Milwaukee’s Crazy and Other NBA Summer Takeaways With Rob Mahoney, Plus a Boston Sports Check-In With Bill’s Dad

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to react to NBA free agency with major moves from the Bucks, Rockets, and Lakers (2:01). Then, they talk about the positive offseason for the Nuggets and the Hawks, before discussing the Pacers, Celtics, and Pistons (31:47). After that, they have an “Atrocious GM Summit” to discuss the teams making the worst moves and more (59:13). Finally, Bill’s dad joins the pod to discuss the Celtics next season (01:25:13). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney and Bill’s dad Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Play for an ULTRA today, available on Doordash! ENJOY RESPONSIBLY ©️ 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA®️ LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 0:43Bill Simmons?

  Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did After Hours, the Martin Scorsese cult classic. We wrapped up New York City Month, did five movies. Hope you checked them out. You can watch them on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. So next Monday, we did Jaws 2. We already taped it. It is a silly podcast. There were a lot of laughs.

• 1:26Bill Simmons?

  But Jaws 2, one of the first important sequels of the modern movie era and weirdly influential, but also very fun to talk about. So you can find that, I think it's on Peacock, maybe for free, but pretty easy to find. So that's coming Monday night. We're going to get really weird during the summer with the rewatchables. So we're going to, we're going to go off the board with a couple of the, the choices. So for this podcast, I think this is my only one until Sunday. The only way I'm going to do another one is if something legitimately crazy happens, you know, like LeBron going to the Knicks or just something that needs a podcast.

• 2:07Bill Simmons?

  Otherwise, I am going to be back on Sunday with Russillo and you can have a really fun July 4th weekend. It's always fun when July 4th is on a Friday. It feels like it's like you basically get half of a week off. Coming up, Rob Mahoney and I are going to talk about everything that's happened in the NBA free agency the last couple of days. And then I might bring my dad on. Just he's very upset about the Celtics, so I might have him come on near the end.

• 2:35Bill Simmons?

  First, let's take a break and then we'll do Pearl Jam.

• 3:03Bill Simmons?

  All right. It's a little after nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Rob Mahoney is here. I have, I've been, I'm bristling, Rob. So many, I'm like a volcano. I'm just about to spout lava of NBA takes. You were able to get some off on the Ringer NBA Show a couple of days ago.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  I figured I could facilitate for you today. I can be the Derrick White to your Luca Garza and you can just jack threes all pot long.

• 3:28Bill Simmons?

  And one-legged follow-its. Yeah. Like Alonzo Ball coming in, just trying to fit in.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:34Bill Simmons?

  As everybody else gets shots. I have a big, I have a dozen, 12 thoughts on big picture, all this stuff that happened in the last few days. And I'm going to start here because you didn't get to talk about this on the Ringer NBA Show because it happened afterwards. I thought what Milwaukee did was one of the most desperate reckless moves that I could ever remember since I've been a basketball fan. I hated it. I don't understand it. I think it's a disaster. I didn't approve of any single aspect of it. Caring the damn stretch thing for five years.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:11Bill Simmons?

  Idiotic. Doing it for Myles Turner? I have no idea why they would do that. I just don't understand why they wouldn't have just traded Giannis. If it's this desperate that you're gonna pay for the next four years, 47 million, 49 million, 50 million, and 51 million for Myles Turner.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:30Bill Simmons?

  And then on top of that, another 22 in the fifth year when he's not even on the team. If that's the only recourse you have, if that's how desperate you are to keep Giannis, I'm trading Giannis at that point. I'm folding my hand. And I don't, I just don't get it. This doesn't make them a top four team in the East. I'm only doing this if I'm a top four team in the East, and I'm not. So why am I doing this?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Counterpoint, their future without Giannis is already cooked. Like, this is a team that's going to be so bad in the short term if they do trade him, even if they get back really good players, even if they get back like good competitive players or good young prospects. Like, I think the outlook is dire enough that I can understand the logic of steering into more dire, more risk, right? Like, over leveraging, putting the mortgage on the mortgage, all those things. Like, I get the logic, but I do think it's telling that through months, if not years, of Giannis trade speculation and Bucks like couch GMing that we've been doing, trying to figure out what the outcome of all this was gonna be, I did not hear one person seriously suggest stretching Damian Lillard's contract. Like,

• 5:39Speaker 01

  that was never on the table, and literally everything else was on the table. And so, like, this combination of moves is easily the one-two punch of like, the most surprising things to happen so far. Like, I just never would have imagined in a million years that Dane would get stretched, and that the Bucks would have the flexibility to even sign someone like Myles Turner in the first place, regardless of whether you think it's a good fit, or what you think of his game, or any of that.

• 6:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but do you think so they had Brook Lopez, they just could have resigned him, right? He got two for 18 from the Clippers. If they just paid, let's say they topped it. They were like, all right, two for 20, stick around for two more years. Keep Dame. So next year or this coming year, they would have been paying 60, let's say 61 for Lopez and Dame versus the 47 they're paying for Turner and Dame's stretch. So they say that's an extra 14 million. Okay. So, so you basically saved 14 million with this weird move he did. I just don't think there's much of a difference with Lopez and Turner. I guess part of the problem is I don't like Myles Turner that much as an asset. He's fine. We, we saw him go through four rounds of the

• 6:45Bill Simmons?

  NBA playoffs. He played big minutes. Like he's clearly a playoff player, but I don't think he's like a missing piece for them. And the, and the other piece is next year, Dame's an expiring, which would have given them, or would have been an expiring, which would have given them so much more flexibility for moves and just things to do. So you lose that too. And you just, you just have the sunk cost now of every year, you're just $22 million lower than you should be on the cap. I don't understand it. I, I, I, I was driving when I saw it and I did like, ah, it was like one of those. Nobody stretches contracts of that size. It's never happened.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  This size, this amount of dead money, it's an unprecedented situation that the Bucks are putting themselves into. I

• 7:31Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like you liked it.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I don't like it, but I understand why desperate teams do desperate things. And among the most desperate situations is when your superstar is on the brink of leaving or wanting out or doing something drastic in his own right. And so like, I don't love the stretch. I like the Myles Turner move. And here's the thing, it accomplishes one thing and one thing only. And we're going to see if this is true or not. Does it appease Giannis? Does it make Giannis happy? Does, is it, is there something material about that change and that investment and that desperation that signals to him, okay, I want to come back and we're going to give this thing a try. I want to see how this works. And that to me is the biggest difference between Myles Turner. And Brook Lopez. I think one difference is Brook Lopez just cannot be a 30 minute a game playoff guy anymore.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  I think he's a really good regular season player still out like it is that kind of situation. Brook Lopez as coming off the bench for the Clippers, amazing. Great, great value on that deal. Still a really good rim protector, but limited in his mobility. Clearly, as basically every player is his age. And so you're, you're trading for a guy who just simply cannot do that starting job at a high minutes rate anymore. For a guy who we just saw do it, you know, up and ups and downs for Miles Turner in the playoffs, certainly in the finals, like really struggled with his shooting. And you could see how teams like Oklahoma City, for example, really test him and really test his skillset. But you're getting a guy who is a proven playoff performer at this point in Turner.

• 8:56Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  And you're signaling something to Yanis. And if those two things are enough to keep him happy and continue Milwaukee Bucks like not business as usual. But that's kind of the problem is every other move they've made pretty much has been bringing back Gary Trent Jr. Bring back Bobby Portis, you know, like bringing back Torian Prince. If you were also going to bring back Brook Lopez, then you're just last year's Bucks without Damian Lillard. And that, that, that team is not going to be good enough and it's not going to be persuasive to Yanis in really any way.

• 9:24Bill Simmons?

  But this is persuasive?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  We're going to find out. I don't know.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  Yanis, Yanis, stay here. We have no future. We've ruined our salary cap. Like when you say it's desperate, there's levels of desperation. Like if I was trying to impress Yanis and convince him he should stay here and I chopped off my thumb and it's like here much, here's how much I care. It's still crazy to chop off your thumb, which is basically what this deal is. I like Miles Turner more than Brook Lopez. I don't think it's significant enough that all of the other stuff that comes with this deal.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:58Bill Simmons?

  I just don't fully understand it. And, and I still feel like throwing away that giant expiring was a better asset than the upgrade of, you know, just hey Yanis, just wait. We feel like we're going to be able to trade Dame in a year. And by the way, they don't have to trade Yanis either. I know he's a superstar. I know he won the title, but it's, if he's like, I want out. It doesn't mean you necessarily have to trade him if there's not a deal. I just felt what, what was really shocking to me, and this goes to the second, the second thing that jumped out to me was Houston overstocking their roster. Getting Finney Smith and then getting Capella. And it's like, huh, so they have three centers.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:40Bill Simmons?

  And you have Finney Smith, but you also have Amen Thompson and you have Easton and you have Whitmore and you have all these wings. It's not enough minutes for everybody. Why are you doing this? And it just felt like they were heading toward a three for one for Giannis and not telling us, right? And then the Dame stretch happens. And that was when I was like, I don't know what's happening anymore. But I, so you think, you think Giannis is going to look at this and go, oh, you guys did it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay, but now that we have Myles Turner, now that we have no cap, now we have a bad cap situation.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:18Bill Simmons?

  I guess I'll stay.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I think by everything Giannis has said and the way he has postured throughout all this is that he is looking, he's looking for a reason to stay. Like he is looking for the validation to continue playing for the Bucks and being part of the next Bucks contender. Like, I think he just wants anything. He wants some sign of life. And maybe this is that. Like, again, this is something that nobody expected. This is a level of flexibility and a caliber of player that I just did not think the Bucks were going to be able to add, given their limited resources. And they did something unprecedented. They did something foolish and maybe insane in the process, but like, since when do superstars care about the long-term implications of the moves that are made to appease them? Like, that's kind of part of the job.

• 12:00Bill Simmons?

  That's how you, that's how you get in trouble, though.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's how.

• 12:04Bill Simmons?

  Once you stop thinking about long-term completely and trying to appease somebody, hoping they'll stay, like, like, this is whether you're in a relationship or a relationship with an NBA star. Like, this is the worst thing you can do.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  For the Bucks, absolutely. For Giannis, like, it's not really his concern what happens to the Bucks in 2031 if he's not on the team anymore. For him, it's like, what are we doing right now to make this a more appealing situation for me so that I want to play here? Like, he's earned the right to look at it through that kind of framework.

• 12:32Bill Simmons?

  This is the equivalent of, our relationship isn't going well. Let's have a kid. Maybe it'll make it better. That's, that's what this is. And you go back to the Kuzma trade, which I also hated.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was getting the dog. That was the trial run before you had the kid to save the relationship.

• 12:46Bill Simmons?

  And not even just the dog. It was like getting a Great Dane. When you have a one bedroom apartment, ah, who cares?

• 12:54Bill Simmons?

  But you do that Kuzma thing and you have Middleton, who would have been an expiring this year. And you trade A.J. Johnson, who actually might have had some, I don't know, modicum of trade value. So you do that and now you're basically all in with Kuzma and Myles Turner. And you have no trade flexibility anymore and this is your roster and I just don't get it. I was, I even used, I used Google AI for the first time, Rob.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Really?

• 13:18Bill Simmons?

  I've always been afraid to go down that corner because like it would make rewatchables prep way easier. If I'm just like, hey, Google, tell me all the reasons Jaws 2, blah, blah, blah.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Give you a bunch of fake information about the making of Jaws 2.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  I didn't want to go down that AI road, but I was racking my brain, trying to figure out a more desperate, reckless move in the history of the league. And I actually asked AI and it was suggesting stuff like the Chandler Parsons free agent contract and things like that. And I was like, there's no way that comes close. The two things I can think of, um, the Brooklyn Celtics trade.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:51Bill Simmons?

  When they got Pierce and Garnett and they just threw in like that extra swap. Like the picks, if you just made the picks, it made sense because they were also dumping Gerald Wallace. They were getting Pierce and Garnett back, like they were trying to win the title. Everything was defensible until you got to like that extra swap and maybe one more pick. The other one, there was an Orlando moment that is a little reminiscent of this. Near the end of Dwight Howard, when it felt like the Dwight Howard situation was going to get a little gamey. He was going to be a free agent, I think after 2011 or 12, and they traded Rashard Lewis for Gilbert Arenas.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  I was about to say, I know the Gilbert Arenas drop is coming. This is, that was really a moment in time.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  So in the Rashard Lewis, I think he had two years left, but you could buy out the second year for a price. And Gilbert just had the three years left. And it was one of those, hey Dwight, look, we got, we got Gilbert Arenas. And guess what? Dwight didn't care because the team's not that good.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Bill Simmons?

  The star's going to move on anyway. I just think, I personally think they should have just traded Giannis. I just would have done it. He won the title. I think the Bucks fans would have been okay with it. As much as I love stars finishing their career, if he wanted to go. Then you do it. If he wants to stay, but he's like mutilate our team going forward, then that's not a reason to keep him.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't think, but we, it's interesting. You're kind of like half zagging. I feel like you're testing out a zag here.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Look, I'm never gonna full zag into setting $24 million on fire every year from your cap. Like that's, what it costs to execute this move is so dramatic that there's a reason basically no one else would do something like this other than the Bucks. But maybe to add to your list of desperation moves, like this is not the first time the Bucks have done something desperate. This is a team that just threw like, I don't know, five second round picks at Nikola Mirotic. It's a team that like traded a ton to get Drew Holiday in the first place. Like they have been on this particular treadmill for a long time, trying to find finishing pieces, trying to find, you know, foundational pieces for the team around Giannis. And this is where you end up when you do that for years, year after year after years. You don't have anything to trade and therefore you have to wave and

• 16:02Speaker 01

  stretch Damian Lillard just to make a move like this possible.

• 16:05Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland was in this situation with LeBron in the late 2000s when it just became like a Jenga stack of bad moves. And you're just like, oh, this bad contract, I'll turn it into an even worse. And they just, and it was all these name dudes on the wrong point of their careers. This is to me worse. And look, Giannis, I mean, he tried to pretend he was upset about this yesterday. I don't think you'd do this move without running it by him. I just don't.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  I just don't. That's not how the league works. This is such a dramatic move. At some point you have to go, yo, if we got Myles Turner, it's gonna have to cost us some shit. Is that, we won't have Dame next year.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:44Bill Simmons?

  We're probably gonna have to get rid of him. Is that, would that be cool with you? So I just feel like he has to sign off.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  If this bought you two years of Giannis, this full season and all of next season, is that enough? Is that enough to you? Like if you knew he was gonna be on board and a Milwaukee Buck for two years, is that enough?

• 17:08Bill Simmons?

  I think I still would have traded him to Houston.

• 17:12Bill Simmons?

  But I think it's a valid point. If he promised, like, I will stay here for the next two years if you do this. I'm just, I'm still dubious that he was holding a gun to their heads.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  It's possible.

• 17:22Bill Simmons?

  He never said anything publicly. I know there's been a lot of buzz privately, but he never said one thing. So I, I mean, what's really scary for this, if you're a Bucks fan, is maybe they didn't do this to appease Yanis. Maybe they just thought this was a good idea.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  They just want to live on the edge.

• 17:39Bill Simmons?

  That's where I would be really scared. Alright, so the Houston piece, that was the second thing I was looking at.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:46Bill Simmons?

  Them overstocking their roster and all the flexibility they have. I mean, here's their roster right now. They have Shangoon, Adams and Capella, and Jacque Landau, who's apparently just not going to play anymore.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:57Bill Simmons?

  They have Durant, Jabari Smith and Finney Smith. They have Amen Thompson, Eason, Whitmore, Fred VanVleet and Reed Shepard. And there's only 240 minutes in a basketball game.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:09Bill Simmons?

  So that, that, my interpretation is they're stacking this for a three for one in the December, January, February range, that they, they basically have depth at every position now. And if somebody comes to them and says, we'll do this for Shangoon, I wouldn't trade Thompson. But Shangoon and Thompson for this.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:30Bill Simmons?

  Or Shangoon, Jabari Smith and Eason, plus some of your picks for this. They're not positioned for that. And then also they're one of the five contenders in the NBA now. One of the five best odds.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:43Bill Simmons?

  So no brainer, but I was just, the Capella thing really surprised me. What was your take on the Rockets?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  I think there's two things. One, you're right, like, opening themselves up for future trades if they come up. Like, the Rockets have been a team that have had too many guys for years already. And so to add even more bodies to that mix is, is surprising, but is a powerful thing. If you're going to make those sorts of midseason trades, like you saw what just happened to the Lakers, for example, when they made a huge team-changing trade in the middle of the run, and all of a sudden you just like, don't have a complete rotation.

• 19:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  I think basically any permutation of a deal that the Rockets would make, they would still have some quality center. They would still have enough wings. They would still have enough guard play to make all those things work midstream, which clearly they're trying to push forward and contend right now. The other part of it, I would say is Kevin Durant is the piece that makes them so much more formidable in the playoffs, like an absolute half-court killer, one of the best shot creators in the game under that context, really important player. Clint Capella and Dorian Finney-Smith, I think, will help, and especially Dorian in the playoffs, like I'm sure will be part of the rotation in a meaningful way if he's still on the team by then. They help you get through the regular season in a way that's really important. Like, you can't, you don't want to play Steven Adams even necessarily full-time backup minutes over the course of the regular season.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Like, you want to save him a little bit so that he can have the kind of impact he had in last year's playoffs. Tari Eason gets hurt a ton, Kevin Durant has a ton of mileage on him, and a guy like Dorian Finney-Smith helps you alleviate the burden on those guys in terms of the minutes that they're ultimately going to be playing. And so, it is a really deep rotation. You got to find some way to keep everybody happy while, you know, giving Reed Shepard some developmental opportunities, while letting Amen Thompson be everything he can be, while letting Jabari play the three and the four and the five, apparently. Like, you want to do all that stuff and it's going to be hard for Ime Udoka to balance all of it at once? But what a great problem to have.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, especially, this is basically the OKC model of like, just a ton of depth, giving guys a day off and...

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Like, you saw how it worked for Alex Caruso, you know? Like, that's kind of the model that they need to take with some of these. Like, Tari Eason needs to be on the Alex Caruso plan. I think that's, that's ultimately the goal for someone like him.

• 20:52Bill Simmons?

  It's a really good team. Um, I'm still not, there's a Jabari Smith stretch five piece that it's funny they have all these centers, because the lineup I was probably the most excited about was KD with Jabari Smith.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:06Bill Simmons?

  And Eason and Thompson and a guard, where they're just a little more like Indiana-ish. Uh, but they also have this ability to go big ball, too. Listen, we, I'm going to make fun of a bunch of GMs and teams over the course of this podcast. You got to hand it to Houston, man. I still didn't love the Harden trade. I didn't, I thought it was weird that they didn't get enough assets back, but it all worked out. And, uh, everything they did the last three years, I just fully support. But the Finney-Smith piece, that leads to the third thing. The Lakers losing Finney-Smith.

• 21:43Bill Simmons?

  And then all the LeBron stuff, it just feels like the big takeaway as we head into July 4th weekend is the Lakers are going to be a capital F fucking soap opera. This feels like

• 21:54Speaker 01

  When are they not?

• 21:55Bill Simmons?

  Content constantly. And the Finney Smith thing, which I think with the people that know this shit, I it didn't feel like it was a big enough story publicly that the Lakers screwed up the Finney Smith thing, that that him and his agent felt like Polinka was kind of nagging his value in the open market and telling teams he was hurt and they found out about it and they pulled back and were like, that's it, we're not. And then they they went and solicited the Houston thing. I think the Lakers thought he was coming back and that they were going to get a center and that was going to be their summer plan. Instead, they lose him, they have to pivot to LaRavia, who they probably could have gotten anyway.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:34Bill Simmons?

  All my, all June, we're like, all, every Laker fan, well, we're going to get a center when we get a center, when we get a center. And I would, I would always be like, well, who's the center? And now we're sitting here, it's 9:26 a.m. And the only center left is Deandre Ayton, who Portland paid to go away. And they lose Finney Smith, this guy who I thought was important for them because they, you know, he plays well with Luca and he's exactly the kind of guy you need if you're going to have Luca and LeBron together. So just, let's start there.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:05Bill Simmons?

  This is a disaster for them because they're just not, they're not even close to the top four in the West now. I don't think.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  They feel really far removed from it. Like, they needed to have a great summer in exactly the way you described, like, bring in a center who can actually play, not only bring back Dorian Finney Smith, but be like adding net players to your rotation. This was a team that was just like starved for guys who could actually stay on the floor in terms of playoff viable rotation players. So to lose Dorian Finney Smith, look, he's an imperfect player. He's not the best defender in the league, but he's a good, a very good one. He's not the best shooting wing in the league. He can be a little streaky, but he's certainly good enough for a team like the Lakers in their position.

• 23:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  A summer in which you get one of these free agent center options, plus bring back Dorian, plus get Jay Claravi, who I actually quite like as a rotation guy.

• 23:53Bill Simmons?

  Me too.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  That's a pretty good start. To whiff on two of those things already in a way that, I mean, you're not just like banking on Deandre Ayton, you are praying for Deandre Ayton.

• 24:04Bill Simmons?

  Because left, there's not one center left. Horford's going to Golden State.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  I mean, that's basically treated as a foregone conclusion around the league right now. Everyone is assuming that Horford will be a Golden State Warrior and we'll see if that ends up happening or not, but.

• 24:17Bill Simmons?

  It's happening.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Outside of that, I really don't know where they turn. They've already missed out on Lopez, who we talked about. They have missed out on Luke Cornet, they missed out on Bobby Portis, they missed out on Kevon Looney, Jalen Williams, like all these guys are already off the board.

• 24:29Bill Simmons?

  They missed out on Luca Garza.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Luca Garza.

• 24:32Bill Simmons?

  They missed out on Josh Minat.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  They could only be so lucky, frankly, at this point, but the LeBron thing is such a huge wrench and I think what makes it especially painful is that what LeBron has articulated vis a vis Rich Paul about this being a cute little rebuilding team at present is not entirely wrong. Like this is not a team that is close to the level of competition that would threaten the Thunder. Like they're just not even close to it.

• 24:57Bill Simmons?

  Russel and I talked about it Sunday and I was pretty focused on it because I felt like it was going to be a big, I thought the LeBron, the Rich Paul statement, I was like, this is what's happening here. This feels aggressive. And I think part of it was they already knew Finney Smith was leaving, which leads to that statement where like, wait, we, we're losing him? What the hell's going on? This is part of the soap opera piece. LeBron with no leverage for the first time in his career, playing for somebody else's team where they've clearly said, we're in the Luca business. They had that thing come out yesterday about we don't want contracts longer than the next two years. We've never

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  seen, we've never seen a star as famous and as successful as LeBron in a situation like this. It never happened to Kareem. It never happened to Bill Russell. It never happened to Michael Jordan. It never happened to Larry Bird. It never happened to Magic Johnson. And those are the best players and it never happened to Tim Duncan. These are all the best parts in the history of the league. None of them have ever been in a situation where they're on somebody else's team, on somebody else's timeline. And the team is like, we don't really care what you think about any of this. And that's why he's obviously gonna get traded at some point. And I just think, I think you can lock that one down. He doesn't want to be, it doesn't seem like he wants to be in the Lakers. And I think he wants to win titles, which was what I said Sunday night.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:22Bill Simmons?

  I cannot figure out the team. I thought Waz was on Zach's pod yesterday and kind of whipped out a, a Towns for LeBron trade. And I was kind of like, oh, that's really interesting.

• 26:38Bill Simmons?

  Who says, who has a longer meeting about that? Cause if you're the Knicks, you get off all the Towns money.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  You do.

• 26:45Bill Simmons?

  And if you're the Lakers, you get to reboot, you get out of LeBron, who's gonna, I just think gonna be more and more grumbly as the year goes along. Cause he's never been in this situation. You bring in Towns, it doesn't fit your contract timetable, but at least he's a center.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:01Bill Simmons?

  And you have two amazing shooters and I don't know. I don't know who would say no faster. Who would say no faster?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  I think the Knicks might. Not because like, look, the, the virtues of adding LeBron to a team in New York's position are not lost on me. There's just such an opportunity in the East right now. And if, if you're, I think if you're the Knicks and the Cavs in particular, it just behooves you to not do something super dramatic right now. Like keep the teams that you know work, add on the edges. As the Knicks have done, like Gershon Yabusale, Jordan Clarkson, like those are, that's a good off season for New York already in terms of shoring up some of their weaknesses. You know, the rest of this stuff works. Karl Anthony Towns just had an all NBA season. I think he made, did he make second team? Like he was an incredible player for them. I think losing him would hurt their offense in ways that they might just kind of casually overlook

• 27:54Speaker 01

  as we're kind of talking through the LeBron possibilities. And look, anytime LeBron's on the board, you have to take the meeting. You have to talk about it. You have to figure out what are the permutations of this that can work. I just, I think Cat is really valuable to the Knicks and his present tense value as a team that could win the East next season is more important to me than ultimately what his contract is going to drag down in a couple of seasons.

• 28:16Bill Simmons?

  So you don't think Knicks GM coach Rick Brunson would sign up on this also because it would maybe affect his son?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  There you go. Seems like a problem.

• 28:25Bill Simmons?

  When the Brunsons are running the Knicks, we're like, why do they want LeBron in there? Trying, trying to think he knows stuff. I would think about it from a salary cap standpoint, too, because you got to pay bridges in a year and you're going to have just a super expensive roster. And the LeBron piece would allow you to kind of

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Bill Simmons?

  change the money a little bit where LeBron's got, I mean, people are claiming he's got a year left. I don't think so. I think it's, I think this goes more like Tom Brady where it just kind of keeps going and going and going. But I, I'm just, he's not going to win a title in the Lakers. I said this Sunday night, it's not happening. What's important to him? Well, the other important thing would be I have my own team that I'm running. He doesn't have that either. So there's, there has to be some sort of outcome. That's not the outcome he's in now. I was thinking it's a little, it's a little like to be more in the substance, just running out of options, kind of, kind of trying to grab some magic elixir. I don't know what the elixir is in this case, and I don't know what the team is.

• 29:26Bill Simmons?

  Can I throw another trade at you that I was thinking about?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Please do, yeah.

• 29:29Bill Simmons?

  What about Kawhi for LeBron?

• 29:35Bill Simmons?

  They both get to stay in LA.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:39Bill Simmons?

  Little change of scenery for each. If you're the Lakers, you get out of this weird LeBron situation. I don't know if it changes your destiny that much, but at least it resets whose team it is.

• 29:53Bill Simmons?

  I think the Lakers would say no, but I thought that was an interesting one, too.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  I, I kinda like it.

• 29:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  I, I, ultimately, I think there's probably too much like extracurricular shit on an LA to LA trade for both teams to actually do it. Like the whole, like, you just have to live in this city and deal with the fact that if this trade goes sideways, it went sideways on a daily basis. Might be reason enough to not do it, but as LeBron destinations go, I think the Clippers make more sense than the Mavericks, for example, who like that stuff is just kinda out there right now as far as like, oh, Dallas could be an option. I don't really see mechanically how that would work. I don't really see the argument for it.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  But look, this is kinda how you have to think about LeBron at this point. Like, he is one of the best players in the world. He is also a player who does stuff like this from time to time and wants to exert a certain level of control over circumstances, as he should. And so you're, you are kind of trading a flawed, caveated star for another one. It's gonna be someone with a contract like Towns or a player of a clearly like lower caliber, like an OG Ananobi, or it's gonna be someone like Kawhi with all the questions that come with him. Like, that's kinda the market you're trying to get into.

• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, or the other one would be Ananobe and Mitchell Robinson together.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  See, I kinda.

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know why the Knicks would do that.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  I don't know why the Knicks would do it, but from the Lakers' perspective, you can, you can clearly see the outline of something there.

• 31:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and we thought, Sunday I was talking about Cleveland and Cleveland possibilities, but once they extended Sam Merrill, that kinda ruined, they're, they're so far over the second apron now. They can't really do anything. Well, I look at the West, OKC, Minnesota, Houston, Denver, and the Clippers. Just on a different level than the Lakers. It's not close. Those teams have better rosters. The only scenario would be Luca just coming in, in shape, having some crazy, I'm gonna carry everybody year.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 31:42Bill Simmons?

  But I don't know if that's a great situation for LeBron. All right, we're taking a break and then I got more stuff to throw you. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Cracking up at a cold one on a hot summer day is one of the best feelings, but it's even better when it feels like you've earned it. Like in a little friendly competition. It's always better when there's something worth playing for. I do this with, I play tennis during the summer because pickleball should be illegal. I play tennis. Nice to have a nice cold one right afterwards. Michelob Ultra, superior light beer. It's a pretty great prize. Trying to think stuff I would play for this summer. Golf? I'd have the, I need to have a big handicap for golf. It's really tennis and maybe basketball three-point shooting contests.

• 32:26Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, I don't know. What's that Block Blast game? You play on your iPad? I would do that. I would compete against other people on that one. It's like Tetris for the 2020s. Play for Ultra, fill your fridge with Michelob Ultra this summer at doordash.com. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2025 Anheuser-Busch. Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. All right, I'm sad we haven't brought them up yet, but the Nuggets finally realizing they have Nikola Jokic on their team and acting accordingly was one of my dozen things that I absolutely loved. And, um, look, I just want to see Jokic with a good enough team. I'm a Celtic fan. I root for certain players. I just like watching Jokic. His team wasn't good enough last year.

• 33:11Bill Simmons?

  They didn't spend enough money on it. It was, it was just a flawed roster. They still took OKC to seven, which was a borderline fucking miracle. And you know what else was a miracle? Turning Michael Porter Jr. into Cam Johnson. Saving $17 million a year.

• 33:30Bill Simmons?

  And maybe, I don't know if it's necessarily an upgrade because I do think Porter, if he's healthy and his shoulder's not fucked up, did, you know, did some okay things for them. He sucks on defense.

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  But this is a miracle for them to shave money. And then all of a sudden now you get Brown and Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway have vet minimums. You're able to trade Saric and take back Valanciunas' contract. And now I have a bench. Now I can take Jokic out of a game.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  I know.

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  And run little seven-minute offenses around Jonas Valanciunas and actually like shred water. This was incredible, Rob. They're plus 900 to win the title on Fanduel. I think they have the fifth best odds. I think that's the best value out of all the, all the title bets. I really, they were close last year. OK, so it'd be a little better. We found out Jalen Williams was hurt during the whole second half of the season, which nobody really knew. But I love everything they did. And I'm sure you're a Cam Johnson guy. I'm sure you love the Cam Johnson on the Nuggets fit.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely. And especially the idea of Michael Porter Jr. is a uniquely talented shooter, and really one of the best shooters in terms of a guy who's that big, who can also hit on the move. Like, this is not just like a pick and pop or standstill stretch four. Like, you can run Michael Porter Jr. off curls, and he's a real threat. You can run Cam Johnson off curls, and he's, I would say, even better at that exact thing. Not quite to the same ridiculous, like, extreme proportions. Like, Michael Porter Jr. is a giant three-point shooter. But Cam Johnson's about as close as you're gonna get. And so to get that player at that much cheaper, and those savings, in this case, like, are material. Like, this is the difference in the Nuggets having actual flexibility versus not. This is not just like, how much money are we

• 35:09Speaker 01

  saving the cronkies? Like, this is a big deal in terms of the team building of the Nuggets. And they're in a position where they could still potentially add pieces. They're probably incentivized not to because of the tax, but they could. And ultimately, the idea that you're taking last year's roster and getting it to a place where you have, what, like, I would say, six rock-solid playoff guys. And after that, a good collection of, okay, in this series, Jonas Valanciunas is gonna be a real player for us. In this series-

• 35:35Bill Simmons?

  I would say seven.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Who's, who do you consider, oh, I guess Peyton Watson, I guess, is, is a pretty solid-

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  I mean, they got Hardaway Jr. I feel like I could throw him out. But I can throw him out in the second quarter of a playoff game and not worry what they had in the playoffs last year. These young guys where you feel like the three's gonna hit the side of the backboard. At least he's not gonna be scared.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, he will not be. I can promise you he will not be scared.

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  He definitely will not be scared.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  This is the Tim Hardaway Jr. thing, and this is why this is such a great fit for him. The less you have to rely on him, the better Tim Hardaway Jr. is.

• 36:05Bill Simmons?

  Just be a heat check guy for us. One of the things I love about what they did is that now they can bring, like, they can take Aaron Gordon out of the game and put Bruce Brown in to do like a, basically a short Aaron Gordon impression for like five, six minutes, right? That's what, he's playing off the ball, he's running the baseline, he's doing all that stuff. They can, uh, they can have the Cam Johnson basically in the Michael Porter Jr. role. But then they also have those young guys, maybe a year older.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 36:34Bill Simmons?

  That could be okay. And then they actually have a backup center that's not Deandre Jordan, who might be able to come in and punish a backup center or backup big guy for five minutes and make some points happen. And I still feel like they got one move left. Like Saric wasn't playing for them.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:49Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  The fact they got a rotation guy for Dario Saric, and I don't even know what the Kings are up to at this point in the game, but frankly, a miracle, given where Saric's trade value was.

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  And this is, there are a lot of miracles in this offseason. A lot of them had to do with really stupid teams. And somebody like Sacramento going, man, we just need more money to pay Dennis Schroder so we can be the 12th best team in the West. Let's take Saric's contract and we can dump Valanciunas and now we'll have enough money. It's like, good, great job, guys. I just think for Denver, if I was a Denver fan, we talked about it a bunch on this pod, I would have been so upset with, I just feel like they cheaped out last year on him.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:33Bill Simmons?

  You have a guy like that who's a generational superstar, you can't cheap out, and they did. And it comes down to a seventh game in OKC that they got waxed in, but really, the first six games, a couple that they could have swung, I think if they had one more guy or one more guy you could have relied on.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Like Bruce Brown could be the difference between an OKC style matchup, you know, and he's had a rough couple of seasons, but just having like a live body in the way you described to is doing some of the Aaron Gordon stuff and some of the backup point guard stuff and some of the Christian Brown on ball defense. Like, that's a miracle of a player to get for the minimum.

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  And somebody that you know fits in with your team perfectly.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Without a doubt.

• 38:14Bill Simmons?

  So the last thing they probably need is some sort of Jamal Murray, if he's out for two weeks, you know, if you want to rest his minutes, if you want to rest him for a game, they don't really have that guy yet. Those guys are available. Anyway, congrats to Denver. Thank God. Next one. Next topic. It's officially the Trey Young superstar audition season.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:39Bill Simmons?

  Because Atlanta had an awesome offseason, just awesome. I think they're an actual contender in the East. There's no question.

• 38:47Bill Simmons?

  They have a starting lineup of Trey, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, Alexander Walker and Akongwu, with Risa Shea, Porzingis, Newell, and still room for one more guy off the bench, and they have picks to trade.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Well, they did get Luke Kennard, too.

• 39:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and Luke Kennard. I forgot to write him down. Luke Kennard.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:06Bill Simmons?

  I really like this team. Luke Kennard was my dream Denver guy.

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  And still the trade exception for one more guy if they wanted to get Frisky.

• 39:16Bill Simmons?

  And yet, all of it hinges on whether Trey Young is actually a superstar or not.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:21Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna find out once and for all. He's got last year of his deal. And we're gonna see. Let's see. Let's see what this looks like. We have given you the perfect car. You are Brad Pitt in F1 on IMAX right now.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  That was a junker of a car. They really had to fix it up. Maybe this is his fix-up season.

• 39:37Bill Simmons?

  Did you see? I still haven't. I'm seeing F1. Probably today. It was good. You liked it?

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Worth the ticket. Gotta see it on IMAX.

• 39:43Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 39:46Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna find out now with Trey Young, is my point. Any thoughts?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I think he has shown a lot of the precursors of that last season in terms of his willingness to commit to defense a little bit more, in terms of the way he was playing on offense. Like, he was doing all the stuff you want to see from Trey Young. It just didn't result in the overall kind of team season that we may want from the Atlanta Hawks. And now they have all the more reason, all the more insurance in terms of just the depth of this roster to get through the year. And I think even more of an identity that makes sense for them. And it makes sense for Quinn Snyder, frankly. Like, they ended up in that zone where they were neither an elite offense nor an elite defense.

• 40:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Jalen Johnson injury kind of set that. I mean, they lost him for four months.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Completely took the wind out of their sails. And if Jalen Johnson can stay healthy, and that's, that's an if in its own right. And if Chris Epps Porzingis can stay healthy, and that's an if in its own right. And if Anyaka Akongwu can stay healthy, also an if. They're gonna be really well positioned. Like, they're gonna look like a really dynamic team. And in terms of, good lord, like, Nikhil Alexander Walker and Dyson Daniels together, it's not quite Oklahoma City's perimeter defense, but it's the closest you're gonna find in the East.

• 40:53Bill Simmons?

  It's well, then you to put Johnson and Daniels and Alexander Walker together.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Hell, yeah.

• 41:00Bill Simmons?

  That's just not a fun night for opposing perimeter guys. It's like, ah, fuck, I'm playing the Hawks tonight. Let's hunt Trey Young. Oh, shit. Trey's not in the game. Now, what do we do? And I like that they have Porzingis kind of as the wild card, who the fuck knows guy.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:16Bill Simmons?

  You know, because if he can be closer to first year Celtics versus second year Celtics, that's like, now you're putting him out there with Trey. Like you, you have all these different wrinkles now. I don't know. I really like this Hawks team. We're not a smart Hawks team.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I know. Look, it's a whole new era, but like.

• 41:36Bill Simmons?

  Really is.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  I think the thing with Porzingis, in addition to just being that sort of wild card, he doesn't really cost them anything. Like if you're the Celtics.

• 41:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  He is immeasurably, well, he is measurably expensive, incredibly expensive, to the point that they're still over the second apron somehow. They dumped all the salary. They're still a second apron team. The whole situation is kind of ridiculous. If you're the Hawks, this is a short term bet on a very talented player in a, in a somewhat more contained role that I think could make sense for him.

• 42:01Bill Simmons?

  And it's an expiring, worst case scenario. It's a $30 million expiring that with your picks, you might be able to go, let's say he breaks down or gets hurt, whatever, you can still potentially flip that. I thought that trade, I don't know what Brooklyn was doing with that trade, especially when you saw some of the prices of some of these guys like Finney Smith or Duncan Robinson, like Terrence Mann at 15 million.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:26Bill Simmons?

  To also get the 22nd pick to take that and use your cap space. I just don't personally understand it. I just think there's better, like the Celtics, I think would have traded Sam Hauser to whoever. And Sam Hauser is like four years, 38 million, something like that. It's a really good contract for a rotation guy. I don't understand why I'm paying Terrence Mann 15 million a year and why that would be a good thing.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  It's not a horrendous deal. Like Terrence Mann's a good player. So it's not like they're taking pure dead money, as is often the case.

• 42:56Bill Simmons?

  Compared to all these signings we're watching.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:59Bill Simmons?

  I just don't understand it.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Here's my perspective on it.

• 43:03Bill Simmons?

  If you are. Capella is going to make 7 million a year.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:05Bill Simmons?

  Terrence Mann is going to make 15.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  If you are gonna be the basically one team with cap space, do not use it this early for that purpose.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  We, we, we've just talked about all the ways that the Bucks are desperate. They're not the only team. Like the Lakers are in that, in that space too. Like there's so many teams who are trying to get stuff done right now. And if you can just wait and not jump at Terrence Mann in a pick, then I think Brooklyn had an opportunity to play out this market a little bit more, but.

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  Also, they have four fucking picks already. What do they need a fifth pick for? You already have four. What are you doing? Just wait. You're the only team with cap space. We're gonna talk about them later. I have a lot of thoughts on them.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  That's kind of the other part of the LeBron conversation too, is that the Lakers in many ways, although their situation is messy and complicated and they're gonna have to find their way out of it, they are so incredibly lucky that LeBron's situation is coinciding with a market with zero cap space. Like there's no free agent team where LeBron would have turned down his option and then gone there. And that's the only reason we can even talk about like, can they get OG Ananobi? Like they, they should be so lucky again as to get a player like that.

• 44:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a good point. Well, Atlanta's in the mix. I think Atlanta right now on FanDuel, they are

• 44:19Bill Simmons?

  30 to one now. So when we did the draft podcast a week ago,

• 44:25Bill Simmons?

  they were 33 to one to win the East. Now they're 30 to one to win the title. And I think there's, you have New Orleans, I'm sorry, New York, Orlando and Cleveland definitely ahead of them.

• 44:41Bill Simmons?

  I think they're probably four in the East right now. I have them over Detroit, Philly,

• 44:46Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  Milwaukee, Miami, and obviously Indiana and Boston, which brings us to the next thing. It's official. It seems like Indiana and Boston are doing gap years.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:59Bill Simmons?

  I didn't know with Indiana, obviously no Halliburton for the rest of the year, but they're deep and it seemed like Turner was coming back. They pivoted. I don't blame the pivot. I, I think, I, I see it both ways, but I would rather have the flexibility and the fact that they, this really sneaky situation of them getting their first round pick back before Halliburton got hurt. One of the weirdest stroke of, the Halliburton thing, the worst luck possible.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:26Bill Simmons?

  Getting the pick back a week before, like kind of weirdly lucky. So now if they want, they can just throw away the season and, and getting rid of Myles Turner, I think was a sign. They don't have a center now. They, I guess Nemhard's going to be the point guard, but they, they might not be a playoff team. What would you do if you're Indiana?

• 45:46Speaker 01

  I, here's the, I think it depends on the thinking behind Myles Turner. If the reason you don't bring back Myles Turner is because you value some of the flexibility and honestly, there are good basketball reasons, even for a team that just went to the finals to want to reconsider its center spot in general. Like Myles Turner, a good shooter, like showed himself to be flexible enough, like rolling into kind of mid-range shots, like sealing smalls inside.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Some good defensive stretches.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Definitely some good defensive stretches. And I would say especially in the finals, that was kind of his better end of the floor. But at the same time, like you might want someone who like connects more on screens and frees up Halliburton to drive. You may want someone who's even more of a presence going downhill. Like I think it's fair for the Pacers with everything they have and one of the best passers in the world coming back after his injury, to think about like, how do we, what do we want the future of our team to look like? I think you could probably re-sign Myles Turner and still have all those conversations and debates and, you know, entertain the trade market down the line. What I worry about is that this is a team that has never paid the luxury tax and Myles Turner is basically this contract that would have put them over the tax. And so if like, or sorry, I, I, actually they have, it's just been 20 years, sorry,

• 46:56Speaker 01

  since the Pacers have paid the luxury tax. If that's the reason, after you just went to the finals, miss me with that. Like I'm just not compelled by that as a reason to not bring back Myles Turner.

• 47:08Bill Simmons?

  It just seems like it was a little rich for their blood, whether it was the tax or whatever else. OKC left them alone at the top of the key the whole series. They just did.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  He couldn't shoot.

• 47:18Bill Simmons?

  And he couldn't make a shot. And I told that story after what game four, when they had that, that 86, 76 lead and probably the title in their hands that game. Cause I think if they win game four, they win the thing. And he missed a couple and the guy behind me was like, God, Miles, that's your shot. Like he had this 25 footer at the top of the key. That was his shot for his entire Halliburton run. And he just, it stopped going in. I think that when you think like, uh, it's probably only going to get worse for a big guy as they hit their 30s. They seem like they got spooked. And if you think, all right, this is our gap year. Miles Turner helps them win games. Maybe they, that makes me think they don't want to win games.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Maybe not.

• 48:00Bill Simmons?

  And that's where they've landed. And it also allows them to bring Matheran back, but, um, it's going to be a weird, weird team. They have a lot of equity with their fans. There was a piece with this though, that him going to Milwaukee was really interesting because those teams really dislike each other.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 48:18Bill Simmons?

  That was like, it reminded me a little when Ray Allen, I mean, this was worse when Ray Allen went to Miami and the Celtics had just been through that 2012 Eastern Conference Finals war with them. That was really, really surly and competitive. And then he jumped over there and it wasn't, I never blamed him because they had tried to trade him in February.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Bill Simmons?

  So it's like, all right, we can't play the loyalty card when they, we almost traded him four months ago, but same thing where it's like, yeah. It was like, whoa, you're going to Miami? We hate those guys. And I think the Pacers Bucks is a little bit like that.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:52Bill Simmons?

  So that one surprised me.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Look, that's one area in which, look, the Bucks being more competitive next season, and we'll see how much the Pacers lean into the idea of like really pushing hard to win as many games as possible. But every time those teams play, it's going to be fun. Every time you see Miles Turner in a Bucks jersey, it's, I think it's going to add something a little to the game. And they're going to get Isaiah Jackson back presumably too. Like they put the qualifying offer in on him and he, you know, again, long-term recovery from the torn, he also had a torn Achilles last season, uh, but was a good energy big for them. And if he can be that again, you can start to see how a center rotation would come together. Not one that's as good as the group that just went to the NBA finals, but that's the way it goes.

• 49:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And maybe, I don't know if they've decided on Thomas Bryant yet, but I know he's still a free agent.

• 49:39Bill Simmons?

  Maybe you just try to patch it together with him and Isaiah Jackson and do the math. And like, could these guys give 70% of his stats and 40% of the defense? And we're paying $5 million instead of 25.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Rest assured, they already locked in Tony Bradley. Tony Bradley is going nowhere. He is an Indiana Pacer. Pick up that option. Good job, Tony Bradley.

• 50:00Bill Simmons?

  It'd be funny if Indiana hated Milwaukee so much, they're like, let's, let's let them have Turner and screw their cap with this Dame Lillard thing. Let's, let's send these guys to the pits of hell.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  That would be the light years move. If you're the Indiana Pacers and you're like, you know what?

• 50:14Bill Simmons?

  All time spite move.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  We're, we're not, we're not contending until Tyrese comes back anyway. Let's see where we are in two to three years.

• 50:20Bill Simmons?

  Has any team demolished another team kind of quietly more than Indiana has demolished the Bucks over the last couple of years? If they've stolen, taken their heart and playoff series and now they've stuck them with the terrible cap situation. I just want to say, I, I, we gotta talk about the Boston piece too. I just, the new CBA is just an apocalypse. It's one of the worst things that I can remember in any pro sports league, how the, how it played out this way, where you have good teams basically sabotaging themselves.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:51Bill Simmons?

  Because they're so afraid of these penalties that I don't know who wanted. I don't know who the penalties serve other than the owners as a check and a balance for them not to spend too much money. That seems to be the only positive. But when you have Boston, basically just, you know, I was walking with my daughter the other day. I did, I actually put this on YouTube as a short because we, the Celtics have lost Cornet. And I was talking to her about it and she was, you know, she's, this is the first team she's ever liked. She goes to the games. She just, she doesn't know any better. She thinks these guys are just going to be on the team for 20 years. They lose Porzingis, they lose Drew Holiday, they lose Cornet. I'm like, we're going to lose Al Horford to Golden State. And she's like, I don't understand. I really like these guys.

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  Why do they have to go? And I'm like, I, I don't know. Blame the CBA. I just don't think this is good for anybody to have, to have teams sabotaging themselves to save money. That's a bad place to be in as a league.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  For the solution to the super team free agent movement to be make it basically impossible for contenders to sustain over time feels like a real misallocation of what actually just happened. Like we're solving, we're trying to solve a problem by ultimately crippling the one actual solution is like internal development, teams ability to retain their own players. And the currency basically makes that model prohibitive to the point that yeah, teams like the Celtics are not just incentivized, but there is almost no logical explanation for why they would not take a gap year under these circumstances. Like they need the relief. It opens them. It's really the only way they can sort of rebuild their roster down the line. And so this is what ends up happening. It's like,

• 52:32Speaker 01

  yeah, you're just going to watch a lot of George and Yang. Like it's just going to be what it is in this context. And I hate that that's the incentive structure. I also think there's a lot of teams pretending to be afraid of the apron so that they can make normal cost cutting owner protecting moves to just like not spend as much money. So it's like, it's a little of column A and column B, but column B definitely exists.

• 52:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. But then on the other hand, you have Devin Booker is now eligible to make $75 million a year. It's like, what kind of league are we creating?

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  Shay just signed for the biggest contract in the history of the league, right? I just don't understand it.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  All right. Do you think any of this in terms of like making it impossible for teams to stay intact? Does it suit our like short attention span Tik Tok generation of consciousness? Like if teams are going to just turn over every two years, does that kind of suit the way the world is right now?

• 53:28Bill Simmons?

  It's a good theory.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  I'm not sure it's intentional, but we ended up there.

• 53:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, but that's, I think that's the bigger question. Who's driving this and who ultimately wanted it? Because my theory and what's been told to me over and over again is these are the smaller market teams.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:44Bill Simmons?

  Who are really scared of the Warriors and the Knicks and the Lakers just being able to blow them out of the water, paying crazy money and making them look inadequate because they don't have the same deep pockets, right? So that leads to whatever we landed with this CBA.

• 53:57Bill Simmons?

  But where we really landed was it's impossible to keep.

• 54:01Bill Simmons?

  OKC probably has the best chance with those three guys and how they structured these little $8 million, we give extensions. Our seventh guy is going to make $8 million a year, our ninth guy is going to make $5 million a year, our sixth man is going to make that. And they've just have figured out a way to maybe pull it off. But think about it, they had to have one of the great watershed trades of all time just to be in that position. Where they got all these picks and that and two of them turned out to be Jalen Williams and what was the other one? Oh, and Shay.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:35Bill Simmons?

  Shay comes in it. That's, that's a generational fluke. That's not happening again. So you look at a team like Atlanta and Atlanta looks like they're in awesome shape right now and they did everything right. They're really, really smart. Well, what happens a year from now? They got to pay Trey Young.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 54:52Bill Simmons?

  I think they have to pay Dyson Daniels. They're going to have to pay Reese Shay and they're not going to be able to keep all these guys together. And if like, that's the goal of the CBA, that's fucking idiotic. Celtics gap year, there's no other way around it. I'm surprised they didn't trade Sam Hauser. I thought that was going to be the last piece. Yeah. And I think that's a good contract. I don't know why Detroit wouldn't have traded for Sam Hauser over what they did with Fontenecchio, getting Duncan Robinson back. Why is Duncan Robinson making $16 million a year again? Didn't we already do this?

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Because Malik Beasley is enmeshed in scandal, I think is the reason for that.

• 55:31Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have Sam Hauser at nine or Duncan Robinson at 16?

• 55:36Speaker 01

  I would rather have Sam Hauser personally.

• 55:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't understand that.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  For a team like Detroit, where part of the reason that team is successful and effective is like, there aren't a lot of easy places to just attack. And Sam Hauser is like, you know, he's not an all world defender, but he's a better defender than Duncan Robinson. He's proven to be the kind of guy that when you go at him, he can hold his ground. It's just not going to be the case with Duncan.

• 55:58Bill Simmons?

  And so. I just think he's been so up and down. I like him, but I thought he was going to be like a, like to, some of the guys that got veteran minimums are close, or even Yabaselli getting two for 12, which I thought was a really good signing by the Knicks. So he's worth two for 12, but Duncan Robinson's worth three for 45. Doesn't make sense.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:20Bill Simmons?

  Which leads me to my next thing, the Pistons, who lose Beasley, Hardaway, Fontenecchio and Schroder from last year's team. They added Karis Levert and Duncan Robinson so far.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:35Bill Simmons?

  I thought they had the assets to make a real move, to do something, and they didn't. And I don't even think they went sideways. I think they probably dipped a level, but it felt, and maybe they believe in Ron Holland, maybe they believe in Osair Thompson, Jalen Durin, maybe they don't want to do the big move yet. But if you don't do a big, big move yet, why are you doing this Duncan Robinson contract? I just felt like that's a team that should have aggressively gone after Jalen Brown. And I don't know whether they would have gotten him, but I think that's how they had to think, like you gotta, and maybe Durant didn't want to go there, but that's the other guy you could have thought of.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  I think Jalen Brown, whatever their version of a Siakam trade was that Indiana made a couple of years ago, I think this was the summer to do it. They had weird assets and some cap space and some expirings, and they just didn't do it. And I think they're in a worse place.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  I think they definitely could have made a move like that, to the extent that one was available. Like, maybe Kevin Durant just doesn't want to go to Detroit. They certainly weren't on his shortlist that was released.

• 57:35Bill Simmons?

  Right. Maybe the Celtics didn't want to trade Jalen Brown.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And so maybe it's just a matter of like, the right guy is not available for us at this time. And so even though-

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  Desmond Bain was available.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  He was, but does he level up the Pistons in the way that ultimately I think they want to level up at some point? I don't know that Desmond Bain is a great addition for the Magic. Ultimately, like Detroit is looking for something a little bit different. They are looking for shooting, though. And so I think the reason you get into Duncan Robinson is ultimately because you're losing your two most prolific three-point shooters from last season. I'm assuming Beasley does not come back. I guess we'll see if that's not the case.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  The Beasley stuff is really, did you deep dive some of that about all his financial problems the last five years? It's pretty dark.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  It's quite dark.

• 58:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he comes back.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  I don't think so either. And so if Beasley's out and Tim Hardaway Jr. is out, now you really need someone to just space the floor. And so maybe it turns into a panic signing as opposed to who do we have to trade to get Sam Hauser per se? But I think what they're banking on ultimately is not just like, will Ron Holland take a step? Will, you know, Jalen Duren take a step? It's getting Jaden Ivey back in particular, and him taking a step forward feels like a huge component of this. Plus a sorry. I think there's enough reason with their young guys to think some of those guys are going to take a meaningful step forward and it's going to offset what we're losing with some of these losses over the offseason.

• 58:56Bill Simmons?

  So you wouldn't have traded Tobias Harris and Thompson and Fontenacchio and like four of your firsts for Jalen Brown? Because that probably would have been the trade.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Well, Fontenacchio would have been untouchable for me. I never would have traded him for anybody, including Duncan Robinson.

• 59:10Bill Simmons?

  Of course Miami gets him. I like that guy.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  I think he's gonna do well.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

  Miami's just adding guys that I really like.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Truly.

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  They didn't make my dozen topics I wanted to hit, but I just, they got a Yakushunis in the draft. They turned Duncan and expiring of Fontenacchio. They have the Rozier expiring.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  They do.

• 59:28Bill Simmons?

  They've mobilized some assets that are all expirings for something.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  But they need to continue to mobilize because right now that collection of assets on paper on a depth chart, it does not inspire confidence. But I do like them bringing back Davion Mitchell. I thought he had a really nice, really nice season overall last year with Toronto to start and then coming to Miami, but really, really cool to see him like find his footing in the league.

• 59:56Bill Simmons?

  Do you have any stock?

• 59:57Speaker 01

  I was an early holder, but then I bailed, you know, I bailed when he was having trouble like, you know, beating out third and fourth string Sacramento Kings guards. But you know, I'm back, I'm back on board. I'm looking to invest again.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  One more break and then we got to talk about the thing I'm the most excited to talk about. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes. Yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FDIC. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun.

• 1:01:39Bill Simmons?

  Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. All right. Not the top topic, but my favorite topic. I think the atrocious GM summit might be coming back. Yeah. We have- Who's invited? We have five teams that have just said to the, like, they basically, it's like the American Express black card where they're just like, "Yeah, I'm all in. What are the fees?" We have five teams that are just like, "What are the fees to the atrocious GM summit? Because we'd like to order the deluxe package." So we have Phoenix, obviously. They've ruined their short term and their long term, and nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. So there's one.

• 1:02:24Bill Simmons?

  Okay. We have New Orleans. They're zigging, they're zagging. It's like, here's Kevon Looney, he's gonna play with Jeremiah Fears, who's 13 years old. We're trading next year's unprotected first. We're not in like, you know, the MPJ for Cam Johnson, and you get an asset business where they could have done a better version of the trade with Trey Murphy. They're not doing that. They're trading McCollum, they're getting Jordan Poole back. They're all over the place. Nobody can keep track of it. The league is like, who's running this team? What's happening? Did they know they could protect picks? So there's two.

• 1:03:00Bill Simmons?

  Chicago feels like they're being run by an AI engine that broke. And the only thing they put in was, we don't want to pay the luxury tax. Could you suggest some moves for us?

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:12Bill Simmons?

  And the AI engine was like, trade Lonzo Ball for Isaac Okoro, even though you already have Patrick Williams. Do that. I, can you make any sense of that roster?

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:03:24Bill Simmons?

  What is that roster?

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Well, we're still waiting for the Josh Giddy resigning, which I'm sure is coming at this point. Like, I don't know who else would realistically offer it, be able to offer him a deal that would be competitive. If that turns out to be a really rich, above market contract.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I would be even more at a loss as to what they're doing. And this is a team I already just do not fundamentally understand the motivations of the moves that they make, except that they are pointed pretty squarely at like, can we be the ninth best team in the Eastern Conference perpetually until the day we die?

• 1:03:58Bill Simmons?

  Can we just go 40 and 42 and not pay the luxury tax forever?

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  You know, everyone has a dream and I salute them for committing to theirs.

• 1:04:07Bill Simmons?

  In what world would anyone want to pay $29 million a year for Patrick Williams and Isaac Okoro? But can you imagine doing that in a, in a, in a league where the salary cap, where smart spending has become more important than ever? And this is their idea to do that. And I actually liked Lonzo on that team.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:27Bill Simmons?

  And for Cleveland, that was a godsend. It was like, oh, cool. Now we can let Ty Jerome go and we'll just replace him with Lonzo.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  The most charitable way you could interpret it for the Bulls is we traded for a guy who is just like more healthy and available to play than Lonzo Ball has been. I still, I still like Lonzo Ball better. I still like the guy who actually changes something about your team and the complexion of it versus, as you said, kind of shorter Patrick. You know what? I actually like Isaac Okoro better than Patrick Williams. The pet, I don't know where Patrick Williams fell. I don't know where he fell in your worst contracts draft with Wazowski. I mean, it's a, it's a real doozy. It does not make any sense at all.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  90 million for five years. I don't know who they're competing against.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  And you, you just had to give him the player option. It was very important that you give him the player option.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  And then they had that goofy draft where why didn't they do the Derek Queen trade? They could trade the 12th pick to New Orleans. It got New Orleans as first next year, but they never seemed to do anything that. So they're, they're a must for the atrocious GM summit. That's three teams.

• 1:05:29Bill Simmons?

  Going from Fox and Halliburton to overpaying Dennis Schroder, who I think this is now his eighth team, and I kind of like Dennis Schroder. I don't know if I like him for three years, $48 million or whatever he got.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  And now you just have this expensive roster that,

• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  are you the 11th seed? Are you the 13th seed? What are the things going to happen with this team? Who wants to see all these players together on the same team?

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  And, and there's a lot of like rumored activity around them trying to basically dump Malik Monk in various trades.

• 1:06:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why?

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  I, I don't, I don't really understand, other than there's just like a bunch of guards that they're trying to find minutes, minutes for, including, you know, Devon Carter, who didn't get a fully healthy rookie season. So like, he's going to get a chance to kind of come back and prove something, but this is just like a bad outcome for so many of these guys. Like I, I was really hoping post Bulls that DeMar DeRozan and Zach Levine would get chances with winning teams again. That Zach Levine would go somewhere like Denver and we'd be like, oh my God, this guy really is one of the best shooters in the world. His head is screwed on straight. Like everything is finally clicking for this guy after years and years in, in various wildernesses. Has not happened, clearly. DeMar DeRozan could have held any number of potential contending teams. Instead, he's tasked with like trying to be the third kind of triangulated piece of,

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  first with Fox and Sabonis, now with Levine and Sabonis, like pairings that just like do not work. And anchor you inside the arc at a time when it just does not work in terms of producing high level offense. I, I just, I hope for so much more for so many of these guys, and yet their fate is apparently playing together.

• 1:07:03Bill Simmons?

  It's so weird that they had that, the two seed was all looking good. The Halliburton Sabonis trade, which I disagreed with, but at least like, okay, at least you guys won 48 games. You got some, got some stuff going on. You have a pretty clean salary cap and now it's a mess. They have the third worst odds on FanDuel to win the West. Utah's the worst, Portland's second worst. Sacramento has worse odds than New Orleans and Phoenix. How about that? And they're just, this is not a team that should be like, you know what might help us? Three years, 48 million for Dennis Schroder. I wouldn't do that. Uh, anyway, there are fourth invite.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  I also would not rule out the idea of the Trail Blazers just having a better regular season record than the Kings. That feels fully possible to me.

• 1:07:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I would, I would bet on that. I think Portland's definitely going to be better than them, don't you think?

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  You said they had lower odds, no?

• 1:07:59Bill Simmons?

  You're right. They do have lower odds.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Like, I, I think I might, like, that, that's a, like a proposition that makes sense to me.

• 1:08:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why does Portland have lower odds than Sacramento?

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  I don't really know.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  I kinda like Portland.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  They're gonna be a real-

• 1:08:10Bill Simmons?

  Portland, I think they're gonna be really tough to play. They're gonna be good defensively and-

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Bill Simmons?

  Chemistry will be better than the other, they don't have Aitin. Um, and then the fifth team for the Atrius, so we have Phoenix, we have New Orleans, we have Chicago, we have Sacramento.

• 1:08:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, Brooklyn's gotta go in there. What are you doing, Brooklyn? Can we just go over this for a second?

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Please.

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  You're the only team with cap space.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  It's just you guys. You had, you have the chance to get to like, what, 80, 90 million if you renounce some guys? Nobody else has anything. This is like, this is a gift. You're basically in a fantasy football draft and all of your idiot friends have spent all their money and you have like a hundred dollars left to just go and swoop in and grab everybody. And they don't do that. They basically, they turn the cap space plus Cam Johnson into Michael Porter Jr., Terrence Mann, the 22nd pick in Denver's 2032 first, which is seven years from now. And I promise you, Sean Marks will not be the GM then.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Not to mention the five firsts that they took that I don't think anybody really liked any of them. Brooklyn is like, kind of the stealth people around the league going, what the fuck is going on with that team, team? I don't know what's going on, but this is a team that they could have used that cap space, they could have made a giddy restricted free agent offer, they could have done, you know, tried to steal Kaminga. There's still some good restricted free agents left. Like, they could have tried to screw Philly on Quentin Grimes. Like, use the cap space and we're conversely, here's another, another one I wanted to do tied to this. Like, like, well, we'll talk about them later, but Charlotte, who I think is now doing it the way you should do it, we're like, let me use our cap space.

• 1:09:57Bill Simmons?

  To grab assets and get picks from people and just kind of, we're just kind of collecting. We're here if you want to get rid of your dumb thing you want to get rid of. We'll hoard your stuff. I don't understand Brooklyn at all, do you?

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  I do not. I don't, I mean, look, the shape of the team right now, I don't think was ever going to make a ton of sense. Like, they're kind of still too early in their process, which is not what you want to hear. But given their relative lack of ability to add players outside of free agency, it was just kind of, it was what it was. That said, I don't like the opportunities that we talked about, like using your cap space in that fashion for Terrence Mann does not check out, is not a good use of the market, is not a good way to leverage, kind of the one thing that you have at your disposal. Cam Johnson is another one who we've been talking about for years now as a potential trade target for various teams. Michael Porter Jr. is a really good player to the Denver Nuggets. I think he, a proven champion, a really important part of that run.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  I don't want to diminish what he does or what he did for that team. What does he do for the Brooklyn Nets? Like, is he, is he potentially a part of the next great Nets team? I find it hard to believe that that would be the case. I think it's probably more likely he plays out this season and then I guess is a trade candidate for next year in terms of finding his way to another team.

• 1:11:14Bill Simmons?

  Seventeen million dollars more than Cam Johnson, which is a crucial piece of this.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Another crucial piece of it. So like, they don't have a roster that makes sense. They don't have a future that makes sense. They don't have a lot of prospects who it's like, oh, I really believe in that one guy in particular. And that's, that's kind of the worst place to be as a franchise when none of those things are clicking.

• 1:11:32Bill Simmons?

  And then on top of it, it all starts with that weird trade they made to get their picks back. Where they paid a premium price and traded the Phoenix picks away. Which there's just no scenario for Phoenix to be good over the next couple of years and instead banked on themselves to suck.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Well, is there a scenario for the Nets to be good?

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, but last year they hired a coach who made them so competitive, they had to like start turning into major league. And they end up with the eighth pick instead of a top five. So this is the year that they're going all in on. We only have four tanking teams.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:05Bill Simmons?

  That's going to be one of them, but I just like, we have a news as we're talking that Mike Brown is officially the Knicks coach, which we were expecting for a while. So Mike Brown and Rick Brunson will now be running the Knicks.

• 1:12:22Bill Simmons?

  I disagree with everything Brooklyn's done. I didn't like their draft. I didn't like how they use their cap space. I would have gone after Kaminga. I just feel like Kaminga sitting there.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 1:12:32Bill Simmons?

  But do, even if it's like one year, 25 million, like, why not? Like, maybe there's something really there. I just like, why am I doing Terrence Mayan over Kaminga? So I get the 20 second pick? So there's five. Can you make a case for Milwaukee is the sixth after that Dame Lillard trade? If we need, I feel like I need seven teams to have an official atrocious GM summit.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  To hit the quorum.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Is Milwaukee invited now? After the Kuzma and Dame Lillard stretch, but also the Dame Lillard trade itself?

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Dame. So you would invite them?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  The Dame trade, I would have done. I would have traded for Damian Lillard in the first place. I still see the logic in that. Like, that one you can sell me on. Kuzma, I hated that deal. We were covering it with Waz at the deadline pod, the moment it happened, hated it.

• 1:13:25Bill Simmons?

  Waz was on an island. He was on Kuzma Island, and now Kuzma Island has been overrun by the ocean.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is marooned. We will not be sending the rescue boat for Waz on Kuzma Island. Sorry, sometimes you do it to yourself.

• 1:13:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  This one is tough, because I think it really does depend on what you think the brief for that job is. If you're the general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks, is your job to retain Giannis at all costs? To retain one of the best players in the world, one of the best players in the history of the league at all costs?

• 1:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  Or is it to care about what your team is going to look like three years from now? I think different general managers, and especially in different markets, see that job differently and see that brief differently. And so, from our perspective, this is a rash, crazy, just like completely unprecedented and insane move in terms of the amount of money that they've just added to their books that will be completely dead. But if it works in terms of keeping Giannis, like, maybe the results just edge you out of the atrocious GM conversation.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like they're a fun add. We could argue about whether they did a good job or not. Yeah.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, just get them a boxed lunch, put them at the table, and we'll have a conversation.

• 1:14:32Bill Simmons?

  I would love, as my last team, I would love to invite the Toronto Raptors. If we need to get to seven. The Brandon Ingram trade seems hilarious now.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  They trade a first round pick so they could acquire Brandon Ingram and then give him a 38 this year, 40 and then 41. So basically three for 120.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  And now we've seen Julius Randall sign for 33 and Nas Reed signed for 25 and some guys even going Myles Turner around 25. And I think as an asset, he's in that range so that he's overpaid. They're paying quickly 32.5 million a year?

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  They're paying RJ Barrett 27.7, 29. They're paying Pirtle 19 and 19 and then just gave him an extension for 26, 28 and 30. And then they gave Scotty Barnes a max. Scotty Barnes is gonna be making 51 million in the 2030 season. They've somehow managed to overpay their top five players by 20%. And I think that earns them an invite.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  They have somehow wound up on on Spohtrack's like total cap allocations in terms of the commitments for that roster. The Toronto Raptors have the 12th most expensive roster in the league right now. They are just below the Denver Nuggets. They are just above the Sixers, the Magic, the Kings, we were just talking about the Clippers, the Rockets, the Wolves. Like this is a wildly expensive team for a lot of guys I kind of like to sometimes like to like. Like there's no one who you're over the moon about save for. I would say like Scotty Barnes is long-term potential. I am bought in on. I think Scotty Barnes is already a very good player, will be even better than that. But as soon as you start making those sorts of financial commitments to Emmanuel quickly, a guy who you know, it's like, oh, I was really, I really liked him as a Nick. And then all of a sudden you have to pay him

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  $30 million. That's a different thing. As soon as you're importing Brandon Ingram to bail out an offense that had nothing going for it last season, you've kind of lost me. And frankly, I think you've lost the plot a little bit. And so there's a lot of good players here, but they're not good players that I think make a lot of sense together. I say this, look, Raptors fans, I know the late season defense really popped. I know it worked really well. I know there's a vision here for a thing that could happen.

• 1:16:45Bill Simmons?

  There's some late season, but look at the Raptors buzz?

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  There was a little bit of like, oh, sneaky like top 10 defense late in the season. Kind of push. Um, I don't, I don't think that's like a lasting foundational element of this roster that you can just sort of hang your hat on. Like this is a team that's to go in and prove it all over again and prove that it can be something cohesive that can actually have any kind of results whatsoever. And for that to be one of the more expensive rosters in the league, I think is a little bit crazy.

• 1:17:13Bill Simmons?

  This team had two playoff guys that we know are playoff guys because we watched them in the playoffs, play each other in OG Ananobe and Pascal Siakam.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:17:23Bill Simmons?

  They traded both of them. They turned Ananobe into quickly and RJ Barrett and they turned Siakam into like a number one pick and some crap that they then turned into Brandon Ingram, who I don't know is a playoff guy. Um, whatever their roster is. So right now in FanDuel, these are teams that have better odds than the one in the East. Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston, don't understand that. Philly, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indiana, and then Toronto. So they have the 10th best odds to win the East and I'll book those bets from anybody. Anyway, that's our atrocious GM summit.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Well, you know what's crazy about this summit is that almost all those teams have already recently fired general managers and you're trying to like, Messiah, he's just out the door or about to be like, some of those got fired three months ago and the new people who have come in have already taken up the mantle. Really a true passing of the torch moment in terms of like, you know what? We're just going to keep the seat for the New Orleans Pelicans and one person like we're just going to, one is going to follow the other.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  I'll be quick on the rest of this. So Cleveland didn't overreact. Um, congrats to them. I think they're the East favorites. They basically turned Ty Jerome and a Coro and Alonso. Other than that, trust the process. I don't think teams do this enough. We talked about, Russell and I talked about on Sunday night, like in the eighties and the nineties, when you're doing when the title was like, oh my God, what are we in the like the Lakers, like trading Byron Scott, like they wouldn't have done that. And Cleveland didn't overreact. I think they're still the favorites in the East. I don't know. Are they technically the favorites? Yeah. Um, they would be the team if my life depended on, and I would pick. And I think they're fine. And they just need Garland to be healthy. And you know, they got, they got sucker punched in the playoffs and it was embarrassing, but maybe ultimately a

• 1:19:15Bill Simmons?

  good thing for them. Minnesota and the Knicks remain legit contenders, which I wasn't positive would be the case as we headed into the offseason, right? And we don't need to belabor this, but Minnesota kept Randall and Nas and the Knicks got Clarkson and yeah, Busseli.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:19:31Bill Simmons?

  They finally have a coach. I would say, would you agree with this? It's Minnesota, the Knicks, Houston and Cleveland, one level below KC.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  And Denver.

• 1:19:41Bill Simmons?

  As our next four. Oh, and Denver. Yeah, yeah, my bad.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:43Bill Simmons?

  And Denver. So that's the next five after, after OKC with OKC levitating above everybody.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:19:52Bill Simmons?

  Minnesota, Knicks, Houston, Denver, Cleveland. I think that's the next five.

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  I think OKC is levitating above everybody, but it is cool that Houston and Denver are, are taking a run, that they are, that they are adding pieces, that they are gathering momentum, that they're saying like, like, we, we think there's an opportunity to challenge even a team as great as the Thunder. I, that's, that's an exciting thing for the league.

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, what's interesting is FanDuel, and this is betting behavior, right? It's not them putting the odds, they're just trying to get bets, but they have as the top five, Oklahoma City, Knicks, Cleveland, Houston, Denver, but Minnesota's not six. They have Orlando with better odds and then the Lakers, which is just Laker fans betting them, but they have Minnesota at 17 to one and Denver's at nine to one, Orlando's at 12 to one, but so the betting public doesn't seem to believe in Minnesota in the same way, but I, I think keeping Randall and Nas and kind of the nucleus of what they had, I do think they should be in the conversation, right? That's not crazy.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  I mean, Vegas just doesn't love Terrence Shannon like we do, you know?

• 1:20:52Bill Simmons?

  True. Maybe they, the Luke Arzour thing, maybe they got a little scared off.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  You know, it's, they, they lost some really critical pieces there, but honestly, losing Nikhil Alexander Walker is a real thing and one of Terrence Shannon. Like honestly, it would be great if Jalen Clark could kind of round out his game a little bit. It would be great if like the Dillingham minutes turned into anything at all.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, they have to for what they gave up. He, he's gonna have to play next year.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  But that's a back to back Western Conference, like, uh, finals team. Like, to just write them off, I think would be insane. Like they, they did good work in retaining what they had.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  I have those five. I think Atlanta and Orlando are kind of lurking as something and then there's a couple more in there, but, uh, two more restricted free agency seems like it's dead or in a coma. We don't even have a Giddy or commit, like whatever they did with the CBA, they made restricted free agency impossible. So now. You basically have to get your deal done a year before you become a restricted free agent.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  Because you don't want to be in the position of, now, maybe next year, more teams will have cap space, but the fact that nobody made a Giddy offer or Cam Thomas offer, I thought was pretty crazy.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Is it crazy that nobody made a Cam Thomas offer?

• 1:22:04Bill Simmons?

  Just like for the way the history of the league is, like, teams, year after year, be like, oh, Sacramento offered Cam Thomas three for 50, but none of those deals are out there.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  If we don't see Cam Thomas in a Sacramento Kings jersey at some point, like,

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  It'll happen.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Then AI has fully taken over. But I think the one that,

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  Keep my fingers crossed.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  The one I'm kind of watching is Quentin Grimes, because yes, like, a lottery team making a big run at a Josh Giddy or Jonathan Kaminga, like, that's historically something that's happened. Quentin Grimes is in this range where he's like a good rotation player who could help a bunch of different teams, but his market is limited artificially by that restriction. Would not shock me to see him take the qualifying offer and then go next summer and be able to sign with the team of his choosing. Like, obviously, it was really good for Philly. I think it will be really good for them again.

• 1:22:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna end with my 12th one as on a positive.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:53Bill Simmons?

  The Charlotte Hornets, new owner, new coach, new front office, a perennial shitshow. You could always rely that, just an automatic invite to the atrocious GM summit every year.

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  And now they're basically, they're, they're doing AI Sam Presti.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  This is an AI-heavy episode, I gotta say.

• 1:23:15Bill Simmons?

  Kind of playing the, the Presti hits, right? It's like, it seems like their mode is, what would Sam Presti do? And that's how you end up, you trade Nurkic, you get Sexton in a good second.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:26Bill Simmons?

  You trade Mičić for Connaughton in two seconds, knowing he's gonna retire. Yeah, sure, we'll take Connaughton for a year, just adding picks. You trade Mark Williams for the 29th pick in the draft and a 2029 first. During the season, they traded a Koji and Nick Richards for a Koji in three seconds. And then, early in this, in this whole thing, they traded Lowry, or Rozier for Lowry in Miami's 2027 first. So, they're doing what a bad team should do.

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  It's like, we'll grab assets here. But now I look at their team and they got LaMelo, they have Miles Bridges, who was good last year, Knippel. They they have Brandon Miller coming back.

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:08Bill Simmons?

  Somehow the same wrist injury as Jalen Williams who played through the season that, you know, just tanking team versus team trying to win the title. But I like where they are and I think that it looks like a smart team to me. And now one more shitty season, one more good draft pick, and then maybe something's there, right?

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I think a lot of it's going to bank on LaMelo and how much you believe in him. I I kind of do. Like, I'm I'm still a LaMelo guy. I'm still a believer. I think you have to see it. But ultimately, you're right. It's like the function of like, are you running this team well? It's like, what are the opportunities you actually have? And if you're a team like the Hornets, they are making a lot with those opportunities. They're leveraging them really, really well, given where they are, given the fact that like, free agents are not going to be clamoring to come sign with the Hornets at bargain rates. So you draft well, you get as many picks as you can, you take on trades like the Connaughton trade, for example, and and you live to fight another day and you try to consolidate some of this talent ultimately. And like, Brandon Miller being good is really important to the Hornets at this point. Like, he he needs to pop and he needs to be able to like, stay on the court and be healthy.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  And when he's done, like, when he's been on the court, you can really see it. Like, you can see the outline of a really effective two-way wing player. But he's also got to do it. It really is that kind of roster through and through where, yeah, I don't believe in the five-man, eight-man rotation that they they're going to have on the court next season, but I believe in kind of the direction that they're going, which has not been the case lately.

• 1:25:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think the league's noticing like, oh, man, we don't have a Patsy over in Charlotte anymore. This will be like much we talked about with Trey Young. This will be the kind of, what do we have with LaMelo? Is this somebody we should be building around or not? That's all I got. Is there anything I missed that you cared about for the for the summer? I feel like we hit everything.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  I think we hit the biggest stuff.

• 1:25:55Bill Simmons?

  So it sounds like the thing you're the most interested in is what how this LeBron situation plays out.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm fascinated. Just because, look, we've already got had the start to a summer where

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  All NBA guard got waved and stretched out of nowhere so that a team that had no room could all of a sudden have tons of room like, let's just get wild and crazy with it. You know, like let's, I have no idea where the LeBron market can go. Right now, it looks like there's only two or three teams that make sense. Maybe that won't, maybe that won't be the case a week from now, a month from now, three months from now. I've, I have no idea how long it will stretch on, but good Lord, the Lakers are in a weird place. Like this is such, such, such a clusterfuck for them.

• 1:26:34Bill Simmons?

  They're in a weird place, but also in a pretty good place because they have a new owner and they have Luka Doncic. So long-term, great.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  Short-term, you're not a contender.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  You're not.

• 1:26:43Bill Simmons?

  It's not happening.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  And meanwhile, in Dallas, like I, I have seen the vision and it is giving me a continued migraine, like bringing in D'Angelo Russell as rent grade Kyrie. I, what, what are you doing?

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  Did, was not a fan of that.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Why? Why?

• 1:26:58Bill Simmons?

  Not a fan. That was not great. Uh, what TV show are you obsessed with right now?

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Uh, none, unfortunately, because we are, we have a presumed innocent shaped hole in our lives. Like we, I don't know where the summer schlock went, but it's not here and I'm, I'm really sad about it. So.

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  At least we have Trainwreck Poop Cruise. Finally.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Well, what are you talking about?

• 1:27:19Bill Simmons?

  On Netflix, Poop Cruise.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  Okay, pitch me on Poop Cruise. What's going on with Poop Cruise?

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  A show called Trainwreck and they did an hour-long episode about the Carnival Boat Cruise. Where the toilets overflowed and everybody was stepping in shit. And it's a riveting hour.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  You know what? I'm not up on the latest poops. I gotta, I gotta get caught up on that.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  What, what's weird is the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns were on the, on the boat and a couple of the other teams, Sacramento Kings. Uh, Rob Moni, great to see you as always. Thanks.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, Bill.

• 1:27:47Bill Simmons?

  All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching, just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary.

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27. We just had one of the craziest off seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K because every 2K season can be one of the craziest off seasons. The whole league shifted in real life. It could shift to an NBA 2K27. The best place to compete with these new look rosters and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all of their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA finals if you want, because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises.

• 1:28:52Bill Simmons?

  You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of NBA 2K27 right now. All right, my dad's here. We just had to say an official farewell to the 2024 world champion Boston Celtics. I don't know if we've talked to you. I don't think we've talked to you since the Jason Tatum went down and all that stuff. The last time we talked was after game two of the Knicks series. You're paying full boat for your season tickets this year. And now Drew Holiday and Porzingis and Jaylen Brown and Al, not Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum and Al Horford will not be on the team.

• 1:29:39Speaker 02

  It's, you know, I really thought we had a three year window. And I thought that the owners were going to be willing to pay the luxury tax. And maybe if Tatum didn't get hurt, that's what would have happened. But I fully understand the new owners, Bill Chisholm, and with Tatum out the whole year, we're not going to be a contender. So I understand that Porzingis, he had only one year left in his contract. I understand the holiday because he had three years left at his age, and we're not going to be a contender. I really hope that they would re-sign Cornet and.

• 1:30:23Speaker 02

  And Al Horford, but doesn't look like that's happening.

• 1:30:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Horford's going to Golden State.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'm reading. But so next year is going to be, you know, we had a great championship year. This year was exciting until it wasn't. It, you roll with the punches. You and I have talked a lot of times about all the dead years in between championships, but you still, you still go, you still support your team. You hope that they'll be better. Am I looking forward to next year? Not at all.

• 1:30:59Speaker 02

  And I suspect your daughter and whomever will be going and sitting in my seats frequently.

• 1:31:07Bill Simmons?

  But we have no, we have no center. And we're missing one of the five best guys in the league.

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  And our new shooting guard is one of the worst defenders in the league.

• 1:31:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'll be interested to see what you think of Anthony Simons because you're not a league pass guy, especially in the with the West Coast teams. So I don't, I don't think you've seen him that much.

• 1:31:26Speaker 02

  I, I saw, I actually went to the Portland game and I saw him and he did very well against us, actually. We, his shooting was excellent the night that he played us. I, I don't remember defense because I wasn't paying attention for that, but, but you know, there's so many rumors now that he's going to be packaged. So, so because from what I understand, they're, they're now a little bit above the second apron again. So somebody has to go.

• 1:31:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I thought they would trade Hauser and I was surprised. Rob Hohny and I just talked about, I thought he might go to Detroit, but they ended up doing Duncan Robinson instead. But I still feel like Hauser is probably going to get traded would be my guess.

• 1:32:07Speaker 02

  You know, or who's the other guy we got from Atlanta?

• 1:32:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Niang. Yeah, one of those two.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  You know, their salaries are pretty close.

• 1:32:16Bill Simmons?

  Hauser's better though. He's a better player.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'd rather keep Hauser and trade the other guy. If there's a market for him.

• 1:32:24Bill Simmons?

  I was excited for the other guy because to hear you try to pronounce his name all year was exciting. Where did you land on?

• 1:32:31Speaker 02

  Well, as you noticed 20 seconds ago, I didn't pronounce his name.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  Do you want to give it a whirl?

• 1:32:38Speaker 02

  No, I'm not. I'm not looking to.

• 1:32:41Bill Simmons?

  Georges Niang?

• 1:32:42Speaker 02

  What's his first name?

• 1:32:44Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was Georges.

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:32:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's called George, but George Niang.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  No, our new guy, first name George. I think they'll probably, he's a possibility to head out. They don't need much to get under the second apron.

• 1:33:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm not worried about it. They also, they don't have to do it until February. So even if they're a little bit over heading in there, they could still. It's going to be a weird team. I mean, you and I had the same concerns about holiday in the playoffs last year.

• 1:33:16Speaker 02

  He lost a step. There's no doubt about it. He couldn't stop. Maybe nobody could stop Brunson, but he certainly was not able to stay in front of him.

• 1:33:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  I don't understand Tillman. I don't know why he's still on the team. He brought nothing at all. I understand we have no centers, but I'd be looking to bring somebody else in here.

• 1:33:41Bill Simmons?

  And I think that's how they get under the tax. If you trade Tillman, you attach a second round pick to it and somebody just takes the last trips because it's a veteran minimum deal, basically.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  I just read an article about us having interest in Lillard.

• 1:33:55Bill Simmons?

  Damon Lillard?

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  I mean, his whole salary is being paid for the next two years, right?

• 1:34:04Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  Can you see him on our team next year when hopefully Tatum and Jalen Brown are helping?

• 1:34:11Bill Simmons?

  He wouldn't help with the defense. I'll tell you that much. It would be kind of like when we had Dana Barrows 30 years ago. Just somebody coming in and shooting some threes. To me, it's, I think he's going to be in LA or Portland. I don't think we have actual interest in him. The big thing, we talked, Rob Mahoney and I talked about if Detroit had made a run at Jalen, would the Celtics have considered it? Were the Celtics considering Jay? They're not going to say anything. Nothing leaks out of the Boston things, but were they considering this would be the year to make the Jalen trade if you were going to do it?

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  Well, you and I talked about it before Tatum's injury.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  If if we had gotten bounced out by the Knicks, which would still would have been possible, even if he wasn't healthy, Tatum, would Brown have been the one they moved on from? And after him, after watching awful games from him in the playoffs.

• 1:35:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, he was hurt, though. It came out after the fact that he had a torn meniscus. So I don't think I really don't think he was healthy.

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I understand that.

• 1:35:22Bill Simmons?

  You know what's funny about you and Jalen Brown? You've just been watching him for nine years. Yeah, the thought of an offense revolving around him is going to be hard for you in your late 70s.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Well, I've had these guys over the years that have driven me crazy. Tony Allen drove me crazy. Marcus Mark drove me crazy. Jalen Brown, Jalen Brown, he can't dribble, can't make three throws. He's, he's a turnover machine. He's a black hole. And sometimes he's great. I don't know what to make of it.

• 1:35:53Bill Simmons?

  I remember Rick Roby was another one way back when that drove you crazy. Rick Roby would come in, just miss two footers. And then we traded him for Dennis Johnson.

• 1:36:02Speaker 02

  Well, when you've been in a season to go of what 52 years, I have a list.

• 1:36:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  I don't want to go through the list. I kind of went through it a little bit right there.

• 1:36:14Bill Simmons?

  One of your, one of your favorite guys to complain about was Todd Day. Remember that? What was it? One Todd Day season?

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  Well, Todd Day.

• 1:36:22Bill Simmons?

  We were terrible, though.

• 1:36:23Speaker 02

  Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe. I mean,

• 1:36:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, those are bad ones.

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  But some of those guys are bad because lack of effort. Others are bad just because they they make so many mistakes.

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, Jalen's a weird one because he really is one of the best 20 players in the league. But if you catch him in the wrong night or the wrong quarter, he becomes the most frustrating guy.

• 1:36:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, you could possibly have. And then all of a sudden, he's awesome again.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  And I like him as an individual. I think he's extremely bright. I like what he has to say. It's just some nights, he doesn't have it. And it's tough to sit there.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  I hope they keep him. I'm on the record. I would love Tatum and Brown, especially now that they're able to get out of this luxury tax hell for a year.

• 1:37:08Speaker 02

  There is one more thing I would like to bring up that.

• 1:37:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  Okay, we have this non-contending team. Maybe we're going to be fifth to sixth seed. Maybe fourth, I don't know.

• 1:37:20Bill Simmons?

  No, we won't be in the top four.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  We have a coach who's gonna have to coach this year.

• 1:37:28Bill Simmons?

  Uh oh.

• 1:37:29Speaker 02

  You know, I, I think we won the championship based on some extremely great players and

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  and, and he, he did fine. This year, the New York series was a disaster coaching wise. And next year, maybe we'll really see great coaching with a team that overachieves.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 1:37:58Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like you've demoted him to the second row again.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  No, I, I'm not yet. Not yet.

• 1:38:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you kept the seat open for him.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, we talked a lot about the, those first two Knicks games since they happened, which is when they lost the Knicks series and especially after watching the Indiana Knicks series, when Indiana is just pushing the pace, pushing the pace.

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:38:21Bill Simmons?

  Trying to use Towns and Brunson against the Knicks, which worked. And then we were going back to us walking the ball up and shooting threes with four seconds left in the shot clock, which was like, it was a godsend for the Knicks, taking 34 threes in the second half of game one. And it's like, literally the one thing the Knicks needed us to do, we did. And you were like, well, we have a coach. Where was he?

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I was in, you have 20-point leads in both of those games and you keep walking the ball up and shooting threes and no timeouts and the players don't change their pace. And there was a lack of strategy and yeah, did that upset me? Of course it did. I'm not the only one.

• 1:39:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Speaker 02

  So I don't know. It's gonna take a pretty good coaching job this year to get us into the fifth seed. Don't you think?

• 1:39:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't see any way they're a top five seed because I think Detroit's probably above them too. And then you move into that Toronto Miami kind of group.

• 1:39:25Speaker 02

  But we can't be, we can't be finished with our moves. We have no center.

• 1:39:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, so we have Kada and we have Luke Garza, who I think you're gonna like.

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  You know, Luke Garza, I liked him in college. I remember you and I before that draft talking about him because he was the college player of the year and

• 1:39:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Speaker 02

  You know, he's the typical college center who did very well. And then he gets to the pros and he has no three point shot and he's not

• 1:39:55Bill Simmons?

  He got buried down in Minnesota. They had no, yeah, he didn't get to play.

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  Well, he's not quite tall enough either. He's not seven feet tall and

• 1:40:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:04Speaker 02

  But the group that we have now cannot sustain a whole season. I don't know what, how, what move they make. Maybe there's no move. Maybe this is it.

• 1:40:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't think, the only thing I could see them doing is a Simons trade for somebody who's cheaper, you know, or it's just something where they shave four or five million bucks off and Simon isn't, Simons isn't expiring, something like that. I don't see anything else other than sticking somebody with Tillman and giving them a pick to take the contract off.

• 1:40:41Speaker 02

  But I'm talking about a center. I mean, I know Clint Capella.

• 1:40:45Bill Simmons?

  There are no centers. The Lakers can't find a center, much less us. You wouldn't do, if we signed Deandre Ayton, I think you would, that would it would be assisted living time. You'd drive you right in there. You wouldn't be able to handle it. Talk about like no effort, guys.

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:00Bill Simmons?

  Portland paid him to go away.

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  No, he's not on my list, but.

• 1:41:06Speaker 02

  Or Lopez, I would have taken a flyer on it. He gives a hundred percent.

• 1:41:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that was two for 18. We didn't have that.

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  We would have had it if we traded houses or just or trade, you know, we, we, you could have manipulated it to bring in a center like that for a two-year period.

• 1:41:27Bill Simmons?

  Chris Boucher, Larry Nance signed. Yeah, there's no centers left. Yanniselli would have been fun ironically as, as a small ball center, but the Knicks, Knicks took him.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  Ironically, he would, what did he get?

• 1:41:40Bill Simmons?

  Two for 12.

• 1:41:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay. Two for 12. We just signed these two Minnesota guys who stink for a total of 11 million.

• 1:41:49Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if they stink yet. They weren't getting PT. They might be, you, you, you don't trust Brad Stevens? Don't be surly.

• 1:41:59Speaker 02

  Well, when you and I talk in January about these two guys in Minnesota, remember what I had to say?

• 1:42:06Bill Simmons?

  Listen, I think you're gonna like Josh Bernard. He's like a high-energy guy.

• 1:42:11Bill Simmons?

  You like, you usually got like guys like this. He's like a really tries hard offensive rebounds, flying to the basket guy. He's your kind of guy. I don't know if you'll like Garza.

• 1:42:19Speaker 02

  He's like Hugo. He's a high-energy guy.

• 1:42:23Bill Simmons?

  Hugo. This is rough. So we have that. We have the Red Sox. Do you feel better about the Devers trade or no?

• 1:42:32Bill Simmons?

  He isn't really hit for the Giants since they made the trade.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  You know, it's, it's a very strange place to be. We have no four, no four hitter. Anthony's starting to hit a little bit.

• 1:42:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47Speaker 02

  I never wanted Devers to fail in San Francisco. I just, I just don't understand how it all fell apart like it did. And he was our best hitter. So we lost five straight games and I think we scored like five runs or something.

• 1:43:05Speaker 02

  I don't wish him ill.

• 1:43:09Speaker 02

  But I wish we had got more in trade. I wish we had gotten a hitter back.

• 1:43:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  You know, and they had.

• 1:43:17Bill Simmons?

  What's the mood of the of the city with the Red Sox these days?

• 1:43:20Speaker 02

  I I think nobody, I think they're, if you want to have a nice night out, eat a hot dog, people go to the game. But nobody's expecting them to do anything. There's too many, too many teams ahead of them in the playoff race.

• 1:43:34Bill Simmons?

  And people, the owners, that's that that part's not going great either.

• 1:43:37Speaker 02

  Well, you know, that's a long since since we went in 2018. The owners have kind of, you know this, we talked about it, their philosophy totally changed. They spent a lot of money in Liverpool.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  The players over there, but it's like they're very happy. We have the highest ticket prices in baseball, Major League Baseball, for for a product that's subpar. And they're relying so much on the youngsters. But we don't have a power hitter coming out. In a lot of these, Anthony's not a power hitter. Meyer's not a power hitter.

• 1:44:15Bill Simmons?

  I like, Meyer's really good. I've actually enjoyed watching them, even though every five days, Bueller comes in and gives up like eight, I mean, he's one of the worst pitchers we've ever had. Like, to the point you feel bad for him. Like, it's a, it's really rare we're starting pitchers where I feel bad for the guy I'm watching.

• 1:44:34Speaker 02

  Well, I read two articles on him this week, and it's interesting. The article in the Globe today was about him, and Cora is keeping him in rotation. And the other article I read was, they're hoping he's a trade chip at the deadline. I think they're keeping him in in the rotation. If he has one good start.

• 1:44:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Speaker 02

  They trade him right away, you know?

• 1:44:57Bill Simmons?

  So they're gonna assume that the team they're trading him to didn't see his last 10 starts?

• 1:45:01Speaker 02

  Well, maybe.

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  He's, it's.

• 1:45:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, Giolito, Giolito got shelled like two, three starts ago, but other than that, he's been okay the last seven, eight starts.

• 1:45:14Speaker 02

  No, he's been okay. They've really had disappointments with Bell and obviously how is not even back yet and getting lit up in the minor leagues. You know, he made the All-Star team last year and everything fell apart. It's hard to understand that one.

• 1:45:33Bill Simmons?

  Tough time for the Red Sox and then the Bruins, the trade Marsh and he goes and wins the cup with Florida and then resigns with them. But they got the B C kid. You were excited about that.

• 1:45:44Speaker 02

  This year I was excited about it. The kid they took last year and they passed on, they took the kid that's about 12 feet tall, which is a little far and had the terrible freshman year at B C. They passed on some pretty good players in that draft. This one, they lucked out. They really did. I would, aren't you shocked that Marshan, who's 38 years old, got a six-year contract?

• 1:46:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think they do it so that it allows them to, yeah, you're basically the first three years and then.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  So it's front loaded or?

• 1:46:15Bill Simmons?

  No, I just think he's probably playing two, three more years, but you pay him for six and then if he retires, you get, it seems like there's some short-term cap benefits.

• 1:46:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm glad for him. He earned it. He earned it. It's so hard, though. He was our captain. He was the guy saluting everybody after the game as they went to the gate. It's hard to see that he left.

• 1:46:42Bill Simmons?

  So the team that's the most encouraging right now out of the four is probably the Pats. Yeah.

• 1:46:47Speaker 02

  Patriots, because they haven't started yet and we have, we have high hopes, don't we? I do.

• 1:46:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was when I was able to make bets in Indiana on Fanduel, I made a bunch of Pats bets. I bet on Vrabel for coach of the year. I bet on the over nine and a half wins. I bet on them to win the division. I'm all in on this team.

• 1:47:11Speaker 02

  Well, the other thing is, we talked about it last year with Washington. You know, they got Daniels at a poor year, so they got one of the easiest schedules. Therefore, we have one of the easiest schedules this year. We should, we should have a chance to 10 wins and then you make the playoffs.

• 1:47:29Bill Simmons?

  New coach, easy schedule. We have the QB. They did some good free agent signings.

• 1:47:34Speaker 02

  Not just a new coach, but actually a coach, a coach who knows how to coach. That last year coaching staff was just an abomination, actually two years in a row, three years.

• 1:47:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's been funny. We were saying this as it was happening, but now that they've had the mini camps and stuff. And even the players are like, wow, it's nice to have a coaching staff again, like they're like these little digs left and right. It's hilarious.

• 1:48:00Speaker 02

  Well, the other thing was last year, a lot of players were speaking to the press, bad mouthing the team and the coaching staff. Vrabel's not going to allow that.

• 1:48:11Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:48:12Speaker 02

  I mean, he has a player do that, that play is gone and they have to do that in this league.

• 1:48:20Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:48:20Bill Simmons?

  All right. So it sounds like the Pats are number one.

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:48:24Bill Simmons?

  And you're deep down, are you holding, you holding out hope for the, the Celts kind of hang around and then Tatum comes back in March and.

• 1:48:33Speaker 02

  It's possible.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  I mean, they already are showing and working out. They had a picture in the Globe today.

• 1:48:44Bill Simmons?

  I saw it.

• 1:48:45Speaker 02

  In meeting Hugo, he and Hugo setting up a little relationship. I'm happy about it.

• 1:48:52Bill Simmons?

  What TV shows are you watching now that sports has gone to hell?

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  Well, you and I, when I was out in LA last week, we watched the

• 1:49:02Bill Simmons?

  The Netflix show.

• 1:49:04Speaker 02

  What's your?

• 1:49:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, John Q.

• 1:49:06Speaker 02

  No, not John.

• 1:49:07Bill Simmons?

  Whatever. Department Q.

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  Department Q. That was really, that was really well done.

• 1:49:15Speaker 02

  Well, I haven't watched much. We just got back from vacation yesterday. As you, as you know.

• 1:49:20Bill Simmons?

  Keep me, keep me posted on your TV. You got, you'll go see F1 in the theater.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  I'm looking forward to that. Is it in, in the theater now?

• 1:49:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:29Speaker 02

  Okay. The other one I hadn't seen was Ballerina. I know it didn't get great reviews, but it's my, my kind of movie. John Wick Ballerina.

• 1:49:38Bill Simmons?

  Weird summer. Celtics headed for an eight seed. Red Sox season already over. Bruins depressing and somehow the Patriots have become the, the team of hope again.

• 1:49:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's hard. When you get to the dog days of July and August, baseball, you really like to watch baseball. It's tough. I guess we're going to watch the rookies, you know, and I hope, I think they, they bring Campbell back up. Somebody told me that.

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then you have your 53rd year of Celtics season tickets. I thought it was really nice of them to give everybody a 20% discount after they got rid of all the, oh, no, they didn't do that.

• 1:50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, well, you know, you, you buy it, you, you agree to get next season tickets in March, end of March.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a contract. Jason Tatum was still playing in March.

• 1:50:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I don't blame the Celtics. They didn't know what was going to happen, but I'm glad.

• 1:50:34Bill Simmons?

  They could throw, maybe throw some, some free drinks for everybody a couple times.

• 1:50:40Speaker 02

  Harry, now we're going to get a discount based on the.

• 1:50:42Bill Simmons?

  No, there's no way.

• 1:50:46Bill Simmons?

  There's gonna be some grim nights. There's gonna be like some Celtics, Washington, Celtics, Charlotte, Celtics, Utah games where the tickets will be about, I mean, we haven't been in a situation like this with the Celtics since probably the year before Marcus, right?

• 1:51:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:03Bill Simmons?

  That was like the last, the last bad team they had was over 10 years ago. I don't know if this team's gonna be bad. They still have Jalen, who's still a top 20 guy. They still have White. Simons will be able to score. They still have Pritchard. You know, they'll, they'll be able to shoot threes.

• 1:51:18Speaker 02

  I'm not worried about the bill because I had emailed the Celtics last week that I have a new address and I gave your address to send the bill.

• 1:51:26Bill Simmons?

  All right. All right, Dad. Good to see you. Enjoy the summer. Good seeing you last week.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  Hey, take care.

• 1:51:33Bill Simmons?

  All right. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal as well. Don't forget, new rewatchables went out Monday night after hours and we got Jaws 2 coming in a week and I'm going to be back 99% positive. I'm going to be back on Sunday with Rusillo unless something crazy happens. Enjoy the July 4th stretch here. Have a great time. I'll see you on Sunday night.

• 1:52:11Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy

• 1:52:55Bill Simmons?

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