LeBron’s Philly Shocker! Plus, the 2011 NBA Redraftables With Zach Lowe.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe to react to LeBron James deciding to take his talents to Philadelphia. Then the guys redraft the 2011 NBA class. (0:00) Intro (0:31) LeBron signs with the Sixers (44:24) 2011 NBA Redraftables Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for teen gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com slash paying for PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457. This episode is brought to you by 7up. Okay, this one's a case for conspiracy bill. Let's bring them in. Ever notice lemon is everywhere from lemon recipes to lemon scented cleaning supplies?

• 0:43Bill Simmons?

  And when it comes to lemon lime sodas, why is lemon always first? There's a reason. A shadowy organization called the A Lemonade has been padding the stats, keeping big lemon in the lead for decades. But let me tell you something, the sip is about to be flipped. 7up is fighting back, swapping lemon lime for their new lime lemon soda. Now lime comes first. 7up, flip the sip.

• 1:39Bill Simmons?

  All right, it is Friday morning. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast. I have no Sunday podcast. This was supposed to be the Sunday podcast. Zach Lowe was coming here. We're going to do 2011 redraft and 20 minutes before we were about to start recording, we got the word that LeBron James is going to the Philadelphia 76ers. We're going to talk about that one second. Live rewatchable is coming Monday, 4 o'clock Pacific time. We are doing obsession, so stay tuned for that. Okay, LeBron to Philly. So first I'm going to start eating some crow. I thought Cleveland was done. I thought this was where this was headed the whole time. I'm not sure what happened there. We could talk about that later. Philly shocked me. This got a, this got a genuine whoa. Wasn't a Luca trade whoa, but this was a whoa.

• 2:24Bill Simmons?

  I didn't think this was in play. I didn't think he'd want to live there. I guess he's going to live in New York. Was it, what was the side of one out of 10 whoa scale for you?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  7.5. The moment Bob Myers went on game over, I had someone in the league, I said some iPod, just say to me, someone smart, not, not necessarily read, not, not even reading tea leaves, which is saying, why would he go on that show and potentially debase himself like that if he didn't know something? And since then, that's, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything because all these teams were just telling you the last two weeks, we don't know, we're in the dark, we're completely in the dark. I, I, I'm 7.5. It's not, it's not a 10, it's not a nine, but it's, it's pretty high. I, I just, I'm like you. I just always thought momentum would push him towards a familiar destination, whether it was Cleveland, Miami, or his friends in Golden State. And this is, uh, this is fun, man.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I, I, I actually really like this for a whole multitude of reasons. I think this is a really fun, I think this might be, other than Minnesota, which was a pipe dream and Denver, which was like a triple pipe dream. This is a really fun outcome.

• 3:31Bill Simmons?

  So you're going to do the deep dive on Sunday. We are doing the irrational holy shit reactions to this. Big picture. This is maybe, maybe not Joel Embiid. We have no idea how many games he's going to play. You have a franchise guy in Maxey who's also a clutch guy. You have VJ Edgecombe year two. You have Jalen Brown just being thrown into all of this. And then LeBron, I guess, as the power forward. It's a basketball team that makes sense. From a usage rate standpoint, does not make sense. But this is a team that if everybody's healthy and playing together, this would be kind of a nightmare to guard and especially if they're playing with pace like they did with Edgecombe and Maxey in a couple of those playoff games. And then you throw LeBron into that.

• 4:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm just surprised that, this almost makes me wonder if he's going to play until he's 45 now, which he's hinted at a couple of times. Like, we thought like, oh, these, this will be the last year or the last two years. He's said some things over the summer that like, why should I have to retire if I don't have to, right? Tom Brady played till he's 45. And I wonder like, because the Cleveland thing, which we could talk about later, they just couldn't figure out how to make that work. I wonder maybe, maybe that's where this ends anyway. Maybe he thinks two years, title chase, and then I'll end up in Cleveland for, at the end.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  We're already projecting him out of Philadelphia and over to Cleveland. Can you give me a minute?

• 4:54Bill Simmons?

  It's a two-year, $8 billion deal.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  My God, he's going to be 44 years old at the end of it. Let him retire. I, I mean, look, he said in his, I, I'm still, we're, this, we're doing this live. Didn't he say this is his last decision in one of the 14 tweets he sent out announcing this?

• 5:08Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I don't believe anything. And I, I don't think he's going to retire unless, unless he feels old. Like, he's not going to, it's not going to be one of those things where it's like, oh, I could put up 20 next year. I'm going to retire though. Like, it's-

• 5:19Speaker 01

  I'm just going to read you what he said. I've had an incredible few months with all the people I love trying to figure it all out. This is my last decision. I'm not going for money. I'm not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point? I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you, LA, Miami, all forever love in Northeast Ohio. We'll always be home. Minnesota doesn't get any acknowledgement in the-

• 5:44Bill Simmons?

  In Golden State.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Between Golden State, not, not acknowledgement. Look, this is my last decision. You are going to be a skeptic till the end. I respect you. I'm going to take him at his word. This is it.

• 5:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is like when boxers say they're going to retire or actors say they're doing their last movie or wrestlers like, it's my farewell match. I, I'll never believe he's going to retire until he hasn't played for a couple of years. But, um, this is, we'll start here. This is, this is a title run. This is, I'm going to try to get a fifth, a fifth ring here, um, which I think Cleveland, I don't know, if they couldn't have figured out how to, uh, I just don't know how he would have won a title with that Cleveland team from what we saw last year and some of the defensive deficiencies that would, deficiencies that would have had. Golden State, that would have been a super fun team, a traveling America, um, the, the

• 6:37Bill Simmons?

  biggest high profile bunch of stars and famous people on one team in 10 years. But I don't think they would have won the title. This team, if they can get Embiid going, could win the title. And what's interesting is they have flexibility with or without Embiid, right? Because you would have Maxey and Jalen and LeBron, who are three of the top 20 to 25 players in the league, um, with Embiid as the wild card. And then you see what happens with Edgecombe. Did you like what they did in the offseason from a bench standpoint?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Uh, I like Simons. Dean Wade looks a lot better as your seventh, eighth guy coming off the bench than he did in the starting five, which LeBron takes his spot. One of the greatest upgrades in, uh, late, late offseason rotation history. Dean Wade trumped by LeBron James for starting power forward spot. Mike, Mike Gansey getting the boys back together, by the way. He came out, Mike Gansey's like, if I'm going to get, I, I've waited a long time for this. I'm coming in swinging. I'm doing whatever I want. Um, after that, the depth is a little bit unproven, particularly behind Embiid. It's just a Dambona and Huck Porty at this point, maybe a little-

• 7:39Bill Simmons?

  And Filon too. I, I like him.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  He'll play.

• 7:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think he could actually be like a 10th man for them.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  But look, I think there's, I mean, when you, you mentioned the, uh, two things you said that I, I would be interested to dive into a little bit more. You mentioned from a usage standpoint, it doesn't make sense. And I know what you mean because they have four extremely high usage players now on their team. But rarely does a championship contender have a usage hierarchy that makes sense in that sort of perfect ideal, idyllic way. Like, this is just part and parcel of building a championship team. Number two, they can stagger minutes incredibly strictly and they will do that. Like to whatever pairing they want, you two go together, you two go together. And we know that LeBron will miss games and Embiid will miss a ton of games. But, so I think there's enough here to solve that problem.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  The other thing I would say, why, you said, um, about Cleveland, the defensive deficiencies that you saw in that roster. Why is that team with LeBron worse than this team defensively only with LeBron? Because you have two small guards, just like you have there, and they have Mobley plus Allen. This is small ball power forward plus Embiid, whose mobility slash health is always questionable, to say the least.

• 8:56Bill Simmons?

  Fair. Well, I was looking from a Cleveland standpoint. Ultimately, you're talking about who's your five when there's six, seven minutes left in a playoff game, right? And their best five would have been Allen and Mobley and LeBron and Mitchell and Harden, I think. I just don't like that as a five. You have LeBron trying to guard guys on the wing. You have Harden who can't guard anybody.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 9:19Bill Simmons?

  It's, I just think that's a, I don't think LeBron is a small forward at this stage of his career. I think he's a four or a five. But on the flip side with Philly, Embiid, who can certainly be, be put in a torture chamber. LeBron can ratchet it up or down depending on whatever. And, and you made the key point. They have these, they have in Jalen and VJ and Maxey, three guys who can play 70 games at least and two, 2,400 minutes, 2,500 minutes, somewhere in there. You could move the other two around there. Embiid could almost be on like a premier league schedule. Like, you could just say, play, play home games. You're going to play 40 games this year. We just want to keep you ready for the playoffs. And same thing with LeBron.

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  You can just, you say, well, hey LeBron, we're just going to play you 25 minutes a game and, and all we care about is the spring. So they have the kind of roster that I feel like could, could, uh, I don't know. Could basically get those guys ready for April, May, June, which is all they're going to care about.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  But the, and the premier league schedule is not an option in the playoffs. And the ultimate question is, like, will Joel Embiid ever be healthy for three or four playoff series, which is what the dream here is? I, I will say, there's enough star power between Maxey, LeBron and Jalen Brown. I'll throw Edgecombe in there. Like, I think Edgecombe had, was spectacular as a rookie, has a big leap coming. That they could put an, a representative competitive team on the floor without Embiid if they have to for a couple of games here, a couple of games there and steal games. We've seen them steal games without Embiid before. And now, um, they're kind of loaded and, but to your point about the regular season, like, the East is no picnic. Getting into the top six in the East is going to be hard. And I think they have fortified themselves really, really well to be able to get into

• 11:02Speaker 01

  the top six while not overplaying Embiid or LeBron or anybody, because it's not going to be easy, but they have enough sort of top line depth to do. I mean, on paper, Bill, we can go through the starting fives in Oklahoma City and New York and San Antonio. Is this the best starting five in the NBA on paper?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Who else is in contention besides the teams that I named? I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think anybody is. Denver, if Denver's ever fully formed.

• 11:30Bill Simmons?

  So on paper, you're basically saying I'm getting the glass half full version of Joel Embiid.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, any given night, he feels 95%, throw this lineup out there. Is there a better starting five in the NBA despite the one ball overlapping skillsets and all that? I mean, I think they have a pretty strong.

• 11:48Bill Simmons?

  I will say this, this is, so here's what, here would my answer would be. This is the number one team in the rankings of fuck, they're playing everybody tonight. If you're the other team. Like, oh shit. All these guys are gonna play tonight? God damn, that's gonna be hard for us. But yeah, I just don't, I don't trust Embiid. I don't, he hasn't played big minutes.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Well, how could you? You just can't.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  Can we bring Conspiracy Bill in for a second?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  I, I always welcome. I listened to a Conspiracy Bill go through a couple of mailbag questions yesterday in my car and I was laughing the whole time. So he's always a welcome, welcome addition.

• 12:21Bill Simmons?

  It felt like Anthony Davis was a key component of this LeBron free agent summer. Right?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  I just, don't you feel like that was made up? Like, I just don't think.

• 12:31Bill Simmons?

  I don't. So how do you explain James Harden not signing the contract extension and, or the contract, whatever you call it, and then Draymond opting out and kind of waiting to see what happened with LeBron? To me, that felt like LeBron's side putting leverage on those two teams. Like, we don't love the team that you have right now. We need one more move from you, right? There's no other explanation. It's July 24th. Neither of those guys have signed yet. I don't understand that.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Well, there is another explanation. They're just waiting for LeBron to make his decision independent of anything else. Shams reported yesterday on McAfee's show that there was no other domino they were waiting for at this point. Now, that doesn't mean there never was. That just means they could have realized yesterday, having planned probably to make this announcement today, that another domino was not coming. And as I'm saying this, Shams saying that yesterday almost makes me more suspicious that at one point, there was a domino that maybe they were dreaming on. But here's what I say.

• 13:27Bill Simmons?

  Wait, hold on. Conspiracy Bill didn't finish the, I didn't round it around.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  Embiid for Davis does work from a salary cap standpoint.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Well, you're just coming out, you're putting him on the Cavs in 2028. I mean, my god.

• 13:42Bill Simmons?

  But could, could this open the door? Philly uses the rest of their assets and, and tries to get Davis and Washington gets the Embiid contract and some other assets. I, I just, my brain went there for a second. I don't think it'll happen. If I was Philly, I would want to see this Embiid thing for a year before I got there. But I just felt like the Davis thing felt important all summer.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  So when I meant, was it ever real? Like, I don't think the Wizards and the Warriors ever had a real conversation about Anthony Davis. I don't think the teams were ever involved. I'm not sure that LeBron ever went to the Warriors and said anything directly about Anthony Davis. Like, again, every team I talked to on all sides of this was like, I don't know. I know as much as you know. And I would call about these rumors and they'd be like, hey, that's news to us. Like, you call the Cavs about, hey, I heard you were trying to salary dump player X, Y, and Z. They'd be like, we are? It's news to me. Now, everyone lies. I get it. But this was just a universal shoulder shrug from around the league. But now Conspiracy Zach, who this doesn't really exist, but Shams saying that, yes, Shams saying that yesterday, that there's no other domino here. They had to know the

• 14:46Speaker 01

  clutch people that this was probably coming today. So that I'm, like, you could put the pieces together, like, had the decision already been made, and they're sort of laying the groundwork for, hey, there was never anything to see here.

• 14:57Bill Simmons?

  Do you believe the whole thing with Cleveland? Cause I'm always gonna think he was looking at Cleveland first. And I, I think that that was down the road in a lot of different ways. And I'm never gonna not believe that. And I don't think he liked the roster the way they had it. And the Harden piece, I do feel like that the Harden opting out, which was the wink wink from last year, but then no new deal. And then there was always like a little buzz, like, maybe he could get him. And I think there was some, some Phoenix stuff at one point. They, they went for Dallas with Kyrie and Dallas. Like, no thanks, we'll keep Kyrie. I do wonder if he was just like, I'm, I'm not gonna sign, cause Cleveland only had the minimum, right? I'm gonna sign with the minimum for Cleveland and I probably can't

• 15:41Bill Simmons?

  win there anyway. This, this doesn't seem like the way to go out. This is like the, the juiciest team, right? Golden State would, would have been the most fun for us. I said on Wednesday's pod, I just didn't see the Miami thing. I didn't get it. I didn't get him and Giannis and Bam together. I just don't like the fit. This feels like a better basketball fit if we have Embiid. And that'll be the question.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  And, and I guess the, the accidental YouTube thing in Miami was actually an accidental YouTube thing, or the greatest fumble in the history of sports. I don't know, but like, looks to, looks to have actually been an accident. I think, like, Golden State was gonna be too old. I think personally, you're underrating the Cleveland team just because we're all sort of, like, just the division of Harden dribbling the air out of the ball and everyone being like, hey, man, we have LeBron on the team. We have Donovan Mitchell on. It's like, why do we have to play like this? I think that actually would have been a pretty stacked team and a, and a legit title contender. This team is a, I mean, if Embiid can give them anything in the playoffs, they're a contender to get to the finals for

• 16:45Speaker 01

  sure. I just have no faith. Forget the season. Forget the first 82. We don't have any evidence that he can stay healthy for the last 20. And those are the most intense, hardest playing games where they need him the most. Then maybe they just can lower his minutes in those games to a reasonable amount because they have so much talent around him. But their backup center situation is just okay. Like, I, I like Bona. Nick Nurse has never seemed to trust Bona all that much.

• 17:13Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna be able to get February guys and buyout guys and people who want to play with this team. Right now, they unfandle their 10-1 to win the title. They have the fourth best odds. They are plus 380 to win the East and they are minus 130 to win 50-plus games and plus 210 to win 55-plus games.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Are they, is that updated already?

• 17:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they moved it. They move fast on this stuff.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Okay, alright.

• 17:42Bill Simmons?

  Listen, the Cleveland thing, I, you and I are just gonna disagree on that. I don't like that team. And I think they were trying, he wasn't gonna go there for the minimum. They're trying to trade Strus or Schroder. Nobody wants those guys, especially in this new second April CBA era. The Harden thing seemed very complicated because they'd done the wink wink with him. And he goes to Philly instead. You mentioned the, the playoff piece. I was talking about this with somebody a couple, couple days ago, about the second and third rounds of the playoffs are the young guy rounds, where that's where you're, you're playing a lot. You could see Philly, like, in the Boston series in round one, Embiid plays three games or four, three and a half games in that Boston series, but then goes

• 18:23Bill Simmons?

  to that next round. And all of a sudden, you gotta go. And he couldn't hold up. This is still, those are the young guy rounds, but Philly's covered in that with the three guys they have that aren't Embiid or LeBron. Like, Jalen is one of the most durable stars we've had in the last 20 years. That was one of the, one of the things I would always make the case for him. Maxey, I think, either led the league in minutes or was second last year. And Edgecombe played a crazy amount of minutes for rookies. So they're covered all the other way. How do you feel Jalen Brown feels about this, though?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Alright, well, two things.

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  What a summer for him.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Two things. Number one, I agree with you. He is almost the most interesting character in this whole drama that has played out. And I'm gonna get back to that in a second. I mean, the thing about the East is Detroit is gonna win a lot of games and be a tough out, no matter how you feel about their offense or their offseason. They're not gonna be an easy out. They're gonna win a lot of games. Boston is still gonna win a lot of games despite coming off as one of the quote unquote losers of the offseason. The Knicks are the Knicks. The Cavs are gonna win a lot of games. The Heat have Giannis for whatever that's worth. And it's worth something. Toronto seems at least pretty darn likely to have Kawhi Leonard. My point is, I'm not sure how many rounds you get in the 2027 Eastern Conference to just be like, yeah, we don't have to play our all out rotation for this

• 19:35Speaker 01

  entire series. I think it's gonna be a, a tough battle all the way through. I think that, I, I couldn't wait for you to bring up Jalen Brown, because I think he's the most fascinating character. He was already the character of the offseason and now even more so, because not only is he not the number one option, which he dreamed of, but now on a team where he has two former MVPs in his starting five and an ascendant all NBA guard who's gonna have the ball a lot. He, one of the MVPs on the team plays essentially his similar or almost same position. And stylistically, although he's a, in a different universe as a passer from Jalen Brown, like, they're physically sort of similar in how

• 20:18Speaker 01

  they play. And so the, the overlap issue for him just got even worse of you. And I'm trying to picture like, alright, so is there like a LeBron, Jalen Brown two man game that's gonna happen? What is Jalen Brown doing when it's like a Maxey, Embiid pick and roll and LeBron's attacking the closeout or LeBron's posting up? Where's Jalen Brown? And smart players and talented players figure all this stuff out. But it is strange to think about, like, what's, what's his role gonna be on the team?

• 20:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the closest you would come to this was like the 24 Celtics, when they had all those good players, when they had Porzingis and Drew Holiday was there. And, you know, Jalen would get his five minutes at the top of the second quarter and the fourth quarter when Tatum sat. But last year, his usage rate was 36.2, right? Maxey was 29.4. LeBron was 27.2. And then Embiid's not in here, because I guess he didn't play enough games. But Embiid is another one that, when Embiid's in the game, the whole offense seems like it revolves around him. So you have four guys. Jalen is gonna get the short straw, it feels like, all the time. And he's gonna have to do the, alright, I guess I'm basically a glorified role player. I wonder, is he on the team in October? Did they flip him?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Jalen Brown?

• 21:31Bill Simmons?

  Is that possible?

• 21:33Speaker 01

  So I just wanna be, you, you've already, in the span of 15 minutes, traded Jalen Brown.

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  I didn't trade him. I'm asking if he's on the team in October.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Traded Embiid for Anthony Davis and put the, LeBron on the Cavs in 2020. You're on fire.

• 21:47Bill Simmons?

  I'm on fire. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet. But is it, would you bet your life he's on the Sixers in October 20th?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I wouldn't bet my, don't bet my, don't bet your life. I keep telling you this. Just word of advice. Don't bet your life in any circumstance. I would bet lots of money that he's on the team in October. February, now you have four months of like, we get to see how this works. The trade deadline comes, whatever. Like, that, I mean, who knows what happens then. But in October, I would expect Jalen Brown to be on the team.

• 22:17Bill Simmons?

  I would too. I'm just mentioning.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  But to your point.

• 22:21Bill Simmons?

  What if he said, I want an extension or I'm gonna be super unhappy the whole year?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  You know, I talked about this on my pod yesterday about extension candidates. I mean, he's got, it's just like, he's, these guys who have three years, I understand the tool is helpful for teams and players and it's helpful to have as much flexibility using it, the extension tool. Three years left on your contract just seems like, let's just, it's too early. In every case, that's not like Jokic or Shay or Luca or Wemba Yama. It's like, can we just wait 18 months? Man, you have three years left on your deal. Can we not talk about it? And can you not take that as like a personal affront? It's just a reality, but who knows? That's what I'm saying. If I'm like Ganzie, I'm saying, we're not talking about that right now. Sorry.

• 23:08Bill Simmons?

  The Davis one's amazing because he's got this year and then a player option for next year and he hasn't been healthy in two years. But he's like, I don't know, I need an extension. It's like, do you? Could we see one year before, before we have to up you for more years? Plus you're the one with the power anyway with the player option.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  How about, how about we all be reasonable and we'll say, okay, so let's tear up your player option. We'll give you a two-year $100 million extension. How do you feel about that? And he would go nuts and Clutch would go nuts and they'd be all insulted about it. And I'd be like, okay, so you're in your early to mid 30s and you don't play two, you play a third, you miss a third of the games every year. Like, why am I just no-brainer-ing an extension with you at the max? I'm not. Anyway.

• 23:52Bill Simmons?

  Rich said something about if you paid attention, all the clues, he said something like that last week. If you paid attention, all the clues were laid out for what, for what the decision was gonna be, which I, which you could have interpreted in all of these different ways. But now looking back, you mentioned Myers went on that podcast, right? That's, that's pretty interesting. He wanted to win and also be happy. What were the other clues we can take from that they laid out?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  What are we talking about here? Is the whiteboard, is the whiteboard like Usual Suspects? Does it say like Skokie, Illinois on there somewhere?

• 24:33Bill Simmons?

  What did we miss?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Am I gonna drop the coffee cup on the floor? Are we gonna drop the coffee cup on the floor? Like, what's on the bottom?

• 24:41Bill Simmons?

  It was Kobayashi. I wonder what the other clues were. I'd love to know what I missed.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  I guess I gotta go spend some time. I, here, look, I can call all the GMs and agents involved in the next four hours, or I could spend time deconstructing the whiteboard and like listening for, you know how Steve Kerr, did you read the story that, uh, Steve Kerr like dropped an entire Taylor Swift song into press conferences this year, like one word lyric at a time? So maybe we need to, maybe we need to go back and listen to some podcasts and see if we can hear a clue all put together.

• 25:15Bill Simmons?

  There must have been some.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  So good, so good, so good. Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots, and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan, and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance and new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 26:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, so LeBron has the 12-year-old daughter who's lived here her whole life. So, I, like, are they gonna, is this family gonna move? Or is he gonna be like, going back and forth? That, that's, are they gonna live in New York? Or who knows? That's gonna be a whole thing. And then, then him and Jalen Brown is another piece of this. Jalen Brown, the famous thing about him sitting at summer league and basically saying, you know, Bronny's not good or whatever. He wasn't fair because it was the cameras catching him. And then LeBron kinda made mention of it last year, but I assume Bronny is gonna end up on the Sixers at some point.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, how did we get 20 minutes into this without answering the what about Bronny question?

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  I just assume he's, he's probably on his way because they, the Lakers have 16 guys anyway. Geometry-wise, I give you Embiid, LeBron, Jalen, Maxey, and Edgecombe as a closing five. There's three minutes left in a playoff game. Walk me through a play and where everybody is in the court.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  I mean, Embiid is setting a high screen or at the nail probably. And it's a two-man game with, I mean, again, like, I don't really know. It's a two-man game, maybe with LeBron, so that I can use Maxey in some off-ball stuff with Jalen Brown and throw some size issues at the other team. Like, they'll have a little guy on Maxey, maybe we can get a switch that way. But it's, there, it's gonna be.

• 27:38Bill Simmons?

  So VJ's in the corner regardless.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  VJ's probably in the corner or setting some off-ball stuff if Nick Nurse is getting creative and when it gets down to.

• 27:47Bill Simmons?

  Jalen's spending some time in the corner.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean.

• 27:51Bill Simmons?

  LeBron and Maxey kinda switching, playing off Embiid. And then if Embiid's not out there, you could even go a little small ball with LeBron and, or Bona, like, whatever. But yeah, that geometry, there's gonna be two guys in the corner that are gonna be like, shit, I'm in the corner.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  I wonder if when on days Embiid doesn't play, if there is some potential for like LeBron at the five kinda lineups. They're, they're built to try that out. It's always, those always sound better in theory than they are in reality. The other thing is like, you know, Joel Embiid had back-to-back seasons when he shot 37% on threes and one and two years ago when he shot 39% in limited games. If, if that, now that's all sandwiched around 33%, 30%, 33%. And no one's ever gonna treat him like a DEFCON 1 threat out there. But if he can find that stroke again, you have a little bit more flexibility in where you can put him. It doesn't have to be at the nail. It doesn't have to be, we're running

• 28:49Speaker 01

  through stuff through. But what happens to his post-up game to me is a really interesting question here. Like, how often are you just dumping the ball into Embiid when these other four guys are on the floor? Does it make sense to play that way? Sometimes it will, but sometimes it won't.

• 29:02Bill Simmons?

  And if, and if you're talking to VJ Edgecombe about this, you're like, dude, just practice your corner threes. Just take 100 million of them. Take 200,000 a day. And this is gonna be a two-year thing. You're gonna be a better place for this. You're gonna be in big games. And it'll all pay off in the long run. But he's probably the biggest loser from a growth standpoint because he just, he basically just turns into a three and D guard now, I think.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Well, I think he's also so good that he'll find ways to, to stretch that three-and-D role in the half-court to its boundaries. LeBron with the Lakers and particularly with Luca leaned a little bit more into transition, fast break. Remember LeBron was known as a slow-it-down chess master kinda player. Jalen Brown is a demon in transition, particularly as a cutter off the ball.

• 29:54Bill Simmons?

  He wants to play that way.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Everybody but Embiid in that starting five is meant to play fast, like, super fast. And I think that's okay for Embiid. Like, he can trail the play and whatever. And, and that's where VJ can run into eight points a game. I mean, like, just, just like that. So I think there's, there's something to be said there, too.

• 30:12Bill Simmons?

  You know what else is gonna be really fun? I think this is gonna be a really fun team to watch. And this is immediately the, this is the team I have to monitor the first two months team of all, of the 30 teams we have that are different than they were last year. But VJ is so good at both like crashing the offensive boards when somebody else shoots, but then also those little sneaky back cuts he does from the side. And LeBron loves guys like that. So that'll be, that'll be, I think LeBron's gonna love playing with him. And I, you know, him and Maxey, I think they've known each other for a long time and they have the Rich Paul connection. Embiid will be the wild card. You know what we didn't mention, though? This is unbelievable for the Boston Philly rivalry, the best rivalry in the league, the most important rivalry the league's ever had. Everybody says Celtics-Lakers.

• 30:57Bill Simmons?

  I've said this a million times. Celtics-Sixers is the most historic, awesome rivalry the league has. They've crossed paths every decade in some way. Some more than others, like the 60s more than the 70s and shit like that. But every year they've had battles and they had some battles this decade. But now you have, the Celtics have traded Jalen Brown to Philly. You have LeBron, who was their biggest foil from, I don't know, 2008 through 2013, where they were the big bully with him and then he flipped it and he was the big bully with them. He doesn't like Boston. That's been his rival and the team that really tried to break him down. And now he's going against them. And these are, these are two

• 31:39Bill Simmons?

  fanbases that have gone at it. Philly beat them last year and came back. This, I, I feel like all of these games will be on national TV, right?

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I mean, Adam Silver made that pretty clear when he was like, hey, man, can you, can you make a decision?

• 31:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, Philly-Boston, all-time classic rivalry. How about LeBron being back in the East and the state of all the teams involved puts like LeBron could face the Cavs in a playoff series. LeBron could face the Heat in a playoff series.

• 32:07Bill Simmons?

  Toronto, the team that he owns. Is he still paying rent on Toronto or no?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  No, he owns Toronto. He doesn't.

• 32:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he doesn't, he's paid out. Yeah. So you have Miami, Cleveland, Toronto, we have history with, we didn't mention the Knicks.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  Boston.

• 32:27Bill Simmons?

  By pretty good ones.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  This is, this is, East is on a heater like we have not seen in the last 25 years in the NBA. It's the superior conference, top to bottom right now. Even if you want to say the two best teams are in the West, it's the top to bottom better conference. And we've got, you know, a lot of trade drama. We got players moving east. We've got, you know, Kawhi probably moving east, LeBron moving east. This is, the east is on fire.

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  I like how you said probably. Yeah, if you go to the, to the finals odds on FanDuel, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Eight of the, eight of the 12 are in the east for the top, for the highest odds. When was the last time that happened? And we didn't mention the Pacers, who are 40 to one to win the finals. And I, I think could be, could be pretty sneaky as well with Zubotz there and a healthy Halliburton. And they added Oubre and all this stuff. So Knicks Sixers, what's, what's going to be a better rivalry? Knicks Sixers or Celtics Sixers this season?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Oh, it's Celtics, Celtic, the Jalen Brown stuff in Boston is going to be off the charts. The atmosphere, the, the Brown versus Tatum, the first time they go one on one against each other. If Tatum's ever under the rim when Brown is like winding up for a dunk like that, that stuff's going to be irresistible. There's so much tension.

• 33:43Bill Simmons?

  But Knicks Sixers will be pretty great too, though.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  It'll, yeah, LeBron in the Garden, Knicks Sixers, they've had recent playoff history. They had a really great series two seasons ago. And yeah, I mean, those are all great, Rob. It's, it, these are, these, we have all or most of the iconic franchises in the Eastern Conference, other than the Bulls, are really like going all out for it right now. And that's like, it's pretty incredible.

• 34:07Bill Simmons?

  So I thought of one other clue. Ruben has, you know, LeBron did the Fanatics Fest stuff and Ruben has the Sixers connection. So maybe that was another clue. So, okay. Ring chasing, this isn't a ring chase because he signed as a free agent with the team that wanted him. But he could win another ring with this team.

• 34:31Bill Simmons?

  Do you think he will?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Uh, I would, I would always go no. I mean, you're basically asking field versus Sixers. I'm going field like aggressively, given Embiid's health issues, but it's, it's, it's of all the options out there, short of like LeBron signs with Oklahoma City for the minimum, this is about as good as it gets. But no, I don't, I would bet against them winning a title.

• 34:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because the, the bar would be Oklahoma City and San Antonio the next two years. Now, San Antonio, if they have Embiid, it's one of the few teams where they could throw a guy with size at Wemby and at least make him think a little bit. And then OKC is just a nightmare to play against, but OKC is weaker now. You know, they had to get rid of some depth. They're relying on rookies that, you know, in second year guys, the rookies did not look good in the summer league. We'll see. I really, you and I went to those Indiana games two years ago when, uh, Lou Dort and Caruso basically swung that series. Lou Dort's gone, Lou Dort's only 27. It's not like he's 40, you know? And they're a little smaller, they're going to be a little smaller on the perimeter. And this, this Philly team, when everybody's playing, like the size is a bitch.

• 35:36Bill Simmons?

  Like Jalen's a big ass small forward who can go at basically every position, right? And scored 29 points a game last year. LeBron can be an absolute bitch to guard and Embiid can overpower anybody. So there's going to be nights where, I don't know, I like it. I think this was a smart move. I, I, I thought it was no chance of happening. I made fun of House the other day. There's no way he's going to go to Philly. That's ridiculous. Why would he do that?

• 36:02Bill Simmons?

  I get it. I get it from a basketball standpoint. This is a smart move. It's interesting.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I said this with Howard on my pod a couple of weeks ago. Cause he was of the ilk of like, it, like when Wendy said on TV, it just feel, the vibes would feel funny if you went to Philadelphia, awkward, whatever he used. Howard was on that, on that side of things. And I said, honestly, I think it would be kind of cool because whatever you want to say about LeBron, step by step by step in his career, he has not adhered to any sort of traditional superstar career track. He's chosen his own path for his own reasons, like Miami was a shock, leaving Cleveland, the way he did with the decision was a shock. Going back to Cleveland was kind of a bold mid-career move, leaving Bosch and Wade, going to the Lakers. Cause he just felt like, you know, yeah, I, he probably thought, I can get Anthony Davis to come here.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  We can revive this iconic franchise that's fallen on hard times. And he just really wanted to live in Los Angeles and play for the Lakers. And I think this sort of going to a team that feels random to his history, to his trajectory, is actually kind of in step with the way he's handled his career. And I think he just, he, like, when you were saying, maybe he'll just sign in December, January. I just think he loves being on a team. I think he likes getting to the arena early. I think he likes being around teammates and I think he just looks at this and is like, this will be fun. Like whatever, whatever comes of this, this is an interesting group of players in a big sports city. This will be fun. Let's give it a go.

• 37:28Bill Simmons?

  Also, the New York City piece of this can't be underrated. He can live in New York City if he wants, right?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  I, I mean, it's, I, I, I think other Sixers have done that in the past.

• 37:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but he could have like, his family could be in New York City and he could have a place in Philly and bounce back and forth. So he keeps the big city thing. We'll see if he moves his whole family there. Listen, this is the, this, I think out of all the options, Golden State would have been really fun from a, from the expendable standpoint and just having those guys playing together. But this was the most fun basketball option, the more we talk about it. I just think this has the most variables every which way, including like,

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  there, there's 2012 Lakers potential too, where this looks awesome on paper and there are all these reasons for it. But you have LeBron, who's 41, who with a ton of miles on him, God only knows when he's going to break down someday. And Embiid, who never plays and Jalen Brown on a new team, trying to fit his way. Like there's some, there's an unhappy version of this too. And I, I don't know which one I would bet on, to be honest.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  I mean, look, there was an unhappy version of the Knicks in January and they won the championship.

• 38:39Bill Simmons?

  I would say February. Like, how about April?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  It's, these things are not easy to do when you're juggling a bunch of guys who are stars or think they're stars or whatever the thing is. And I, it's always challenging and you always have to find the right style of play and you, everyone's got to sacrifice. Like your point about Edgecombe, if I'm Nick Nurse, I'm going to VJ and saying, hey, look, man, you're a second year player. You're, you're going to walk in, hopefully to 18 points a game. Strong, solid number for a second year guard on a loaded team. It's going to be a lot of nights when Embiid doesn't play or when LeBron doesn't play. Those are nights you can go for 25, 28, whatever you explode for. And by the way, being on national TV all the time and being part of a winning team is good for everybody, including you. So just enjoy it. This isn't your permanent lot in life and, and go from there.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  That's just the, the, but yeah, I mean, look, it all comes down to Embiid, right? The whole thing comes down to Embiid because I think if, if he's, if he's not healthy in the playoffs, I don't think this foursome plus what they have on the team is good enough to win a championship. If he, by whatever miracle, is healthy for enough of the playoffs,

• 39:45Speaker 01

  this team can go toe to toe with anybody. I just don't believe that he can be healthy for four straight playoff series. I, I just don't, I won't believe it until I see it happen. He still has not made the conference finals.

• 39:56Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have Embiid for the team that the Sixers have now or a gaffer, PJ Washington, Klay Thompson threesome?

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Oh my God. It's, I mean, the fact that that's a fair question is just such a sad state of affairs given, I, I still, I just want Embiid. I want Embiid both. I just, look, I get the, I get the argument. I get what you're saying. Depth pieces, Klay, just bring Klay in as part of this too, like another all time legend. And let me, I want to go down swinging one more time with Embiid. You know, Philly, the whole history has, you give me another, let's just.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  I have two LeBron years and we'll see, we'll see how he looks by near the end of the second year. But at least for this year, with the roster and the depth, this is the best possible situation for Embiid, where it's like, we're just going to be super careful with you. This is, we're going to be, this will be, you'll be like the vase and risky business. We'll be, we'll be carrying like this the entire season, not putting any, any miles on you at all, just trying to get you to April, May and June. And even in the playoffs, you know, I remember Chris Ryan, when they went to round two and Chris Ryan's like, I would bench Embiid tonight against the Knicks. I'd bench him for game one, throw it away. And they ended up playing him and he's, he just broke down as it went along.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  They could be in situations where he just plays five of the seven games and they look and they, hey, LeBron and Jalen, you're carrying us tonight and do it that way.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Possible, it's possible. I mean, we mentioned it earlier, it's, it's possible. The East is going to be tough, but they at least have enough like superstar ball dominance cover or, or pseudo cover for him that it's, if you go up 2-0, maybe you can take that kind of, that kind of risk.

• 41:35Bill Simmons?

  I'm stunned for the Cavs. And I just don't think they could figure out how to pull it off. I still feel like that's where this was going to end up. I'm always going to feel that way, but they couldn't trade the dudes. And it all goes back to that weird Deandre Hunter contract that they did, that weird extension they did with him, that they then had to turn in a Schroder and that was the extra 14, 15 million. On the Laker side, just quickly, um, if they had managed the LeBron piece of that a little better and somehow been able to kept, to keep LeBron there with Luca Kessler and Reeves, plus patching together free agent stuff. I don't like that team as much as this Philly team.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  The Lakers with LeBron.

• 42:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  And Kessler and Luca and Reeves. I'd have to think harder about it. It feels almost like a wash to me again, because I just can't, I can't factor in. I mean, I guess Kessler is as much an injury risk as Embiid, although it's been a recurring shoulder thing more than anything else. But yeah, I'd have to think more about it.

• 42:37Bill Simmons?

  All right. Those are all my preliminary thoughts. You're going to do a podcast on Sunday with some deeper dive thoughts and I'll, I'll do something middle of the week next week. I want to, want to marinate on this and think about this, but I will tell you this.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  It's a good marinator.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  The NBA is more fun today. This was, this is incredibly fun outcome. There's Robert is galore. LeBron's back in the East. And we'll see. I would say, who would you say has,

• 43:05Bill Simmons?

  who would you say has the most at stake with this? That's not LeBron. Would you say Embiid? Like this is it. Embiid has, will Embiid ever be on a better team than this?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  We're focusing on Philly only most at stake. Yeah, it's, it's, it's Embiid.

• 43:17Bill Simmons?

  It's gotta be Embiid, right? Everybody else. Jalen's won a title. Maxie has his whole career. So does VJ. Nick Nurse has won a title. This is like, hey, Embiid, this is on a platter now. You have somebody who was sixth MVP last year in your team. You have a franchise guy. You have LeBron. You hit the lottery with VJ.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  And, and let's be fair to Embiid. When we bring up the health stuff, a lot of the playoff injuries have been really fluky injuries. Pascal Siakam elbows in, in the orbital bone at the end of a game that's probably over. Bell's palsy strikes him and all this, but the knee stuff highlighted by when Kaminga fell on his knee two seasons ago. That's becoming the scary recurring thing that he just can't seem to shake for any prolonged period of time. And you, and you can see when he comes back, he's like almost playing with a certain trepidation about it, that he has to get past that every time he comes back. So that's just the fair dossier of like Joel Embiid and barring some sort of transaction where they get a really another high quality center. I think they're going to need him to, to get where they need to go. And so it's, it feels unfair to be like the precious

• 44:19Speaker 01

  on Joel Embiid, your playoff legacy, when a lot of his playoff legacy is, he just gets hurt. And I don't know what there's, what, what that, what there's to be done about that.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't think either of us thought LeBron could win a title if he was one of the two best players on a team at this stage of his career, right?

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he's two, it's, it's, he's 41 years old. It's too much.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  He'd have to be the third best player. In this case, he's drifting between three and four best possible situation. Biggest loser today, Daryl Morey. He just held on for two more months.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  It's a tough one.

• 44:54Bill Simmons?

  He would have, he would have, he would have done the Jalen Brown trade and then ended up with LeBron and been like, this was his dream of putting a whole bunch of stars on the same team.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  I got a big.

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  And I would say Golden State too would be the other one because they got out of that Draymond deal. They did nothing. They were just basically paused the entire summer. And now I think they have 10 players in their roster, including Jimmy Butler, who can't run yet.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm checking my phone here because I keep thinking we're going to get the, the flurry of like Harden resigns, Draymond resigns, all these other deals, but nothing has come on. I, I also just think like, not that he was ever going to go there or really even entertainment, entertain it, but Jokic in Denver, just sort of sitting there in stasis while all of this happens around them. And maybe Peyton Watson comes back and that's their big sort of move for so far. But you know, it's, it feels like afterthought is too strong of a word, but they've got some catching up to do.

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  Might have missed the window.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  Or the window may have closed. They got one title out of it. I don't, the Peyton Watson, any scenario where he's making more than $15 million a year does not really pass the sniff test for me.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Well.

• 46:05Bill Simmons?

  Just with the way the, these middle, the way the middle class numbers are, I just don't understand who's giving him 20.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  So you're saying Peyton Watson deserves Gary Trent Jr. Money is what you're saying?

• 46:18Bill Simmons?

  We're going to take a break. Zach's going to do way more LeBron stuff on Sunday. We're going to come back to the 2011 draft rewatchable.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies. 18 plus.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  So good, so good, so good. Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots, and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan, and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance, and new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 47:20Bill Simmons?

  The 2011 redraftables. Ironically, 2011 was right after LeBron lost in the finals with Miami to Dirk. We had a lockout looming in July. We had no owner for the New Orleans Pelicans. We had the first month of Grantland, a great website that you eventually worked for.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  I did.

• 47:40Bill Simmons?

  And we had Cleveland with the first pick after mysteriously winning the lottery thanks to a Clippers Baron Davis dump trade a year after they lost LeBron to Miami. Conspiracy Bill has always been very focused on that lottery. This turned out to be the Kawhi, Kyrie, Klay, Jimmy Butler draft. We did not know this at the time. What we did know, we had a first round that had two Lithuanian guys, a Turkish guy, a Congolese guy, a Serbian guy, a Czech guy, a Latvian guy, a Canadian guy, and a Croatian guy. We had five top tips, top 10 picks in a row named Enes, Tristan, Jonas, Jan, and Bismack. We had Charlotte with the seventh and ninth picks,

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  and somehow they didn't end up with Klay Thompson or Kawhi Leonard. We had a huge trade in the middle of the draft. Kawhi Leonard getting taken by Indiana and then traded for George Hill from San Antonio, which had dramatic effects on the 13 and 14 playoffs and led to one of your best Grantland pieces ever. And then I wrote my draft diary. At the end, I have a feeling we'll remember the 2011 draft as the foreigner draft. That was the takeaway. Now, looking back, this is a 10 out of 10 batshit crazy draft with where guys went. It's a 10. It's just a 10. With the four best guys in the draft went first, 11th, 15th, and 30th.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  It's also a draft that's very close to my heart because as you said, it sort of dovetails with me transitioning into full-time NBA media. This would have been my second year, I think, full-time. But it's, these are guys where it's like, I've written about a lot of them over the years. I feel like I've, I've like, they're like my, my cohort almost. So I have a soft spot for a lot of these guys.

• 49:26Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'll give you the first pick. Go.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Uh, I, this was easier than I thought. I'm going to take Kawhi Leonard and I'm not really going to think about it too hard despite the injuries, the drama, the aspiration scandal, all of it. And, and the thing about, you know, you mentioned the top four guys and you nailed them. They're going to go top four in some order. They've all had enough health issues that, you know, they've all scored. Kawhi has the fewest career points at 16,500, but Kyrie, who's number one is 18,400. So there's not that much of a difference in terms of just sort of the raw scoring. And Kawhi's got seven all NBA appearances. He's the only one of this four that has any first team all NBA appearances, two championships, two finals MVPs, the best two-way player by a decent margin.

• 50:09Bill Simmons?

  And was the best player alive at the end of 2019.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it's a pretty easy choice that I'll take Kawhi.

• 50:16Bill Simmons?

  I had him number one as well. Also Defensive Player of the Year twice. Runner-up MVP in 2016. Three-year peak of 26, 7, and 4. Four-year playoff peak of 29, 9, and 5 over 60 games. Best player on the 2019 champs finals MVP in 2014. What's interesting about this draft? If we had done this even after 2000,

• 50:44Bill Simmons?

  maybe 15, we would have said Kyrie would, that was, was the number one pick?

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 50:51Speaker 01

  I think so. I don't, I don't even know who else it would be.

• 50:53Bill Simmons?

  I wrote this big, I wrote this huge piece for Grant Lin in 2014 about what a crapshoot the draft was.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  I reread it in preparation for.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I did. I did 20 years of drafts about, and I redrafted basically all of this and, and I did the 2011 draft. So I did three years later and I had Kawhi first, which I was surprised by. I had Kyrie Irving second, I had Klay third, and I had Chandler Parsons fourth and Kenneth Faried fifth. Jimmy Butler was 11th on this list. So that goes to show you how much all this stuff can, can change. We, we should have mentioned before, before you made the first pick, what the, what, we should at least do the lottery for this draft, right? Cause we had, just so people remember it, if they don't remember it when it happened, Kyrie went first. Minnesota took Derrick Williams second. Can't wait to talk about him later.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  Enes Kanter went third to Utah now, Enes Freedom.

• 51:51Bill Simmons?

  Thompson to Cleveland of four, Valens Shunis to Toronto of five. Jan Vesely at six, who won the draft because he had the hottest looking girlfriend, probably in the history of the draft. It was a big, big part, part of my draft diary. Bismack Biyombo seventh, ends up in Charlotte, Brandon Knight eighth to Detroit, Kemba Walker ninth in Charlotte. Jimmer Fredette? Did you ever buy Jimmer Fredette stock? Did you ever call your broker on him or no? Okay.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  No, had no stock.

• 52:17Bill Simmons?

  He went 10th, ended up in Sacramento, uh, who is not, did not have Vivek yet. That was still the maloofs.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  You're telling me Sacramento messed up the draft?

• 52:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm telling you that.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  That's a draft day trade, by the way, and an extremely depressing one.

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  Really one of the most depressing three team draft day trades we've ever had. It was Sacramento, Milwaukee, and I think Charlotte. Klay Thompson 11th Golden State, Burks 12th to Utah. We had the Morris Twins go back to back. Markeith to Phoenix, Marcus to Houston, and then Indiana takes Kawhi Leonard 15th. And in my draft diary, which I had some, some huge wins and some huge misses. After Burks went 12th, I wrote, how is Kawhi Leonard not been taken yet? What am I missing? The Morris Twins went 13 and 14. I wrote, San Diego's Kawhi Leonard is officially our, how the hell did he slide to the middle of the draft guy?

• 53:10Bill Simmons?

  Which doesn't happen every year, but when it happens, and I put in parentheses, Granger, Lawson, Hibbert. You know, as it's happening, he should have been a lottery pick. He's a natural small forward. So I had that right. I did not have the first pick of the draft right, which, uh, I will go second here and I'm going to take Kyrie Irving.

• 53:28Bill Simmons?

  I was a, this is one of my biggest draft misses of the last 20 plus years. I was in the, let's take Derrick Williams here camp.

• 53:39Bill Simmons?

  For, for Cleveland, Derrick Williams had come off a really good Arizona season and just seemed like a natural stretch four. He shot 59% from three in college, his sophomore year.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  That's a real stat, 59%?

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  59%. He made 1.1 and, and took 1.9 overall, made 1.1 and just seemed like, and was really good in Arizona. And Kyrie, I think had played 10 Duke games and gotten hurt.

• 54:04Bill Simmons?

  But Cleveland took Kyrie and I said, I see him settling somewhere between an extremely poor man's Chris Paul and a rich man's Mike Conley. Will he ever make it All-Star team? It's possible, maybe one or two. Big miss. Tough one.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I think Kyrie, I was interested, I, I had a feeling you were going to give me the number one pick. And I knew who I was going to take without doing much research about it. By the way, there's that Kawhi trade. It's an all time fun trade. I went back and I read that piece that I wrote when I did a sort of Tik Tok of it.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  There's so many things that were going on that I had forgotten about, like Woj had reported that the Spurs were actually sort of exploring trading Tony Parker to move up higher in the draft for someone.

• 54:46Bill Simmons?

  That was the Tony Parker getting shop summer. Yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Then, then like the, the GMs are on the record in the piece being like, well, you know, we got, we got to go time. And the Spurs decided they didn't just need, um, the Kawhi pick. They wanted Davis Bertan, or they wanted the 42nd pick in that draft that became Davis Bertans and an international prospect named Arizona Lorbeck. And they might not do the trade unless they get both of them.

• 55:10Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  And, and Indiana was like, both of them. That seems like a lot. I guess we'll do it. Like all these things, all these like, all these things can fall apart like so easily in the moment that it's kind of amazing that a deal like this gets done. But yeah, Kyrie, I was interested to see who you'd take second, if you would flirt with Jimmy Butler.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Kyrie, I think is the clear second guy. I mean, I don't, I feel like we just, we have had very limited glimpses of him, given his stature of like him being the guy in a, in an NBA offense, like undisputed the guy. And I just wonder how we'd think of him if we, if, if like, that was mostly Cleveland pre LeBron coming back when they were just a bad team.

• 55:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  I think he's just an absolutely sensational offensive player that in his prime, if he ever got handed the keys to an offense, we might think of him a little differently.

• 55:59Bill Simmons?

  I think he felt that way too, which is why he wanted to leave. Second best guy on a championship team. Three finals teams, one second team all NBA, two thirds. Playoffs, career, 23 a game, 39% from three, 14 seasons, only 779 games. But a big one of one factor with him. I think he's one of those guys. He's, he's way better than a Kyrie Irving was a problem social media video guy, but he will be a guy that I think as the years pass will be even better as some of the, how just his ability to go left hand, right hand, in traffic, double clutch, triple clutch. Um, and he made one of the biggest shots of the century, right? That's it.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  We were both there.

• 56:43Bill Simmons?

  They, which one? No, I wasn't there for that one. You were there.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Right there for them. Yeah.

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  But one, you know, won a title. Uh, I thought he was the clear second choice and, uh, and I'll take the L on that one. You have the third pick. Who do you have? This is a good one.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Without hesitation, I will take Jimmy Butler. Um, it's, it's him or Klay. And obviously both have had some injury issues. Klay is more severe and traumatic than Jimmy Butler's. Jimmy's had some conflagrations in some of his stops, in all of his stops almost.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  And Klay is a four time champion and Jimmy Butler is not a champion yet. Uh, I just think head to head. The defense, the size, um, just the, the all around scoring ability. I, I would put him, I would take him over Klay in a vacuum with apologies to one of the greatest shooters of all time and, uh, game six Klay and clutch performances. It's, it's, it's a debate because of what Klay has done on the biggest stage so many times. But you know, part of the reason he got to do that was that he was surrounded by one of the 12 greatest players of all time and, and just the perfect nucleus for him. So I'll take, I'll take Jimmy Butler. I have a feeling you would, we've gone Klay here, but I'm going Jimmy Butler.

• 57:55Bill Simmons?

  It was three A, three B to me. I think if you're going Jimmy, he was the best player on two finals teams that didn't win the finals, but, um, but he carried two teams to the finals, which I don't know if Klay could have done as a number one guy. And I think that's the difference. Jimmy had one top 10, one, uh, second team all NBA, three top 15s. 2020 playoffs, 22, seven and six. Two year playoff peak, 27, seven and five, 39 games, career playoffs, 21, six and five, 130 games. The, the chemistry stuff with him is really dicey and I think has to be, that, that was one of the things.

• 58:37Bill Simmons?

  There were two things that almost swung it to me for Klay. One is Klay is one of the great shooters of all time.

• 58:43Bill Simmons?

  I think Klay gets unfairly dinged because that five year Warriors one was so grueling. The entire team literally broke down at the end. And Klay broke down once and for all at the tail end of it after five years when they're playing. I mean, they, what did they play? Over, over 500 games in five years?

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Lots of games.

• 59:03Bill Simmons?

  It's one of the most grueling, awful stretches any team's had. And it's a reason why we don't see, we'll never see a Bill Russell Celtics again. Because no team can do that for more than four to five years. His five year peak, 22, four and three, 42% from three. You mentioned the Klay Thompson game in OKC that saved them in 2016. Second best player on the 15 champs, third best on the 17 and 18 champs. Basically, the second best or third best guy on a team that went 207 and 39 over three years and won 25 games in a row and had a 73 win record at one point.

• 59:41Bill Simmons?

  Couple of shooting things with him really quick. So there's only four guys ever who have made 2,000 threes and shot 40% from three. He's one of the four Curry, Ray Allen, Klay Thompson, weirdly Kyle Korver.

• 59:56Bill Simmons?

  He's also the only guy ever to have at least 400 threes and shoot 40% in the playoffs. He's 501 threes in the playoffs. Even if you're going 175 threes or more, that's only him, Steve Nash, Ray Allen and Duncan Robinson are the only four guys who did that. So I actually think he's a greater shooter than maybe people realize. And he was also an awesome defensive player and was never the same after those two injuries, which happened. He blew out his knee and then he blew out the Achilles within what, eight months of each other? And was just never the same guy after that. I think this could have been like a Ray Allen 15 year career of just him being awesome.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  Ray Allen is, Ray Allen is the right name because we never got to see the Klay Thompson version of Seattle Ray Allen, who is the number one option and actually kind of fared better than maybe people thought he would as someone who was pigeonholed as a shooter more than a scorer and a distributor. And I think Klay Thompson could have approximated that if he ever, I don't know if the team would have won quite as much as the Warriors won. But when he was in his prime, his shot was so lethal that it made every other part of his game better because you had to press him so high on the floor. You had to overreact to him every time he touched the ball that he could have just like, he didn't need to be the most explosive driver to beat people off the dribble because

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  they were already basically beaten by the time they were guarding him and he was an okay passer. But to your point, just an absolute killer as a shooter, a beloved teammate, a grinder, turned himself into a very good defensive player. He has an all defensive team appearance, I believe, on, on his resume. Never heard any arena I've ever been in, maybe with the exception of MSG after the Ananobe tip, then Oracle was when he came out to shoot those free throws in the finals in game six, when he was on one of the great heaters of his career and then got fouled and injured. Yeah. Ended up tearing his ACL.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  And he was a guy, like, one of the things, the story I'll never get tired of telling that I unearthed in, in writing about Klay. He was a guy that the Spurs in this draft brought in for a second secret workout right before the draft because they were so curious about him. And obviously he gets picked, I think, four spots above Kawhi. And Chip England, who was the Spurs assistant coach then, shooting specialist, was, was at these workouts and he told people on the Spurs, something about this guy's internal drive reminds me of Manu Ginobili. And they, they all, their hair stood up on end because they all revered Ginobili is as a competitor, as a fighter. And not a lot of people saw that in Klay.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  He's kind of like SoCal, laid back, whatever, but the fire really burns in him and it really endeared him to everybody he, he was ever around. He hated losing. He took it personally, like he took this whole draft personally. He took, he and others with the Warriors told me about that, like he never forgave the Kings for taking Jimmer Fredrick over him. He would go around saying the Cavs, the Cavs took the wrong Thompson. They took Tristan Thompson, like he was, he is, doesn't look it, but he is a fiery, fiery dude. I, regardless of the fact that I didn't take him with my first or third pick in this draft, he's just one of my all time favorite basketball players and always will be.

• 1:03:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a stretch there from Bianbo at seven, Knight at eight, Kemba at nine and Jimmer at 10 that I'm sure Klay was probably like, what the fuck is happening?

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  I think the Jimmer one really stuck in his craw. It's like, really? You're taking another shooter over me? All right.

• 1:03:29Bill Simmons?

  So listen, I think you made the right pick at three with Jimmy. But if, if, if we could go back in a time machine and have this draft and I know what I'm getting with each guy and the Klay injuries, you know, that you can't factor that in because I think that was a wear and tear from the five years. I just think I would rather have Klay Thompson on my team for the 15 years than Jimmy Butler because I get an awesome teammate, I get no drama at all, I get the gravity of Klay.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Well, you're not going to have Jimmy for 15 years. That's, that's, I guess I have to make that into my decision.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  But that's, Jimmy brings this extra drama, but the higher upside. It's a really interesting debate. Like, I guarantee if we asked Steve Kerr, yo, just curious, who would you rather have had since 2011 on? He wasn't there until 2014, but would you rather have Jimmy or Klay? Would have been no contest, so it's a good argument.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  The thing about Jimmy is, the thing that's interesting about how every situation with him seems to end badly is

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  Which is true.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  The Jimmy stuff is always really good until it's not. Like, like Chicago, oh, he changed our culture. He's a locker room, what a, what a bulldog, what a story, jives with Tibbs. And then he hates Hoiberg and it goes the other way. Minnesota, like Tibbs again, like, oh, he's elevating the culture and then he decides he doesn't think Cat and Wiggins are winners and it goes the other way. Miami, all tailor made, this is a Heat culture guy, like central casting, maybe he's a problem somewhere else, but he's made for us and then it goes badly there. So it's this weird up and down where he's like a, he, he plays in a way that you want your other players to play, a toughness, defense and all that stuff. He's a good chemistry guy and then it goes, it goes the other way. It's not like a universally bad, like you know, from day one, this guy is going to bring some issues to our team.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  It's not, it doesn't start that way with Jimmy.

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  So we went Kawhi, Kyrie, Butler, Klay. You have the fifth pick and it drops off here to a pretty interesting next three.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I'm excited to pick one, three, five in this draft because I can build my team around the trio of Kawhi and Jimmy Butler on the wing and Kemba Walker as a spot up shooting point guard.

• 1:05:39Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  Who, I just think he reached, his highs were higher than anyone else on the list. His two best seasons in Charlotte were better than anything that I can get from anybody else in this draft. He fits with my, he fits with my two wings that I've already taken. We can protect him on defense. And I just thought he, it's some pretty spectacular highs, both as an off the dribble artist and it just is a number one scorer on a decent team that frankly, I, people didn't expect from him earlier in his career when his jumper was shaky and all that stuff. And another just all time beloved culture guy. So I'm, I'm taking him.

• 1:06:17Bill Simmons?

  I wrote in the draft diary, he's a leader and a winner, could absolutely be the second or third guard on a contender someday, which he ended up being in 2020 in the Celtics in the bubble, where he did not, they went to the conference finals, he did not have a great last series there. You mentioned his peak in Charlotte, 24, six assists, 38% from three. He was basically discount Dame Lillard, right? It's like a slightly poor man's Dame. Four All-Star teams, one third team on NBA. And, and sadly, his knees just didn't hold up. I mean, they, they went pretty fast. Boston sniffed it out. They traded him. He ended up getting them out, Horford, they had to attach a pick to it. And then there's a weird thing where the Knicks thought he had a little bit left in

• 1:07:02Bill Simmons?

  him and he just didn't.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  And he had one all time great game with the Knicks when his mom was in the stands and I think he might have put, put up a 50 ball if, if I may be making that up, but it was like a crazy high scoring game.

• 1:07:14Bill Simmons?

  But I think that led to them having a trade, what ended up being the Jalen Duran pick, because they had to attach the pick to get rid of Kemba on Detroit. And that ended up, so they didn't get him, but they ended up with some free agent stuff anyway. I think that's fair. I had, I'm going to take Vucevic sixth.

• 1:07:35Bill Simmons?

  And I had him in the five spot. So

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  over a thousand games, 32K minutes, which is second most in this draft, 17 and 10 career, 50% shooting, never won a playoff series in his entire career, two All-Star games and his big legacy ended up being that bizarre Chicago trade, which ended up being Wendell Carter, Wagner, and I think Anthony Black, they got for Vooch.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  No, it's, it was Jett Howard.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's Jett Howard? Okay. Well, they end up getting Carter and Wagner for Vooch, basically, which you're doing 100 times out of 100. But I like the durability with him. I think he fits in with my team. But I also think he should be either the fifth or sixth guy from this draft.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  I can't believe you, I can't believe you would even entertain taking him over Kemba Walker. I guess, I don't know what we're aiming for, Klay. I'm like, I, I just, I'm aiming for, for, I'm going heights more than durability.

• 1:08:31Bill Simmons?

  The Kemba question to me is, was it a good stats, bad team situation with him? Cause it's not like those Charlotte teams were winning, right? When he was putting out those stats. And the only time we ever saw him on a good team with a chance to really do well was that Boston team that he just didn't have a good playoff series for them or

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Bill Simmons?

  Good playoff run for him, but it might've been at a different point of him physically.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  That's bubble and physically wearing down. And it's not as if that Charlotte team was making great decisions about its franchise around Kemba Walker. Has happened in spite of the rest of this draft and the fact that we will not say Bismack Biyombo's name for quite a long time.

• 1:09:06Bill Simmons?

  He was a defensive liability even when he was 100% healthy. And in the 2020 playoffs, teams just, Miami especially, it was just like he had, they just put a, they covered him in steak sauce and just tried to grill him for two weeks.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  What do you think is going to happen? What do you think's going to happen with Vooch on your team?

• 1:09:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the irony of this is Kemba versus Vooch, two all time guys who get hunted and were big reasons why they never had more playoff success. So I, I just thought Vooch's career was a little longer, but I, I thought that was a five A, five B situation. I know who you're going to take seven.

• 1:09:44Bill Simmons?

  So go ahead. Yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  I think, I think really you surrendered this draft by letting me have the first pick. I think this is a clear one, three, five, seven, I win the draft over you. I will take, let me just check the second round to make sure.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  No, you, you know who you're going to take.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  I gotta bring him in. I gotta bring Tobias Harris to my team. I'm taking Tobias Harris at, at seven and I have, you know, he's a power, my team is trending power forwardy, but that, that's okay. He's longevity, production, a little late career revival with the Pistons, I think he'll help the Spurs. You know, left the Philadelphia sour experience behind and rebounded. And I just like, he's done more than the Morris Twins. He's done more than Alec Burks, done more than Brandon Knight. He's done more than Chandler Parsons and Bojan Bogdanovich, who are good second round picks here. I just don't think there's really anyone else who, who sways me here. I mean, is there another candidate? Markieff Morris at his best was pretty good. Tristan Thompson, I think is underrated.

• 1:10:45Bill Simmons?

  You're spoiling the draft for the listeners.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  All right, all right. Well, okay. All right. Well, then I, give me Tobias Harris and we'll sign Boban Marjanovic as an undrafted free agent and reunite them.

• 1:10:58Bill Simmons?

  Over a thousand games for him. Most minutes of anyone from this draft, 32,474. 16 and 6 for his career. 17 and 8 in the playoffs. Never made a conference finals. In the running for best zero All-Star guy from this century.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  Ooh, I like that.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  Just from this century. Never made an All-Star game, but I think the career is pretty solid. He's gonna end up, you know, now he's going to San Antonio. Might have a chance to actually make conference finals or finals. I would say he has a good chance. He's also been in five trades where the team that traded him lost the trade each time. Charlotte traded up and Milwaukee traded back and it ended up being a mess. But Milwaukee ended up getting Harris and ended up winning the trade. He got traded in 2013 with Deron Lamb. Do you have Deron Lamb stock?

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  I did not.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  Bino Udrey and Cash for, uh, so that, that Orlando got Tobias with those other two guys and Milwaukee got Gustavo Ione, JJ Reddick and Ish Smith. A famously unhappy JJ Reddick Milwaukee experience.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Let me, let me give you some personal advice. If you run into JJ, do not ask him questions about his tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks. It's not funny. He's not going to laugh at it. He's not going to take the joke well.

• 1:12:19Bill Simmons?

  Even went better than his New Orleans Pelicans tenure. 2016 traded to Detroit from Orlando for Irsan Ilyasova and Brandon Jennings.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Wildly irresponsible trade.

• 1:12:32Bill Simmons?

  Really horrible.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  For the Magic. That was a Scott Skiles has the wheel and is driving the car into the Grand Canyon trade.

• 1:12:39Bill Simmons?

  By the way, I see genuine joy as I list these terrible trades from the 2010s in your face right now. 2018 traded, traded with Avery Bradley, Boban and a 2018 first round pick that ended up being Miles Bridges. But then they traded back with Miles Bridges spot to take SGA, who became a two-time MVP, to the Clippers for Blake Griffin and two other guys. And Detroit got a year and a half out of Blake Griffin and he broke down. And then last but not least, traded by the Clippers with Boban and Mike Scott for Wilson Chandler, Mike Muscala, Landry Shamet and two firsts that were not big firsts. That's the only one where the other team might've won the trade.

• 1:13:22Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think the Clippers were excited to turn Tobias into two firsts. Anyway, quite a career. Still going. We're gonna see him in the, we're gonna see him in some real playoff situations on a good team. We should mention another beloved teammate. Everybody likes him. So there you go. Okay.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Good luck.

• 1:13:41Bill Simmons?

  Eighth pick for me. I'm just taking upside with Isaiah Thomas, who was the 60th pick of this draft.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  That's a good one.

• 1:13:50Bill Simmons?

  By the way, I should've mentioned Vucevic was 16th and Tobias was 19th in this draft. Isaiah, Isaiah Thomas was 60th, went to Sacramento. Somehow ended up having a better career than Jimmer Fredette, who they took 10th. Ended up in Phoenix. Danny Ainge steals him and has this incredible two-year run with the Celtics where he averages 26 a game for two years. Uh, 7.6 free throw attempts, two All-Star teams. And in 2017, second team All-NBA, fifth MVP, and they make the conference finals. Really nice run and then got hurt and they traded him and uh,

• 1:14:32Bill Simmons?

  probably still paying karma points for trading a guy who really went all out for them in the playoffs and was never really the same again after that. When it was arguable, he should've kept playing. But his highs were high. I would say.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  It's a good pick.

• 1:14:47Bill Simmons?

  I would say similar, although the other person had way more success, but his effect on those Celtics teams, those first two years or those, those big two years, in the vicinity of what Brunson has done for the Knicks for the last four. From a statistics slash, oh my God, I can't believe he's getting to the rim like this. And there is, there was some similarities. Brunson's a better player, obviously.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Well, he's, he, he also arrives in Boston as part of this spasm of Phoenix point guard trades where they traded him to Boston for a first round pick. They traded Dragic to the Heat for two picks. They, uh, and then they trade, uh, one of the Lakers picks that they had, one of the golden chips in the league for another guy in this draft, Brandon Knight, who neither of us have taken yet.

• 1:15:28Bill Simmons?

  So to recap, we have Kawhi at 15. This, these are the top eight picks we took. Kawhi, Kawhi who went 15th, Kyrie first, Butler 30, Klay 11, Kemba 9, Vucevic 16, Harris 19 and Thomas 60. This draft was fucking not only drunk, but like throwing up and having its hair held back as it puked again.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna restore some order with the ninth pick and pick Tristan Thompson, who was the fourth pick in the draft. Because I know, here are some things I'm gonna get from prime Tristan Thompson. I'm gonna get some really, I'm gonna get a lot of press for his romantic endeavors, which is gonna help my team's publicity go up. I'm gonna get elite defense, switchability, versatility. And I'm gonna have the most annoying offensive rebounder in the entire league. Who's gonna do all the dirty work for my team, never complain about his touches and just be effective at what he does. And at this stage of the draft, I'm very happy to just get that.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  He turned into an awesome role player. Four finals teams, 2016 champs. Three playoffs from 15 to 17 where he averaged 9.4 rebounds a game and did all the switching stuff. You mentioned. Bill has said during the draft, he just needs to learn how to play and how to score. And then I wrote, I think I need more for my fourth pick than that. Well, he turned into a decent guy. I think that was a great.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Turns out he's a great ninth pick in this draft.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 1:17:22Speaker 03

  Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop clearance and new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 1:17:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, uh, I'm gonna take a guy who's played a thousand games. Who career is 13 and 9, 56% shooting. And who is an interesting what if for the 2016 playoffs? Jonas Valančiūnas.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Good pick.

• 1:18:08Bill Simmons?

  So came back, get 2016 playoffs is his peak. He's averaging a 15 and 12 in the 2016 playoffs for a really good Toronto team. And gets hurt midway through the second round and comes back for the last couple of Cleveland games in round three. Toronto loses to Cleveland in six. Did you ever feel like that was like, maybe not a Hall of Fame what if, but maybe like a little stealth on the Sunday buffet next to the scrambled eggs and bacon as a what if for you? Like what if Jonas doesn't get hurt? Does anything change in 2016? Hello?

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  No, no, no. We're going with, we're going with no, Alex. No.

• 1:18:56Bill Simmons?

  Okay. He does give up Toronto, he does end up getting Toronto a title though, because what happens?

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Well, they trade him for Marc Gasol, one of my favorite all-time players. I love Jonas. I think he's actually a great success story of someone who found his place in the NBA by just doubling down by everything he was good at. He's a big man who they know they flirted with him. Is he gonna be, can we make him a three-point shooter? Can we do this? And he's like, you know what? I'll just beat the shit out of everybody all the time and that's gonna be what I do. And he was very effective at it.

• 1:19:26Bill Simmons?

  He was a top five or six, don't fuck with him guy for at least 12 years. I never, other than Toronto, I never felt like he found the right teams. I always felt like, was always a mismatch with teams that he was on.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Neither did he, that's why he's in Europe now.

• 1:19:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  He went from the, he went for, he went through some of the real dregs of the last five years in the NBA, just sort of like cycling through.

• 1:19:48Bill Simmons?

  He ended up in New Orleans and Sacramento, the two worst run teams in the league at one point. And by the time he gets to Denver, he's, he's pretty much washed. I did the draft ire in 2011. I had Kevin Wilds and Dave Jacoby with me as Peanut Gallery guys. And when Valančiūnas got interviewed for this draft after he got picked, Wilds thought Valančiūnas was right on the interpreter cusp. Where he knew just enough English that he didn't need one, but probably should've gotten one anyway. And Wild said, the interpreter never hurts. You're always gonna sound smart talking in your own language. And then I wrote, unless you're Brett Favre.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  What a, what a, what a night.

• 1:20:27Bill Simmons?

  I think that's a great point by Wilds though. The interpreter always makes you sound better. The interpreter is always a win. Like unless you're like Wemba Yama level English, I'm using the interpreter until it's just obvious I don't need one anymore. I'm just like, fuck it.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:20:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  All right, this, I just, but look, I mean.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  It depends what franchise. I mean, like, can you imagine asking Tom Dundon to pay for some extra interpreters for Hudson Yang?

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  It would only be one. It would only be one that.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  They didn't. One guy who speaks 12 different languages, just in case we sign anyone from this, from any part of the world.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  Which things of the Tom Dundon belt tightening things have you actually agreed with or kind of see his point? Because my only one is, why do we have 12 assistant coaches at every game and on the bench and at summer league? I would just never have more than four.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  I do think there is a certain amount of fake hustle in all of sports that he's trying to police a little bit. Like, do we really need like 17 people to scout this opponent? But most of it is just like, he's just obviously trying to squeeze every penny I can out of the team. Like, are they even going to have a broadcast team next year?

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  I know you talked about this already, but what do you think his end game is?

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  I am not as plugged in as I need to be on it. I would assume his end game is get the city to pay for a really nice arena or a really nice upgrade to the current arena and not have to foot too much of the bill himself.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  I don't think that's gonna happen.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  You think they're gonna move the team?

• 1:21:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't. I just don't think, I don't think the city is going to be chipping in to help this rich guy have a better arena.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Good. They shouldn't. I mean, it's been 15 years since I read Field of Schemes on a summer vacation, which is all about this, and the schemes are still scheming.

• 1:22:11Bill Simmons?

  I remember when I did my HBO show, this was a big part of the ad campaign, how billionaires should pay for their own stadiums.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  What a concept. You have the most money. Maybe you should use the money.

• 1:22:23Bill Simmons?

  Why are you asking the city to do it? Or just keep the arena you have? All right, you have the 11th pick. Who do you have?

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Uh, boy. Okay, now we've reached the point where.

• 1:22:33Bill Simmons?

  No, I still have a couple. I like two guys, though.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Look, I'm debating between two guys. I wonder if they're the same two guys. But you know where I have a connection in the world. And so I will take, uh, Bojan Bogdanovich to round out my team. He has some shooting.

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  I had him.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  10 years in the league, 20,000 minutes, 11,000 points, knockdown shooter, could do a little ball, 39% threes for his career, could handle the ball and then post up in a pinch if I need him. I'm not gonna need him to do it on my team, but I feel like he's the best option. There are some good, depending on how much you weigh longevity here, there are some interesting players in this spot, but I'll go, I'll go Bojan.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  He had a couple cup of coffees, cups of coffee, cup of coffees. He had a couple cups of coffee as this guy's a missing piece for us. And the only time it really worked was in Utah. I looked at his stats for 21, and they lose to the Clippers after Kawhi gets hurt, which was just an indefensible loss. But he was 18 and a half points a game in like 13 playoff games, 46% from three, and was an absolute bitch in that entire playoffs to guard. And really felt like, oh, you know, but that was really the only time we saw it unleashed. But I always liked his game. I always thought, I remember when he was on the Wizards in 2017 and the Celtics played them. I always felt like they didn't get

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  him the ball enough and figure out how to unleash him. Because I thought the Celtics had trouble guarding him.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  There was a Pacers Cavs series when he was on the Pacers and everyone was like, is he the LeBron stopper?

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  I forgot about that. Yeah, I do feel like he's a legitimate playoff guy. He went 31st in this draft, which ties into my pick at number 12. I'm taking Marcus Morris.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:24:16Bill Simmons?

  Who was 14th, who played 41 more games than his brother. So what swung it for me is, he was a real rotation guy for two conference finals teams in 2018 with the Celtics and 2021 with the Clippers, where he was, he played 30 minutes a game for the Celts and 31 for the Clippers. He's like a 12 and 5, almost 40% from 3 both times. And I just think if he could have been this, one of the top five to seven guys on a conference finalist, that's better than anyone else I'm getting in this. And I thought he was a little better than his brother.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  So you are now, we only have a couple picks left. There's a couple fun ones left, so we can go quick. Who do you have?

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have some fun. I'm gonna have some fun right now. I want all-around skill. I'm going ceiling, drafting ceiling, all-around skill, max player back in his day, a little entertainment value off the court. We're bringing Chandler Parsons onto the squad, who was the 38th pick in this draft. Yeah, injuries ruined his career, knee stuff, all that stuff. Some late nights with Mark Cuban that were well-publicized. We may have to, you know, just get the off-court stuff a little under control. But we're taking Chandler Parsons, and he's a great, he's gonna help recruit free agents to my team. He was always at the forefront of that. His emoji use was first rate during the Deandre Jordan situation. Yeah, I'm taking him.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  So I had him higher on my initial list than I did the deep dive on the career, and he only played 440 games in nine years. He played 13 playoff games, zero round two playoff games. His four-year peak was 15 and 5, 39% from 3. I had him down, but not, I had this guy ahead of him. Enes Kanter was the third pick of the draft, 11 and 8 for his career. Really one of the better per 36 guys we've ever had. I think Boban's obviously the LeBron of per 36, but Kanter was 22 and 12 as a per 36 guy for his, uh, his prime.

• 1:26:25Bill Simmons?

  And also helped the Knicks win the title. You know how?

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Who do they get in that? He's involved in a whole, an Oklahoma City, New York trade.

• 1:26:37Bill Simmons?

  OKC trades for Carmelo for some reason in 2018. They give up Kanter, McDermott, and a second round pick in 2018, which becomes Mitchell Robinson.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I always liked Kanter's game. He, it went fast. When he was on the Celtics, he was just, he just was washed. He was too slow. But I always thought he was kind of a bitch on the low post. Like, he could really like torture teams. And he was a good change of pace coming off the bench, physical guy. And I feel like where the league is now, he kind of missed, he was between these two eras that he would have been good in. He was in the worst possible era for what he was good at. I think he would have been better now.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  It's a good pick. And as you said, when I took Chandler Parsons, there's a bunch of guys in this draft that played significantly more games than him. And were fairly productive in Enes Kanter, and his freedom is one of them. I also will always admire, uh, 2019 playoffs with the Blazers. Nurkic got hurt. He's shoved into the starting five. He was dealing with some kind of elbow or arm injury and just like unrelenting. You know, his skill level was, you know, he was an around the rim guy offensively. He was a liability defensively. There's the famous Billy Donovan can't play Kanter lip reading thing that happened with Oklahoma City. But he gave everything he had to that Portland team and did what he did well. And so it's a, it's a, it's a good pick.

• 1:28:01Bill Simmons?

  The one piece with him, he was, he went, ended up in Utah because they traded, uh, D Will to the Nets. And they end up getting the third pick in the draft. What'd they get? Derek Favors and Kanter out of it, basically?

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  Devin Harris is in that trade, too.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  But the Kanter pick really felt like, holy shit, they're getting the third pick of the draft out of this. And it was just the wrong draft. It wasn't like, if that happened in 2024, it's like, oh, cool, we have Jabari Smith. That didn't go. All right, let's go quick. Who do you have next?

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Uh, okay. Quick, quick. Who do I have next? This is, now we're getting into dicey. Not dicey, but you know, I'll take.

• 1:28:44Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna take who I would have taken?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  There's someone I really want to take, but it's too early for him. I'll take Markeith Morris to make sure the twins are not on the same team.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  I really, I really thought, I really thought Markeith Morris was gonna be better than he ended up being in the NBA. I think he had real all-around skill and feel that just somehow never all clicked together at the same time. The shooting never clicked, and maybe that's the, the sort of all-encompassing explainer. But at this spot in the draft, I feel pretty good about taking him over a few other guys.

• 1:29:20Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you. When I did my, um, the 2014 rankings, I had him 10th and I had him ahead of his brother. He, we should mention, was a role player on the 2020 Lakers, won the title, 18 minutes a game, uh, played for eight teams. So he could be, I think, at his peak, maybe the ninth or 10th man on a really good team, which we saw.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  I think he was better than that. But yeah, I mean, he never became, there was a vision of him where he was a starting power forward on a good team because he could do just about, just enough of everything to be like a jack of all trades, and that never really.

• 1:29:58Bill Simmons?

  The irony of the Morris twins, both of them were about an inch and a half too short. Right? They were in that weird tweener zone. I'm taking Reggie Jackson.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  He was in, yeah, that's a good pick.

• 1:30:09Bill Simmons?

  Two conference finals, 2014 playoffs for OKC, six man, was pretty good as a bench guy that year, 11 a game. And then famously, had an oversized ego, and I don't think it played well in that team. Ended up going to Detroit, Stan Van Gundy overpaid for him, your guy. And then 2021 playoffs, Clippers make the conference finals. He's 18 a game in the playoffs, 41% from three, and was like a revelation for them. So he did it in a big spot. He was the 24th pick in this draft. And, uh, you know, worst case scenario, that, I think the thing that dings him was he went to Denver in '23, and we thought that was gonna be an impactful move for them heading in. And they won the title anyway,

• 1:30:54Bill Simmons?

  but he just really wasn't involved and never really meshed with Joker, which seemed to be a recurring theme for him. So taking him there. Who do you got?

• 1:31:05Bill Simmons?

  I have four draftable guys left.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  That's it?

• 1:31:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  I got more than that. Uh, I am gonna go off the board a little bit here. And I'm, I'm gonna go all the way down to number 42 and I'm gonna take Davis Bertans. Just, you know what? Let it fly. Like, almost no one, almost no non-star player has been so like guiltless, without conscience, without thinking about letting it fly from three. And he should. That's what he was in the NBA to do. He would let fly from all angles, all distances against tight closeouts. And he's an all-time, he's like a very, very good elite three-point shooter. And let's have some fun on my team. He'll create some chemistry problems by taking too many shots. So our, our coaches will have to do some work with that. But I, you know, it's, it's him or a couple of other guys that you're gonna mention.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  And I don't feel strongly enough about any of them, that I'll take the guy that I know has one A-plus skill and some other liabilities, but one A-plus skill. I'll take Davis Bertans.

• 1:32:07Bill Simmons?

  What was, didn't he get a goofy contract at some point from somebody? Cause I remember writing Davis Bertans contract for two years.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  I believe it was the Washington Wizards of Joe House.

• 1:32:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's what it was. I just remember him being in every trade rumor for two years as some sort of third contract, whatever. Okay.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Resigned, resigned unrestricted free agent. Sit down for a minute.

• 1:32:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  Five years, $80 million in 2020, uh, Washington Wizards.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  What year was that?

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  It's the year of our basketball gods, 2020.

• 1:32:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that was like a, I'm like, why would they do that? That's insane. Even for the Wizards, that's insane. Five years, 80 million?

• 1:32:54Bill Simmons?

  Jesus, fucking Wizards. I'm taking Alec Burks, 12th pick in this draft.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  Good pick.

• 1:33:01Bill Simmons?

  Basically 11 points a game, 38% from three for his career. And he's played 791 games. Always like in the eighth, ninth, 10th range, some playoff contenders have kicked the tires on him to mixed success. Probably did the best on, what, the trade? I would say, but had a long time in Utah.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  He had a late career revival with the Knicks. Tibbs loved them.

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I was kind of enjoying him. Kooky shot, one of the weird kooky shots of, in an era where a lot of people have the assembly line shots, but his shot was a little, uh, little goofy, which I liked. So that's my one. All right, who do you got?

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  You know who I don't got?

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  Isn't this the draft where the Timberwolves take, through a trade, select Tang Guy N'Gombo, who turned out to be too old to be draft eligible? I think that happened in this draft.

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

  That was David, one of David Khan's last moves.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  A tail end for the David Khan era. Yeah.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  If, if apologies if it's not, but he is one of the players taken in the second round who has no stats in the NBA and thus never played. So I will not be taking him. An all-timer, like drafting a guy who's undraftable. I mean, that's like, you might as well draft a football player, just, just for fun, like teams used to do. Uh, I'll have some fun. I'll take Kenneth Faried. Uh, I, I really liked watching Kenneth.

• 1:34:23Bill Simmons?

  I'm at the disappointed Kenneth Freed, but got taken part of this draft.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:27Bill Simmons?

  He's my next pick.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  You know, voracious rebounder, rim runner, super angry dunker, never really advanced any other part of his game, unfortunately. Had a little useful jump hook, he could bust out now. And then I just feel like he'll come in and make hustle plays for me.

• 1:34:40Bill Simmons?

  I was a huge fan. First six years, 12 and nine in 26 minutes a game. Probably peaked on that weird Denver playoff hodgepodge team.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:51Bill Simmons?

  I loved him in the draft. I wrote in the draft diary, if Faried doesn't end up having a meaningful moment for a contender at some point over the next eight years, I'm giving you a full refund for this column.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  I think he win, I think he had a meaningful moment for a kind of a, the George Carl team where Gallinari got hurt right before the playoffs. That counted as a, they lose to the Warriors is sort of the Warriors announcing to the world, we are here, we're forced to be reckoned with. But yeah, I think you, I think you don't owe anybody.

• 1:35:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna take Nikola Mirotic.

• 1:35:21Bill Simmons?

  With, we could make this the last pick or go one more round. 23rd in this draft, couldn't come over for a few years, was dangled as this, very few times this has happened over the years, the guy who's overseas, who's always been Sergio Lo, it's the Sergio Lo All-Stars. These guys that are overseas that are just lingering as these massive assets, but they really weren't. But we always heard about them over and over again. He finally came over. He played second round in the rotation for the Bulls, Pelicans and Bucks and was a 12 and six guy and was always a little overpaid. I think I liked him the most on the Bulls.

• 1:35:59Bill Simmons?

  But he ended up, who did he get in the fight with?

• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  Bobby Portis. I was gonna say, you gotta just keep, don't sign Bobby Portis on your team.

• 1:36:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Bobby Portis teammate fight in the locker room. What, probably the worst.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Quite, he, he really hurt Mirotic.

• 1:36:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, what did he break his like orbital bone or something?

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  I just say, I would just say he broke his face.

• 1:36:21Bill Simmons?

  Not great. Anyway, welcome to my team. We'll keep Bobby Portis off it. All right, I'll give you one last pick if you want it.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  I have a guy I'm excited to pick. I think this is a perfect, what is this? The one, this is like the 10th guy on my team, I think. It's a perfect 10th guy, had some playoff moments, locker room stabilizer, organized the offense for us off the bench. Corey Joseph, uh, come on down to, to team low. He was the 29th pick in this draft, right behind Norris Cole, NBA champion Norris Cole, who can't, who can't get a sniff, nor could number two pick Derrick Williams.

• 1:36:52Bill Simmons?

  Corey Joseph might've had, there was, somebody overpaid him at some point. I can't remember who.

• 1:36:59Bill Simmons?

  I remember there was a oof, contract with him.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  Could be, I think it was a Toronto.

• 1:37:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, somebody did it. Yeah, he was more of a fourth guard who got, uh, miscast as a third guard sometimes. But yeah, he was around there and he was on the 2014 Spurs, um, high-fiving people.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Kings signed to a three-year, $37.2 million contract.

• 1:37:29Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man.

• 1:37:31Speaker 01

  Just, it just goes to show you, it's always the key. The Raptors signed him in four years earlier to four years 30, um, which is more reasonable.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  Bertans five for 80.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  When in doubt, Kings Wizards, like if you're like, who was that bad contract? Was that a crazy contract?

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  All right, last pick of the draft, chemistry guy. When he was drafted, Fran Fraschilla said about him, the problem? He cannot score. You cannot run any plays for him. That was what I had in the draft diary. Bismack Biyombo, seventh pick of the draft.

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  Bismack getting in, still kicking around.

• 1:38:06Bill Simmons?

  Bismack's big moment was when Valanciunas got hurt in 2016 and the Raptors had to throw him in, uh, for like seven, eight playoff games. They won a series with him as the center. They finished off Miami with Biyombo as their center and then, uh, lost to Cleveland. But he's still around. I, I'm sure he's gonna be in the league next year. He's one of the longest running guys from this draft.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  You know what else happened in 2016 with Bismack Biyombo?

• 1:38:32Bill Simmons?

  He was overpaid.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  The cap spike and the $64 million contract from the Orlando Magic, who had like nine big men on their team already, um, did not work out.

• 1:38:43Bill Simmons?

  I love the cap spike. All right, so that's the draft. Not picked, Derrick Williams, the second pick in this draft, who ended up being a 30% three-point shooter in the NBA. Uh, I wrote in the draft diary, I believe Derrick Williams will be a more effective professional basketball player than Kyrie Irving. We will see. One of my worst ones ever, easily in the top 10. This was David Khan's last first round pick, I think. And this really, just quickly, the number two curse, which goes back to 1984, where we have Sam Bowie, Lenny Bias, Danny Ferry, Sean Bradley, Jay Williams, Darko Milicic, Marvin Williams, Michael Beasley, Haseem the Beat, Evan Turner, Derrick Williams, Michael

• 1:39:26Bill Simmons?

  K. Gilchrist, Jabari Parker, Lonzo Ball, Marvin Bagley and James Wiseman from 1984 to 2020. And then not mentioning Steve Francis, Ja Morant, Kenny Anderson and Victor Oladipo, who all had off the court stuff or bad injury luck. And then it feels like it shifted now. I'm not as scared as the second, of the second pick anymore in the 2020s. We've had some good ones in a row. Jan Vesely did not get drafted. Wanted to mention, Sal and I bet that Jan Vesely would be a top six pick in this draft. And we won that because he went sixth.

• 1:39:59Speaker 01

  One of my, one of my first summer league memories that I can see really clearly was sitting in the stands in the little gym, not Thomas and Mack, the other one.

• 1:40:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  With some Wizards officials, watching Jan Vesely play the three for their summer league team after getting drafted. It was clear he was not gonna be able to play the three. And in my mind, he had like eight fouls in the first half. And I was like, this is, I might leave.

• 1:40:24Bill Simmons?

  What is this?

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  This is getting a little awkward with you guys. It's not going great for Jan Vesely.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  You go to the bathroom and don't come back. Brandon Knight went eighth. Now, Brandon Knight should have been drafted, but just could not stay healthy. I mean, I, I think he played 60 games once. He did get one big contract from somebody, I think the Pistons. Jimmer Fredad at 10. I wrote, I see him becoming a more consistently explosive version of J.J. Barea, only with deeper range. That's some guy you'd want on your team, right? Turned out, no, was wrong on that. Amon Shumpert, 17.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Shump, Shump was the other one. Had a case.

• 1:41:02Bill Simmons?

  And the only other things from this draft was ESPN played Adele's rolling in the deep the entire time.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:41:09Bill Simmons?

  That, it was a rolling in the deep draft with a lot of, uh.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  I'm trying, I'm trying to look at the, um, look at the draft and, and, uh, see, is there, is there a guy in here that I just had a super soft spot for? Like I was sure this guy was gonna make it and it was not.

• 1:41:25Bill Simmons?

  I think mine was Kenneth Freed.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  I remember liking Jordan Hamilton. By the way, Josh Selby is in this draft.

• 1:41:31Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  And, and the only reason I bring up Josh Selby is because all-time summer league All-Star. Just like he came in and exploded in summer league and then played 38 games over two NBA seasons.

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  My soft spot guy.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  Dan Guy and the Gumbo.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  I did kind of enjoy John, John, how'd you pronounce his name? Luer?

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  Luer, Luer was good.

• 1:41:53Bill Simmons?

  I always thought he was like a banger that was gonna have a moment. I had a moment where I enjoyed Lavoy Allen, who was the 50th pick in this draft this one.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  I liked Jordan Hamilton at a sauce spot for, and I liked Andrew Goudlock had some, had some sauce to his game. Andrew Goudlock was a problem.

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  Now, you said Steamsmo was an undrafted free agent in this draft?

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:14Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  I had the list, but I deleted it because there was no one, there was no one that we were gonna pick.

• 1:42:19Bill Simmons?

  All right, here's your team. Well, I'll just, I'll just do what the draft was and it goes back and forth. Zach's pick, my pick, Zach's pick, my pick. You took Kawhi. I took Kyrie Irving. You took Jimmy Butler. I took Klay Thompson. You took Kemba Walker. I took Nikola Vucevic. You took Tobias Harris. I took Isaiah Thomas with the eighth pick. You took Tristan Thompson. I took Jonas Valanciunas. You took Bojan Bogdanovic. I took Marcus Morris. You took Chandler Parsons. You have a more fun kind of team to hang out with than me.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Joy, joy is gonna be our watchword.

• 1:42:55Bill Simmons?

  I have Enes Kanter. You have Markeith Morris. You ended up, did you get, oh no, we split up the Morris Twins. I took Reggie Jackson. You took Davis Bertans. I took Alec Burks. You took Kenneth Faried. I took Nikola Mirotic. You took Corey Joseph. I took Bismack Biyombo to round it out. We'll put it on the social medias and we'll ask people to say who, who won that one. But man, I, I would say that's a 10 out of 10 weirdo draft. I don't know if it gets weirder than that one. Other than maybe 2013. 2013 is a 10 and a half out of 10.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  It's a pretty, 2013 is a great one. 2009 is not weird, but it's a good, it's one of my favorite ones. This one is an all time, like what happened? What's going on? And I was listening to you guys do the bubble one or the, the COVID one the other day. That was another, it's another wacky one.

• 1:43:42Bill Simmons?

  Zach Lowe, we will hear from you. A deeper dive on the LeBron trade and not LeBron signing and all of the ramifications from that. That's going up Sunday. I'm not gonna have another podcast until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Don't forget about the live rewatchables on Monday. Obsession, 4pm Pacific time, live on Netflix. And thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and everybody at Spotify as well. Congrats to the Philly fans. Are you gonna have Chris Ryan this weekend?

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  Uh, we're gonna try. We're efforting. We're currently efforting.

• 1:44:14Bill Simmons?

  I bet he's available. Okay. Uh, that's it for the pod. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you next week. Thanks, Zach.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:44:40Bill 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, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Get in problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 8778HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.

• 1:45:16Speaker 04

  Go long. No, I'm not throwing a football with my favorite son, Charles. I'm talking to my new Duke Cannon Puck of Soap. It's triple mill to last longer and retain its shape down to the last nub. In fantasy football terms, you could say this long-lasting soap takes no bye weeks or that it's bench-proof or even that it's a surefire league championship winner. Duke Cannon Pucks of Soap are built for guys who want a hard-working, long-lasting soap. Catch one yourself at dukecannon.com or a Target store near you. Duke Cannon Pucks of Soap, triple mill to last longer.

• 1:45:47Speaker 05

  The Mosquito Bowl is the incredible true story of four college football stars who walked away from NFL careers after Pearl Harbor to enlist in the Marines. From Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg and starring Nicholas Galatine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis comes a story of brotherhood and sacrifice. Four men who traded the gridiron for the battlefield. The Mosquito Bowl in theaters October 30th.