's the riverboat gambler. Addiction that these wildcaters have, it's fascinating. Think of the fortunes that it, think the Hunt family, for example. You know, that's in the 1920s, did the same thing, wildcatting. And, uh, and a hundred years later, you know, the family's still.

• 2:11:25Speaker 04

  This institution in North Texas.

• 2:11:28Bill 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 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.

• 2:11:50Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat, or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. So you'll throw, because I've felt that you were doing this. There's sometimes you'll throw stuff in a show specifically as like a this to the critics or just to mess with them. And it does feel like you're tweaking sometimes.

• 2:12:29Speaker 04

  Hagan, Hagan roommate. That's one of the few times that the network and even some of the actors called me and said, you sure that you don't want to compress the resolution of Hagan and Ainsley? You know, what you do in episode 10, where they become friends? And you don't want to put that in episode nine? I said, no, no, for, for, exactly for the reason that you're asking. Like, I want to piss you off a little.

• 2:13:00Speaker 04

  And then, oh, how dare I? And then you watch the next week and go, oh, uh-oh, got me to judge what I. Yeah, that's the difference between TV and a movie.

• 2:13:11Speaker 04

  Right? The TV show's not over. So to sit there and treat an episode as though we've completed anything is ridiculous. Right? It's not done. I'm not done storytelling. You just saw a little sliver. You can't judge the thing till it's done.

• 2:13:27Speaker 04

  It's not like a movie.

• 2:13:30Bill Simmons?

  How many seasons are, like you're doing Land Man or, I don't know, pick a show. Are you planning how many seasons ahead?

• 2:13:37Speaker 04

  For me, five.

• 2:13:41Bill Simmons?

  Five years?

• 2:13:42Speaker 04

  Five years max. Then, because beyond that, now it's just problem with a week.

• 2:13:50Speaker 04

  Right? And, and it go back to, remember that show not Beverly Hills, not O two one O?

• 2:13:58Bill Simmons?

  I love that show.

• 2:13:58Speaker 04

  Remember that show way back in the day? Right? So think about that show for a minute. So Jason Priestley's the big heart frog and he's this, he's the guy and, and they take him on this story arc. And then everyone gets a little tired of Jason Priestley. So then they're guy now, he's the heart frog, he's this. And then that kind of peters out and then they take Brian Austin Green. It's his turn. Do the same exact thing we did with the other two. So your lead characters that you've been following have fallen back and this next one takes place. And Ian Ziering's next. And now it's just romance of the week. Right? Cause it went too long. So if you go into them knowing this is the, the length of time that, that we're gonna, we're gonna explore. And then have the courage to end it at that point in time.

• 2:14:45Speaker 04

  Now you have a completed thing and it stands up and you can re-watch it. The amount of people that re-watch eighteen eighty-three and nineteen twenty-three and these, and these, these basically long-form movies that are, that are just designed to be digested over a short. Madison is the same way. It's a six-episode season. Right?

• 2:15:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:04Speaker 04

  So you, I mean, I, I know where that, I know where every show ends. I know how they all end.

• 2:15:12Speaker 04

  And, and I think you have to know how they end. Or if you don't, how do you know where you're going?

• 2:15:19Speaker 04

  You may not have the ending, but you need to know thematically, how does this world resolve? What are you, what are you, what are we saying?

• 2:15:26Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 2:15:28Speaker 04

  And, and, and if you know that, then you can write toward that. And, and, and you know, with Yellowstone,

• 2:15:37Speaker 04

  Kevin was only supposed to be in the first three seasons. That was in his contract. In my mind, that's when

• 2:15:49Speaker 04

  when his youngest son takes over and then we have to watch this and lose that ranch over, you know, or not lose the ranch, whatever the case is going to be. But the network was so scared of not having Kevin be a part of it. Even though Kevin was ready, he was ready to go. He had other things he wanted to do, but he stayed on for another two seasons.

• 2:16:11Speaker 04

  And that was just because the show was such a behemoth. It was such a huge hit that the notion of giving up a hit before it had run out

• 2:16:22Speaker 04

  of juice to squeeze is very foreign to a network. And there was even pressure from some of the cable companies wanting to put it in their deals that they were going to get an X number of seasons of Yellowstone to re-up with whatever this cable company is. I mean, that's the power of a really big hit show. But creatively, that can run in opposition. And finally, Kevin hit a point where he's like, I gotta go do my own thing. I gotta do my own thing too. So, but we had originally conceived it together that it was three seasons and then the baton is handed. Or if that wouldn't have been better for the show, because we had to tread water for a bit there. I think it was pretty evident.

• 2:17:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think COVID ballooned that show. It was already a big show and then I felt like in COVID, when everybody was trying to catch up on stuff and what the fuck am I going to do for four months? And I've watched another show I haven't seen yet. And all of a sudden, it felt like Yellowstone was somehow growing. It was crazy.

• 2:17:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, what was there to do? Everybody was stuck at home.

• 2:17:30Bill Simmons?

  Nothing. Yeah.

• 2:17:31Speaker 04

  And then whenever, which was in different and different places, you know, the big cities were shut down for, you know, LA was shut down for over a year. And New York for maybe six months or more. I don't know how long. I didn't go to either of them, but I, you know, I had friends in LA still driving around with a fucking mask on in 23. You know, what are you guys doing? It's over.

• 2:17:56Bill Simmons?

  We called them lunatics. Yeah.

• 2:17:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was driving my daughter to Arizona for soccer tournaments because they wouldn't let anyone, even in the fall of 2020, they wouldn't let like any sort of high school club soccer stuff happen. So you'd have to drive across the line to where it was. So my, the good news is we got to spend a lot of time together.

• 2:18:20Speaker 04

  It was an interesting disease. It's, you know, it's the first disease in history that doesn't spread at protests. I don't know if you're aware of that.

• 2:18:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, we found that out. Yeah. Um, wait, I had a couple more questions for you about actors. Cole Hauser, who I always loved, you seem to find over and over again, these people where I'm like, oh, I always liked that person. Like Kathy Riley was, she was, she was unbelievable in Flight. She'd been in some good stuff. So I wasn't surprised she took off. But Cole Hauser, like he was in Good Will Hunting with Affleck and Damon and he was at School of Ties. Like he was around for a while and nobody unlocked him. And then you unlocked him. So how'd you unlock him?

• 2:19:00Speaker 04

  The movie that I saw that made me,

• 2:19:06Speaker 04

  and I remember him from Days of Confused, right? That was a, a great role that he did. But, but it was, it was, he played in Pitch Black with Vin Diesel.

• 2:19:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:19:20Speaker 04

  Gretchen Mull. And, uh,

• 2:19:24Speaker 04

  and he was so good. And he was such a, he was such a heavy actor that understood nuance. And, and, and what I mean by that is there's actors who could convey emotion. There's an actors who, who can, just their essence feels believable. And then there's wordsmiths, someone that understands which syllable of a word you stress changes the meaning or the emphasis. And, and, and there aren't as many that have that. Right? And, and to have that and have an emotional presence, those are the great ones. Right? And, and, and he has that. Uh, and, and.

• 2:20:11Speaker 04

  And maybe he has it, he's not a traditional looking pretty boy leading man. And that may be one of the reasons that the business, because he's a dude, he's a man's man. And at a time, he came up at a time when they were buying sort of pretty and androgynous. They didn't want

• 2:20:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:20:31Speaker 04

  that in a man and our business didn't foster that. They didn't, they didn't develop that. They really wanted something that they felt was a little safer or more relatable, whatever the case may be. And he felt a little more throwback. He felt a little more seventies as an actor, that style. And which is, which is what I grew up with, right? That's, that's what acting that I, I was always drawn to. And, and so he's, he didn't even audition. I just, we just

• 2:21:02Bill Simmons?

  You just knew.

• 2:21:03Speaker 04

  it was it. I just knew.

• 2:21:05Bill Simmons?

  So when you're approaching like a TV show or a movie or, because I always feel like the best way something's going to succeed is like, you're bringing me into a world. I don't know anything about this world, like Landman Z is example of this. It's like, I don't fucking know anything about how they make oil in Texas. Like, so you're just pulling me into that. It seems like you're the best at this. Every, every TV show or movie you do, you're pulling me into something that I don't really know that much about. So is that intentional or is that just the outcome?

• 2:21:37Speaker 04

  You have to understand for me, the, the landscape is, is the main character that the, that everyone's reacting to. So what's the star of the Madison? The Madison River, this idyllic place that has this incredible ability to heal. Right?

• 2:22:00Speaker 04

  Done, which is It's it it is the land. It is it is land that's so that people would kill for, that they would die for. Right? It has so much value and and and is so grand. Same thing with twenty three, same thing with eighty three. Uh, with uh, with the story of the mayor of Kingstown is the opposite. Right? Here's a here's a place that is broken. Uh, it's a it's a it's a complete failed society. When your last business is human incarceration as a as a as a city, you're done.

• 2:22:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:22:40Speaker 04

  That's it. Attracting prisons, if that's the business you're getting, then look what you're attracting with those prisons. And now you've sunk your city. Right? So so e- even though it's the city is really the antagonist in that one. It it's still the main character. With with with lioness, uh, the it it is the it is the, forget good or bad moral. It's it's stated constantly. Uh, the the main character of that is our our societal survival. As perceived through people who do not apply morality to those decisions.

• 2:23:20Speaker 04

  Morality is another agency. These their job is is to make sure that the United States remains the United States. Period. End of story. Someone else's job to interpret if the way we do that is good or bad. You know, so those to me are really interesting landscapes. Uh, so then for for uh, lioness, for an example, we've seen that a version of that world a number of times. I just juxtaposed it and made the James Bond character a woman. And and let's watch a woman deal with having two daughters that she's not present to raise.

• 2:23:58Speaker 04

  And and that the that the husband has to to be the one that stays at home and and be passive and question why she has to do this. And let's watch that discussion and that debate from a different perspective.

• 2:24:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, another thing that I love about your shows is you find yourself like my wife, we loved 1883 and 1920, we loved those shows, but my wife was always, we would watch 1883. And my wife was like, I would have been really good in the 1800s. I just think that that could have been my best time. I would have like known how to make stuff. I could have defended myself like I just would have owned 1883 and I'm like, yeah. Part of the greatness of these shows, you just put yourself in, I would have done terrible because I had bad eyesight. I feel like I just would have been killed. I just would have been done immediately. She would have been great. She probably would have been running a small town. But it's funny, like watching these different things and being like,

• 2:24:54Bill Simmons?

  how would I have fit in in this, where would I fit in Yellowstone? Where would I fit in Landman? Just because I don't know anything about those worlds, but I'm sure you get that all the time. People like, I would have been awesome in the 1880s.

• 2:25:06Speaker 04

  But we all, I mean, isn't that part of the

• 2:25:11Speaker 04

  great joy of of storytelling and witnessing it, whether it's whether you read it in a book or whether it's a TV show or a movie and or wondering what that character's life is like right after the movie's over? What did they do after that? Like, that's a fascinating thing. And that's the greatest compliment you can give the storyteller because they successfully built a world for you.

• 2:25:34Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, you also, you come, you also flip something like in 1880, there's stuff in those shows that you always knew, but you didn't really think about. So like in the 1880s, there's really no rules, right? You go somewhere and it's, it's not like they have a set of laws or anything in place and people can just fucking go nuts. And so you're defending yourself on a totally different level at all times. I've just never really thought about that that much. And then I'm watching the show, I'm like, fuck, what would I do?

• 2:26:11Speaker 04

  It was completely self policing. Right? You had to determine what your own boundaries were. If, if, if you as an armed gunman, you know, you're traveling across the plains and you come across weak man and his wife and two daughters.

• 2:26:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:31Speaker 04

  The only, there are no consequences of actions other than losing the gunfight, which you can assess pretty quickly whether you're going to do that.

• 2:26:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:41Speaker 04

  So what's going to keep you from killing the dude and robbing him blind? Kill the wife, rape the wife, selling the kid. What's, what's going to keep you, only you?

• 2:26:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:26:55Speaker 04

  That's it. There were, there was no law.

• 2:26:58Bill Simmons?

  It's great.

• 2:26:58Speaker 04

  Fascinating and a pretty terrible time because there were plenty of people that didn't have, there was no boundary for that.

• 2:27:08Bill Simmons?

  Right. Um, did you ever think in your wildest dreams Yellowstone would turn into what it turned into? Like not only a massive, probably the biggest show of the last 10 years, but also a universe that went backwards and forwards. Like, when did you realize what the fuck?

• 2:27:24Speaker 04

  Look, when HBO, when I, you know, I sold this show to HBO first and I told them in 2015, go on television. I told them that.

• 2:27:38Bill Simmons?

  You told them?

• 2:27:39Speaker 04

  And, and I, I told them it's going to be the biggest show on television. Period end of story. And, and when, and when the executives at Paramount read it, they couldn't believe it was available. Couldn't believe it.

• 2:27:53Speaker 04

  They were shocked that no one saw it and it scared everybody. And I, and I had the argument many times that, that they said, look, they just tried to do this. They made that, they made that movie Cowboys and Aliens and the cowboy genre dead. What's dead is dumb movies about Cowboys and aliens. That's a bad genre. Maybe don't do that.

• 2:28:14Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:28:14Speaker 04

  But every time someone makes a good Western, it's a fucking hit. Every time. Unforgiven, 310 to Yuma, Silverado, they're all hits.

• 2:28:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:28:26Speaker 04

  Cause it's a very uniquely American thing to explore. That period's fascinating to us. To look at, at, it's the closest thing that we had to a medieval times. Right? That is our dark ages, our medieval period was the mid 18, post civil war 1800s.

• 2:28:48Bill Simmons?

  Are there any shows in the last 10 years that you've been jealous of?

• 2:28:54Speaker 04

  I gotta be honest with you. I haven't seen anything. I haven't watched any other shows.

• 2:29:00Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're just locked into all your, well, you're doing seven shows. You probably have to concentrate.

• 2:29:05Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, look, here's how I explain it. You're a dentist. Okay? When you cough us, do you look at pictures of teeth?

• 2:29:16Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:29:18Speaker 04

  You know?

• 2:29:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:18Speaker 04

  I don't wanna watch anyone. I don't wanna watch my own shows when I come home. I gotta, you know, I don't, so, so no, I haven't seen anything.

• 2:29:27Bill Simmons?

  Um, we have to end, cause I know you're running low on time. We have to end on Sicario, which is an incredibly important movie in the Grantland Ringer universe that I am in. That's my Yellowstone universe. We did it for rewatchables. Um, this movie podcast we have a couple of months ago. It's a movie that people really liked when it came out. And it feels like it's, it's gaining steam and growing as the years pass and has become, I think, one of the best movies of the 2010s. When, I'm sure you knew it was good when you were doing it, but did you ever think it would have a tale like it's had?

• 2:30:05Speaker 04

  I, I mean, and I don't want this to sound arrogant.

• 2:30:10Speaker 04

  I've never taken a movie out, I've never, you know, all my scripts are specs. In other words, I don't get hired to write them. I have an idea. I sit and I go sell it and, and sell it with the intention of making it. So typically with my projects, there's, I either put into them a penalty, uh, which makes it like, if you're not gonna make it, I'm gonna make it really painful for you to not make it. Or I'm gonna mandate in the contract that you make it, that you have no choice.

• 2:30:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:40Speaker 04

  And, and so I don't take something out if I don't think it's gonna be a hit and it's gonna be really, really impactful, then I don't make it. Then, then for, to me, it's not ready to be taken out. I can't, I, and there's a lot of people, I'm very fortunate in, in the fact that

• 2:30:58Speaker 04

  when I first started screenwriting.

• 2:31:03Speaker 04

  I didn't, I didn't fall into the dangers. There's traps in any business, right? You could say that if you're an actor, the big trap is getting on some sitcom that goes for 10 or 12 years and you, and you may have, yeah, you made money and you had a stable job, but is it fulfilling you creatively and are you going to have to overcome that typecasting when you get out? I was having a friend of mine who called me for advice today about this where she got offered this job. It's a money job, but, but she doesn't really want to do it, right? But she was conflicted. What do I do? I've got two kids and I, and I, I asked her, I said, "Okay, are you behind on your mortgage?" "No." "Will you be behind on your mortgage in six months?" "No."

• 2:31:48Speaker 04

  "Okay, then you don't need to take a money job."

• 2:31:51Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:31:52Speaker 04

  None of us got into this to make money. The fact that it pays well is pretty shocking to all of us. None of us. Nobody got thinking, I certainly didn't get into screenwriting for the money. I got into it because I was tired of compromising and I wanted to control my own destiny. I had no idea that it paid well, right? I got my first residual check for Sicario. I was like, "Oh shit, I wish I'd have done this 15 years ago." But, but, so with Sicario, I wanted to write something that was unique in every way. I wanted the structure to be unique. I wanted to really play with who is the protagonist.

• 2:32:34Speaker 04

  And I wanted to give the one character with, with a moral compass, no power. And then it's probably the first time that I was already fucking with critics because I made that character also a woman, which, which means instantly they're going to assume the reason I, I, I did that is because I think women are powerless, when it is actually morality that froze her. It, it wasn't gender. It was the fact that she believed in right and wrong. She believed in playing by the rules in a, in a sphere where there are no rules. No one is playing by the rules. The cartels aren't playing by the rules. The cartels don't even have rules.

• 2:33:19Speaker 04

  They may have their own codes amongst themselves, but they have no rules. And so now, the federal government decided that they were gonna play with no rules, which would not be the first time our government's decided to do that. You can ask Maduro about that. And, and so, here's what it looks like. What if they treated criminals like enemy combatants? And so, I, I, I wrote that script on a five act structure instead of a three act structure, um, to, to play with the, you, you're, you're, you have a preconceived, your condition, when you watch a movie, to know, seventeen minutes in, there's gonna be a big revelation, and I'm gonna know what this movie's about. Right?

• 2:34:03Speaker 04

  And then we're gonna go off on the journey, and, and about

• 2:34:08Speaker 04

  an hour and ten in, we're on the mission. We, we found the villain, we found the gold, we found the thing, and we're on a mission. And for the la- next fifteen, twenty minutes, we're gonna see if we, uh, if we can achieve the mission, whatever that is. A- and we typically know, even though it's exciting to watch, we know they're gonna get the girl, or they're gonna win the fight, or they're gonna conquer the hill, or whatever it's gonna be. We know. Right? But if you start playing with that structure, and I don't really tell you what the goal is until the, the end of act three, act four, well, that feels very different.

• 2:34:49Speaker 04

  You know, the shootout that happens on the border is, is really in the, the, the, the end of the second act. Okay? And, and I built that battle within its own little five act structure. If you watch it, you could sit there and find the beats to it. And, uh, and, and I did that to completely disorient the audience about-

• 2:35:12Speaker 04

  How in the world, I mean, I, I, it's, we're only forty minutes in, I think everyone's about to die. I don't think anyone's safe.

• 2:35:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:35:19Speaker 04

  How could the movie be over? And, and, and then you've got an audience that's truly jarred and on the edge of their seat.

• 2:35:28Speaker 04

  And, and, and I knew when I wrote it, that I had effectively done that. And the, and the way that you know that, you can read it and look at it yourself. But the reaction of the town, like Hollywood went nuts for that script. Um, it scared the shit out of everybody. Nobody wanted to make it. Um, the producer who decided to make it was, was, uh, his name's Basil, and he had made The Town. Um, with the, you know, the movie that Ben did, great movie. And, and again, uh, on paper, that's a pretty dark film. Uh, it, it, it wasn't one that the whole world was running around saying, we gotta make this movie. People would read that script and go, damn, this is a great script.

• 2:36:12Speaker 04

  I don't even wanna begin to think of it, I'm making it, but damn, I can't wait to see it. And, and Basil didn't hesitate. And the first director we sent it to was Denis Villeneuve. And, and when Denis read it, he, he, I had to, I had to make it, I knew I had to make it. And when we had Denis, I knew I had a director that could execute, uh, the way that I had structured the script, he would get it, he would understand it. Cause he, he's very comfortable telling complicated stories. So when we had those pieces and then the cast just fell together, we, I think we all knew. We all knew what it was.

• 2:36:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's interesting. I mean, you have.

• 2:36:51Speaker 04

  Anything I'm surprised, I was surprised that the, that the way that Lionsgate released it. I think if it had been really a hit domestically, I think that, I think that they, they decided to make an awards play. Um, and I wouldn't have done that. I would have treated it like a summer movie.

• 2:37:12Speaker 04

  And then you walk in, you think you've seen this exciting thing and it slaps you in the face and you walk out of there going, what in the world did I just see? You know, they did that, they did that with Platoon, which was brilliant to treat that, you know,

• 2:37:26Speaker 04

  to not tell the world, we're about to punch you in the stomach.

• 2:37:29Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, it's interesting because obviously you made all your success and you bet on yourself in all these different ways, but you know, a little, a tiny bit of luck helps every once in a while, right? Like you get the director for Sicaria, who turns out to be one of the best directors of the last 15 years and he likes the movie. I can't think of anyone else who would have directed it, like looking back, he was perfect.

• 2:37:53Speaker 04

  I would say it's fortuitous. You make your own luck, right?

• 2:37:57Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:37:58Speaker 04

  Lucky is when a director signs on to your shitty script. Yeah. He signs on to your shitty script and now it's great and it goes out and it's a hit and through no, through, through nothing that you, now you're lucky. Right? That's lucky.

• 2:38:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, here, here's another example. What if you had just gotten a job acting on some show that locked you down in 2010 where you were doing well? Like what if you were on, I don't know, CSI New Orleans and you were the third lead and that's just what your job was? Were you, would you even have written?

• 2:38:34Speaker 04

  Well, remember I quit Sons of Anarchy 2, right? In 2010, I was on a show and, and thank God that they had so little respect for me that they offered me garbage.

• 2:38:48Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:38:48Speaker 04

  Garbage. They made it really easy to walk away because it was easy for me to, to sit there and say, okay, I'm going to do this for the next six or seven years and, and I'm, and I'm still going to have a second job with this junk they're paying me and I'm going to miss my chance to be a creator, a chance to tell a story. That's also if they hadn't, if they hadn't treated me so disrespectfully, I, I would have never, they hit me over the head with a mallet that made it so clear that the only way I was going to get to be an effective storyteller was if I, because actors are storytellers. It was if I told my own stories. I was never going to get the opportunity as an actor. And, and look.

• 2:39:31Speaker 04

  I'm not saying I'm was a good enough actor that I deserved it. I guess I didn't. Right? I guess I didn't because 15 years in this business and I never had that opportunity. So I guess I was doing exactly the acting I that's all the acting I should have been doing. They helped me see that.

• 2:39:48Bill Simmons?

  Was there a fork in the road role that you came close to getting or you'd think like, man, if that had happened, maybe going this way instead?

• 2:39:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was one. There was one. Uh, I, I was, I was a couple.

• 2:40:06Speaker 04

  But there was, there was this movie called American History X with Ed Norton.

• 2:40:13Speaker 04

  And, and, and the role that Stacy Keach played was written as Ed Norton's character's best friend.

• 2:40:26Speaker 04

  And, uh, and, and they were, they had tapped me for that. And then either the director or Ed or whoever made a decision that they, that if it was his friend betrayed him, and they're not wrong, by the way, but if the friend had betrayed him, it didn't make a greater statement about

• 2:40:47Speaker 04

  what they were really focusing on, which was this, you know, racism at an extreme. And so if it's just how does his best friend being a fucker uh, and betraying him lead to this epiphany that everything that he believed about race was a lie. Right? So, so they, so they, as a storyteller, they rightfully went back and addressed the script and, and changed it to make this character much more of a leader and a father figure and, and not so much an equal to, to, uh, and, and, and more part of an organized racist supremacist as opposed to a bunch of skinhead drug dealers, which was what it was originally. Right?

• 2:41:33Speaker 04

  So probably the right decision for them from a story standpoint.

• 2:41:39Speaker 04

  But, but it, but it cost me a job.

• 2:41:43Bill Simmons?

  Have you, have you ever?

• 2:41:45Speaker 04

  And then the other, the other one was, uh, I got pretty far down the road on Walking Dead and, and Bernthal beat me out of that role.

• 2:41:56Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 2:41:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. So he was on, when he did Wind River, you know, we were talking and I'm like, you know, you, you saved my ass, dude. I was damn near, I was gonna, I was damn near still an actor.

• 2:42:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man.

• 2:42:11Speaker 04

  Luckily.

• 2:42:11Bill Simmons?

  And then he ends up in Sicario, too.

• 2:42:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:42:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:42:16Bill Simmons?

  So you never thought about, I mean, you popped in, you popped in Yellowstone, but you never thought about writing one thing that you would be like one of the stars in, or you're, that bug is gone?

• 2:42:27Speaker 04

  The funny thing is, oh, no, I play a character on, on, uh, on, and he's sort of one of these career ground bench, just a, um, just a, uh, just a hammer. He's just a, he's just a hammer, uh, and, and it's fun to do those stunts and to run around and, you know, shoot the guns and play, play that. It's, and I get, you know, if I do an episode, a half of that, a season, then I've scratched that itch. But I've ironically been offered roles, uh, you know, since, and, and I haven't, I've turned it all down.

• 2:43:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't have any interest in spending four months.

• 2:43:09Bill Simmons?

  Would you have interest doing rewatchables if you're ever in LA? Cause we would love to have you talk about one of your favorite movies. I feel like you'd be really good at it.

• 2:43:16Speaker 04

  If, if you ever do rewatchables in Fort Worth, Texas, I'll do it.

• 2:43:20Bill Simmons?

  I might have to come, you might, I might have to get like five choices. I'll, I'll come, I'll come to you, cause I think you'd be really good at this.

• 2:43:28Speaker 04

  Cause, cause I've made it pretty clear, like, the only way you're getting me back to Los Angeles is if it succeeds from the union and I'm drafted into the army to take it back. It's the only way.

• 2:43:42Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's good. A lot of people feel that way about Los Angeles. My friend, William Goldman, who's sadly not with us anymore, but never wanted to come back here. He was like, New York, New York. I never want to come back. That's it. Some people just, that's it. They're done.

• 2:43:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I love New York. I love New York. Doesn't that city's way, way stronger than whatever political wind is blowing it in any direction, right? Whereas LA is built on sand. It ain't strong. There's no foundation there. That's sorry sucker. It's probably that way.

• 2:44:16Bill Simmons?

  The book is called How Did Not Die in Prison? It is out. It's out on hardcover right now, June 23rd. I'm gonna have to come to Fort Worth to see you. America heard you say, if I came down, you'd do a rewatchables, but it's great to talk to. I really admire everything you built.

• 2:44:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll figure out something, but congrats on everything, though. It's been fun to watch from afar. Thank you.

• 2:44:40Speaker 04

  Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 2:44:44Bill Simmons?

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• 2:45:30Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island, Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9. Only in theaters November 6. Get tickets now.