The Invincible OKC, Knicks Nirvana, and Acceptable Giannis Trades With Zach Lowe, Ariel Helwani, Sean Fennessey, and Ben Thompson

Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe to react to Game 1 of the WCF between the Thunder and Timberwolves (5:23). Then, Bill talks with Ariel Helwani and Sean Fennessey about the Knicks’ playoff run and their excitement for the new MMA film ‘The Smashing Machine,’ directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (54:35). Finally, Ben Thompson joins to talk Giannis trade scenarios (01:38:53). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe, Ariel Helwani, Sean Fennessey, and Ben Thompson Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is brought to you by Degree Deodorant. Grab the original Cool Rush at Walmart or Target today. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  You're listening and watching the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel, our friends, America's number one sportsbook, and they've made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game, even after tip off. Just look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your own bet slip, then sit back, relax, track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMER or visit rg-help.com.

• 0:44Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, a ton of basketball, a whiff of UFC, a whiff of Yanis trades. Action packed pod next. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th.

• 1:27Bill Simmons?

  Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where I put up a new rewatchables for you on Monday night. We did Close Encounters of the Third Kind as part of Big S 70s Week. It couldn't have gone better. I had a great time. You can watch it on the Ringer Moves YouTube channel. You can watch it as a video podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, on FanDuel, on FanDuel Sportsbook, I am going to be doing another episode of Tail or Fade, which I have won the last two weeks in a row.

• 2:08Bill Simmons?

  We're going to be doing Karl-Anthony Towns under 24 and a half points. And you get a little 50% profit boost on that, all kinds of good stuff. So go check out FanDuel Sportsbook on Wednesday. Coming up on this podcast, going to talk to Zach Lowe about game one, OKC Minnesota at the top. Going to talk to Ariel Helwani and Sean Fennessey, two long suffering Knicks fans who always come on this podcast to talk about the Knicks when things are going bad. So I thought it was only fair to bring them on when things are going good. But we had to balance that out with, with a guy whose team is going bad. Ben Thompson, who is going to yell at me about my Giannis Mobley trade idea and tell me where Giannis should actually go. So we got lots going on in this podcast.

• 2:51Bill Simmons?

  Wanted to say RIP to George Wendt, who played Norm Peterson on Cheers and did a whole bunch of other good stuff too. He was a great SNL host, he was in a bunch of movies, but Norm became, I think, a big part of his legacy. Cheers was one of my favorite shows ever. I was, I was almost ready to say it was my favorite show ever, but I don't even know, now that I'm older, it's hard, really hard to have a favorite show ever. But you definitely have that top, top list of most favorites, most, most shows you love the most. And I loved Cheers so much. And I just thought, Norm, when you talk about like the great supporting characters, which I think is a little different than a star of a show.

• 3:34Bill Simmons?

  You know, like you think Seinfeld, Seinfeld was the star of Seinfeld, but I think George and Elaine were also stars. And then Kramer was like the, at least for the first few years, like the kind of supporting character sidekick, and he was awesome. But there's, it's so hard to pull that off, to thread the needle, when you're not like one of the biggest stars of the show, but you're still awesome. And Norm is like, I think the number one example of it. There's some other one, everybody has, if you're, it's generational.

• 4:03Bill Simmons?

  You know, the shows you, like for me, it's the shows that I grew up watching in the 70s and the 80s. You're always going to lean toward those. And if somebody's younger than me, maybe it's the 90s or 2000s. If they're older than me, maybe it's the 50s, 60s. But for me, it was like Norm and Stanley Roper and Vinnie Barberino. There was all these, all these supporting characters who just would crush it every time they came on television. And Norm was the best. And Norm was so good that there's long YouTube entrances of just all the times he would walk into the bar and have some joke off of Sam's thing. And then I thought it was notable that in the final episode, which is still the most watched TV show, I think of the last 40 years, it was like 80 million people watched it.

• 4:46Bill Simmons?

  The last two minutes of the show are Norm and Sam closing down the bar for that night. And Norm has a poignant comment and he walks off and there's a reason they did it that way. So when I think of the best character guys in 30 minute shows and it's him.

• 5:06Bill Simmons?

  It's not a long list. It really isn't. Mr. Roper from Three's Company, I always loved. People that just, every time they're in a scene, they owned it. And that's happening less or less now. When I know like, everybody loves Raymond. I wasn't, he wasn't like a religious watcher of that show, but Brad Garrett's character, I think was always like that. It's really, it's a hard needle to thread where you just come in and you kill it every time. But I really thought he was just amazing. So anyway, I was sad today. He died at 76. One of, one of, one of my favorite TV supporting actors and gave us one of the great characters we've, we've ever had in a sitcom. Anyway, RIP to him. All right. Coming up, we're going to talk to Zach Lowe and let's bring in our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 6:14Bill Simmons?

  It is 8:13 Pacific time. Zach Lowe stayed up late tonight. I was kind of deep down hoping we were going to get a really fun Timberwolves, OKC game one. And then for about a quarter and a half, it felt like we were heading that way. And then OKC does the thing that they do from time to time where their defense just shifts. It's shape shifters. They just turn it up a different way. And then all of a sudden the game's over and you're like, what happened? How was this an 18-point game? It was just, they were just up by two a second ago and that was it. So I don't know. You take anything away from this or is it just typical game one?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, The Wolves are ahead by four points halfway through the third quarter. Mike Conley had a little, had a little flurry, little flurry. Mike Conley hit a three. It was 60 to 56 with 7:22 left. But look, I said this before the series, I picked Thunder in six. Don't feel any better. I guess I have to feel slightly better about that pick, but the bottom line is this, the most consistent unit, let's call it, left in the playoffs is Oklahoma City's defense. Every single night, they're going to be an absolute bear to score on them. No one has really found an answer at any point of the season. Denver did pretty well against them in the regular season. Spoiler alert, that did not last until playoffs, even with the best player in the world.

• 7:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Trying every trick he has. And they just reach a frenzy. And you know, like Julius Randall posting up, it's just like, watch out. Like where's it, where's the hell, is there any help coming from? Is Lou Dort going to pull the chair? Where are the arms? There are just arms everywhere. And you know, look, 17 turnovers doesn't sound that bad for Minnesota. I mean, it's not great, but it doesn't sound that bad. 13 of those were steals. And that plus a free throw margin that is even and or slightly an edged Oklahoma City is just the Wolves are dead on arrival against this defense. If those stats trend that way.

• 8:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it felt like this was the game. About 30, 40 minutes in, it's like, all right, they're going to get this one if they're going to get a game, right? Everything's going well. Randall's playing out of his ass and OKC looked nervous. And OKC looked a little tired from maybe that seven gamer. And it was interesting when Kenrich Williams came in.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Love it. Kenny hustle, baby.

• 8:30Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable. Like, would he have been the fifth best Nugget? Where do you have him ranked on Nuggets? Could he have played 35 minutes a game for the Nuggets?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  He's, he was plus 19 in nine minutes, made every shot that he took. Unbelievable.

• 8:42Bill Simmons?

  So when he did that, I'm like, is this a tactical move? Or did he extend the bench today because he was worried his team was a little worn out? Or what's going on? And did he lose faith in Caruso all of a sudden? And then Caruso came in and played one of the great stretches he's had in the playoffs. And that was, that answered that question.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Caruso was making threes, guarding Randall as I think, I think everyone was reminded that, oh yeah, he's going to guard Randall when he guarded Jokic at the end of the series. And Kenrich Williams, he's like a beloved guy there, you know? For years, they've been saying he's going to be Nick Collison 2.0 for us. He's just going to be a lifer here. We love him. He's about all the right things. Hadn't really done much in the playoffs, in the real playoffs. I'm not going to count the Memphis series. It's a cool moment. He may not do much from here on out, but that's a big, that was a big stretch of basketball for him. It was a cool moment.

• 9:33Bill Simmons?

  Was. He had a big three too. So the things I was worried about heading into this game, what are we getting from Mike Conley, who's old, going against this gauntlet? You called on Sunday's pod or Monday's pod, you said you thought OKC's defense is now going way up there. I want to see it for four rounds because I, I, I'm still licking my wounds from jumping the gun with Minnesota last year when they looked good in round two and all of a sudden I was comparing them to the 89 Pistons. So I'm just, I have the training wheels on for all defense takes in these playoffs. But I, you know, the bones are there. I think what makes them special is, is the different looks and how they can do the big and small, how they can put like a, we're just going to try to get a lot of

• 10:18Bill Simmons?

  steals lineup. They, they have looks like a football team that I don't really remember seeing. I guess the, the, you know, you go back to the 89 Pistons and teams of that ilk that could kind of change their look depending on what you had. They're on pace, but what they did today is they do it over and over again. They just go on these runs and they're defense fueled, which is so unusual in the, in the league, right? The runs that we usually have in the league are threes and, or somebody getting hot. This team can have runs based on steals and pressure and picking up guys at half court. That one sequence, I know you know what I'm about to say. When Edwards was bringing

• 10:57Bill Simmons?

  the ball up and Caruso kind of jumped on him and then he almost lost, he almost fell over for a backcourt just because of the pressure and then got it back and then just like launched a terrible three. Nobody else is doing that in the league. And I think that's what makes them special is they just throw things defensively. They're like, I Not seeing that anywhere.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have, they have a couple every game where it's just, oh, the guy just either fell over along the sideline under pressure, bringing the ball up or dribble the ball off his foot, or I don't quite know what happened. I have to watch the replay to see what went haywire here. But you mentioned different looks and, you know, I was talking about this before the series. We saw, I said, it's going to be a safer series to play Chet as the only big guy on the floor. They were afraid to do it against Denver very much and they did it a lot today. Hartenstein only played 20 minutes and Chet was awesome. I mean, it doesn't jump off the stat sheet, you know, 15, 7, 3. I just thought he made the kind of plays he needs to make on offense for them to win the championship, for them to win 16 playoff games. Going to have to hit some threes.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  He had just one, but he was one of one. Some tough twos, some good takes around the basket and just he's, they have him guarding either McDaniels or a little bit Gobert, never Julius Randall. They're like, we're just keeping you away from that matchup. He's going to bulldoze you.

• 12:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's saving your sternum and your ribs.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  He's, we're going to make you, we're going to preserve you as a help defender a lot. And he's just everywhere. Like there was that one play where he had, he switched on to DiVincenzo in the right corner because the Wolves kind of moved around their offense a little bit. And DiVincenzo's like, cool, I'll just drive baseline and see what happens. And what happens is Chet's like, you're just going to eat the basketball for dinner. How's that, how's that feel? He was, he was awesome. And then we saw them close the game. I mean, the game was already kind of closed, but with no bigs on the floor, they went to their sort of all wing, all guard, switch, everything, good luck figuring this thing out, lineup. And, you know, they have a little bit more lineup flexibility, I think, in this series than they did against Denver. And look, Minnesota had 88 points, 88 points. And I think we, I guess we got to talk about the threes, right?

• 13:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, they took 53, 88 points is never a good ratio.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Hard to win in the NBA in 2025 when the other team takes 30 more threes than you, and yet they won running away. And I'm, the tracking data nerds are already flagging it. They're already waiting the second spectrum data tomorrow. Now, did Minnesota underperform their expected shot variation by, was this just a shot luck game? And I'll be interested to see. What that data actually says because they missed some good ones, but man, they make you take, first of all, no defense is better at helping, making you think you're open and then flying back at you while another guy stunts at you. So at least there's like stuff happening in your line of sight. And by the way, the guy flying at me has gigantic arms and he's really fast and he's

• 13:48Speaker 01

  like 23 years old and at the peak of his athleticism. And a lot of them watching in real time, and we're doing this right after the game. I haven't gone back and rewatched them yet. They felt like long threes and a lot like early in the shot clock threes and even the ones that are decent and 29 feet early in the shot clock are long and have the feel of like, well, I better shoot this one now because it's pretty good and we ain't getting anything better than this. I'm letting it fly. And, you know, I, I thought for the most part, a lot of those threes were like decently contested. And for a lot of this game, it was Minnesota missing tough threes and Oklahoma City missing tough twos. And I think what should scare Minnesota a little bit is Oklahoma City started getting easier twos and making more of the twos as the game went on.

• 14:33Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, if you're Minnesota, the one thing you're gonna come out of the game is we have to get a better whistle on these SGA calls.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Oh, they were furious the whole game. I mean, they were furious going into the game, which is always kind of a bad sign. If you're already like on edge about it, it's, it's like you're, you're, it feels like you're, you just got to chill out a little bit, accept that it's gonna be bad. But yeah, I'm sure some clips will be sent to the league office between games one and two.

• 14:58Bill Simmons?

  Deservedly. Look, I, you know, I tweeted this in real time and I never tweet during games usually, but I just thought Shay, and I don't, I don't care. I didn't, I didn't bet on the game. I didn't really care who won. I just hope we have a long, fun series. But I feel like Shay is getting this whistle that nobody else in the playoffs is getting, where there's little touch fouls or these bumps where you're not even sure who initiated the bumps and he's just getting it. And I think with Minnesota, you can see this, you saw it in the Laker series, you saw in the last series, McDaniels can just have four or five fouls immediately and you don't even know what happened. And when, when he has fouls, I think Minnesota is a different team because he's

• 15:40Bill Simmons?

  kinda, he's their swing guy. Every team has a swing guy. I feel like he's their swing guy. And once you put foul trouble on him and he's not as, uh, not as aggressive. It's then it comes down to like, is Ant or, you know, are the threes gonna go in or is Ant gonna go nuts? The bench guys were also really bad. And there's, there's officially a Nas Reed storyline that's developed where he's been bad for three weeks now, where he hasn't looked like this guy, like when they, when they really got hot, when Randall was out, I think it was like February range, and he was like 20 to 25 a night and, you know, seven, eight rebounds a game and was like really impactful. I don't think he's figured out how to impact the team now that Randall

• 16:23Bill Simmons?

  is looking like Randall. And today he was one for 11. Obviously, it's about as bad as it's gonna get. But you do that, Alexander Walker's three for 11, and Dante was three for 14. They're not really built to survive three shit bench games, right?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, five, five of 28 on threes combined for those three guys. First of all, 28 threes for three bench guys. That's almost an accomplishment in and of itself. Like, you're almost having three bench guys take 10 threes of these. And you said that about Nas Reed-

• 16:55Bill Simmons?

  Even Missoula is like, I don't know, that's a lot.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I thought, I thought Missoula would be like in, in like, the jungles of the Amazon by now.

• 17:05Bill Simmons?

  He probably is. He doesn't have cable right now. He has no cable, no streaming right now.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  You know, you said that about Nas Reed, and it seemed like a little unfair to me, because I, in my head, I mean, it's like, been a while since the Wolves played in my head. I'm like, he's had some pretty good games. I'm looking back, last three games against Golden State, all single digits. First two, he had 30 combined, and then two single-digit games against the Lakers, a really good game one, which maybe is the one that's sticking in my head. But since then, very quiet, very quiet. And win or lose this series and whatever, obviously Minnesota and their new ownership is gonna have some big financial decisions to make, and he's a big one.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. I didn't realize we were going there already.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  No, we're not, we're not. I'm just saying, you brought it up.

• 17:49Bill Simmons?

  There's no free agents, but there's also no cap space.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And he's such a legend there and deservedly so like the just people just screaming Nas Reed in the streets and holding the Nas Reed towels. I hope he stays there forever. But you look, I think Minnesota will work their way into this series, but this game was

• 18:10Speaker 01

  not a not the start you were hoping for. Could you come out of this like, oh, jeez, man, with this is gonna be tough to score enough against these guys?

• 18:17Bill Simmons?

  It exacerbated all the things I was worried about, which is ball handling, Conley's age, the fact that they don't really have a backup point guard, that it seems like Edwards is gonna have to have the ball a lot. And I think OKC was ready for that, especially in the second half. You could see like, oh, you're gonna have Edwards bring it up. We're gonna actually make it really difficult for him. And OKC with the especially at home with the ability to snap this snap the switch for four minutes. I'm worried for Minnesota. Because I'm trying to think, what's the roadmap for them to be awesome in this series? When you think how bad OKC played for the first half of this game, basically for them. And then they still win the game easily. I guess it starts with Edwards.

• 18:59Bill Simmons?

  It was only 18 points. Typical like weird feeling it out. He does this sometimes. He didn't. There was a Laker game like this, too. There was the first game of the Warriors series where it's like this. It's almost like a feel out game, but it lasts the whole game. And then the game's over and they lost. But I would assume he's gonna come out way more aggressive.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I you know, you do have to remind yourself all the time, don't overreact to game one, even if it even and maybe especially if it confirms to your expectations about how the series would go because then your tendency is to really overreact to it. Roadmap number one is hit four more threes if you're gonna take 50 and that that does a lot of the work for you. But I will

• 19:41Bill Simmons?

  Get to 1920.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll continue to say this, like, if they lose the turnover, if they lose the live ball turnover battle like that, because Oklahoma City had 12 turnovers, only five of those were steals. So that's what did I say 13 steals to five steals. If they lose that battle that badly and they don't win the free throw battle by a significant margin, they're just not going to win games. There's just no math that's going to help them win games. But step one is the threes. The ant Like grade the, what, what grade would you give Ant this game? He does have games like this where like he has moments and first of all, I thought-

• 20:13Bill Simmons?

  For him, for him, D+.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  For him, not D+ across the board, for him.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  What do you want more of? What did you, what did you see that concerned you?

• 20:23Bill Simmons?

  Swagger. I want, I want, yo, we're playing the best team in the league and I'm in their house and I'm stealing this game from them. I didn't feel that at all in this game. Now, he did get hurt in the fir-, in the first half and I don't know if that tweaked whatever was going on and on. Randall also had a huge first half, so maybe he back off, but um, he's got to win the swagger battle with this. That this, you beat OKC by, it's, it sounds stupid and it's the opposite of second spectrum. And I liked your second spectrum voice that you broke out, by the way, the, your nerdy second spectrum.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, I, I always tell people like, I said it about the Celtics after game, game one and game two against the Knicks. Hang the, hang the shot quality championship banner. Congratulations. You had better shot quality. You're, you're down 2-0 in the series. You get nothing for that.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think for him, he's got to be talking shit. He's got to feel like he's the alpha on the court. I didn't feel that at all in this game. Randall ironically was the one that was starting to carry himself that way. And it was interesting to watch OKC swing their, everything they were doing defensively to try to just kind of take him out. I mean, the Caruso piece of this, I was thinking how, as you know, I always want more awards. Because I think we need stuff to commemorate the season well after the fact and be like, oh, that was the season when this happened and this happened and this happened.

• 21:44Bill Simmons?

  If we had a role player of the playoffs award, it feel like Caruso would be like minus 700 on FanDuel to take it at this point. He, to watch somebody guard Randall Edwards and Jokic well in a, in a 48 hour span? Who else is doing that?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Who else is in the, does it have to be a bench guy? Like is Josh Hart in the conversation? Is Andrew Nemhart in the conversation? Those guys are, are other leaders.

• 22:14Bill Simmons?

  You have to think of it like it's, it's a movie poster and it can't be somebody who would be one of the two or three faces in the movie poster. Or in like the TNT.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  When they're doing the commercial for the game, it would be weird if they were in the game. Like Julius Randle is not eligible. He's.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Aaron Gordon too, too good for, for, for that?

• 22:34Bill Simmons?

  I think he is because if you're doing the Nuggets movie poster, it's the three guys, right? So it'd be Christian Brown in that case would be your role player.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Nuggets movie poster is just Jokic sitting on the bench, looking sad as, as the lead is like frittered away. They always cut to him. It was the, first it was the Nico Harrison and the crowd cut when anything bad would happen. And then it became the Jokic on the bench.

• 22:55Bill Simmons?

  When he's looking up and it's like, oh, there's 11 minutes and 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter. I probably can't come back yet. They wanted, they, they told me they wanted me to get to nine minutes.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  How did that?

• 23:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh God, Russ just turned the ball over again. Oh, now it's 10 50.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Let's talk, can we talk a little more about Ant?

• 23:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  So like the simplest explanation for why Oklahoma City is, is very difficult to play against is if you're Ant and you have the ball at the top of the, top of the arc.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Like what, what direction are you going against this defense? There's no easy mark to go at. I thought at the beginning of the game, he was starting to get traction in the Gobert pick and roll, just like,

• 23:41Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Like not soft as part of the defense, but just, I can always get a big guy. Like get Hartenstein up, up the floor and like, maybe I can get around him or there's a pocket pass to Gobert or something. And then Gobert only ends up playing 20 minutes. They play Chet at center quite a bit. When Isaiah Joe was on the floor, Ant really wanted to go at him and they couldn't get that switch. Like the Thunder were really good at hedging, recovering and like you take that out of it and it's like, I don't know where to go. And you could try Shay, but Ant has not really developed like the sort of back to the basket. Bully ball game that I think he'd like, I mean, he and I talked about it three, four years ago in a phone interview. He, he would like to do that and it just hasn't, it's just a, there's just not a lot of places to pick at.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Whereas I thought the Thunder gradually were like, Shay was like, okay. Particularly when Gobert's off the floor, I can get someplace against Randall. I can attack Nas Reed's feet in the pick and roll. Like I got play, it's not great. Like this is a really good defensive team too, but I got things I can do. And Ant is still figuring out kind of where he wants to poke at. And I think he's gonna have a game where he finds the right, the right places and stuff starts to open up for him. Maybe part of it is like, like he likes to go one on one. He's an incredible one on one player and he can beat almost anybody one on one. And he, he had a couple of those in this game, but again, it's like, if it's Kason Wallace or somebody like that, like that's no picnic. And they're gonna pick you a lot of the time too.

• 25:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Kason Wallace was in there for a little bit and you, OKC always has two guys you just completely forgot were on the team. And then they're just kicking ass for three straight minutes. I think the thing that OKC seems like they love is if somebody's going straight up one on one. Almost like the old school one forward and it's like, I'm gonna go one on one, beat a guy and just try to get to the basket. They're like, great, please try that. We're, we're ready in so many different ways. It seems like you gotta attack them on the sides with angles. Cause I feel like the Celtics fell into the same kind of issues with Tatum when it would go bad. When it was always like him 40 feet from the basket, straight ahead. Versus when they would put him on the left or the right. And he could kind of veer toward the paint and decide like what to do off the dribble.

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  I always felt like he was better. Maybe that's what they're gonna have to do with Edwards. And I thought they found something in the first half of the Gobert pick and rolls and then they just stopped.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  There was a play in the second half where I don't remember exactly, it was an Ant pick and roll, maybe with Gobert. And he got Kason Wallace on his hip and got him trapped kind of behind him. And then snaked it. So he changed directions and it looked like he was gonna have a driving lane to the right. And that if Gobert was the screener, let's just say Gobert was gonna seal off everyone on the other side of the floor. And Caruso just ran in from the right corner off Alexander Walker. And Ant was like, oh my God, okay, I'll kick the ball to Alexander Walker. And in real time, I thought they had switched and then I rewatched it and it was like, no. Caruso just ran all the way back to Alexander Walker, contested the three. So Alexander Walker had to pump, put the ball on the floor for one dribble, rise up for a three.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  And then here comes Kason Wallace coming at me and it was like a decent three, but it's an example of. Ant just couldn't get a, like an easy feel for, there's a clear path to the rim and I'm taking it. And then they're just flying at you and making you take like. Some decent threes, some bad threes. So it's, there's a great, I mean, look, it's not breaking news. They're an awesome defensive team.

• 27:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, the problem if you're the other team that's playing whoever the favorite, you kind of have to win game one. I feel like to pull off an upset. The, the Thunder were 68 and 14 this season. They're eight and three in the playoffs. Now you have to beat them four out of six times, basically to send them packing. And that includes winning at least one game on the road, right? And, and I guess game seven on the road. Just a tall task. I thought this was the game they had to steal, especially OKC. Definitely seemed tired that first half. Randall's playing great. This is the game you probably take. So I don't, I don't really know. In terms

• 27:48Bill Simmons?

  of tweaks, I feel like it's going to be easier for OKC to tweak this and use the, you know, the last quarter and a half to their advantage. Hey, we worked with FanDuel long hours trying to figure out a great idea for the NBA playoffs and we stumbled into a really good one that we've been doing for the last couple of weeks. We've won two weeks in a row. It's called Tail or Fade.

• 28:09Bill Simmons?

  I make a prop that I like and you can either back me or you can go against me. And it's hit the last two weeks and it's going to hit again this week because we were going Karl-Anthony Towns under 24 and a half points. It's the first under prop that I've done. And by the way, if you think I'm wrong, fade me, go the other way. I think he's going to score 25 points or more. There's a little minus action on this, but when you throw in the 50% profit boost, you win either way if, if the bet hits. So please go check out FanDuel Sportsbook and you can find the bet. Make sure you do the little tail or fade prop thingy with it. Get the profit boost. You can apply it to my pick or the other side of the pick and you're off and running. If

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  we win the bet together, go trash talk your friends because they didn't believe in us. I believe in us. We're going to do this. FanDuel.com/BS. That's where you can find, that's where you can download America's number one sportsbook and make every moment more. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus present in DC. Opting required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.

• 29:24Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Degree Original Cool Rush Deodorant. Remember last year? People got really mad when Degree changed their Cool Rush formula. One dude even started a petition. What was up with that guy? Well, guess what? Degree listened. They admitted they messed up. They're bringing back the original Cool Rush scent. And thank God. You've got to love when a brand can own its mistakes. And it's in Walmart, Target and other stores right now for under $4. Grab some. Find out why it's been the number one men's antiperspirant for the last decade. By the way, you should put that on, especially we're about to hit the summer. It's getting sweaty in the summers.

• 30:07Bill Simmons?

  The original Degree Cool Rush is back and it smells like victory for all of us. Are you ready to wrap your head around OKC actually winning the title? I know we, I know they're the favorite all year. I know we've talked about it, prepared for it. They were an incredible regular season, but they still seem so young to me when I'm watching it. It just seems like they're going to win this and it still feels like they have their future ahead of them, which is a really unusual place for a champion to be. You know what I mean?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  I mean, you cautioned me to not, you know, we already talked about Nas Reed's free agency. And then you're like, oh, we're talking about OKC has already won the title.

• 30:49Bill Simmons?

  Seven wins away now and it doesn't, I feel like Denver might've been the best chance to beat them. Even as limited as that team was.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  When they, when they beat Denver, and it's always hard to go through a proven champion with the best player. When they beat Denver, they were very clearly like the betting, the solid favorite to win the championship. Tonight only reinforced that, but there are still seven wins to go and three tough teams and a lot of randomness, health stuff. Who knows what could pop up? But yeah, I mean, I picked them to make the finals this year. I thought I picked Boston over Oklahoma City as my, as my, so I'm not surprised. And it doesn't feel premature to me in part because. You know, they, they had people kind of like, like sometimes talk as if last season's playoff

• 31:37Speaker 01

  run was so crushingly disappointing and so short. That was a real like the New Orleans series in the first round was a walkover, but Dallas was a team that ended up making the finals with two generationally elite ball handlers and a lot of sides and a lot of problems. And like, they had to problem solve at a high level. They, they failed. They lost the series. It was a very close series. Easily could have gone seven, easily could have gone the other way. Like, that was real playoff experience. And then they completely, like, the Hartenstein Caruso double dip completely changes their team in a lot of different ways. And they're, they're, they're ready for this.

• 32:14Bill Simmons?

  It sure feels like it. The Denver thing really put some chest hair on them. And I was talking to some people yesterday about the Denver game. I don't, obviously, they didn't break Jokic. He's incredible. But it was interesting to watch him run out of solutions. And I, I potted right afterwards with Russell, but I was still thinking about the game after. And when they just weren't able to get him the ball. It's unbelievable. For, for long swaths of the game, you know, and, and finally Jokic, like, he really didn't shoot that much. I think he had 17 points at halftime. He might have finished with 20. I, I felt like they broke the nuggets a little bit in that game. That's another

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  team. It's not just that you're, you know, you have a chance to win the title. You're also leaving wreckage of teams behind. I don't know what happens to that Denver team going forward, or what the moves are, or how you fix kind of this nucleus that feels like it's just not going to be good enough anymore. But that's, that's a piece of it. And it goes back to what, something I talked about on Sunday, and you've talked about in your pod too, is it feels, it feels like there's some sort of shift this season. That we're moving into the second half of the decade, literally. And all the teams that mattered the first half of the decade, for the most part, are going by the wayside.

• 33:39Bill Simmons?

  And now we have this new, kind of new crop of teams that are just going to be in our lives. The question for me is whether Minnesota can stay there with the tax stuff regardless of what happens in this series. Are they going to be able to pay Nas Reed? Do they have the pockets to do that?

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  How are they going to handle Randall if he opts out? Which I think he, there's a chance he might.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I mean, if

• 34:03Bill Simmons?

  Why wouldn't they?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  That's all, well, it's all going to be, I mean, he'll know if he opts out, he'll know he's opting out for something better than opting in. I don't like, I still want to talk about Minnesota counters and what else they can do. I don't want to be, I don't want to go this far. This is too, this is too far for me.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  This is, this is why we're talking it out.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Offensive rebounding, there was a moment where it felt like, oh, they're going to be able to kind of bully this team on the glass. And then it faded away. I think we got to see more of that.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  I was surprised, I think they only played one possession of zone in the whole game. And it felt like it was more to protect Jaden McDaniels, or maybe Jaden McDaniels got taken out right before. I thought that was going to be something they went to a little bit more, particularly after watching Denver kind of trouble them a little bit with the zone. I wonder if they're just like, we don't want to play that card right away in game one. We want to see what our man to man defense can do.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  You know, there's a couple, a couple of things. They, Gobert, Gobert, two points, three rebounds. It's just, it's just got to be like 12 points, 14 rebounds. Eight of those rebounds are offensive rebounds. Like if he's going to play and they're going to win, it's got to be something like that.

• 35:17Bill Simmons?

  They did something with him. He did the drive down the middle. Where it seems like he's gonna do a scoop shot and then he just whips it out to the side. And I forget which OKC player was like, you're passing it to the corner and just stood there and took the ball and the pass.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Do you think Minnesota's, like the guys on the bench have like had training sessions about, okay, guys, when Rudy starts to do that, you can't start laughing. You can't like hide, you've gotta just like stare straight ahead.

• 35:44Bill Simmons?

  When he passes up a two foot layup for a kick out to the corner. All right. So you think more go bear.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Just more, they gotta get something out of him.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  The three, the three point luck has to change. Ant goes way more Alfie. Shay doesn't get the same calls. McDaniels is able to actually stay in the court and be McDaniels. I think that's the recipe. I still don't know if it's enough.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I thought Thunder in six, uh, so I, I don't think it's all gonna be enough, but.

• 36:13Bill Simmons?

  That's what I had too. I thought, I thought Minnesota would get two wins somehow.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's just five just.

• 36:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't know where they're coming from now.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Five just feels to, for a team that is what eight and two in the playoffs coming into this and made the conference finals last year. If five just feels like they've earned a little bit more respect than that. And seven felt too much. Seven felt like that's, that's too many. I'm going six.

• 36:35Bill Simmons?

  So quickly on Randall. I was looking up because I was bored once that game got out of hand. I was looking at Randall's weird career.

• 36:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, he's averaging for his career, 19 and nine.

• 36:48Bill Simmons?

  And I looked up, how many guys have played 700 plus games and averaged 19 and nine? What do you think the number is? Number of players in the history of the NBA, 19 and nine, 19 points, nine rebounds. Again, that's it. 700 games.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  700 games?

• 37:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  62.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  23.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 37:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  That's it?

• 37:11Bill Simmons?

  Jokic, Bird, Giannis, Wilt, Elgin, pretty, pretty good start. C. Webb, Charles Barkley, Randall, Kareem, Karl Malone, Bob Lanier, Tim Duncan, Bob Pettit, Anthony Davis.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  I guess nine's a lot. Nine is a lot.

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  Shaq, David Robinson, Hakeem, Walt Bellamy, Bob McAdoo, Patrick Ewing, Alvin Hayes, Spencer Haywood and Moses Malone.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  That's like an incredible list.

• 37:32Bill Simmons?

  Multiple Hall of Famers, guys, multiple guys who are in the top 20 all time. And then if you go that same list where 3.5 assists a game, that then that list goes down to 10.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Are you making a Julius Randle Hall of Fame case right now? Is that what you're doing?

• 37:50Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, I did not realize, I'd kind of given up on Rando as like a real asset. But I've been so impressed with him in the playoffs that it's making me re- like, did I get something wrong? Did he get better? Was he this good the whole time? I have Knicks fans in my life. Some of them are like, couldn't stand watching him. And then others are like, the guy was awesome for us. 24 and 10 every night, four assists, five assists, guy's a warrior. And he's just, I don't know how it happened, but he's probably the most polarizing guy in the league, right? For, for the discourse, how far it's gone in different directions.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Should we pitch a documentary on the kind of post Kobe, pre LeBron Lakers? All of whom become like characters around like Randall, D-Lo, Josh Hart's flying around.

• 38:43Bill Simmons?

  Don't forget Brook Lopez.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Well, I'm talking about like the young guys, Brandon Ingram, Jordan Clarkson. There's like a Nick Young, D'Angelo Russell subplot in there. Iggy Azalea is involved. If I said, if I said her name right.

• 38:56Bill Simmons?

  So you're saying the year before.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Larry Nance Jr., just like the, the youth movement that LeBron kind of came in and was like, yeah, I'm publicly like, yeah, I'm curious. Like, these guys are all interesting. And then was like, can we just trade all of them immediately? Like one, but Kuzma, Kuzma is another one. They're all like these characters scattered across the league now. Lakers fans were so excited about that team. Luke Walton was the coach. And there was a moment, there were moments where it was like, maybe this could be a team. Like, maybe this could grow into something like, like not a great team, but like a 49 win team one year or something fun and homegrown. And now they're just like a bomb went off and they're just scattered everywhere.

• 39:30Bill Simmons?

  They had the number two.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Lonzo, Lonzo's in there.

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  I know, I'm about to give you that Lonzo was on there. Thomas Bryant, he's in the playoffs right now. KCP, Caruso, Jordan Clarkson, Channing Frye, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Brook Lopez, Larry Nance, Gary Payton, and Zubats all had minutes on the 2018 Lakers. Now, some of them left during the season with trades, but.

• 39:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Caruso piece of it. First of all, that he was in the G League nine years ago. That picture of him and Mark Dagdahl is unbelievable, them in the G League together. It's just like an unbelievable photo. But the fact that it just took this long for him to be fully appreciated like he's being in these playoffs, when it probably should have happened in 2020, with all the stuff he was doing then. I still love that trade for both teams. I think Giddy for Caruso is one of the most fun trades of the last five, six years. Perfect trade for both teams. All the stuff Caruso is doing on OKC is wasted on a 41 and 41 Bulls team. Like, this is where he should be. Good trade.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  If that, like, no, I, look, I, I didn't like it for the Bulls as much as you did, but I also thought the Bulls got too much flack for that trade. But Caruso is doing this on the highest level of professional basketball. For the Bulls to end up in three years saying, hey, that trade worked out just as well for us, Giddy is gonna have to do some of this stuff on like, a really high level of basketball and not like, it's cool that you averaged 28 and 8 in March and April when half of the East is tanking. And like, that's cool. I'm not saying it's meaningless, like, he shot the three well this year, but it's gotta happen with some real stakes at some point.

• 41:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  And in the East, hey, Bill, like, apologies, like, to, to what, you know, the Boston thing, the Milwaukee thing, like, hey, it could, could be next year. Bulls could be four or five series next year. You know, who knows?

• 41:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the case. Ben Thompson's coming up later, because I had to bring him on to yell at me about my Giannis for Mobley trade. What was your take on that trade, by the way?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Well, my first take was the same one that Bobby Marks had, which was, I'm pretty sure, like, this is way more complicated than that.

• 41:48Bill Simmons?

  It was a theoretical.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  And then my second trade was, I think Cleveland would just reflexively recoil from it, because Mobley is seven years or eight years younger, or whatever it is than Giannis, uh, seven, or six and a half. And, and then my third thought was, should they, should they just reflexively recoil? Like, what is Mobley's, and I love Mobley, you and, you and I both are super high on Mobley. He's probably gonna make second team All-NBA and kinda deservedly, I think.

• 42:14Bill Simmons?

  And Defensive Player of the Year.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  I just, I just, but Yanis is Yanis and Mitchell, Mitchell Garland Yanis makes more sense than Shengun Thompson Yanis or like, like, but, but I just think in the end, I'm a little bit more risk averse trading young for aging. It's the same reason I never got so excited about Durant coming to Boston. But I think, I think you, if their instinct, and I believe that it probably would be, is to just like recoil in horror at the idea of trading of Mobley. I think they need to at least sort of tamp that down and really think it through and what does it look like and what, what is the cost at least?

• 43:00Bill Simmons?

  Boogie Cousins was on some show today saying that he thought Dallas should trade the Cooper flag pick for Durant, which I thought was bold because he said Dallas' window is right now.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I feel like, I feel like you're trying to bait me into.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm not trying to bait you. I'm just passing along information. I respectfully disagree with.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I saw the clip. I don't think, I mean, I don't.

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna disagree.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  He's right about the window and what Nico Harrison has publicly said about the window, which is, which is, which is why you aim at Yanis and not Kevin Durant, I think. If you're gonna, if you're gonna do that, and I don't think they should do it either way.

• 43:37Bill Simmons?

  I'm keeping flag. Yeah. Thanks anyway, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for all your offers. I'll be keeping, I'll be keeping flag. I guess, yeah, even Mobley, I, I just, Flag's still 18 and he's gonna come in. He's, by the way, you don't watch college basketball.

• 43:55Bill Simmons?

  He's going to be your favorite player.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I've watched my, I've done my YouTube and I've watched a couple of Duke games because they got far in the tournament. I enjoyed, I enjoyed.

• 44:03Bill Simmons?

  He checks a lot of boxes on the Zach scale. I'll tell you that.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I enjoyed Duke's final four collapse against, who did they, who did they collapse against?

• 44:11Bill Simmons?

  Auburn, Houston, one of those.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Houston. Great, great time. Great time. Yeah. For any red-blooded American.

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  Who did you have in Knicks Pacers, out of curiosity?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Knicks in seven.

• 44:22Bill Simmons?

  Knicks in seven.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  You have Pacers in four, I assume?

• 44:26Bill Simmons?

  No, I have either Pacers in six or Knicks in seven. I think it's one of those two outcomes. I think it goes at least six.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Any other, well, any other pick than that, or I guess Pacers in seven, if he's thinking of winning on the road. Any pick other like feels too short, but that that feels like it should be just an awesome. See, I'm going to game one tomorrow at the Garden. I can't wait.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  You're going.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  I just want to soak it in. I just want to, I just want to feel it and hear it and.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  How early are you going to get there?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I'll get there if it's an eight o'clock tip. I, I, I think they'll let us in at 5:30. So I'll get there at 5:20 and.

• 45:02Bill Simmons?

  Don't stand next to Windhorse. He's just try to be like, or defend Windhorse if anyone comes at him like use some, use some karate. I'm, that still made me mad.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Well, like, look, the Knicks, the Knicks fandom is awesome and I'm, I'm like, go off. It's been 25 years. You want to flood the streets. It's my favorite city in the world. I lived there for 18 years. You want to go crazy, but like, someone, someone tweeted today, like, I don't know where the line is on this kind of stuff. I think the line is like throwing stuff at people and shoving them and punching them. There's, it's pretty easy. You can shout anything you want, like.

• 45:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  They, they like the stuff they did to the Pacers fan that Halliburton is flying out to Indiana. It's like, that, that's a pretty, that's a pretty clear line. Like taunt, talk your shit, but like, you know, don't hit people or throw stuff at them.

• 45:49Bill Simmons?

  We know where the lines are. Well, we'll see. There, there's, we have some Knicks fans coming up after you. There's a Jalen Brunson moment lurking right now that, you know, could take on Joe Namath, winning the third Super Bowl ever proportions if, if he could actually pull it off. He's eight wins away. Did you, did you ever see any version of this with the Knicks where they could actually like win the title? They were pretty massive underdogs in that Celtic series. Did you see it was like the fifth biggest upset of the 21st century in basketball? That series?

• 46:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I've, I've always been higher on this Knicks team and even last season's Knicks team, I, I said, was the biggest threat to the Celtics in the East, even if Philly were healthy, even if Milwaukee had been healthy, I would have thought that.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  I just thought Boston was a terrible matchup for them and I was shocked at how I think, you know, you put Tibbs on the hot seat before the playoffs and I understood why you did it. I think he deserves a ton of credit for the job he's done this year on both ends of the floor. And that series against against Boston and the way that they stretched their their scheme and their style into places that were not really familiar for them and part of their A game. I think it was an awesome performance topped them out, but I was shocked how how easily they solved their Boston problem.

• 47:08Bill Simmons?

  There's been some pretty crazy Celtics losses during this Tatum Brown era. You know, like game seven, Cleveland, 2018, when they missed, I think every three they took or it felt like it.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  That was all gravy though, wasn't it for you?

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  I know, but it's just, it was what I think, I think it's still one of the four worst three-point shooting performances in the history of the playoffs.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  That was back to back days with the Rockets missing 27 in a row.

• 47:33Bill Simmons?

  That was another one of the worst ones ever. The 2022, that game four, when Steph just levitated above the game. The game seven, 23 against Miami, when Tatum gets hurt a minute into the game.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Explainable though, right? Explainable.

• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  But I'm just saying like, just like, holy shit losses.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  The earlier losses in that series were worse. They were comparable to games one and two against New York this year.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  Right. And then game one and two, and I don't even know, those games are just going to be lumped together in Celtics history. It's not like, oh, game two, it's like just those two together will be discussed. Like just how do you lose two games in a row at home to start a series down 20? But I did feel, and I said this to you in the next segment, I really did feel like the Knicks played the best I've seen them play all year in the second half of game four and then all game six. Like that, that was like the full potential of whatever this team is. Plus they finally have a bench, even though it's two people.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Well, Bridges has has become the player that they traded for in terms of just what he's doing. McBride started making shots and Robinson being this healthy, mobile monster like completely changes their team for 15 to 20 minutes a game. It's those that those three variables alone are a big, big deal. The other stuff is pretty consistent.

• 48:50Bill Simmons?

  He was eye openly available for months during the season, Robinson.

• 48:56Bill Simmons?

  I'm kind of surprised nobody tried to scoop him up, but I think he, from an injury standpoint,

• 49:01Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think he just had this thing to him. It's like, what am I, it's almost like where Rob Williams was after a while with the injuries where you're like, I just, is he gonna play? It's gonna, how many, how many games are on my getting now?

• 49:12Speaker 01

  And it's only, it's only gotten worse for Time Lord and the Blazers, which is how those things typically go, but yeah.

• 49:20Bill Simmons?

  Long way to go. Before we go, last question, um, cause I'm already in trade mode and draft mode as, cause now we only have one game a day. There's more stuff to think about. Is there a team you feel like could be a holy shit trade team that we're not talking about enough yet?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  It's funny because.

• 49:37Bill Simmons?

  Is there a team you're on watch with out of the 30?

• 49:40Speaker 01

  One of my plans for Thursday, my Thursday episode is I'm having another guest on, we're each gonna pick our three. Have we discussed this team enough, offseason teams? So this is like right up my.

• 49:52Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So we'll tee that up for Thursday.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  No, no, but I want to pick a team now. Um,

• 49:59Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I feel, I don't want to pick an obvious one like Milwaukee or even Memphis.

• 50:03Bill Simmons?

  Right. No, no, yeah. I'm saying a little bit of a zag.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I've got my eyes on Atlanta and Sacramento. They just feel like teams that are just sizzling with, we both kind of like parts of where we're headed and especially Atlanta, but also which like, we just fired, like the Hawks just fired their GM, Landry Fields and Sacramento had this turnover, the DeRozan thing. I just, both of them feel just like ripe for, why, wait, why'd they do that? Okay, maybe? I don't know. Those are just two. You got, you got one on the brain. Give me, I know you got one on the brain. So let me, let me hear yours.

• 50:44Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna laugh. It was Atlanta.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Really?

• 50:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I had somebody ask me, cause they've, he's heard some of the Yanis content we've done on different pods.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 50:56Bill Simmons?

  And he was like, why isn't Atlanta in the Yanis combo? And I was like, what do you mean? And he's like, well, Jalen Johnson's awesome. He's on their team. He just got hurt. Everyone forgets that he didn't play the second half of the year, but as a centerpiece of a trade. That's a really good centerpiece. You know, they have, they're, they don't have their next couple picks, but they have picks later and it would be pretty easy for them to put something together and basically turn it into Trey and Giannis and keep Giannis in the East. And I, look, I wasn't saying it was gonna happen, but he was, the question was, why wouldn't Atlanta take a swing? They don't have their picks anyway.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I'm looking at it.

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  I didn't hate it.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  I mean, I think if you're the Bucks, it's gotta be, well, what, what else is there for us other than Jalen Johnson, who I love and I believe is from Wisconsin.

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  He's the front of it.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what's the?

• 51:48Bill Simmons?

  There's way more in the trade than Jalen Johnson.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  So what's the way more? Because they owe some picks. They have the Lakers pick and they have an extra pick from, it's like the second best of New Orleans and Milwaukee and their own pick.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  They're missing their next couple, right?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have. They owe, they owe, the next three drafts, this one and the next two are controlled by the Spurs.

• 52:12Bill Simmons?

  The next one's a swap with the Spurs, but they own 28, 29, 30, 31. And then they have an extra Bucks, New Orleans pick and they also have Reese Shae if you wanted to get excited there.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  That feels like the rubber meets the road piece and any, in, in that discussion you've been getting like a little bit off the ground is Reese Shae.

• 52:30Bill Simmons?

  So if it's Jalen Johnson, Reese Shae, all their remaining picks.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  I think Milwaukee has to sit down and think about it and, and that, that's an offer that teams can beat, but it's an offer that's like, you gotta beat. It's not, it's not a nothing offer for sure. Jalen, I love Jalen Johnson.

• 52:46Bill Simmons?

  But I thought the same thing with Atlanta where it's, they had some upheaval. They're kind of in no man's land. Why not? If he's available. They've done weird shit before too.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what mitigates against that though, is like how fucking bad the East is. Like it's really easy to talk yourself into a world where Atlanta just stands Pat, resigns Levert, does nothing all that interesting and is like, why can't we go 52 and 30 next year and be the third seed in the East and like still have some stuff to do.

• 53:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, that's the case for Milwaukee.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  To not do it, to do, to do.

• 53:20Bill Simmons?

  Maybe we keep Giannis. Maybe we're just a 50-win team by default in the East.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. The difference is Giannis has tasted the championship and understands that the window is shrinking. The time window is shrinking and Trey has, and the Hawks have tasted the conference finals and everyone kind of, you know, wrote that one off and has then has just been swimming in the play-in, just play-in, play-in. They should name the play-in after the Hawks at this point. Hawks and the Heat. It's like a guaranteed play-in game every year.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  I wish Miami had one more guy because there's a bam in all your picks for Giannis type of framework that I think would work, but it just puts Giannis in the same situation as in now.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. At least the Hawks one, at least you can say, well, he's going to another, whatever you want to call Trey, perennial All-Star, semi-perennial All-Star, a couple-time All-Star and like he fits well with Giannis. Hero's like a one-time All-Star and everyone is like, really? You know?

• 54:21Bill Simmons?

  I don't think, I mean, San Antonio has a ton of picks. But I don't think, I said this to Ben later, I'm sorry, I'm stepping on a segment that's coming later, but I just don't, if I'm Giannis, I'm not getting traded unless I'm guaranteed I'm going to be one of the best four teams, which is why going back to Cleveland, that's why the Mobley thing made sense to me. So it's like, if he gets traded there and Mobley is the guy coming back, I now know I'm the favorite in the East. And I'm okay approving that trade at that point, but I guess we'll see. All right. Thursday, you're talking, coming off the Knicks game that you're going to go to and then doing some, uh,

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Some of this, some of this stuff.

• 54:57Bill Simmons?

  Some of this.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Who's going to do some crazy stuff? Let's go.

• 55:00Bill Simmons?

  Maybe some end of the year Greenwich High School varsity sports wrap-up?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Oh God.

• 55:05Bill Simmons?

  Swim team rap? Nothing?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:10Bill Simmons?

  How'd GHS do this year?

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Swimming, we, you know, kicked butt. The coach is pretty awesome. Other sports, I don't, I don't know. I don't follow.

• 55:20Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad this one seems still good. All right. Zach Lowe, good to see you as always.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Always fun.

• 55:26Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 as a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything,

• 56:10Bill Simmons?

  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 listen, I've talked a lot about the Knicks on this podcast, really since I've had in 2007, and I brought in a bunch of people on. Two of them are here today, but I just wanted to say, you know, Sean Fantasy, Ariel Hawani, a lot of times when I brought you in, it's usually, it's out of a moment of sadness, or like there's faint hope, but it's not really going to work out the right way, but it's, it's usually somebody, one of you being sad. And this is a very happy time for the Knicks. Eastern Conference Finals

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  starts tomorrow. You've beaten the defending champion, Boston Celtics. And I thought it was only fair to invite you both on. Sean's got like a golf tan, sunburn thing going. You've just like lost your mind. Mission Impossible's coming out. Ariel looks the happiest I've ever seen him. This is, so I don't know, Sean, you go first.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Well, ding dong, the witch is dead. R.I.P. Boston, Bill. I haven't said it to you one time in days.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  I've given you the floor.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  I haven't said a damn thing and I'm happy to, well, one, thank you for having me. Thank you for having Ariel. Thank you for giving us this platform. You've given me a lot of platforms over the years and I'm grateful to you, but honestly, we just kicked Boston's ass, man. That was amazing. That was genuinely beautiful. Like, I, I, I never in my wildest dreams thought they were gonna win that series. Ariel, I think you're a much more positive fan than I am. I'm a cynic to the core. I've been burned by this team dozens and dozens of times. And this series was magical. And this week is, is extraordinary. And I don't want to hear a damn word about guys over celebrating a second round victory because we haven't been there in a quarter century. And that was an incredibly meaningful moment

• 58:05Speaker 02

  for the franchise, for the fanbase, and for a team that had lacked a signature moment all season. And this series was clearly, to this point, their signature moment. So I'm just elated. I'm thrilled and I'm super excited about this year's, the Pacers.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  I'll just add amen to all of that and kudos to you, Bill, because I think a lot of people would have said you wouldn't have two Knicks fans on. And certainly some of my friends were like, is Bill gonna have you on? I'm like, look, you reached out to me. I didn't reach out to you. I don't like being that fan. I don't like rubbing it in. But golly, I'm happy to be here. I am delighted to be here. That was one of the, so I went to game six. I, I, I was, I was teetering. Obviously, the tickets, and I bought my tickets. No comps here. I'm not that kind of celebrity, certainly not on your level. So I can't get in there with, you know, Chalamet and Bad Bunny. But I, I remember exactly where I was in 1999, when we, when we, when we clinched at home to go to the NBA Finals, when we

• 59:01Speaker 03

  beat the Indiana Pacers. I know exactly where I was in 2000, when Ewing dunked over Mourning the last trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. And I said to myself, that kid, that 17-year-old would have done anything. He would have walked from his house in Montreal to Madison Square Garden to be here. I have to figure out a way to be there. And I'm so happy I got to go with my two kids because it was the greatest sporting event that I've ever been to in my life. And I've been lucky to be to some. It was a three hour party, Bill. It was a three hour freaking party. It was unlike anything because there was no tension. There was no stress. We hadn't had one of those games yet in the playoffs. Lord knows we didn't have a lot of those wins throughout the season. And from the jump, you know, at one point, I think it was like seven, five Boston, and that was it. You know, Jalen hit a couple of shots and that was it. It was a party.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  And, and, and just, I was able to look at everything and I told my kids, this hasn't happened in 25 years. They're 13 and 11, Oliver and Walter. I said, look at all this. Take this all in. This doesn't happen. Don't take this for granted. And then we had to walk through the crowd, which, you know, I know everyone has their take on the crowd, but I thought everyone was well behaved. It was awesome. We'll never forget it. And I honestly wish that the Eastern Conference Finals were starting on Saturday because I still need like five more days to revel in all the highlights, all the videos about that win over the Celtics because I, I, I don't want this feeling to go away.

• 1:00:16Bill Simmons?

  Sean, you want the feeling to go away? Are you ready to play some basketball?

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  I want to play. We're not done. I think there's, this is a team that has a really good chance to move on. And frankly, we have revenge come due after last, last series with the Pacers last year. So I, I wanted Halliburton the whole time. I'm glad it worked out. I'm glad the Cavs, once again, were a paper tiger. That's three years in a row they've been a paper tiger. And I think this team, I don't know if they're a team of destiny. I have heard that said a few times. I think the guys on group chat called them a team of destiny the other day. But there is something different. I never would have guessed that a team that is highlighted by Karl-Anthony Towns, a player I never understood or respected all the way up until last October. But there is some sort of juju going on with them right

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  now that is just thrilling. And I'm, I'm, the only time I'll probably disagree with Ariel this entire time, this entire call is, um, that I want the game to start tonight. I wish they were playing right now. I'm ready.

• 1:01:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, I know, Sean, you've come on sometimes and you've just laid some bombs, laid some wood on some rivals because you turned into a sports fan, Sean. I hate our, I hate Karl-Anthony Towns after that series and it's going to be tough for me to refer him for a while. No rational reason for it. It's just, he started playing well in game six and started puffing his chest out a little bit and the wheels had come off, not just the Celtic series, but the season and probably the era. And he became the target. But that, Ariel, where do you, where did you land on Towns? Are you still trying to figure him out?

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:01:48Bill Simmons?

  What UFC fighter is he?

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  No, he's the man. He's the freaking man. I hope they build a statue for him outside MSG.

• 1:01:53Bill Simmons?

  Statue?

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  Oh my God. Karl Towns is the man. I mean, look, everyone has their take on him. Second trip to the conference finals and back-to-back seasons. He beat Jokic last year, Western Conference Finals. Like, you need to start respecting this guy.

• 1:02:07Bill Simmons?

  His team beat Jokic.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was, he was a big part of that, in my opinion.

• 1:02:10Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember that as the Towns series.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  Oh, he was fantastic in that series.

• 1:02:15Bill Simmons?

  Come on, but he must drive you crazy because he would drive me crazy if he was the center on my team. I would go nuts.

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  I know what you're trying to do here. There's nothing you can say, Boston sports guy, to get me to say anything negative about the New York Knicks right now. I freaking love all of them. I wish Jericho Sims and, and Matt Ryan and, and, and, and Jacob Toppin was back on the bench because I miss those guys as well. That's how irrational all of this is. I, I cannot, I cannot tell you what it's like walking around. So, so we're right now, we're, we're near NYU and seeing everyone with their Knicks gear. I'm, I was so tired of the LOL Knicks. I was so tired of all the jokes, of all the media outlets always cracking jokes. I mean, they're still doing it. TNT is still doing it. It, it's, it's ridiculous how they're treating this team, but I just love how the city, how everyone has rallied around them. Jalen is the, the, I'm, I'm so lucky to grow up in a, in an

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  era where Jalen Brunson and Josh Allen are my two guys. I mean, they're, they're cut from the same cloth. They're exactly the same and that my kids can root for these guys. The way he handled Friday, he didn't even celebrate. Look at the look on his face. He looked upset. And I went back and looked at the post-game press conference after game seven, when Tyrese Haliburton thought he was also cute, walking in there with the T-shirt and the choking. I can't wait for them to get revenge for that one because we have not forgotten. And I went back and looked at his media availability with the broken hand. He had the broken hand in that game. And he and someone said to him, is this season a success? And it was his version of job not finished. And he's like, did we make it far? Did we win? No, this wasn't a success. We're not here for any sort of like, you know, moral victory. I love his mentality. I love everything about him.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  And, and if you're still subscribing to the notion that he's too small or not the best guy on the court or all this nonsense, you know, you're, you're, you're missing the point and you're missing the fun. This has been an unbelievable run. This is a likable team. This is a fun team. Karl Towns completely dominated every big man that Boston threw his way from Porzingis.

• 1:04:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if that's true.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  To everyone in between.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  Porzingis was dying of an illness. Horford's 39.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Cornet was a, I mean, we had Cornet before you guys had Cornet. That was a great, what about Mitchell Robinson in that one sequence?

• 1:04:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the thing.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  Boom, boom. I mean, I could go on and on.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  I will say Sean never gave up on Mitch Rob.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Good.

• 1:04:19Bill Simmons?

  You were, you were waiting for those 15 minutes in the playoffs. That, that was the weirdest thing about the series was by the end of the series, all of a sudden the Knicks had this seven man rotation that makes sense as like a four round playoff team, which I was not expecting.

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  If they get good Deuce and they get good Mitch, they're incredibly formidable team. They, that legitimately feels like a championship team to me. If it's only six guys, I get really tight. And if one of those guys who's missing from that seven is Kat, like he was in game five, then I'm really nervous. That, that was the best and the worst of this team that you saw in five and six. When all cylinders were firing in six was the opposite of five. So it's not, this is not, you know, this is not the 93 Bulls. Like, that's not really what we're looking at here with these teams. It's just, their fears like, it feels like an opportunistic hole for them to slide into. And like Ariel said, they have JB, like in, in my lifetime, never been an athlete who in the final minutes

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  of a game, I trusted more in my life.

• 1:05:19Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Not even close. I mean, there's, and literally not close in the, in my 43 years of watching sports. Who is even, I mean, who's on the list? I mean, you're, you're a Bills fan, Ariel. I'm a Jets fan, so obviously I don't have anybody to choose from there.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, I guess first three quarters, Josh Allen.

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:05:35Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, I'm just lashing out. That was just mean. I don't know why I did that.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  What's so great about this is like for the last 20 years, all the Boston teams have, have, have broken my heart. You know, from the Bruins, uh, Red Sox, Blue Jays now, I'm a Blue Jays fan because my expo's left. Let's not get into that. Knicks Celtics, obviously, and of course Patriots and, and, uh, and Bill. Everything's turning in my favor now, Bill. This is incredible. We smoke you guys every year. In fact, we let you guys beat us at the end of the season. So you wouldn't get my first pick.

• 1:06:03Bill Simmons?

  That was amazing. We're favored in 13 games this year, the Patriots. We're coming.

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  When we let you guys beat us was amazing. And then what happened here? Uh, you guys, you guys were so cocky going into this second round series. It was amazing.

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  We should have been. We were minus 800 favorites. Why wouldn't we have been cocky? You guys barely beat the Pistons. You roped up us.

• 1:06:22Speaker 03

  We were up 3-1 and beat them in six.

• 1:06:24Bill Simmons?

  Every fourth quarter was like, was either or.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  That's when they're, they're most comfortable. You know it now.

• 1:06:30Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  That's right. By the way, Bill, you're not subscribing to the theory that like, we beat the Celtics because Tatum's injured, right? Like, we were winning that game. We were winning game four.

• 1:06:38Bill Simmons?

  Talked to my dad about this today. We lost the series in the first two games. And the fourth quarter, you played in game four, which was incredible basketball. We would have been down 3-1 in this series with, with the Porzingis, who's like zombie Porzingis. Hauser, the sprained ankle, Jalen Brown, we find out after he had this torn meniscus that they were kind enough never to tell us about for two months. I don't think we could have won three in a row, looking back. I think it would have been a tall task. You would have had one game, we at least played one awesome half. And I just don't, I just don't think they would have won three straight with the team they had. Now, before in March, I wouldn't have said that.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Game six would have been really tough for you guys, even if Tatum was healthy, I think.

• 1:07:24Bill Simmons?

  Uh, game four was hard. Tatum played one of the best games of his life and we were down nine when he got hurt. Can I work up some Indiana animosity for you guys?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Oh, please. Easy. Not that hard.

• 1:07:35Bill Simmons?

  I know Halliburton, you're already there. It sounds like 10 out of 10 hatred.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Annoying, annoying.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Fuck him.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  Swirp. Yeah.

• 1:07:41Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  Fuck him.

• 1:07:42Bill Simmons?

  Reggie Miller doing the announcing?

• 1:07:44Speaker 03

  Annoying.

• 1:07:45Bill Simmons?

  That means you have to see the, the eight, nine seconds and the threes and the Spike Lee trash talk. We're going to be force fed that. Not looking forward to that. Aaron, Aaron Neesmith as a, as a quote unquote Brunson stopper, just following him around every year and doing agitator stuff like, where do you stand on him?

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  Did you say Brunson Fowler?

• 1:08:07Bill Simmons?

  Brunson Fowler, some people say?

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  That's, that's, that's his role in this series, I think.

• 1:08:12Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Well, Neesmith's good.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  Neesmith's good. Nem Hart's good as well. My fellow Canadian hit that big shot in, in, in game three, um, which we would have won the series had, had that not happened. They are a very good team and they're a very deep team. Dare I say they're the best team that will play in the playoffs so far. Sorry about, you know, the Celtics.

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  I think you're right. If you remove the Porzingis piece and Jalen on, you know,

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  As they're currently constructed, as they're playing right now, they're

• 1:08:37Bill Simmons?

  Not against that argument.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  They're athletic. They freak, they're like, they're like the 1993, um, Arkansas Razorbacks. They play, you know, a full court press the entire game. They, they don't let up. TJ McConnell's a pest. He's annoying. He's a gnat. They've got a deep lineup. Like I said, Siakam is really good, but we've got OG back. Remember, remember how OG played against Siakam in the first two games before he got hurt. Um, you know, Turner's fine, but we've got Cat now who can compete with him. Everyone likes to talk, okay, Matt Turan's good. He didn't, he didn't play last year. He was hurt. That's a nice addition, but look how different our team is compared to last year and look how much healthier we are compared to last year. So.

• 1:09:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but healthy seven.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  A healthy, strong seven. And, uh, look, Campaign is there if we need him as well. Our spark plug. All right. Don't forget about him.

• 1:09:21Bill Simmons?

  I don't know of Campaign. I'm going to be counting on that one. Plus you have more guys to hate, Sean. You have, uh, TJ McConnell.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Hate him.

• 1:09:29Bill Simmons?

  I'm sure you'll work a healthy amount of animosity toward him.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Hate him already. Also, also a former Sixer, which means I double despise him. However, if, if TJ McConnell were a Nick, he would be an icon. I just want to put that out there.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  And then, and then Matherin, who, you know, gets into it. He's like those Detroit guys. He'll get into it two, three times in a series. He'll get some double texts. He's fun to root against. Rick Carlisle makes some annoying faces. I feel like the animosity is going to be, plus like all the, all the old nineties videos. It just feels like this will be a really good old school. Lot of hate on both sides. I also think Indiana is a really hard place to play with the. The arena they have.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  It's a, they have great fans. They've, the one thing, did you notice Rick Carlisle in his pre series comments was trying to give a lot of credit to Precious Achua, I think to kind of Jedi mind trick Tom Thibodeau into playing Precious. I was like, I love Precious. Precious plays so hard, but I was like, why are we talking about Precious Achua?

• 1:10:22Bill Simmons?

  He really wanted him out there. And Obi Toppin, old Nick coming back for, you know, he'll have one quarter or one game where he's just awesome. And be like, ah, the Obi Toppin game. Um, I think Indiana has a slightly better team, but you have the Brunson piece. And that's why I think this is, the, the line has shifted. So now it's like Pacers minus, or Pacers plus 124, Knicks are favored. Um, but you're the healthiest you've been all year. And I really, I said this to Rossello on Sunday, I think second half of game four and game six were the best I've seen those five guys play together. And you really haven't had all five together for long stretches. So that would be the case.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  Combined with the energy in those Knicks games. It's, it's easy to hit those threes when you're playing Milwaukee without Dame, when you're playing a Cleveland, when everyone's terrified because they feel like the series is sliding. It's a little different to do the pull up 25 footers in MSG when like Shalhoub is stink eyeing you. You know, all the celebs. Who, Sean, was there a celeb that you were like, come on, you haven't been to a game in 25 years? How are you dining on this right now?

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  Anyone you want to call out or no?

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  You know, I'm in a passionate, one-sided affair with Anne Hathaway and I love her to pieces. And she's, you know, she's a big Nick fan, but there's a little bit of confusion as to whether Philly or New York is the city, sports city of choice for her. You know, she was at that Eagles Super Bowl.

• 1:11:49Bill Simmons?

  Little big a misty?

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  You know, her family's from Philly, but she roots for the Knicks. But then there's a clip of her wearing Giants gear on Jimmy Fallon from eight years ago. Little bit of confusion around Anne. You know, I think she's a wonderful actress, but she's not really out here with like Tracy Morgan, Rock, you know, Stiller.

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  The Sopranos guys.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Bobby Bach a lot. Like those are really the icons. Yeah. Falco, Chloe Seven, he Action Bronson.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's. I had some Sudeikis questions, Ariel.

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. You stole mine, Bill. I was waiting. That one, I don't want to be that fan. I don't want to be that guy. Where were you, you know, when Lance Thomas was running up and down the court or Kyle O'Quinn? I don't want to be that guy. But Sudeikis, Sudeikis is a Nets guy. He's, he's all Nets.

• 1:12:35Bill Simmons?

  He's in Nets, Liberty's, Barclays. He's in that whole universe.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  I saw him on Friday and that was the one guy where I was like, nah, this one, this one felt a little bit weird. But again, I welcome all. This whole thing that we can't celebrate or where were you when all this nonsense? Screw all that. Be happy.

• 1:12:51Bill Simmons?

  Sean's not like that at all. Sean is not a welcome all. He's like, where were you? Where were you in round two when Roy Hibbert was killing Tyson Chandler?

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. I know where I was when that series was happening was I was in a bachelor party in Montreal off my tree and watching that game in tears. I was so fucking mad and all the verticality. I remember that era very well. Where's Roy Hibbert now? Nowhere to be seen. Where's that style of basketball? Dead. What are we playing now? Mitchell Robinson ball where we defend all five positions elegantly with grace and power until we break our ankle.

• 1:13:23Bill Simmons?

  Ariel, where are you staying on Tibbs these days? And what was your darkest moment with him the last couple of years?

• 1:13:29Speaker 03

  Look, there have been, okay, so I'll tell you this. Again, I know you're trying to get me to talk smack about the. You're trying to create some dissension when the vibes are immaculate right now, all right?

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  At all.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  This is dicey with us, though. This is a little bit of a tricky thing, Tibbs. You know, Ariel.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm cool with Tibbs. Ever since he was assistant coach with Jeff Nix and Jeff Van Gundy under the great Pat Riley, I'm okay with Tibbs. Tibbs is my guy.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  There was a game against.

• 1:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Does it sound like Sean says, okay?

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  Listen, we're different, different strokes for different folks. There was a game in November, December at Chicago where it was very clear that Karl Towns was, was dealing with some sort of knee issue. And at that point, it was the Derrick Rose game. Derrick Rose had his little ceremony and so the Knicks were in town. It was the second night of a back to back. It was a Saturday and, and he kept Towns in. And I thought Towns had a torn ACL. I'm like, why is he in? We're down by 15 points. Why is he in? That was the one time where I was like, I don't know if I could deal with this anymore, but. He's been phenomenal. He's made the adjustments, made the adjustments from five to six in the last series. That's my guy. I ride with him. I love the fact, I think it might have been on your show, no, it was on New York, New York. And I have to give a shout out to John. He's been

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  phenomenal. His interview with Chris Childs that dropped, I think this morning was so great and such a blast from the past to hear that unique voice of his. I've loved his coverage. So shout out to John. He said that, you know, his vision of Tibbs was like after game six, he went to the back, you know, opened a, you know, a Diet Coke and just watched 100 hours of Pacers footage. That's what I love about him. He's not out to drink wine. He's not out to go out, you know, for dinner. He's not out to hobnob. He is a true basketball lifer. He has no wife. He has no girlfriend. He has no kids. He has no nothing. He, I don't even know where he lives, the poor guy. He probably lives in Westchester. And so that's our guy. We're riding with him. I love, I love that he's still hanging on to the hair. The beard is a good addition to the look as well. You're not going to get me to say anything about Tibbs. And what a story it would be for Tom

• 1:15:26Speaker 03

  Thibodeau to beat Minnesota. People don't talk about that angle. He was an assistant coach and then the head coach with Minnesota. What a story that would be if he plays Minnesota in the, in the finals. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but love Tibbs. Can't wait for him to hold that trophy down the Canyon of Heroes in about a month and change.

• 1:15:45Bill Simmons?

  Sean, who plays Tibbs in the movie?

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, it would have been Gandolfini. I mean, what an extraordinary Gandolfini part that would have been. You know, he's got the same bearing, burly guy, the deep voice, the thinning hair, you know, man on a mission.

• 1:15:59Bill Simmons?

  Gandolfini would have played his starters too much, I feel like. Like he played Paulie and Christopher a lot.

• 1:16:05Speaker 03

  What about Paul Giamatti?

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Oh, Giamatti would be good.

• 1:16:09Bill Simmons?

  See if the size? I guess they'd have to cheat it.

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, he could, you know, put a prosthetic.

• 1:16:14Speaker 02

  You know, Giamatti would be a good Jeff Van Gundy, actually, now that I think about it.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah. Wow.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  I'm loving all of this. Look how far we've come. Now we're doing movies about the season. I can't wait. Can we still buy the DVD? Like, do they still do that at the end of the year when your team wins a championship? Can I still get that?

• 1:16:31Bill Simmons?

  What a sad question.

• 1:16:33Speaker 03

  I don't know. I've never experienced this in my life. Bills have never won.

• 1:16:36Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing, because you haven't. What happens is you just spend a lot of money over the next 72 hours. There's t-shirts and hats you need.

• 1:16:43Speaker 03

  I can't wait.

• 1:16:44Bill Simmons?

  There's mugs. There's just they, and they keep coming and the hats keep changing and then the DVDs come out. So you gotta get those. It's, it never ends. But you had, I mean, Sean's, Sean's kid is young. You have kids now that are actually at the right age to experience, to just basically go completely ape shit if they actually kept going.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  Bill, this has been a gift from God, honestly, because I fell in love. The first team that I really, really loved, 1992 Knicks. 91, I remember when they got swept by the Bulls in the first round, 3-0. But the 92 Knicks, I remember vividly. My, my brothers were Bulls fans. So I'm, in 92, I'm nine. And, and I remember sitting there, game seven, convincing myself that we were going to beat the Bulls on the road, the defending champions, and we got blown out. And, and I sat there, we were in a hotel room in Boston and I was crying. It was Memorial Day weekend, actually Victoria Day weekend because we had off Canadian holiday. And, and, and my sons are the same age now, 11 and 13. And to be able to experience this with them as a dad,

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  like it's, and I know you and your dad have bonded over the Celtics. Like there is, it is great for myself personally. I'm, I'm 42. I've lived and died with this team. I adore them. But to now see it through their eyes, and you know what's the best part? They calm me down. Because as Sean said earlier, like we're cynics, we've been hurt. They're completely positive. They're like, oh yeah, we're going to beat these guys. Like this is, I have a video that I posted on my Instagram. My son said before the game, we're winning by 30. I'm like, are you insane? We don't win anything by 30. We never win a clincher at home by 30. And they're just sort of like, they have this sort of like blasé attitude about it all. They don't know any better. They're idiots of ants, for God's sakes. And it's a beautiful thing to, to, to witness that and to, to experience that with them.

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  And also to not have the hurt that we have. They, they don't have any of this. And so it gives me hope that. Perhaps this is truly a new era, at least in my life.

• 1:18:32Bill Simmons?

  My, my buddy Sully's kids who were like early 2000s kids. And that was kind of how they saw sports because they, they didn't have any of the DNA because like when they were little Brady won the first Super Bowl and then the red side. And they just kind of assumed that's how it was and they're surrounded by all these tortured older people. Who are just waiting for the other shoe. And then, then you have Sean who's 40, how old are you now Sean? 43?

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Be 43 in July. Yeah.

• 1:18:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Speaker 03

  Oh, me too.

• 1:18:59Bill Simmons?

  It's been a great sports run.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  What day in July? I'm turning 43 in July too. We're like kindred spirits, you and I Sean.

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  26th, Ariel. What year, what day?

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm July 8th. But anyway, stop being such a cynic. Enjoy it, man.

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  I, I am.

• 1:19:11Bill Simmons?

  Thing with Sean, I've known Sean since 2012. This is easily the best sports run he's been on. But Soto. You got rid of Aaron Rodgers, your least favorite New York athlete ever. And then the Knicks run. This is, this is kind of weirdly the peak.

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  I, speaking of John Jastremski, John and I were talking about this last week. I, I feel like the franchises are in very good hands. That's something that has been, has defined my fandom is feeling like the franchises, you know, you mentioned Lowell Knicks. Lowell Mets is an ongoing and Lowell Jets are ongoing bits for all the teams I care about. They're often considered the laughing stocks of their respective leagues. And somehow, you, you remember this Bill, when, when the Knicks missed out on Kyrie and KD. And they signed, they signed Randall. I was apoplectic. I was so upset, so furious. I felt like it was the culmination of 20 years of failure for the franchise since that 2000 run that they made that Ariel was referring to earlier.

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  And I just could not take it. I was so sick of Dolan. I didn't understand. I thought the Tim's hire was a retread. And I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I was wrong about everything. I was wrong about every move that they made in the aftermath. I was, I actually liked the Brunson signing and did not have the like, I don't know about this contract attitude about it because I had just watched him mow down the jazz in that previous series in the Western Conference. So I liked that and I liked that his dad was basically like, we're bringing this kid here in two years and they had a plan. But every, almost everything else that they did, I didn't really get it. I didn't see it. I didn't understand it. I'm just a fan. Like I'm not an expert. And to be proven wrong specifically in this way is the greatest feeling in the world. Because like even the Bridges trade two months ago.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  Maybe even two weeks ago, people were saying, this is a terrible trade. And then he did things in that Boston series that completely flipped the argument completely. Fuck them picks is is a motto in New York now. We don't care about that. We are just delighted to have beaten the Celtics and to be going on to face the Pacers.

• 1:21:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you know, something you said, Arrow, was about the Knicks gear being everywhere. That was one of my favorite things about living in Boston when that would happen. When there was some big series or some big game coming up and just the city would just assume the identity of the franchise, which is really hard to do in New York, but was always why you knew Brooklyn was never going to really make it as the second alternative NBA team. Because the case was as soon as the Knicks get their shit together, this is how it's going to play out. And it feels like it's played out even more than that, right? Like, I gotta say, like, the outpouring has been, just watching it from 3,000 miles away, even feels bigger than I expected, and I had high expectations.

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Yeah. And, man, that scene on Friday was absurd. Like, you walk out and there's a dude in flip flops, sitting on top of a billboard. I still have no idea how he got there, but all of it was pretty well behaved. You know, I did, I know the one, look, the one guy in the Halliburton jersey, like, what did you expect, buddy? What did you expect? Like, he wanted that moment.

• 1:22:11Bill Simmons?

  The wind horse stuff, I didn't like at all.

• 1:22:13Speaker 03

  Hated that, hated that, despised that.

• 1:22:15Bill Simmons?

  It's his job to give opinions. Leave him the fuck alone.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  That couldn't agree more. But there were no cars being burned or anything like that, no fights, at least that I saw. And, you know, a lot of those, a lot of those fans aren't as old as Sean and I. A lot of those fans, you know, grew up with those pretty crappy teams. Their one kind of high moment was 2013, Hibbert blocks Mello at the, at the rim, Linsanity, things like that. And so I understand. And then you have this mix, it's like this mixture of these, like, 25, 26 year old kids who are all experiencing this for the first time. And then it's the, you know, the, the Sean's and I of the world who are like, wow, this is just like the 90s. And then I love meeting the old heads, right? Like, the dudes that were there in the 70s that were like, this is the second coming

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  of Clyde. It's so, I mean, I get chills just thinking about it. It's those three chapters. And obviously, there's a lot of crap in between. But to be in this city now, like, when I was growing up, I used to say to myself, I need to make it to New York. I need to live in New York. I need to be able to go to work and be like one of those guys in the stands who's wearing the suit who just goes to the Garden after work. What a life. You get to go to the Garden after work and watch Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley. This is unbelievable. They sucked for 20 years when I moved here. So now finally we're here and experiencing the city, walking up and down the streets, seeing everyone wear their gear. It's, uh, there's nothing like it. I've been here when the Yankees won. I've been here when the Mets made it to the World Series. Nothing even close to it.

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  Sean used to be like that and then I made a move to LA.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  Come back.

• 1:23:40Bill Simmons?

  Sean was like, someday I'll just, I'll live here. I'll just leave work. I'll go to a Knicks game.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  I did.

• 1:23:46Bill Simmons?

  Maybe see a screening after. It'd be great.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  I did used to live that life of going to Knicks games. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out. I, I don't know if I can go back now that since I haven't gone back already. Now I'm like, I'm feeling a little bit superstitious. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  Oh, maybe. Okay. Maybe, maybe that. You know, like, do you have FOMO? Do you feel like you need to be at one of these games?

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Friday I was in Oregon about as, you know, at a golf resort, about as far from the New York Knicks Celebration Universe as you could possibly be. And I'm the lone guy sitting in a bar, watching the game near tears, just like gobsmacked, gobsmacked by what I was watching. Same thing after game two. I'm sitting in my house in Los Angeles alone, hoping my child does not bother me. Stunned by what was happening in game two. That was the most shocked I've been at a sporting event in 10 years. So there's a part of me that thinks I just need to sit on my freaking couch and watch this series and not go anywhere.

• 1:24:36Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah. Stay there.

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  If, if, if they advance though, I don't know. I don't know how you'll keep me away. Like I, I don't know how I could not go to the NBA finals. It's hard for me to dream of that, but that would be genuinely exciting.

• 1:24:48Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be, I, I, I think it's already one of the harder tickets in the history of basketball. And then there's the combo of Dolan just hoarding all the tickets and not giving any to the league. And so it's just like, hey, I'm taking care of my people. Steve Schripa's been coming here the whole time. He's gonna stay in his seat. Like, hey, he's weirdly loyal in a way that I love. What was the darkest moment for you, Ariel? Sean said it was when they signed Randall was rock bottom for him. What was rock bottom for you?

• 1:25:18Speaker 03

  Well, there are two moments where I really started to question myself. The first was the night that Oakley got dragged out of the building. That was dark. That was really dark. I adore Charles Oakley and I will to the day I die. And he meant so much to those teams. And I still believe that his number should be retired. And I think Starks' number should be retired as well. That was very, very dark. And then the aftermath was a little weird. You remember the interviews and the media tour and all that? As far as like actual basketball, the day they traded Porzingis, I felt like, what the hell are we doing? Because I believed in my soul. I actually feel this way about Brunson and Josh as well. I could see Kristaps Porzingis holding a trophy. Like, I could see that guy being a champion some way, somehow. And it ended up coming true.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  He was just wearing a green jersey when he did it. And I didn't understand why they gave up on him. Like, I would have much rather give up on Phil Jackson or anyone else. And so to me, on that day, I was like, I don't know if I could do this. When they didn't get KD and Kyrie, I was bummed. But, you know, KD was coming off the Achilles. I've never been a big Kyrie fan. I was definitely bummed, but I didn't feel like this was the end. I felt like it was a gamble, quite honestly. And I didn't hate the Randall signing as well. So those two were really, really dark. Because Oakley has meant so much to this team and to this city. And he didn't deserve that. And it's so great seeing all the legends. I miss seeing him. One of the great stories is seeing Ewing back in the fold here.

• 1:26:43Speaker 03

  Like, those videos of Ewing rocking up with the guys off the team bus into the locker room, wearing his gear, looking like he could give you a solid 20 minutes, you know, maybe 10 and 10. Like, he looks ready to go. He's slimmed down. I love that content. I can't get enough of it. So it's nice to see all the legends, but we're missing one big guy. And I pray that they're able to figure it out.

• 1:27:04Bill Simmons?

  A friend of mine, pretty connected, had good seats for one of the games, game four, game six. And sitting next to him was one of the, it was like Starks, one of those guys. It's like, oh, my God. And then he just happened to be in the area where like six of them were. And it was like his young adulthood came to life and he was just like, really almost having a seizure. It is crazy how many, I, to me, like, look, I'm not a Knicks fan. I'm obviously a giant basketball fan. When we start moving into the Marbury era, that gets a little, where it's like, hey, look, there's Marbury. It's like, nothing good happened with Marbury the entire time he was with the Knicks. Like, there's some of those, but I think.

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  He's a son of New York, though. Like, there's a slight, there's a more complicated thing there.

• 1:27:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I just think the Celtics version of when we bring the greats back is a little, you usually have to have had one good thing happen.

• 1:27:56Speaker 03

  Eighteen to two. By the way, you know what's my, like, totally irrational dark day? When we traded Maciej Lampy to the Suns for Spa Marbury, I was convinced that Lampy was going to be the guy. He was our Polish prince. I thought that he would be like our European stud. And also when they got rid of, there was something about him that I just loved. And also, Billy Hernan Gomez, I thought that he was going to be something special for us as well. Like, there was all these guys, and that's part of the fun, right? Going through these, these stories and seeing all these Alexi Schwed, like, those guys, like, that's what makes all this worth it. You remember him? He had a great run.

• 1:28:28Bill Simmons?

  Before we go, since I have both of you here, there's a UFC movie coming out with The Rock, that The Rock is allegedly a real Oscars contender for. So, and Sean follows this stuff obsessively, and then this is Ariel's domain. Ariel, what have you heard?

• 1:28:47Speaker 03

  Okay. What have I heard about the film? The film is called The Smashing Machine. It's, it's based on, in my opinion, one of, if not the best combat sports documentaries of all time. It's about a guy named Mark Kerr, who had a crazy life, had a run in the UFC, but was really a star in Pride, which was an organization in Japan, when Pride was the number one MMA organization in the world in the early 2000s. And HBO, it's 2000, 2001 that the. Film came out, um, put on this documentary when, you know, remember back then 2000, 2001, like no one was airing anything about MMA. It was as far away from mainstream as possible and there's drugs and there's all kinds of stuff involved. And so the film is based on, you know, the rock movie is based on, on that documentary.

• 1:29:29Speaker 03

  So my hopes are very, very high, just given the subject matter. And I think initially people thought, hmm, are they going to be able to pull it off? Is it going to be, is it going to be too, is, is the rock the right guy for all of this? But once that trailer came out, I mean, I could speak for the MMA community. Everyone was like, holy crap, this looks A legit. It looks spot on and it looks like they were able to capture the essence of that time period. So, um, you know, they, they got guys like, uh, Oleksandr Usyk in there, Ryan Bader playing Mark Coleman. Like I saw some of the footage and, and, uh, I, I, I mean, just from the three minute clip, I think they kind of nailed it. I can't wait for this and you know this as well as anyone, but like there haven't been a lot of great MMA movies. You know, we got here comes the boom and warrior.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  The best one, I think.

• 1:30:14Speaker 03

  Not a lot of them for some bizarre reason, obviously, you know, not as old as boxing, but, uh, this could be it. And, and perhaps this is the one that gets the rock's movie career back on track, which I would love.

• 1:30:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's funny is they've been crank, they've been cranking out boxing movies pretty, pretty consistently for a hundred years. And just when you think like they've made enough boxing movies, then another one comes out, another one comes out. I thought that the one about the female boxer, Krista Shields, thought that was actually good.

• 1:30:41Speaker 03

  Fire inside, yeah.

• 1:30:42Speaker 02

  The fire.

• 1:30:42Bill Simmons?

  But you would have thought, you would have thought there would be more MMA and there just hasn't. All right. So Sean, we did, you've talked about this on your pod a bunch. We did a video on Ringer movies about, um, about is it ever going to happen for the rock? Why is, is, is the movie star thing, has the ship sailed? And then you see this trailer and it's like, okay, maybe we're back in.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  To me, it's a, it's a, it's, it was a mystery and now it's just a frustration that it has taken this long for two reasons. One, I know you both know this, never seen anybody better on the mic, short of Ric Flair in pro wrestling. I mean, he was just in, in the prime of the Attitude Era and even in the second half, moving into the Cena Era, he was unbelievable at just selling anything. And a huge part of being a movie star is selling the absurd, is selling the ridiculous setup. So on that face, he should have been incredible. And then secondarily, I always tell this story. I went to the premiere of Hobbs and Shaw, whatever that was, seven, eight years ago, and it was at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood and

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  someone's soda rolled down the aisle and smashed into a chair, which then triggered a fuse explosion and the lights turned off in the theater. So there was a delay before the film started. And to stem the tide and keep the people in their seats, Dwayne came out and just riffed for 25 minutes. Just talked, made tons of jokes at Jason Statham's expense, just sold, sold, sold for 25 minutes in front of 2,000 people waiting for this movie to start. And he was magnetic. And then I see the movies that he makes and I'm like, who told him to do this? Why is he in Jungle Cruise? Why did Black Adam happen?

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  I don't understand. Cause you see him communicate and you can tell just what a vibrant, fascinating, funny, self-aware person he is. And he just hasn't picked good collaborators. And the end note on this conversation is the person who directed The Smashing Machine is Benny Safdie, a Knicks fan and New Yorker, who understands the peculiarity of strange characters. And Mark Kerr is an interesting guy. And The Smashing Machine documentary is not a cookie cutter portrait of a rise to greatness. It's much more complex than that. So I think if you care about sports movies, if you care about The Rock, if you're interested in, in combat sports. It feels like it's tailor made for an incredible moment for him and for movies. We'll see.

• 1:33:17Bill Simmons?

  I care about all three of those things. The problem is with UFC and MMA in general, it's such a passionate, loud audience, but then I always wonder like, how how big is the actual audience, right? Like, I know Netflix is thinking about, dude, you know, it's been reported, do they want to get in and grab some pay per views? Like, I wonder if Netflix got some pay per views, Ariel, and it's just going to all these different countries. Does that make MMA bigger? Or did we hit the ceiling already? Like, is there new people to find? Because I think this ties into the movie. How much, how much audience is left that's out there?

• 1:33:54Speaker 03

  Oh, there's, there's a ton left. I mean, we're seeing a guy named Iliya Toporia, who has just opened this whole Spanish region that was non-existent, and they're saying that he can headline the Bernabeu, which is where Real Madrid play, and that's like 80,000 people. That wasn't an option, you know, two, three years ago. And so when guys start to pop up in these different countries, and then, you know, people will emerge here, and it's very cyclical. There's high moments, there's down moments, there's stars. You know, the whole Russian region, that wasn't really a thing five, six years ago. And now you have all these guys who are-

• 1:34:24Bill Simmons?

  France came on too, that was another one.

• 1:34:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, you know, Brazil, France has been incredible as far as MMA and pro wrestling. So, no, they have not, they have not hit the ceiling. As you know, combat sports, like I said, there are peaks and valleys, and everyone likes to say, you know, I even said, I said the MMA business is in a recession. But I didn't say the UFC is in a recession. I said the MMA business, meaning there's just really one dominant league. There are no prides anymore. And that's unfortunate. We don't have, and I think we've talked about this in the past, like, there is no AEW to UFC's WWE right now. Not even close, like, not even close. So the UFC is doing just fine. They're going to get a multi-billion dollar deal. Whenever they sign their new deal, ESPN will probably still be involved in some way, shape or form, and it will continue to get bigger.

• 1:35:10Speaker 03

  But as you know, it only goes as far as like who the stars are, right? The UFC always wants to position itself as the biggest star, the UFC. That's the brand, and it's doing great. But then when you get those superstars that come along, and they will continue to come along, it goes to a whole other level. And they're experiencing that with Toporia, who's headlining on June 28th, and they'll experience it with others as well.

• 1:35:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he took the Pereira side. I'm still bitter. Way younger. Yeah. Yeah, cuz you think, Sean, with the MMA audience that's kind of dormant, for a movie that really hit for The Rock, you've gotta hit different countries. He hits different countries anyway, and if that audience is there. So this could be the rare combo of like, an awards contender that actually makes real money. That's not a franchise.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's coming out in the first week of April, or excuse me, the first week of October, which is historically a kind of a circling the square for box office and awards consideration. That's like the same weekend that a movie like The Star is Born was released. So I think they're looking for a kind of like, commercial, critically acclaimed movie, which is, as we know, like, one of the hardest things to do in movies right now. And we'll see.

• 1:36:19Bill Simmons?

  My advice to him would be, don't over promote it. Don't feel like you need to be all over the place with it. Like, be a little discreet, cuz I don't feel like the over promotion stuff works with the awards. And this is like his one chance. But I hope, I hope we get more MMA stuff just in general. I'm always amazed that that's not a lane for movies right now. It would seem like that would be even easier to do than boxing, you know?

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  You guys are the experts when it comes to this, but actually, just today, on my show, I spoke to Ryan Bader, who's playing Mark Coleman in the movie. And Mark Coleman was Mark Kerr's best friend, looks just like him from the photos that I saw. And I actually asked him, like, that was his first movie. He's a former UFC title contender, Bellator champion. What was it like, you know, just being on set, sitting around, the multiple takes? Did you just drive yourself crazy? And he said, and again, this is not my world, but he said, actually, Benny's philosophy is, don't do too many takes, like, three, four takes. If The Rock's mouthpiece came out, like, keep it. He wants it to be raw. He kind of shot it like a documentary, which actually made me even more interested in seeing how it all looks. So I don't know if that's unique. I don't know if that's, that's something different,

• 1:37:30Speaker 03

  if certain guys do that, but I thought that was interesting. By the way, shout out to Bill for completely changing the subject, and not maybe focusing on Miles McBride's huge block. And that's, you remember that chase down in Game? Six when he blocked and then they came back with the and one like I love the way you just transitioned away. That was a big time block. You have to admit like

• 1:37:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had to I had to get 10 minutes at UFC with you when you're here.

• 1:37:51Speaker 03

  I mean, I just thought we'd talk more like, do we want to talk about how Missoula was exposed? Like how he doesn't really, you know, like

• 1:37:58Bill Simmons?

  All right, settle down. We won the title last year.

• 1:38:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was all you Doka's doing. That was you. I mean, he just inherited the team.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  It's a Doka.

• 1:38:05Speaker 03

  Can he be? Can he be? Can he be a little nicer to the media? Like the the shtick of being like, you know, like grumpy is wearing a little thin. I just my two cents. But yeah, Luke Cornet

• 1:38:15Bill Simmons?

  You're weighing in Belichick's girlfriend now? What other what other hits do you want to take here?

• 1:38:19Speaker 03

  Cornet had a great game five. I mean, like, let's

• 1:38:21Bill Simmons?

  Thanks.

• 1:38:21Speaker 03

  Are we raising a banner for the game five or what?

• 1:38:23Bill Simmons?

  We'll tell our grandkids about it. We won the title last year. I'm in a five year grace period.

• 1:38:29Bill Simmons?

  All right, guys. Good luck against the Pacers in round three. I'm happy for both of you.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  Wait, I was gonna say, you picking against us or what? I hear you and Rosillo and you guys just spent all this time hyping the Pacers and kind of like not nagging the Knicks, but just not addressing the Knicks.

• 1:38:45Bill Simmons?

  I think it's either Pacers in six or Knicks in seven. I don't think the Pacers can win a game seven against a healthy Knicks team with the way the arena will be. But we'll see. The net, my fear for you guys, there's a couple of health guys I do not trust on your team who have stayed reasonably healthy so far. Towns and Ananobe, not to mention Mitchell Robinson, who every game you get out of him is is feels like a miracle. So I just, you know, these playoff games are hard. They're intense. That's I feel like the Pacers are probably a little more durable when this thing gets really physical than maybe the Knicks are. But who knows? You might have the team of destiny thing. And the Brunson thing's unbelievable. When he rooting against that guy in a playoff

• 1:39:30Bill Simmons?

  series in the fourth quarters. I just felt like he was gonna score on us and we had like, we had Holliday on him. We were throwing Tatum and Brown on him and I just felt like he was gonna get, when he shook Holliday on that, uh, that one shot, I can't remember if it was game one or game two, coming off the inbounds with like 10 seconds left, just shook him off and got the shot he wanted. Like that was cra- nobody does that to Drew Holliday. So.

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  Can I tell you something? I watched the four-minute cut-down recap of game four, like 11 times in a row that night, just to watch him absolutely cook White. He cooked White.

• 1:40:04Bill Simmons?

  He did.

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  All day long. That was astonishing to watch. Whether he can do that to Aaron fucking Neesmith, we're about to find out.

• 1:40:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm so worried about Neesmith. He just dealt with Thompson, uh, Brown, Tatum, Derrick White.

• 1:40:18Bill Simmons?

  I like this, the cocky.

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  I'm so worried about Neesmith. I'm so worried about him.

• 1:40:23Bill Simmons?

  Just keep it in check.

• 1:40:24Speaker 03

  What about Neesmith? What about TJ McConnell picking him up 94 feet? Uh, the horror.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  There is gonna be some 94 feet. They're gonna try to put some miles on your guy. They're gonna try to wear him down.

• 1:40:35Speaker 03

  I'm cool with it.

• 1:40:36Bill Simmons?

  Good luck. Thanks for coming on. I'm glad you were finally able to come on under happy circumstances. It was a pleasure to see you both.

• 1:40:42Speaker 02

  Thank you, Bill.

• 1:40:43Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:40:44Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip-Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with the experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready

• 1:41:29Bill Simmons?

  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.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  All right. He's been on this podcast many times. You know him from the Strategery Newsletter. One of the pioneers. He's also a giant Bucks fan. His name is Ben Thompson. And if I'm going to make fake Giannis trades, really without any

• 1:42:02Speaker 04

  No atrocious fake Giannis trades. I just seriously consider, is it worth coming on a podcast? With someone that apparently seriously proposed Giannis for Evan Mobley? Are you joking?

• 1:42:13Bill Simmons?

  Can I explain the thought process behind it? And then you can tell me how offended you should be.

• 1:42:19Speaker 04

  I mean, it's gonna be hard to decrease the level, but sure, go ahead.

• 1:42:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, first of all, I don't think you should trade Giannis, which I said in the pod. I think you should keep Giannis because especially with the way the East is going.

• 1:42:30Speaker 04

  Oh, it's so bad. It's so bad.

• 1:42:33Bill Simmons?

  But

• 1:42:33Speaker 04

  It's embarrassing.

• 1:42:34Bill Simmons?

  If you're gonna trade him, you can't do the Kevin Durant, get a bunch of picks back and go for the future because you don't have any of your own picks. That makes no sense. So I need to get a good player back. And I'm shopping on that Evan Mobley level, looking at 80 cents on the dollar.

• 1:42:53Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:42:53Bill Simmons?

  If I'm trading Giannis, that's what you have to do.

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  No, I get the overall thought process. There's a few problems here. So number one, this whole situation sucks. Just to be clear, you know, the, there's a real trade off. What's good for the Bucks is good for Giannis. I mean, the reality is if I'm going to take all emotion out of it, it's probably best for both parties, you know, to, to move on. I mean, the Bucks are, it's, it's in a, it's really rough. I mean, we were starting, the fan base was happy. They were starting Kevin Porter Jr. In the final game of the playoffs. I mean, it's, you can't overstate how bad it was. You can't, the other thing, if you're a Giannis fan, just to be honest, the fact you're proposing this seriously speaks to, in my opinion, how disrespected Giannis is.

• 1:43:39Speaker 04

  I mean, this is a guy that it was one game only, completely handled the Oklahoma City Thunder because he's a star who can initiate offense. He can score in volume. We know he's much better than say Jokic at defense. I think his capabilities on offense as an initiator are underrated as well. And by the way, as long as I'm here, rated as well. And Bismay is at, at par or better than Jokic is. If you include all defense, if you include Defensive Player of the Year, if you include the NBA Cup, which hilariously no one does. But it's like his resume is there and he's, he's really good. He initiates offense. He has a mid-range game now and he's dramatically underrated. As a Giannis fan, I want him to go somewhere and get

• 1:44:24Speaker 04

  his proper recognition. As a Bucks fan, it breaks my heart. And as someone who had to watch the Indiana Pacers, I'm lucky I still have my eyes that I didn't gouge them out. Uh, when, and you're also, you're, you're dealing with an organization also that just doesn't know what they're doing. I know Doc's your friend. Sorry. He was a disaster. He's coaching from 25 years ago. They also haven't adjusted to Giannis' capabilities as an offensive initiator. They're still building the team like it's 2019 when, when the Toronto Raptors doubles kind of overwhelmed him a bit. Although in that series, he was still the best player, had a positive plus minus, didn't play enough minutes. But he, he is, the key is him at point center. Like that's how you win in the

• 1:45:09Speaker 04

  playoffs. The Bucks, I thought were building towards now with the Kuzma trade. Doc never plays Kuzma at the four. Probably wouldn't have mattered. He's horrible. But they, they never even got approaching the right approach with him. So it's just been a disaster all around. And at the same time, he's Giannis, like he's loyal. He likes Milwaukee. He doesn't want to go somewhere. There's a very good chance we're back, uh, whenever we get back. We were supposed to be on a year ago that the Bucks got flushed out. It was very sad. Uh, and nothing has happened. So we'll see.

• 1:45:40Bill Simmons?

  All right. You gave me a lot to work with there. So.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  Sorry. I don't, I had to get that all out. I was, I had to make sure I got that in. You know, to express my disappointment with you, with your, uh, Giannis assertions over the last few weeks. Giannis better than Tatum? Come on, get out of here. Or yet, yet Tatum better than Giannis, I should say.

• 1:45:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, Tatum's hurt now, so he is better.

• 1:46:00Speaker 04

  I know. I can't even truly go in on him. It's very sad. Real, real disappointment.

• 1:46:04Bill Simmons?

  Giannis being underrated, um, that's just Bucks bullshit. He's in, he's third, second, third, fourth, or first in the MVP voting every single year. It's not like he falls to nine. He's always in the top three or top four. He's always first team all NBA.

• 1:46:19Speaker 04

  He doesn't get cheap MVPs for finishing six in his conference because some players got hurt. Like, for some reason, it's always all his fault. Uh, oh, by the way. As long as I'm here, your what if segment a few podcasts ago, what if segment? This what if is Chris Middleton getting hurt in the 2022 playoffs?

• 1:46:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, we had Robert Williams was hurt too. Like, come on.

• 1:46:40Speaker 04

  Not, get out of here. That's even arguably more offensive than comparing Giannis and Evan Mobley. Robert Williams is prime Chris Middleton.

• 1:46:49Bill Simmons?

  Wait a second. So if you're keeping Giannis versus trading, if you're trading him, you have to trade him to a place that has a chance to win the title.

• 1:46:56Speaker 04

  Right. So we agree on that. Yeah. So you, to your point, the Bucks need, the problem is their picks are scattered. There's like two swaps in a pick with Portland, which everyone forgets about, plus the swap slash picks with the Pelicans. So if you don't get someone good back, you have to get some of those picks back. There's no hope for the franchise otherwise.

• 1:47:16Bill Simmons?

  But that's a conundrum though. Portland doesn't want Giannis because they're on their own timeline and he's not going to want to go to New Orleans. So you're not getting those picks back.

• 1:47:24Speaker 04

  Well, it's a three or four way deal if something like that happens. In reality, there's two options and maybe one dark horse that makes sense for the Bucks. Option number one is a package around Amen Thompson, Amen Thompson. There's like, I personally think Amen might be a little overrated right now, which means if I'm the Rockets, I should definitely want to trade him. But that is that it has to be someone like that or the number two pick from the Spurs. And both teams can throw in a lot of extra picks and assets. Those are the only two that from a Bucks perspective make sense. And every Bucks fan is going to kill me. There is a potential Philadelphia 76ers package as well.

• 1:48:06Bill Simmons?

  What? What is it?

• 1:48:08Speaker 04

  Maxey, McCain, number three pick. And, you know, they have, they have the Clippers pick. They have a surprisingly high number of assets. I don't think it works because they have a similar problem to the Bucks. They have a 50 million or $60 million hole on their roster. Our hole is named Damian Lillard. Their hole is named Joel Embiid. But they do have a shockingly high number of assets that augmented by getting the number three pick.

• 1:48:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm Giannis though. I'm staying in Milwaukee over going to Philly and rolling the dice with Embiid. Why am I doing that?

• 1:48:39Speaker 04

  Oh, me, yeah, me too. I'm just putting that out there because no one's talking about it. I think, I think it's actually kind of interesting. And if I was Giannis, I'd want to stay in the East. Like it is, it's unbelievable. Who's, who's your pick for the East next year?

• 1:48:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the thing. It's New York and Indiana. The Celtics are probably out of the mix. Your team's in there, Detroit.

• 1:49:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:01Bill Simmons?

  Orlando.

• 1:49:02Speaker 04

  I mean, Detroit might be the one. I mean, here's my advice to you. I have advice for the Celtics.

• 1:49:07Bill Simmons?

  Wait, hold on. Don't, I don't want your advice to the Celtics.

• 1:49:09Speaker 04

  No, it ties to the Bucks, though. The Celtics need to blow it up. The Bucks, though. The Bucks' problem was trying to preserve the old model, which was built around holiday pressuring the ball hand where Lopez backing him up. The moment you get Dame, that whole thing needs to change. You need to reorganize the team, get a bunch of wings. Re-signing Lopez was a mistake. You know, not prioritizing the wrong people, even, even at the minimum level, was a mistake. And to me, this sucks for Celtics, but they should trade everyone.

• 1:49:42Bill Simmons?

  So you're saying the window, eight-year window, it's now closed, blow it up, rebuild around Tatum?

• 1:49:48Speaker 04

  And you have a chance to rebuild it because, you know, Tatum, what, just started his extension? Like, this was the Bucks' mistake. It is the further you go down trading the future, you're so pot committed and so in the hole that it's, I mean, best case scenario, people on Bucks Twitter are all about trade like their late first round pick this year to try to get two, or trade their 2031 pick to get two picks this year. Try to just sort of get enough people and like pray for like two years from now when you have a 35-year-old point guard coming off an Achilles injury? Like, that's our best-case scenario. It's, it's very ugly. It's not great.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, if you go through the contenders, Oklahoma City, if they lose one of the next two rounds, I guess would be a possibility, but if I'm Oklahoma City and I'm taking the giant money Giannis is making, combined with all the other money they're gonna have to shell out, I'm not sure I'm doing that.

• 1:50:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, the problem with Oklahoma City is you're showing out money to guys who I don't think, uh, might not be worth that money. I mean, they're, they're, I understand what they're doing, keeping all these picks and having a few stars and just continually cycling, cycling everyone out around them.

• 1:51:00Speaker 04

  I love Jalen Williams on my fantasy team. I've had him the last two years. The regular season is not the playoffs. Uh, that, that has never been clearer than ever. The problem, though, is Any picks from a team Giannis goes to are worthless because Giannis is really good and will make those picks worthless. So you need picks from other teams or a three, I mean, they could maybe do a three-way sort of trade with the Pelicans or Portland or something like that, but very hard to pull off.

• 1:51:29Bill Simmons?

  All right. So I'm going to say OKC is a thumbs down. Celtics are a thumbs down.

• 1:51:34Speaker 04

  They're in the conversation, but again, Presti probably wouldn't do it. I mean, I think realistically, if they get Giannis, they're going to win. I mean, the problem is I don't feel like Sam Presti really wants to win, which is why I'm cheering against Oklahoma City continuously. I feel like in the NBA, you should have to go for it.

• 1:51:51Bill Simmons?

  You're just whipping the takes out tonight. Sam Presti doesn't really want to win. That's a take. I would say he wants to win. He's trying to, he's trying to have a decade-long.

• 1:51:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's, it's the small market version of light years. This idea that instead of going all in around what you have and doing everything possible to get one. And by the way, the Bucks got one. I am fundamentally, I'm disappointed Giannis doesn't have more. I'm disappointed the Bucks don't have more. I am very grateful that they got one. And we'll talk to Oklahoma City fans. If they end up getting it, then congratulations. I think that Minnesota is pretty good. We'll see how it goes. If they get one, congratulations. If they don't, let's talk in a decade and see how you felt about the decade-long project to make the Western Conference Finals.

• 1:52:37Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that's how I feel about the Celtics from 2016 and now. It's a nine-year run. They won one title, but at least we had the one title. You had, you had the honest thing. Everyone is like, oh my God, Giannis, how is he in this situation? Well, you made two massive trades where you gave up a shitload of assets and it paid off with the, with the title. Then it didn't pay off with Dame, but that's how you get in this situation.

• 1:53:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. And at the other day, like I, the last time I was on here was after the Dame trade. I, I should probably not come on spitting takes. I should come on eating some humble pie after how that turned out.

• 1:53:11Bill Simmons?

  We argued about that for the entire summer.

• 1:53:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. You're right. So I will come out and admit that's the case. But you know what? I, they went for it and it didn't work out. And I had a decade of Giannis. The Bucks won a title, which I didn't think I'd ever see in my lifetime. So at the end of the day, I'm good and I practice self-care. I just don't watch too many Bucks games when I, when I realize what's exactly what's going to happen.

• 1:53:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, you talked about, so if you go through the contenders, Knicks. I mean, I don't see.

• 1:53:41Speaker 04

  No, this is the one that bugs me. The Knicks blew their load and that's where I wanted Giannis to go. If if this was going to go wrong, I wanted him in Madison Square Garden. Would 100% would get the respect he deserves, would get the internet fighters he deserves.

• 1:53:56Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:53:56Speaker 04

  And would just blow up that city. And alas, I guess if you want Mikel Bridges instead, um, better win this year or else you're not, you're gonna hear it from me for a while.

• 1:54:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, what if they, what if the Knicks fell short in one of the next two rounds? And then there's some sort of towns with Bridges for Giannis and the problem is they don't have any picks to throw in.

• 1:54:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's no good for the Bucks. I mean, the Bucks need, it's a small market team. Like you, you, you're not going to get a bunch, not going to think how the Knicks built their team is all things considered, pretty impressive. I think they went like, I think the Bridges trade was probably the mistake just because of how much you gave.

• 1:54:33Bill Simmons?

  Unless they win the title, then it's not a mistake.

• 1:54:35Speaker 04

  Exactly. No, that, that's the thing. I got, it's a little humbling that they've made it this far. Cause I dropped that take earlier in the playoffs on Twitter and Knicks fans have been throwing it in my face ever since. And it's a fair point. That's the other, I'm actually curious if you do, you know, if you update the book of basketball again, which we all know, you know, now that you're a professional podcaster. I don't know if you've written anything.

• 1:54:55Bill Simmons?

  It's in Zeta above typing?

• 1:54:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Um, you can't do it on your phone or maybe you can.

• 1:55:00Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:55:01Speaker 04

  But, uh, what, how do you evaluate players from this era?

• 1:55:07Speaker 04

  I just compared Giannis and Jokic, right? Like if Giannis and Jokic play in the eighties and nineties, both who have games that I think would scale very well to those eras.

• 1:55:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:17Speaker 04

  In a world where the, the, the illegal defense, player movement, all these sorts of things favor stars to such a massive extent. Do they have more than one title? Unquestionably, does the fact the NBA is going to have seven teams in seven years actually mean that both of them deserve a bit of a adjustment in their all time rankings despite only having one title? It's, it's, it's pretty interesting to think about historically.

• 1:55:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, cause 30 teams, a lot of talent. It's way harder to keep a team together like we're seeing now with the Celtics and some other ones.

• 1:55:52Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:55:53Bill Simmons?

  Um, I always compare the guys. In the era first, you gotta start there with who are you going against and how much did you stand out? Both of those guys qualify. I think both of them are in that Shaq, Moses, Hakeem kinda area.

• 1:56:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like.

• 1:56:09Bill Simmons?

  I think Durant's probably in there too.

• 1:56:11Speaker 04

  I think that's, I think that's right.

• 1:56:12Bill Simmons?

  Somewhere in that 11 to 16 range. And I think what Jokic has done, year after year offensively, might, might give him a little bit of a trump card. Giannis is basically 30, 12 and 6 for seven straight years, right?

• 1:56:29Speaker 04

  Go through and look at the resumes. It would actually surprise you. Jokic's one advantage is, is one more MVP, which I think was BS, but whatever. Add in defensive impact, defensive player of the year, all defensive teams, and Bill, the Emirates NBA Cup. Come on.

• 1:56:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, wait, so let's go back to the exercise of going through all the contenders, because you've mentioned Houston. I want to come back to them. Knicks are out, Lakers are out, Denver's out. Indiana, I don't, I just can't imagine the right trade for that. You start going down the list.

• 1:57:05Speaker 04

  No, it's Houston and San Antonio. Houston's the one, that team that should do it.

• 1:57:09Bill Simmons?

  Is there a Golden State, anything that interests you there? Nothing?

• 1:57:13Speaker 04

  No, no, it's ridiculous. The Golden State and their, their organization and the media and the fans have fully completed their transition to Lakerdom. Like just delusionally overrating their, their, their players, the, the, assuming everyone will just end up on their team. There's no world, I mean, number one.

• 1:57:32Bill Simmons?

  They did get Jimmy Butler somehow.

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  As long as we're insulting your takes, Jonathan Kamiga stinks. You know, athletic specimen, to be sure, doesn't know what he's doing anywhere on the court. I would love to see Giannis and Curry together. We thought we were getting that with Giannis and Dame. Moving off the ball, the problem, the Giannis and Dame problem is, and this is a classic NBA problem. It's actually been really interesting to watch, which is, one of my, one of those interesting players I watched on the Bucks was Christian Wood. And Christian Wood was a very skilled player. The problem was he could only play as the number one guy. He was completely incapable of scaling down to another position. And he wants to be the number, and so you could see what happens when he's the number one guy.

• 1:58:18Speaker 04

  He goes to Detroit, scores a lot of points and that team wins like 15 games. Like that's the quality of his being a number one guy. And he also played the same position as Giannis. So some Bucks fans were upset when we shipped him out, but to me it was obvious. He was never ever going to be sort of a useful player in that regard. There's a little bit of a similar dynamic with Dame. Dame's a great player. I'm not comparing him to Christian Wood at all. He carried those Portland teams for years and years. And he carried them mostly to the second round of the playoffs. And he couldn't really scale to being a number two. When Giannis is a top two number one guy. And, and he, and that was really the core problem. When, when Dame played by himself, it was great. When Giannis played by himself, it was great.

• 1:59:01Speaker 04

  And when Dame played with Giannis, it was this weird passiveness. And like, it almost felt like, it felt like he was being passive aggressive about it. But I don't think that was the case. I just think he wasn't able to sort of scale in that way. And so from a basketball fan perspective, I love watching this with teams, right? You, you see an up and coming team and they have to figure out organically who's the number one guy? Who's the number two guy? Who's the number three guy? It's such, it's the human component of basketball that's so interesting. And if I weren't a Buck fan suffering through it, watching the Giannis Dame experience was spuriousating in that way. And that's the fundamental reason why I think it didn't work out.

• 1:59:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I noticed it, why not really having a dog in the race? Sometimes guys really have trouble figuring out when to slide in and out. I think that's what's been so impressive over the years with Jalen Brown is he feels like it's Tatum's team, but he has a sense of when to come and go depending on the moment. But at least when we had those guys together.

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  It's easier when you have two number two guys, so.

• 2:00:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, the only other team, there was, there was a Memphis one too for, I'm ignoring you.

• 2:00:11Bill Simmons?

  There was a Memphis, like a Jaren Jackson one, but the reason I thought of the Mobley was because you get a guy under contract for five years. He's one of the 15 or 16 best guys in the league and still has some room to go. I think he is. When I do Ringer 100, I have him and I forget what I had him in the last one, but you know, he just won Defensive Player of the Year.

• 2:00:33Speaker 04

  The problem with all this stuff is the playoffs are so different than the regular season. It's a cliche, but it's more true than ever.

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:39Speaker 04

  And the problem with Mobley and what you need in a guy like that is someone who imposes himself on the other team. Someone that the other team has to react to.

• 2:00:51Bill Simmons?

  Either. I hate to break it to you.

• 2:00:53Speaker 04

  I don't think so either, honest, but I think there's at least the potential there. I mean, I, you know.

• 2:00:58Bill Simmons?

  I would say Mobley has as much potential for that.

• 2:01:02Speaker 04

  I don't know. He's been in the league five, six years. When, when, when is he, what have you felt Mobley imposing himself on you? Like Thompson has done that on the defensive end and occasional flashes on offense. Now, again, to be clear, I don't think so. I don't think he's going to get there offensively, but.

• 2:01:20Bill Simmons?

  But the ceiling's worth the bet.

• 2:01:22Speaker 04

  The, in the, the ceiling, if I'm the Bucks, I can see it. To me, the only, the, the, the, the play is, again, the play is probably San Antonio, which is disgusting to me.

• 2:01:32Bill Simmons?

  So you're saying number two, Devin Vassell to make the contracts work, one other contract and then more picks.

• 2:01:39Speaker 04

  A ton of picks. They have, they have, they have a huge stash of picks. Uh, and the interesting ones, like they have like an Atlanta pick. They have, uh, like the, the key thing is you need, ideally you get picks from teams you're not trading Giannis to, because Giannis is going to make those picks worthless. And so, so you either need hope that the Bucks can tank into a good player, which means you need the Portland picks back and the Falcons picks back, which is going to be really hard. Or you need someone like Thompson that I would love to get a Thompson jersey. That does, that does make me, uh, excited, that, or make me something like the number two pick. Um, that there you got your, you got your tank-tastic pick right off the bat and you.

• 2:02:19Bill Simmons?

  So then you're basically like, I don't care about our own picks. Those are sunk costs. Let's just try to. Figured this out.

• 2:02:28Speaker 04

  You need at least one core piece, either the chance at it with your own picks or the number two pick or Thompson and it's really hard to see anything else. I mean, maybe the number three pick, but also it seems like Harper is the clear number two and I.

• 2:02:42Bill Simmons?

  I'm still not sold on that. By the way, I looked at my ringer hundred that I turned in for the last time we did it, which was a couple of weeks ago. I had Mobley 13th. He's 23 years old.

• 2:02:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, in NBA history, even if you put him at 13th, the gap between

• 2:02:56Bill Simmons?

  I get it.

• 2:02:56Speaker 04

  1.5 and 13, it's astronomical.

• 2:02:59Bill Simmons?

  So you're.

• 2:03:00Speaker 04

  I'd rather the Bucks just tank. I guess they can't tank. They have no picks.

• 2:03:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, the real move is to keep Giannis and take it into the season. Say he's staying, see how it goes, and then he'll probably have just as much, if not more value from December to February, I would think.

• 2:03:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just so hard to trade a contract of that size. That's the other thing that makes this difficult is as how many of these teams have sufficient flotsam to trade, to make up that the salary difference. I mean, I personally am probably the most pro Houston. Even though I'm hesitant about Thompson, I'm pro Houston for Giannis' sake in that they are like an amazing team with no star. That's their problem. And Giannis, I think, putting Giannis, they would have to build around him.

• 2:03:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I'm not doing that trade if I'm Houston, if I have to also give up Thompson because I need him to be one of my best three guys to actually try to win the title if I'm actually trading for Giannis. You know what I mean?

• 2:03:58Speaker 04

  Giannis, because you're no, because you're getting one of the best or arguably the best player in the NBA. I think, I think Houston with Giannis, with their assets, wins a title with Giannis.

• 2:04:08Bill Simmons?

  Thompson was their best player in the playoffs though. Dan Vliet, Dillon Brooks, like that, I don't think that's, you need Thompson. You need all the stuff he does.

• 2:04:16Speaker 04

  That's, I was gonna make a joke about he was the best player in the playoffs that ended in the first round, but as a Bucks fan, it's hard to make that joke.

• 2:04:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no. So you're thinking, so you would do Thompson. I think the Van Vliet contract probably has to be in it to make the honest thing work.

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:33Bill Simmons?

  And then a bunch of picks.

• 2:04:34Speaker 04

  Fake trade somewhere, a bunch of trades. Yeah, I think ideally you would get someone like Jabari Smith, too. Jabari Smith might be bad. His three-point percentages are disappointing.

• 2:04:43Bill Simmons?

  I like him.

• 2:04:44Speaker 04

  He has, yeah, he hasn't played with great guards. So that's, that's kind of the argument for it. He's definitely just a supporting piece.

• 2:04:48Bill Simmons?

  Stick him in the corner and just tell him to jack up threes if they happen to pass him the ball. And that's kind of what he does.

• 2:04:55Speaker 04

  I mean, I, I, I'm someone that's easy to get overly biased by, by summer league. Jabari Smith was awesome at summer league last year. He's like, oh, the, or a couple of years ago, the number two player making a leap. Ahmed Thompson, oh, man, one of the best summer league debuts ever. They're just absolutely incredible. But yeah, it's probably Texas or bust. Giannis, by the way, very cheap, no taxes. He will like that a lot. That literally might be what pushes him over the edge.

• 2:05:20Bill Simmons?

  I know, but see, the, the problem is, the reason I like the Cleveland trade for him was because, all right, if I'm leaving Milwaukee, I have all these ties here. I've been here since 2013. I want to go to a place where I'm now the favorite to win the title. That's not the case if he goes to Houston or San Antonio.

• 2:05:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, San Antonio.

• 2:05:37Bill Simmons?

  Do you flip him and Mobley? He is now the favorite to come out of the East, like unquestionably with the team they already have. And that, that's what I thought was the appealing piece.

• 2:05:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I think, I, I, I know, I get your point. It's interesting. Are you looking at it from the Giannis perspective or the, or the Bucks perspective?

• 2:05:53Bill Simmons?

  I think you have to look at it from the honest perspective because you're throwing him a solid by trading him because he's your guy. And if you want to put him in a good situation.

• 2:06:00Speaker 04

  In the Bucks defense, I think they've made a lot of poor decisions. I don't understand why John Horace got a contract extension. I think he's done a, a terrible job. But they did spend a lot of money. They did win a title. I think they've done right by Giannis, all things considered. And you owe it to the organization to maximize the return.

• 2:06:23Bill Simmons?

  But what if he, what if he calls, he's like, I will go to these three spots and Houston's not one of them. Then it gets a little, I, I personally don't think going to San Antonio guarantees him anything. I don't know if Wembanyama, like, do we even know he's going to be playing 60 games a year with his, his body makes me nervous. He's already gone down once.

• 2:06:43Speaker 04

  Look, here's the deal. San Antonio may have a disappointing supporting cast. That supporting cast is like 10x better than what the Bucks were trying out this year. Like, like I do think.

• 2:06:53Bill Simmons?

  But you're in the West. I'm in the West instead of the East. If I'm in, if I'm on Cleveland, I'm cruising. I have to worry about the Knicks and the Celtics two years from now and Detroit.

• 2:07:04Speaker 04

  No, I, for Giannis, it'd be great. I'm saying for the Bucks, it'd be a disaster.

• 2:07:09Bill Simmons?

  You want to send him to the other conference if you're the Bucks.

• 2:07:12Speaker 04

  Well, it's not even that. I don't mind. Actually, I would like Giannis to go to the East for Giannis's sake, because I want him to win a bunch more titles and it's definitely going to be much easier. If you're the Bucks, though, and you're facing this, one of the worst holes in NBA history.

• 2:07:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:27Speaker 04

  You need more than Evan Mobley. Uh, that's just sort of the, so the long and short of it. I mean, I actually, I know three-way and four-way trades are hard, but

• 2:07:39Speaker 04

  I think if this hap- the only two, the direct trades that make sense are San Antonio and Houston. If they're, it, it, I, there are possibilities that are almost impossible for us to build. And you see some of these trades come down and they actually get really quite complicated.

• 2:07:53Bill Simmons?

  So Giannis goes to Cleveland, Mobley goes somewhere else, a whole bunch of stuff goes to.

• 2:07:58Speaker 04

  To some other middling, you know, some, somewhat contender and then some of those picks start coming back. Um, that, that, that would be, that would be, I think that, that's probably a chance to happen.

• 2:08:10Bill Simmons?

  Do you think Cleveland, what if Milwaukee came back and said, we'll do it if it's Mobley and Garland?

• 2:08:17Speaker 04

  So what? We can have the same playoff performance Cleveland has had?

• 2:08:19Bill Simmons?

  And we'll dump, we'll dump, we'll give you Giannis and dump a contract on you and you can have Giannis and Mitchell. Then I don't think that makes sense if I'm Cleveland.

• 2:08:26Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know. I mean, what are you, what are you building for Milwaukee? Yeah. I mean, if you want to be a sort of a middling team that has a second round ceiling, then just keep Giannis. Um, that's, you know, again, it's only, it's ultimately up to Giannis. I mean, he's not, he's, he didn't, he's not a US superstar. He didn't grow up in that culture. He, he's well documented, his sort of background, where he came from. He's very comfortable in Milwaukee. He likes the idea.

• 2:08:53Bill Simmons?

  And he won the title. You leave out the part that he has a ring already. It's not like he has to go chase it.

• 2:08:58Speaker 04

  That, that, that's right. And, and you know, As my heart, my heart is split because it does kill me to listen to you, to listen to everyone else. I think, underappreciate how great he is because of how bad this situation is. And I want better for him. But I, man, I love having him on my team.

• 2:09:19Bill Simmons?

  So when I voted for him for third for MVP, should I put little stars next to it to show how much I cared? Or what did you want from me? Put a little chocolate on it?

• 2:09:28Speaker 04

  I just, I want, I don't want any comments about Tatum being better. I don't want to

• 2:09:34Bill Simmons?

  Tatum was better the first 50, 60 games of the year. And then Giannis came on like a freight train.

• 2:09:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, Giannis, I don't know. Giannis is pretty good all year.

• 2:09:41Bill Simmons?

  I will say one thing. Can I, can I do one Giannis critique? He does get a free pass for how, when his teammates don't play well when they're next to him. It's always their fault. It's a little bit of LeBron, LeBron-ish. Everybody, like Malik Beasley is really good on Detroit now.

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  How was Malik Beasley in the playoffs? He was good with Milwaukee in the regular season also, and then stunk in the playoffs.

• 2:10:03Bill Simmons?

  Grayson Allen was really good on Phoenix the year he left Milwaukee. I don't know. It's just, we kids love it with Giannis a little bit. Giannis fucked up on the Halberton drives in that game that they blew. Like, Halbert went by him three times in a row. I thought he was this octopus on defense.

• 2:10:18Speaker 04

  Grayson Allen great in the regular season, stunk in the playoffs. That's what happened to the Bucks too. You have a small guy with a slow release. They don't, they don't.

• 2:10:26Bill Simmons?

  Listen, Grayson Allen was the hero of the 2022 Celtics comeback.

• 2:10:30Speaker 04

  Jason Tatum at every one of those Coach K camps should be buying Grayson Allen caviar, like, like, whatever. I mean, it was, oh, I'm still mad at Bud about that. I mean, oh, but I guess it could always get worse. That's the Bud lesson.

• 2:10:47Bill Simmons?

  All right. So, so we go, you're, you're in favor of keeping Giannis or Godfather offer from San Antonio or Houston? Because the one other thing we didn't mention, when Davis went to the Lakers, the Lakers really wanted Davis because of LeBron and they had this window and they, they were going to do whatever it took. Ishbia, when he really wanted Durant, he's like, fine, I'll throw in Cam Johnson. I'll do anything it takes. I don't know who the, I'll do anything it takes to get Giannis team is yet.

• 2:11:16Speaker 04

  I mean, that that would only because.

• 2:11:19Bill Simmons?

  It hasn't emerged. Maybe it'll emerge over the next two rounds.

• 2:11:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, we didn't see Minnesota emerge for Gobert until the trade actually happened. Right. And that package was pretty significant. And I think we can agree that Gobert is not even close to the level of player that that Yanis is. So, and that, by the way, no one was putting in the Timberwolves as competitors. I'm still not sure I like that trade, to be honest, a few years later, but you can't deny.

• 2:11:48Bill Simmons?

  They gave away way too much.

• 2:11:50Speaker 04

  I mean.

• 2:11:51Bill Simmons?

  But it worked out. Both things could be right.

• 2:11:54Speaker 04

  I need a rankings prediction, Bill. If Anthony Edwards wins this year.

• 2:11:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:59Speaker 04

  At the age he won at, I mean, we're.

• 2:12:03Bill Simmons?

  No, you're in like Magic Bird, Magic Bird under 25 territory. It's pretty crazy.

• 2:12:08Speaker 04

  Fully appreciated the the trajectory that he might be on. It's it's pretty amazing.

• 2:12:14Bill Simmons?

  Ben Thompson, you can follow or subscribe to the Strategery newsletter, which has been an essential piece of.

• 2:12:23Speaker 04

  Does not have any NBA, any NBA talk, which is probably best for everyone.

• 2:12:27Bill Simmons?

  No, it's good. Good to see you. Thanks for getting up early for us.

• 2:12:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, talk to you later.

• 2:12:33Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Fantasy and Ariel and Zach and Ben and Gahal and Eduardo for producing. You can watch these as video podcasts on Spotify. If you did not know that, you can check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel for all the clips and videos from this and new rewatchables episode Close Counters of the Third Kind. You can check that out as well because that's on the Rear Moves YouTube channel or on the Spotify as a video podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So I'm going to be back on Thursday. We'll have lots to discuss, including a surprise guest. So stay tuned.

• 2:13:22Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. 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

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