Lakers-Warriors Takeaways, Wilt Chamberlain, 'White Lotus,' and Half-Baked Ideas With Rob Mahoney and Kevin Wildes

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss what they learned from the Warriors' 123-116 road win vs. the Lakers, and a contentious race at the middle of the Western Conference standings, followed by some 'White Lotus' finale predictions (2:59). Then, Bill talks with Kevin Wildes about myriad sports topics (42:29), before unwrapping an extended edition of Half-Baked Ideas (01:12:26). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Rob Mahoney and Kevin Wildes Producers: Kyle Crichton, Chia Hao Tat, and Steve Ceruti Try Loom today, visit loom.com to get started. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  You're listening to the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. FanDuel has made it easier than ever to see how your bets are doing without even opening the app. Now you can get the latest updates, follow along in real time directly from your phone's lock screen. Yeah, or Apple Watch, no login required. Just head to your My Bets page to turn it on. If you don't already have it, download the FanDuel Sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

• 0:43Bill Simmons?

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

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. Hey, I got a new rewatchables coming this week because Kyle Brandt and I, we decided to do The Saint because Val Kilmer passed away and we want to talk about Val Kilmer. We want to talk about a very bizarre movie that we both love. So we're just putting it up this week. So Monday's podcast will be this weekend, The Saint. Be ready for it. You can watch it as a video on Spotify or you can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. And then Sunday night, White Lotus, season finale, right after it ends, we're going live on Ringer-TV.

• 2:17Bill Simmons?

  The YouTube channel that we have and we are recording our reaction podcast with me and Malley Rubin and Joanna Robinson. So you can watch us live on YouTube on Ringer Dash TV, or just wait and watch it as a video podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I will also be doing a Sunday podcast with Priscilla that day as well. We'll see. I'm like LeBron. Do I, can I still play at that kind of pace? Do I, can I still be a 40 minutes a game guy in the playoffs? We're going to find out on Sunday. Stay tuned. Coming up on this podcast, Rob Mahoney and I, we wanted to talk about Lakers Warriors tonight because it was an important game.

• 2:57Bill Simmons?

  It had a lot of playoff implications and also just to see those two teams, who they are right now after the trades and what they look like against each other. So we talked about that, plus White Lotus season finale. And then my old friend Kevin Wilds came on and we talked about, is April the greatest take month? Talked about Wilt Chamberlain, talked about a bunch of stuff. And then we did a slew of half baked ideas. So that's the pod. First, our friends from Pro Jam.

• 3:50Bill Simmons?

  All right, recording this a little before 10 o'clock Pacific time. Rob Mahoney is here from the Prestige TV podcast. Oh, wait, you do basketball too. I forgot.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Occasionally, yeah.

• 4:00Bill Simmons?

  So we watched the basketball just now, Warriors Lakers. A game that they used to kind of shove down our throats and we used to like it because Steph and LeBron were playing, but they were two ultimately harmless teams. And now they're actual contenders and it was a fascinating enough matchup with a lot at stake and we decided to wait until afterwards to do a little pod about it. So what'd you learn? What was your number one thing you learned?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  This game was sick. Really enjoyed it. Everybody, everybody involved has still got it to the extent that they needed to prove that they still got it. And I mean, the game of Brandon Pajemski's life, one of the games of Austin Reeves's life. I was, this game was weird, but I think representative of both teams in that it was half absolute slog. Like the, the middle part of this game I thought was really slow. The, the rhythm of the game felt really disjointed and yet the shot making was at such a high level. And overall, like the veteran execution was at such a high level by both teams and spots by, obviously by the Warriors in greater numbers.

• 4:58Bill Simmons?

  I, I wanted to figure out one thing to overreact to.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:03Bill Simmons?

  Cause that's what we do on these Thursday pods after I'm a little groggy.

• 5:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if the Lakers can rebound and defend at the level you need to be to actually win four straight playoff rounds.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:16Bill Simmons?

  For nine straight weeks. And that was in the back of my head this whole time that these guys were so talented, the three guys together, that maybe it would have mattered. And then you watch a game like this when they're getting, you know, how many, the Warriors had 14 offensive rebounds.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:33Bill Simmons?

  You know, they, they were, I wouldn't say hunting different matchups, but they certainly got a lot of threes that they liked. They ended up going 19 for 42 from three. And defensively, they basically was small ball against small ball, which the Warriors are like delighted to do that. So if I'm the Lakers, I'm not too upset because Luca didn't play well, right? On the other hand, I didn't get anything from my bench and I really have an issue at center. I don't have, I have Hayes and that's about it. And I'm playing Rui and I have this oversized, I have some size, but goes back to that Mark Williams trade, which is still, you know, could be a sliding doors, what if for the, for the

• 6:15Bill Simmons?

  season for them. But if he came into the game today, with what we saw from him after the trade deadline, that's at least changing what the Warriors have to do a little bit. Now they're like, oh shit. All right. I guess we've got to play Looney for a couple of minutes here. I think small ball against small ball. I just like the Warriors' chances more.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  I think so too. They're just, I mean, they're better practiced at it, Jimmy Butler included. Like he was playing this way in Miami for a long time too in stretches, especially as like a small ball four. But when you think about the Mark Williams element or the Jackson Hayes shadow element, however you wanted to find it. They're guarding Steph so aggressively that he's having to cut and he's having to drive against that kind of top locking. And so if you have a rim protector there, all those Steph drives don't look so cute anymore. Now, all those, that's a really complicated premise to have to navigate for Curry, especially when he has a pelvic contusion or whatever it was he's coming back from, not words I like in conjunction with one another. But he, he played really well and he was able to play really well because ultimately the Lakers are, they are small ball.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  They also have a certain kind of beef in size in terms of a lot of small forward and power forward shaped guys. But I just have constant questions as to whether that size is, is real or not. Is it tangible in a way that's going to impact games? Cause they are not by rule, like an offensive rebounding juggernaut. They are not a team that really pushes people around. Like they can create advantages offensively with that size. But if they're not leveraging on a defense, how are they going to survive against some of these higher leverage matchups?

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're not tall, but they're big. They're big, but then in games like this where it's just, you see the other team that has, that can move the ball around, that can get to the rim, that has a bunch of different options, that has bench scoring, that can exploit their bench against the Lakers bench. And you start to get a little nervous. I mean, Curry finished with 37, 10 for 21, is starting to play his way towards second team all NBA, I feel like.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Might already be there.

• 8:11Bill Simmons?

  Especially because it does seem like Brunson's coming back in time.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  And I, do you believe in legacy stuff at all with this? Like, do you feel like, uh, almost like in boxing where you got to actually beat the champ to take the title? Like if it's, he's on the bubble, second team or third team, same for LeBron. It's like, eh, gonna edge you towards second team for the pedigree. I don't, maybe that's not the right way to think about it, but I, for both of those guys, that's what I'm probably gonna end up doing because of the pedigree.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  It's very generous of you. And if you're going to be generous towards somebody, make it the all time legends who are in our midst. So I can't really argue with it too much. For me, it's more like if you are LeBron, if you are Steph, and I see you sliding towards a team that feels not representative of who you are for your career. Maybe I give it like another look. It's like, okay, that doesn't feel quite right. Let's make sure I'm picking Jaren Jackson Jr. over LeBron James and I feel okay about that. No disrespect to Jaren Jackson Jr. is amazing, but he's not LeBron. So.

• 9:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  They do deserve that, if nothing else, a little courtesy.

• 9:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Warriors are 20 and 4 since that Butler trade in the games that he's actually played. He was quiet today for the most part, but also wasn't quiet. Felt like he was present in the game.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:23Bill Simmons?

  And then there was a couple of spots where he took over and he would get to like, he just, he has a sense for when they need him. I really like the way this team plays together. The Kaminga piece was the question for me. Trying to shoehorn him in and you could have, like, I even looked at his props today heading into the game and like his over under for points was 13 and a half. And I was thinking like, that feels way too high to me, but I also wouldn't be surprised if that's way too low was one of those. And then, you know, he was out there for big stretches in crunch time. They were playing him and Draymond, Podzemski, Curry and Butler. And that was their five. And it was, it's interesting because I don't know, I don't know if we've seen those five guys together

• 10:04Bill Simmons?

  in a big situation like that before. They had size, they, Kaminga was doing the thing where he's kind of floating around the baseline and doing these weird little back cuts. They could switch a little bit on defense with all that, but it also helps that Podzemski had, you know, as you said, one of the best games of his career. But the Kaminga thing, would you see, would you notice?

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I think this was the best that he and Butler in particular have played together and they haven't had, it's like nine or 10 games, maybe that they've been able to actually be out there at the same time. And yeah, it's one of those things where Butler is such like an intuitive player in terms of the flow of the game. You put him out there with Draymond and Steph, like he gets how to move, he gets how to connect and make the right passes and find the flow. I would not say Jonathan Kaminga is a terribly intuitive player. It took him like three years to figure out how to play with Steph Curry. The idea that he's just going to jump in and now Jimmy Butler, another kind of like iffy spacer, a funky player to have to find your way with. Like Jimmy Butler makes spacers and bigs better. Does he make players like him better traditionally? It's a little bit more of a mixed bag. And so the data with them two on the floor coming into this game was mostly terrible.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Like those minutes just had not worked. This felt like some real signs of life for a combination that if the Warriors are going to make any kind of run, actually does need to work. I think what was funny about what you said about the Lakers of like, if that they may not have enough to string together consecutive series with their defense. I feel the exact opposite way about the Warriors where it's like, they need to prove they can string it together offensively to not just beat anyone in a series, but to beat four anyone's in a row. Like that's, that's a lot to ask.

• 11:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's true. Well, the Kaminga, the on off numbers with him were pretty, were pretty rough, even though it was a limited sample size. They were really good with Santos, kind of strangely good with Post too. And Post was out there today doing the whole, I'm not afraid of anybody. I'm not afraid of you LeBron. Talking shit. LeBron was like, what's going on with this guy? But Kaminga against the Lakers has always been interesting because athletically, size wise, physicality wise, he can kind of battle and bounce with those dudes. And I always feel like Kerr likes throwing him out there against the Lakers because, you know, Kaminga, the best thing about him is he's like, oh, LeBron James

• 12:17Bill Simmons?

  and I are equals. You guys didn't realize we're, we're, we're in the same plane in the NBA pyramid.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes that works out. Like there were points of the season where Brandon Pajemski thought he was the player Austin Reeves is right now. And that's now paying off. Like he's now figuring out his way into the lineup and it's, it's really working this new starting group for Golden State.

• 12:36Bill Simmons?

  So I think I'm a little higher on the Warriors than you, it sounds like. For, for, from a ceiling standpoint, I actually really like where they are. What are your hesitations?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  I think it's just stringing it all together. And, and I think the toll it takes on anybody to play small, right? Like, and you see this with the Lakers too. Like, I'm still trying to figure out, are the Lakers the elite defense that they were for like the first month after the Luca trade, or the garbage defense we've seen over the last month or so?

• 13:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Golden State isn't that polar, but there are going to be matchups that are tough for them. There's going to be matchups that just require a ton of Draymond Green in particular, a ton of Jimmy Butler in particular. And then you're playing multiple small guards in a lot of these looks. And so all of a sudden, the toll of that for three series in a row, I think might just be a little bit too much. And so it's the kind of thing where I would, I think they can beat, they can upset anyone in the first round. I think they have that in them.

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  But chaining those series together against really formidable Western Conference opponents where everyone's kind of in the same relative class, I think that might just be a lot.

• 13:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, they interviewed JJ before the fourth quarter with Ali La Force and he was friendly and curt. I mean, unfriendly and curt.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Unfriendly.

• 13:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he just was like, you could tell he was just really pissed off about how the game was going. And I was trying to figure out what pissed him off, whether it was like, I can't believe Podzemski really, he's gonna make all those shots. Or I don't like something we're doing defensively. Maybe it was a bunch of stuff. The thing that was pretty weird about this game, again, trying not to overreact, but.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  I thought we were trying to overreact.

• 14:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm trying not to now.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:13Bill Simmons?

  Cause it's Luka Doncic and he's one of the best players in the world.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  That's fair.

• 14:18Bill Simmons?

  It was a pretty uninspiring performance by him tonight.

• 14:23Bill Simmons?

  I'm not really sure what was going on with him. He seemed out of it. He wasn't even like really bitching at the refs. As much as usual, as he didn't seem upset at anyone on the Warriors and just in general. It was a, it was a strange performance for him. He was the third best guy in his own team.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:38Bill Simmons?

  And arguably the fourth best guy, cause Rudy was really good tonight, too. And that's the one, I thought the Warriors were gonna have so much trouble matching up with him. But they seemed like they matched up really well with him. He was still doing some good kick out passes.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 14:51Bill Simmons?

  He was starting to size around, but it just was not your typical Luka game. And LeBron, who started out slow. I think sensed it pretty early and he really came on and was just able to flip the switch and ended up with over 30, but. So I don't know what to make of the Luka thing. I think the Luka Laker experience has been pretty weird. There's been like flashes of just all time crazy brilliance. He'll be amazing and not that great in the same game and up and down. And it seems like he's in better shape than he was defensively. It's still not good. He was, he was really rough tonight. And I'm gonna say work in progress, but we've had, this is two plus months now.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  For sure. I just like work in progress. Luka though is still pretty damn good.

• 15:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  He's still creating opportunities that basically no other players on the floor can create. I thought he did a good job of at least of. Not stopping short on drives and especially in transition where he can tend to slow things down and want to reset the offense and he was going all the way to the rim, whether to set himself up, whether to set up threes, whether to set up lobs, you know, really continuing to push himself a little bit. And anytime that he and LeBron and Reeves get involved in the same like triangulated action, it's fucking terrifying. Like you can see the bones of something that is really, really scary. It's just to your point, not there every single play with Luka. The burst isn't there every single play. The touch kind of comes and goes depending on the game, especially if he's setting the step back threes. That's

• 16:16Speaker 01

  always been a huge variable for him. But he's still good enough. And ultimately, it's not, it's not a real concern for the Lakers relative to the fact that they have this completely turned over team that is not going to make sense until they have a chance to go into an off season and build a Luka style roster around him.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  One of the things, I agree with you. One of the things I noticed with them, and I'm wondering if the Warriors unlocked it a little bit. Cause JJ, this team is such a weird team to coach that I think he was doing some math formula stuff with them almost where it's like, Luka is gonna take over the first eight minutes of the game. I'm gonna play Luka by himself and LeBron and Reeves together and I'm gonna, I'm basically, I'm turning the game into like 10, nine, 10 different segments. And the segments are gonna go like this. And then in the fourth quarter, we'll do this. And it felt like the Warriors were kind of ready for all the segments. It's like, oh, we know what you're gonna do in the first eight minutes. You're gonna get Luka going. Well, we're not gonna let him going, get going.

• 17:17Bill Simmons?

  And just on and on it kind of went. And the one variable they couldn't really prepare for is LeBron just all of a sudden was just playing great.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, just turning it up.

• 17:26Bill Simmons?

  But I do, I do feel like it's just a little bit gimmicky still with the, with the Lakers, as talented as they are, because to not have rim protection. To play those three guys at the same time and LeBron has been so much better on defense. I don't know how sustainable that is when we're playing every other day in the playoffs. But Luca and Reeves out there at the same time. It's just, it's really tough when you're playing a slash and kick team like the one today. Plus Butler, there was a couple of times it was like, oh, you're putting this guy on me? And he would just go right to the basket. So it's a weird team. I, I'm still afraid of them. If you talk, I've talked to a couple of former famous players who are, all the famous players who used to play are really high on this Lakers team, I think, except Barkley. Just because they see like the talent and the potential.

• 18:11Bill Simmons?

  But I wonder, could that end up being this team's legacy? Are we seeing things that maybe aren't quite there, but we're, we're projecting what we think is there? Or is this just a team that can't really rebound or defend anybody?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  I think the defense, it does come and go. And I think the rim protection thing is really instructive here because they don't have, by not having a traditional defensive anchor, the only way they play elite defense is flying around, playing with incredible effort and focus all the time.

• 18:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  And so it's not a huge surprise that they can't do that every single game. It's not a huge surprise they can't chain it together for five games at a time sometimes. Like it's just going to be a little bit more of a, you know, a peaks and valleys kind of experience for them on that end. I think ultimately you're banking on the playmaking. And this is where I can kind of see the logic in the segmenting the game that you're talking about. It's like, if you have two of the most creative people in the sport, the idea of, oh, I'm going to put these very orderly boxes in place and I'm going to trust these geniuses to navigate it. That's a pretty good premise as far as I'm concerned.

• 19:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I watched that Indiana Laker game with my dad last week. And the, the one thing I don't think this Lakers team's going to be, and the Pacers wouldn't do it all the time. We were going nuts because we're just rooting against the Lakers. We're just like, spread them out, go to the basket, spread them out, go to the basket, spread them out, go to the basket. And then sometimes Indiana would just settle for these 26 footers. Like dude, just go to the basket. You're going to get to the basket. And I think more and more teams are starting to realize this, just go to the basket. There's going to be nobody waiting for you. We're going to get there. On the, on the Lakers side, um, I just think LeBron's playing unbelievable.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  He's so good.

• 19:50Bill Simmons?

  I just, I don't really understand it. That from an all around standpoint, it's probably, this is the most he's looked. Like 2013 range LeBron, like he was 10 for 15 tonight. It's not like he's taking a shitload of shots and has the ball all the time. He's like picking his spots, the defense, he's trying to rebound. He didn't really rebound tonight as, as much as he usually has, but um, the all around stuff's been really great. I also don't know if that's sustainable. When we get to mid April going every other day, uh, big picture.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:24Bill Simmons?

  Neither of these teams wants that playing game.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  No, definitely not.

• 20:28Bill Simmons?

  That's just extra miles on the car. That's like, oh, we're gonna go all the way across country to LA, but on the way, we're gonna go this way and stop at the Grand Canyon. Like, they don't want to stop at the Grand Canyon. It's just like, we want this trip to be

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:40Bill Simmons?

  Straight as possible. Lakers are four.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:43Bill Simmons?

  Golden State is five. Normally that sounds great, but the T Wolves are seven, one behind the Warriors in the last column, and then the Lakers are two over them. And the Grizzlies, who won an amazing game tonight against Miami. It was like, I, I, it was one of, I watched it. It was one of those, I don't know who's winning this game. And then Ja, once again, comes through at the end.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Crazy shot.

• 21:05Bill Simmons?

  Right when it seemed like Memphis was just gonna free fall into the eight seed. And it was like, oh shit, OKC Memphis, we have our NBA TV series. I don't need to watch one second of this. We're going for a sweep, but Memphis wins and now this is a mess. And I don't, I don't know how much you want to do on Western Conference playoff roulette, but uh,

• 21:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I, the only thing I can think is I would just much rather be in that two, three area. So I don't have to see OKC for a little while. And I, and I wonder, as we get into the final week, who starts getting a little chicanerous?

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 21:41Bill Simmons?

  Just made up that word to try to nudge their way. I'm not like, I have my eye on Denver.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Well, they certainly don't seem to care about the standings too much, like they're

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, after they lost that Minnesota game, I think, I think they're like, whatever. May the chips fall where they may.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:57Bill Simmons?

  I don't, if I'm the Lakers, I don't want to see OKC until round three. Cause that's the one team I don't think the Lakers can beat. And do you think I'm crazy? I just don't like that matchup for them in any way, shape or form.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  If you are any basketball team, you don't want to see OKC until round three or the NBA finals. Like those are the only options that you would prefer. So, but like as far as the Chicanery goes, that's a, that's a real fine line you're trying to walk. To basically get to six and lock in at six is the ideal spot. If you're going to be in the four, five, six range. Cause four and five, yeah, you're going to be potentially roadkill for the Thunder who look just increasingly incredible, to be honest with you. And I want no part of that team.

• 22:35Bill Simmons?

  Sixty-four, twelve. Plus thirteen point four.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I mean, what the fuck?

• 22:42Bill Simmons?

  Everybody.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  They're so good.

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  And Jokic is having the best year of his career. And with six games left, I don't think I'm going to vote for him for MVP.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Oh, you're sealed up.

• 22:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm not sealed up, but I'm like 98% there.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:57Bill Simmons?

  I just feel like we're going to be in the high sixties with those OKC team. And it's not, you can't do the thing where,

• 23:04Bill Simmons?

  wow, you know, you could put anybody in that top spot. That team's still really good. Cause every game I've watched and all the games I've seen OKC in person, nobody can guard Shay Gilchrist Alexander.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 23:14Bill Simmons?

  Nobody in the league. I haven't, I saw that against the Clippers game I went to last week. Key had a bad shooting game, but he, all the shots were good. They just didn't go in.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And that's a team with, I would say, three all-defense caliber players.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  On its roster.

• 23:28Bill Simmons?

  And they made him work for everything. He's still got all the shots he wanted.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  Wanted, and he's like shaking his head because he's like, I can't believe this isn't going in tonight.

• 23:36Bill Simmons?

  With that said, I don't think Minnesota would be afraid of them at all. I'm not defending it. But I just don't think that team has fear of, of any matchup. And I think they would waltz into that series and be like, yeah, sure, let's beat them.

• 23:51Bill Simmons?

  And that's the team they could see. And I think the Clippers know they can play with them because they've had really good games against them.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:55Bill Simmons?

  Whether they can beat them, I don't know, but they're not going to be afraid of them. So I would, if I'm OKC, those are the two I wouldn't be like, super pumped about.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Well, the Clippers are just.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  They care.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  The Clippers are no fun to play against for anybody. And frankly, when Kawhi Leonard plays, they just do not lose. Uh, except I think they lost randomly to the Pelicans one time. We don't have to talk about that. Other than that, really just have turned into an offensive buzzsaw in a way that should be terrifying. Cause they were already such a great defense. The Wolves. I am really becoming a believer.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  Whoa, make the case.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  This was a team that I was, I was really down on come December or so. I just thought the energy with the team was so off. I thought the defense was so underwhelming. I didn't really see the vision in the Randall thing at all. And then all of a sudden, everything's starting to click. Like all the, everyone who was hurt is suddenly back and playing well. Then the new additions, both Randall and DiVincenzo in particular, are both really hitting at this point. Randall's playing, I think, some of the best basketball of his career, frankly. I don't know how to feel about the kind of person who is telling you and many people on a podcast, they should believe in Julius Randall playoff performer. That's a, that's a big ask of anybody, but I find myself, as we're kind of charting the Western Conference landscape, and I'm looking at teams like Golden State and the Lakers, teams that could win a round,

• 25:11Speaker 01

  but maybe not two or three. I'm seeing teams like Houston that I think can win with the right matchup, but otherwise might be out on their luck if they, if they pull the wrong one. Teams like Denver that frankly, not only do they not care about seeding, they don't seem to be terribly interested in playing defense in a lot of games. And I expect the playoffs will be different, but even still, the personnel is what it is. And I just find my way back to the Wolves. And I'm thinking, they have the high end talent, they have the depth, they have the defense, they have the bodies, they have versatility to actually roll with the punches of a playoff series. And frankly, we've seen all this stuff in action in a slightly different form with Cat versus Randall. And you know, no DiVincenzo. I just, I really like what they're putting together and I think they're playing great basketball right now.

• 25:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and all the advanced stats back it up and they can shoot. And I'm, I'm with you. I, I'm never gonna love Randall, but there's a physicality with him.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  If we're all being honest.

• 26:04Bill Simmons?

  But there's a physicality with him lately that I think there's a little bit more of an identity to the team as a whole. When you watch them, where they've got size identity and Ant is just. There's no, there's no player on any other team that he doesn't think he's better than for better and worse. And that's just the way it goes. I, I thought Denver, Minnesota, I thought that other night, I had already put my pot up with Zach on Tuesday before those two games. And to watch Curry and Jokic do that back to back, I know you guys talked about it in your pod, but just that five hours of two of the great offensive players in the history of the league, really, really having a night. And it just was all in a row. And it got to the point with the Nuggets and it seemed like so many different times they had that

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  game or they were going to lose that game. And then it really seemed like they had it. And then Russ, who is just wandering around with a fucking pitchfork, ready to just stab somebody with it. You're just hitting these crunch times. You're just terrified. He's, he's the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy. If you're rooting for Denver.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  But he's not even doing that. He's stabbing himself. He's like falling on his own rake over and over. It's, it's a disaster.

• 27:12Bill Simmons?

  He was already horrible in the crunch time overtime section where there was eight times where like just, just take him out. You're better off just not having him out there. He just didn't have it. And then he has that stretch in the last 10 seconds. And it was one of those games where you're like, when we get to game 82 and Sunday and we're trying to figure out all the playoff matchups, I feel like we're going to go back to that game and be like, remember that stupid game when Russ screwed up the Denver game? And now, now Denver's in the, in the four spot, playing the Lakers in the four, five, and then the loser or the winner plays OKC and they could have been three and played Houston in round two. And just felt like one of those. And conversely, Minnesota, who if they can

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  get to the, even if they're in the seven, eight, and they can get that seven. But I, I just want to play Houston. That's where I've landed with all these things. I want to play Houston. I want to play Memphis. Those are the two teams that I just think are a level below all these other ones.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  I think the exception to that would be if Denver slides and ends up somehow in the play-in, which is not incomprehensible. These teams are really bunched up.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's like they'd have to drop two more, it looks like.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  They'd have to drop a couple of spots. I think the Rockets could give the Nuggets a real run. I think that's a tough matchup for them. And I say this knowing. The like, the Rockets just blew a game against Denver with no Nikola Jokic. I'm acknowledging it. It happened. I don't think it's representative of the matchup. I think if you give these perimeter demons a chance to make Jamal Murray's life a living hell for seven games, I think they will do it. I think they have enough size to really gum things up. I think they're so physical. And that's really the question with Houston is what teams would really be bothered by high end athleticism and high end physicality? And I think Denver might be one of those teams, despite the fact that their lineups are quite big themselves.

• 28:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And the other thing that really helps Houston is their half court in the last six, seven, eight minutes is pretty brutal.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  It can be.

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  But against Denver's defense.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Then you have some options.

• 29:07Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't have to be that brutal.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Nuggets play the Warriors. Turnovers working in your favor. You know, you got some free opportunities on the board.

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, those guys, they're gonna have their team, hopefully in this last week. Russ, I just can't imagine he sees crunch time again. You can't do it. It's too risky.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Probably not.

• 29:24Bill Simmons?

  They play the Warriors on Friday night.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:26Bill Simmons?

  They end the season with the Rockets, which could be an all time, wait, what are these two teams up to? We're just guys, one team's just scratching multiple starters right before, right before we go.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Are we still doing the, the last day of the season, like all the games are basically happening at the same time to prevent this sort of chicanery? Is that still, is that still going on? I haven't checked the schedule.

• 29:48Bill Simmons?

  Did that work? But didn't they do like they, they did the non-games and then the important games? Didn't they stagger them in some way?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  I mean, all you're really doing is forcing an assistant coach just in on the back row with an iPad, you know, like they're still gonna be watching.

• 30:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, so then the other piece is you, this Dallas Sacramento, Phoenix factory of sadness and Portland somehow still alive, even though they've, they're just like, can we just get Cooper flag? Oh no, we want to go.

• 30:17Bill Simmons?

  Dallas at 38, 39, Sacramento 36 and 40, and Phoenix at 35 and 41. I, I mean, I've gotten to the point where I'm rooting against Phoenix because I don't want to see them in the play-in, but I don't want to see Sacramento in the play-in either. And I don't, I don't want to watch Dallas at all.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Dallas might host a playing game where the crowd is chanting, fire Nico about the general manager. As the playoff, as the playing game's going. So I just kind of want to get to the final eight and see where it goes. The Clippers thing, the Clippers thing is the most interesting where they land. Cause if that's, that's just, it's just a horrible 1-8 draw for a team that goes 69 and 13.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 30:55Bill Simmons?

  Here's your reward, the Clippers, they're healthy.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Well, they're healthy, they're healthy for now.

• 31:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're healthy for, yeah, I guess today.

• 31:05Bill Simmons?

  Wait, before you go, Draymond Green Defensive Player of the Year.

• 31:09Bill Simmons?

  I'm sure that helped today. He had a nice, big, awesome.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Huge stop.

• 31:12Bill Simmons?

  Nationally televised game was all over the place. I thought that was the most, against the Lakers, he's always a little weird. Cause I think, especially when it was against LeBron and AD and you always felt like he was kind of a tempered Draymond. Because those were his friends and he wasn't doing like usual Draymond shit. Tonight, he was not tempered. I thought he was very alpha-y and looked like the Draymond that we're, we've become accustomed to.

• 31:36Bill Simmons?

  Defensive Player of the Year, yeah, I think he's gonna win. Is he Defensive Player of the Year for you?

• 31:42Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I mean, look, he's, he's Draymond Green. He deserves, he deserves consideration. Probably deserves a place on the ballot at the end of the day. I'm more of an Evan Mobley voter at this point.

• 31:54Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Just the utility of what he brings to that defense. How many, how many people he's like constantly bailing out on every defensive possession.

• 32:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  The flexibility between the four or five is not dissimilar from Draymond. Like I, I just think he is a, an absolute monster on that end. And Draymond, if Draymond had been playing defensively, the way he's played the last, I would say 15 to 20 games all season. We're having a very different conversation. I don't think the first part of the season, especially the first half, he was quite at this, this like peak elite level. This is still really high level defensive play. I'm not disparaging Draymond Green. He's incredible, particularly on that end of the court. I just don't think he's put together the total body of work for it.

• 32:35Bill Simmons?

  It's a great point because the other one I was looking at was Lou Dort. I talked about that with Zach.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:42Bill Simmons?

  Separating everything. He's the best defensive player I've seen this year, but they're so afraid to give the perimeter guys.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  They are.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  That award, but I just, he's done the most interesting stuff on defense for me.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Do you take any responsibility for the perimeter gunshyness after the Marcus Smart debacle? Do you think that's what what radicalized all of us?

• 33:00Bill Simmons?

  It might have, but that was a little bit like this year. This year, I mean, the problem with this year is Wemby should win Defensive Player of the Year every year and he got knocked out and it's, you know, it's just almost like a, like a political convention where the candidate everybody thought was going to win is out. And now it's all of a sudden, there's 10 people arguing on stage.

• 33:21Bill Simmons?

  I just, I don't feel like any of these are like the greatest possible candidates. The same thing with Rookie of the Year where it's like, ah, all right, I guess we got to vote for somebody.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  There's like 50 people deserving of all defense consideration and I don't feel great about any of them necessarily as like the definitive defensive player of the year. You're right. Like it's without Wemby, there is a vacuum. It's unavoidable.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  It's the most fun award subplot since it looks like MVP is a rap. Coach of the Year is just like, just do a shot and do a whip it and then just pick one of six guys. I don't, is there a wrong Coach of the Year choice? Like I'm leaning toward Dagnall right now and he's definitely not going to win, but it's like, they win 70 games. I'm probably going to vote for him. Atkinson's good. Bickerstaff's good. I, you just pick five guys. It's easy.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  I feel like the Thunder, like Shay Agri is the favorite to win MVP, probably will win MVP. Otherwise they suffer from that problem where their team is so good and there's credit going in so many different directions that Mark Dagnall probably isn't going to get the credit he deserves. Lou Dort probably isn't going to get the credit he deserves. They have so many good players who are like probably going to be under the threshold for games played. And so they won't get consideration for various teams and things, but holy shit. Like there's so many places to assign credit for what OKC has done. And I think if you, if you want to talk about the reason why they won, won as many games as they did, it's the professionalism and the intensity they play with every single fucking game. And that either comes from Mark Dagnall or it comes from Shay or both. And if you want to credit either of those guys for that, I think it's more than deserved.

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  I'll throw in this too. Caruso 50 games. Hartenstein 54.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:06Bill Simmons?

  Chet 28. Jalen Williams 65. It's not like this team's been a healthy juggernaut all year. Like they, they hit the first two months of the year. They, they didn't have a center for like one of those months.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  They did. It mattered. Jalen Williams. He was their center for a fucking month.

• 35:22Bill Simmons?

  None of it mattered.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 35:24Bill Simmons?

  There you go. Well, for the listeners, you can skip forward from right here. If you're not watching White Lotus, because I have to talk White Lotus with Rob for one minute.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:32Bill Simmons?

  So if you don't care about that, just skip forward ahead to Kevin Wilds because we're going to keep going. But if you do care about White Lotus, stick around because I'm going to ask you about White Lotus. 90 minute season finale.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:43Bill Simmons?

  They won't send us screeners. Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin and I are going to be downtown LA, watching it live, going live right after on YouTube. Have no idea what's going to happen. Is this going to be crazier than we expected? Or is it going to be like weirdly disappointing and more like thoughtful, existential, Buddhist? Like we're, we're going to have like, almost like a philosophical, religious experience? Or is there just going to be bodies everywhere?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  It is going to be a religious experience. Also, first of all, thank you for inviting me on now the third White Lotus splinter pod. We've had every permutation of host possible.

• 36:20Bill Simmons?

  This is the only, this is the only one left.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  This is the only one left for the finale. Uh, I will say, I don't know if this is great PR and marketing by them, but all the little quotes that are coming out from the cast hinting at the ominous results of the finale. Had me a little spooked. And again, maybe I'm just being played. I think, I think the, the body count or the philosophical fallout is going to be pretty significant. I don't, I don't quite know which one yet.

• 36:45Bill Simmons?

  I went back and watched the first app, the, the first scene. Gunshot.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:50Bill Simmons?

  Pause. Gunshot.

• 36:53Bill Simmons?

  Pause gunshot gunshots.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  So did you see any monkeys holding a gun?

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  Did it see any monkeys? Well, I mean, I don't know. They're going Tarantino. Where three different groups of people are all shooting at each other.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:08Bill Simmons?

  I who knows? But in the trailer, which came out for the last episode. They really play up the poisonous fruit in the first 20 seconds, which we had talked about in our pod and you talked about on the deep dive pod about.

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  The fruit, the blender, they just kept coming back to it. How annoying the blender is. But now they put that in the trailer and now I don't know. Is that a red herring or what's?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I know, especially because we I think we still have one Tim Ratliff vision yet of him. Wiping out his entire family at one time and maybe that is where the blender or the fruit come in is like the visualization of this terrible thing, but not actually happening. I don't know. He's not a good place. He's just been walking around for days, stoned out of his mind, ready, ready to do something to somebody.

• 37:54Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, his usage rate's probably been a little too high.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:57Bill Simmons?

  I probably would have put him in the corner more just for spacing than actually run plays for him.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I think he can run some plays, but like when Shay's out, you know, like make him Aaron Wiggins and then we're all gonna be fine.

• 38:08Bill Simmons?

  Was this the right number of episodes for you or was this six episodes stretched to seven so far?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  I think it was a little too many. I like the it's not really a pacing problem so much as when people are off screen or kind of set to the side, they just idle in place. For indefinite period of time. And so that eventually I think starts to wear out its welcome.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  I think it should have been seven episodes, just in general. I think I thought first season was too short.

• 38:34Bill Simmons?

  The middle season was the right length.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:35Bill Simmons?

  This feels a whiff long and you probably could have gotten away with. 65 minute episodes and had six of them instead of seven, but.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Just a classic Goldilocks scenario.

• 38:46Bill Simmons?

  With all of that said, I love the show. I've been defending it to people who have, you know, it's year three, people start to get used to the format. They start bitching and complaining about certain things. I'm just like, this show's great. I love the show. I love being on vacation in some weird place. I love the characters. I love the mystery. It's always keeping you on your toes and I'm glad it exists.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Extremely glad it exists. I think too, I think this finale is gonna win some people over. I think the calamity has been bottled up for this 90 minutes. And maybe that's just the wrong read, but I kind of feel it in the air.

• 39:18Bill Simmons?

  Who is your favorite character this season?

• 39:21Speaker 01

  I love, I mean, I love Carrie Coon, so I am Lori Piltz. And everything chaotic happening around her right now is just a joy to watch. I can't be mad about any of it.

• 39:31Bill Simmons?

  Lori is also my, she's my second, nah, she's my top three. I'm not gonna pick a favorite, but my top three are Chelsea.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Wait, you, you literally just asked me to pick a favorite. You have to pick a favorite.

• 39:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's my podcast. No, uh, no, all right. I'll pick my favorite. Chelsea's my favorite.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:50Bill Simmons?

  Lori's second, Saxon third.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Saxon's coming up the power rankings.

• 39:54Bill Simmons?

  Watching Joanna do a 180 on Saxon was, was my highlight of 2025 so far.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  One of the great joys. Saxon's just bringing people together. As, as his enlightenment processes within his tiny little brain, he's just, he's just bringing people together in, in a, really a celebration of everything that he's all about.

• 40:13Bill Simmons?

  So do you think Locky, do you think he actually took the drugs?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Or rather than spit them out?

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  Before the threesome? Do you think he was actually drugged up? Or is this some sort of weird power play with him?

• 40:26Speaker 01

  I thought I had escaped the wake of talking about brothers jerking each other off.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  But we, we get dragged back into these things. I, I think he did take the drugs. I think, I think it's maybe like, paying a little too close attention to think that he spat them out, but I don't know. White Lotus is a show that cares about the details. Maybe it's not impossible.

• 40:46Bill Simmons?

  You know, I ask, cause my daughter, who not only watches the show, but is intently following the TikTok conversation around it, and always tells me, this is a big thing on TikTok right now with some dumb aspect of the show. She claimed there's a TikTok where it doesn't seem like he took the drugs.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  It definitively proves that Locky did not take the drugs.

• 41:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but cause TikTok would never lie to us. And there's no, there's no devices to, you know, twist any footage around and anything.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Of course not.

• 41:12Bill Simmons?

  So I can't wait. Uh, White Lotus, so we're doing the live one and then you're doing the deep dive a couple of days later with, uh, with Joanna. And then we go right to the playoffs.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  I know. Rolling right into it.

• 41:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All right. Rob Mahoney. Great to see you.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Thanks, Bill.

• 41:26Bill Simmons?

  Thanks. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel. As you know, it's the final stretch of the NBA season. Playoff picture changing every second. Every three pointer, fourth quarter comeback means that much more with live betting on FanDuel. You can make the playoff picture a little prettier, a little more fun. Whether you're looking to ride with a hot shooter, you think a team is due for a run in the second half. Get in on the action until the final buzzer with America's number one sportsbook. We have Denver, Golden State coming on Friday. What a fun game to bet on. I have no idea if Denver even, where do they want to be in the rankings? So they want to be four, five, six, that they want to stay at three? We know Golden State wants to keep moving up. Kind of like Golden State in that matchup, by the way. However, you want to play, now is the perfect time to join FanDuel customers that are new.

• 42:11Bill Simmons?

  Get started with $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Visit FanDuel.com/BS to join today. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. You must be 20 and plus, present in select states, or 18 plus and present in DC. First online real money wager, only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-deductible bonus bet, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Loom by Atlassian. Some things, they're just unnecessary. You see this in the NBA all the time. Why do you keep talking to that ref? He's going to tee you up. Stop doing it. Stop doing it. And then they keep doing it. And guess what? They get a technical.

• 42:54Bill Simmons?

  It's just as unnecessary as tedious business meetings. Good thing you can use Loom instead. Use Loom to simultaneously record both your screen and yourself to share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague, everything in between, whatever. Plus, add Loom AI to your meetings for instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom today at loom.com. That is L-O-O-M.com. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is late afternoon, East Coast time. Kevin Wilds just got off the set of First Things First. It's like talking to Clark Kent right after he got out of the phone booth.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Wow, thank you.

• 43:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you got your, you still have your little handsome sports TV outfit. You just finished slinging takes, slinging takes like they were hash.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  I'm feeling great.

• 43:42Bill Simmons?

  Feeling great. Great time of year. Is April the best take month? This is the most going on NFL draft. Nobody really knows what they're talking about, but we all feel like we have to have takes on that. NBA playoffs are coming up. There's already NBA trade stuff happening. First month of baseball season.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Got some baseball takes.

• 43:59Bill Simmons?

  There's some Avengers, some March Madness is still in there. Masters is coming up. I think it's the best month for talking out of your ass when you don't really know what's going on.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Are you sure it's either if if April is your first draft pick for takes? I would say week one, week one NFL season that Monday or that Tuesday once the Monday.

• 44:22Bill Simmons?

  Overreaction Monday?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Oh, the first overreaction Monday is just magnificent. Yeah, because it's a good one.

• 44:30Bill Simmons?

  Overreaction Monday, it's just percolating that whole day of the first first games back. Everyone's just ready to go nuts and write teams off. Yeah, it's great.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  The Eagles could lose by one point like, I don't know, they probably peaked last year in the Super Bowl, weren't ready. It's just great.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  I'm proudest of myself with the NFL draft because I I'll watch maybe one or two college football games a week, if that, and have no idea what I'm talking about. But then I read all the mock drafts and I watch YouTube clips and then decide I'm an expert.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Who do you want?

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Who do you want the Patriots to take? Because I I've convinced myself I'm happy with four guys.

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  Four guys. So I'm I'm at Hunter. Yeah, Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter, trade down.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Those are my three options. Yeah, I could. I'm happy with Will Campbell and I'm happy with. I don't really want T Mac, but I kind of if we go offensive line, I'm okay with it.

• 45:28Bill Simmons?

  I mean, T Mac now, this is one of the draft takes that's emerged is are we sure he's the best receiver in the draft? It's a little Matthew Golden buzz.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Nah.

• 45:37Bill Simmons?

  McShay is pro Matthew Golden on a on the newsletter and the podcast he's doing. He has Golden as the best receiver. It's really fun when you have quarterbacks because it seems like Cam Ward is definitely going to Tennessee.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:49Bill Simmons?

  But when you have this quarterback situation with the two teams that desperately need a quarterback, Cleveland and the Giants, but then nobody really seems to think Shador Sanders. Is a, is a top eight pick and just how desperate it, it's the age old philosophy. Something's changed, sports changes, basketball, we're shooting more threes than ever. Baseball, we get a torpedo bat, you know, every, everything evolves in every sport. And then in football, should we take this quarterback this high, even though we're not positive? He's a good prospect is like the eternal question forever.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  I'm almost positive Shador is good. I think Shador, if, if, if both teams pass on Shador and he has the Shador slide, I, I think that would be insane. If he ends up on the Steelers, I think it'd be great for the Steelers, but the Giants cannot pass on him. But that would be bonkers.

• 46:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, the one thing that happens is if, if the first couple of teams pass and the guy falls out of the range, sometimes then, then the guy almost has a little bit of a stink on him. And then the fall starts and it's like, and then, I mean, Rogers is the most famous example of this, but this has happened in other years where it's like, oh, all of a sudden the guy's going to go to 17.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  I don't have it in front of me, but then after the Giants, there's a run of teams that don't need quarter, starting with us, we don't need a quarterback. Then there's a run of teams and I guess you get to now with Gino's deal, the Raiders are out. Then it's the Saints.

• 47:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, that you could say the Jets, but then they just paid all this money to Fields. Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Jets would be interesting.

• 47:19Bill Simmons?

  I can't imagine he'd go by the Saints because the Saints are so handicapped by the cap that I don't understand how they would not pass up a chance to get somebody. But you'd have to really think he's going to be not good.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:30Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  All right.

• 47:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. You read like pocket presence, tough as nails.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:39Bill Simmons?

  Read stuff fast. He's been in the spotlight for a few years. There's all this intangible stuff with him. Then other people are like, he's just not a good enough quarterback. So yeah, the draft's fun. We get to argue about arm length. Basketball, we're talking about a playoff picture that just changes every day. It's ridiculous where you're like, coming up is, is good. What happens if Denver plays the Lakers? It's like, they just might never play the Lakers.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Yep. Coming up, are the Rockets the second best team in the West, which they are? Or are they just a first round fodder?

• 48:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Ready to go home. Hey, should the, are the Grizzlies a dangerous playoff team or should they blow the team up? Uh, we don't know.

• 48:17Bill Simmons?

  Never know. I was thinking with LeBron, if anyone's generated more takes than him. And it has to be Wilt Chamberlain has to be the answer, but I don't think the take infrastructure was in in place at that point.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Great, great. The take infrastructure is so good.

• 48:32Bill Simmons?

  The take infrastructure was not there. We just had newspapers and we had like local networks and some magazines like sport and Sports Illustrated and then just people arguing in bars. But I still feel like he's the most polarizing NBA star of all time. He's still polarizing now.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Wilt? You think Wilt or you think?

• 48:53Bill Simmons?

  I think Wilt. I think it's 100% Wilt.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Do you count the take the take infrastructure? If two guys are arguing in a bar, do you? It's a little bit if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around.

• 49:06Bill Simmons?

  Does anyone hear the take?

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Does the take still count? Or does it have to be recorded on someone's podcast? That, you know, a lightly listened to podcast that two buddies are doing from a local bar? That counts for the two guys in the 60s take doesn't count?

• 49:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, what's crazy about the 60s, and this is how I ended up deciding to write a Chamberlain Russell chapter when I did my book. When I was doing all the research, so many people weighed in on Wilt and it was players. It was stuff that never happens now, like long paragraphs from like Bill Bradley saying, here's why Wilt's a loser. Just laying out like in in the book that he wrote and you're just like, holy shit. Like people could just never decide who this guy was, whether he wanted to win. Even Russell was pretty critical of him.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  I'm ready for the the Wilt, the Wilt Renaissance.

• 49:58Bill Simmons?

  Like it's already happening.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  You think so? They has a, he has a lightly managed YouTube presence where every once in a while, the algorithm will serve me up like, here's Wilt blocking one from the top of the backboard. What? Here's Wilt jumping over a guy. Here's Wilt hitting a four hookshot corner threes for fun. Like, oh, I'm ready for the take of, you know, was the best player actually of all time. It was Wilt.

• 50:27Bill Simmons?

  That's, that's gonna come back because we're in the so and so was a problem era of social media. Where it's, this is how I was thinking about Wilt last week, cause one of those accounts fed me game six Bucks Lakers 1972. Bucks are defending champs. They have Kareem. Kareem's like just killing everybody. Wilt in the seven, in the last game.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Is it the blocks?

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  He, he's blocking Kareem's skyhook.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  This was fed to me. This was fed to me.

• 50:55Bill Simmons?

  It was riveting.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  I saw one position or something.

• 50:57Bill Simmons?

  It was riveting. Yeah. I watched it. I was like, oh my, and then it was like, Wilt had 22 points, 24 rebounds and 10 blocks. I was like, he did?

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Yes. Why are we being fed the same stuff?

• 51:09Bill Simmons?

  I know. It was the for you. It's a for you tab. They know we like basketball. So this set me on some deep dive rabbit hole. I went to basketball reference. When I did my book, they didn't have the box scores past like 1986. So into basketball reference. And I was like, I gotta find out more about this series. It was Oscar Robertson and Kareem on one side and West and Wilt Chamberlain on the other. So it's four of the best 12 players ever in a series. That seems like a big deal. The Lakers won 33 games that year. Milwaukee had won the title the year before. Kareem's killing everybody. So I went and looked at the stats and it made, it made me even more confused. Wilt shooting like three times a game, four times a game, like for real, you can go on the box scores.

• 51:50Bill Simmons?

  Even in this last game when he was awesome, he was like seven for 10. It was like, why did Wilt stop shooting? He scored a hundred points in a game.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  That's odd.

• 51:59Bill Simmons?

  Why did he just turn into a rebound block shot guy? And then Kareem was like 35 and 20 the entire series.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  What year was that?

• 52:05Bill Simmons?

  1972.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Okay. So the 70, the, yeah, the 71, 72 Lakers, we just did a thing about the Thunder.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Right. How good they are.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Winning percentage.

• 52:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  And it was, um. The Warriors team, obviously, then it was

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  Two Bulls teams.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Thunder in the middle, then that, then that Lakers squad was like, it was like Jerry, it was Jerry West was on it. And then I guess Elgin had a cup of coffee. I was looking at the

• 52:34Bill Simmons?

  Got hurt, he retired.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Was there?

• 52:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  And who else was there? The guy that no one talks about.

• 52:38Bill Simmons?

  Gail Goodrich.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Gail Goodrich, that I didn't, I don't, I'm a blank slate when it comes to Gail Goodrich, but Gail Goodrich averaged like 26 points in the playoffs.

• 52:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, I read every Sports Illustrated story about it and it was 2-2 after four games and then the Lakers won the last two. And one of the keys to the series was Jim McMillan, who ba, who struggled with weight during the first part of his career. His teammates called him Pudge Ball, but then he like lit it up in the series. And I was like, imagine this now, like this would be like two days of Jim McMillan. Jim McMillan's arguments. I always knew he had it in him.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Jim got rid of the donuts and he's came to play.

• 53:17Bill Simmons?

  But the, the league back then, like they just, you know, it was a pretty, it was doing okay. But you have this series that really, if it happened now, would be this incredible series where you have like some of the greatest players of all time battling like real stakes back to back versus a 33 game winning streak. I didn't know anything about it. So yeah, Wilt, I have no idea why he stopped shooting. I would watch like a 15 episode Wilt Chamberlain thing.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  There we go.

• 53:42Bill Simmons?

  If it was done correctly.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Start working on it.

• 53:45Bill Simmons?

  Cause then he did.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Working on it.

• 53:46Bill Simmons?

  Then he did, um, he just quit and started playing volleyball that like he had that whole stretch. Very interesting.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Was he playing professional volleyball?

• 53:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, played professional volleyball.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Could you imagine lining up like seeing Wilt Chamberlain come in for the first day? The first day where it's like, you know, there's no social media. You don't even know who's going to show up and all of a sudden it's like, ew, is that Wilt Chamber?

• 54:11Bill Simmons?

  Right. That is him, right?

• 54:13Speaker 02

  That's Wilt Chamberlain, right?

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there was another thing that got fed to me with. It was Wilt Chamberlain when he was 16, playing with pros. And he's the same Wilt Chamberlain body, but he's super skinny and just like completely dominating everybody.

• 54:31Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think Wilt's underrated as a Twitter, because sometimes Young Shaq will have a moment on social media too, where he's just like going full court and dunking over guys and like, oh, Jesus.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  You know what the, the, the Young Shaq moment that gets a lot of play on social media? All-star warmups. Is Jordan guarding him, I think? It's just a war, it's just they're like joking around and he has like some sort of crossover. He looks like Stan Van Gundy, like a crossover spin layup on Jordan. Like, yep, that will work. Like, yes, Young Shaq.

• 55:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because I'll go to Twitter and now it like defaults to the For You page, but the For You page is getting better and it's just serving me basketball now constantly. So like the other day I went on and it was Kobe against Rip Hamilton in a 1996 McDonald's All-America practice. And it was like, watch Kobe light up Rip Hamilton. I'm like, absolutely.

• 55:26Bill Simmons?

  How many, how many minutes is this? Can I watch this? This looks great. This is great content. Yeah.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Shout out to the algorithm. The algorithm's starting to work.

• 55:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's right. Instagram, it gets, they definitely, Instagram is a little gamier with the stuff they push. If it's a, it's a little seedier. It's like two in the morning, kind of wandering around New York City, kind of seedy. But Twitter, Twitter, they'll push you most of the sports and then something horrible that you don't have any interest in, like some sort of hardcore political or whatever. But I like the basketball stuff. So what, what sports there, what sports storyline right now are you the most fascinated in? What is it? Is it NBA related?

• 56:08Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a little bit, I'm, I'm a little bit obsessed with Will Campbell's arm length, but I'm gonna put that aside. That, that, that weight probably crested for me.

• 56:15Bill Simmons?

  How about that there were two different measurements? One was 32 and a half and then the other was 33 and he's like, I'm actually a 33?

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And his wingspan got, the, the longer his arms got, the shorter his wingspan got.

• 56:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I didn't get that.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  It's just absurd. I talked to Jeff Schwartz about it. He's like, it's nothing. He'll just be able to go like that and, and he'll be fine. I guess it's, I guess it's the, it's not, I want to be positive. I guess the number one story, it's not super like out of the box is.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Can the Luca LeBron experiment, if you want to call it that, gel fast enough?

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  To get a championship?

• 56:57Bill Simmons?

  I still think that's the number one story. Yeah, and there's no answer. So you could just talk about it in circles forever and nobody knows until we see a playoff game.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  And the fact that they were the number one defense for a good stretch. How did that happen? Was that just a string of luck and hustle? And is that going to come down? And then I guess the other thing they were trying to figure out is the thing about the Thunder that I just mentioned. And if they are truly like on paper, a historic team, if they don't win,

• 57:32Speaker 02

  did they underachieve? No one seems to be saying like, yeah, they don't win the finals. They underachieved.

• 57:37Bill Simmons?

  That's the 2016 Warriors, right? Yeah.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they ran into a, they, they lost because they ran into a legendary performer. So are they gonna?

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  That's what, that's what they lost.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Why?

• 57:50Bill Simmons?

  They lost because they suspended Draymond for game five.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  No, it's, you know, give me, that's, that's fair.

• 57:56Bill Simmons?

  It's a tough suspension. It's funny because Adam Silver has been in the, in the circles recently. Cause there's this growing conspiracy thing that I don't know how this would be true, but it's been a fun one to monitor. That the league pushed for the Luca trade to the Lakers.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  I mean,

• 58:14Bill Simmons?

  It's a great one though. It's, it's turning into this generation's version of the frozen envelope with the Ewing lottery.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  I just can't, I, I, I'm.

• 58:22Bill Simmons?

  It's because it's, there's no other explanation for the trade. So now

• 58:26Speaker 02

  The conspiracy.

• 58:27Bill Simmons?

  People have nudged that way to that one. And I can't wait to get aggregated incorrectly for it.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Did the conspiracy community already move off of? They were trying to purposely sour the fan base to move the team to Las Vegas? I thought that was the first conspiracy out of the box.

• 58:45Bill Simmons?

  I listen, did I hop on that tricycle and take it around for a little spin in my living room? I did. I did. I tested it out. It's pretty ludicrous. I like the league brokering a trade. It's pretty funny, especially because they killed the Chris Paul trade to the Lakers 15 years ago. So it's.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  It's little conspiracies, man.

• 59:06Bill Simmons?

  But that's the thing. When there's no explanation for something, that's when conspiracies start. When it's just like, this is the dumbest trade ever. There has to be a reason this happened. And none of the reasons fit. That's when you have conspiracies.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Just bad call, just bad decision. Here's the thing, I, I was gonna do a thing on, it took me a long time because everybody had their, everybody had their own Luca take.

• 59:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  And I didn't, I know like, what's my angle on this? It's such a bad decision and I came up with it. It's a little story.

• 59:38Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  One day, uh, I was working, uh, we would do like, uh, commercial maintenance and like, painting and stuff. We take care of like parking lots and stuff. And, um, my boss got a job, power washing, we were power washing ironically, a car wash, the outside of a car wash. And the first day I went, I had sneakers on and socks. And again, soaked, it's a real, it's not even power washing, which we're like stripping the cinder block with this high powered pressure washer.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  And I had socks on and wet shoes and it was the worst. I'm like stomping around, it's, I had like trench foot. Next day I said, I can't do this again. I'm gonna wear sandals because we're gonna do a two day project. Next day I wear sandals, pressure washing, pressure washing. The only thing worse than having trench foot is having all these little paint chips.

• 1:00:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  In between my toes and I'm stepping and they're sharp and it's bothering me and annoying me so much. I have this pressure washer and I looked down at my foot. I said, oh, this would feel so good if I take this pressure washer.

• 1:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  And get, and I just looked at it and I just did it. And I, it was, and there was no conspiracy to it. There was no like, maybe Wild's wanted to get off of work and maybe he was upset with the job. And maybe he wanted to go back and work on a different project. No, you know what it was? Just an absolutely horrible decision on my part to blast my own foot and some skin off. It's just a bad call.

• 1:01:15Bill Simmons?

  You lack some skin off?

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Oh, of course, of course. It's a blast in my own foot. That is the Luca trade. There's, it's just. A really bad decision that I think immediately you recognize, whoa, bad call on my part.

• 1:01:31Bill Simmons?

  So skins hanging off Nico Harrison's body, right? As the trades being called in.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. I did realize now that I think about it, if I could go back, I would, I would not do that again. That was really.

• 1:01:45Bill Simmons?

  See, I think the only move, the only move for him is just to resign. Because I, at some point, you only have one life, we think. And if your life, just for the next two years, is you've, you've committed this reviled transaction. And the whole point of like, being a GM or whatever for a team, other than running the team, picking the players, but you also want to go to the games. And be like, yeah, that's my team. And now that's been, I just don't understand what the win is for him at this point.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Can't, no, he's pot committed. He's in.

• 1:02:18Bill Simmons?

  He's all, this is it.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  He has to be all in. You can't resign and then all of a sudden you get Cooper flag. And someone else is like, man, we did it.

• 1:02:27Bill Simmons?

  So wait until after the draft, make sure you didn't get in the top three.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  I think you have to be like, you have to come out with some messaging like, look, defense wins championships.

• 1:02:37Bill Simmons?

  I'll never waver from that.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  I'm wrestled, that's right. Tell me I'm wrong. Like, defense, when this, next time this franchise wins a championship, it will because of defense. And I hope it's with Anthony Davis.

• 1:02:50Bill Simmons?

  This is good. So the best case scenario for him is the Lakers suck in the playoffs. They underachieve in some way or it doesn't work out and there's more questions about Luca, even though there shouldn't be questions, but a little like after the finals last year, like huh. He wasn't that good in the finals and the Celtics really attacked him on defense.

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, oh, wore down a little bit.

• 1:03:11Bill Simmons?

  Maybe, maybe this could be a James Harden of this generation kind of guy. He'd have that. And then you would have whoever wins the title. It's like, man, like OKC wins the title. Holy shit, their defense. Wow.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  That's right. That's.

• 1:03:24Bill Simmons?

  Defense wins championships. Then Nico's like, see what I mean? I'm just trying to tell you guys.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  We're just, you know, a little bit unlucky with Kyrie, one draft pick.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  He can't, he can't move. He has to, he has to give it a shot.

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  You know what's funny? I have a, I have probably a hot take off the trade. If they had gotten Reeves in it with how good Reeves is.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:48Bill Simmons?

  And it was Reeves and Anthony Davis and two firsts. Like we're in the ballpark of like, I can, now I can start to see it. You can at least talk me into it after two drinks.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  That's the other part of it. That's bad. It was just also.

• 1:04:02Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe we talked about this. It's so funny.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  On its face is bad.

• 1:04:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  But then you still didn't get enough.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that it's the not getting enough is the, is to me, if we're doing a seesaw. It's 70% you didn't get enough and then 30% I can't believe you traded Luka Doncic. But it's still the 70% of you just didn't get enough.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Mikail Bridges got, was it five first round picks?

• 1:04:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, two of them are kinda blah, but yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  It's still.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  Davis is, Davis is like a top 12 guy, but he's a little injury prone, but yeah, it's a. I don't know what you do because you've, you've hurt the sport in a city in a way that we've kind of.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Timeout.

• 1:04:43Bill Simmons?

  Never, never seen.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Just a bookmark, just not to book it, just a bookend conspiracy bill. Didn't hurt the sport.

• 1:04:51Bill Simmons?

  Did not hurt. Well, that's what I mean. It hurt the sport in one city, but it helped in the other cities. Yeah.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  It really helped the sport. The, I'm not gonna, it really helped the sport, but did hurt the team. Also not ruling out Anthony Davis. Oh, Pelicans Anthony Davis, can he come back? And Anthony Davis, like when we were having real conversations like, ah, his PR numbers are Wilt Chamberlain-esque. It's like, remember that? It was, I don't know how long ago that was, but he was having those killer seasons and then kind of flame out in the playoffs. But man, I don't know. I kind of believe in Anthony Davis.

• 1:05:30Bill Simmons?

  I have an announcement for you. I have an announcement.

• 1:05:35Bill Simmons?

  They traded Mookie Betts, I think, February 2020. It's like a couple of weeks before COVID.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  I saw this tweet. Go ahead.

• 1:05:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm gonna do the tweet, but then I'm gonna dive into a little more.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:05:47Bill Simmons?

  The Red Sox were never the same for me after that trade. They'd won four titles.

• 1:05:53Bill Simmons?

  Baseball was changing. My basketball, football fascinations were growing every year. All these different reasons for it. It just was not life and death for me like it used to be, but it was really about the trade. And not having.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  That was the, was that the beginning of, was that the beginning of the end or the, or the final like straw that broke the camel's back?

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  I think it was like five straws that broke the camel's back because I love Mookie Betts. Like the whole point of sports is to, you want Tom Brady for 20 years. You want Jason Tatum for 20 years. Like you get one of these guys. It's like Dallas of Luca. You get one of these guys. This is like one fourth or one fifth of your life potentially that you're, this guy's on your team. And Mookie was like everything I wanted from a good player.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  So they trade him. I'm never the same and it really made me, but now with this, with the Red Sox, with Christian Campbell and with Roman Anthony Gummey and hopefully Mayer, but especially how much fun it's been to watch Christian Campbell these first few games. And it's very similar to Mookie's rookie season where he just like, he's swinging from the heels on everything, but his bat's hitting everything. And you just, you don't want to miss his at bats, the way he carries himself. He had this thing the other day Cora talked about where he said, he doesn't call his teammates teammates. Did you hear this?

• 1:07:13Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:14Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't say teammate. He says friend.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:07:18Bill Simmons?

  He's like, these are my friends. My friend Raphael Devers, he doesn't use the word teammate. I was like, this guy's out of Central Castings, 22. He's the most exciting rookie they've had since Mookie Betts. But then Roman Anthony, who's coming at some point this year, who's the best prospect in baseball. And you know what? I'm like, I was on the Castaway Island with Tom Hanks.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  You're back?

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was, you know, I was doing some spear fishing.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  Sleeping in a cave, talking to a volleyball, but I think I'm back.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  Okay, welcome back.

• 1:07:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  I, uh, you gotta start following the Woo Sox. That's where I'm getting my like, my, uh,

• 1:07:54Bill Simmons?

  The Roman Anthony takes?

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  Roman Anthony. Roman Anthony. I was like, oh, another home run. I'm just seeing highlights. I never see the guys strike out or ground out. Everything looks great. Well, welcome back.

• 1:08:03Bill Simmons?

  It's the only sport where, when somebody's just an awesome prospect, it makes the most sense in baseball. When you just see somebody, you're like, that guy's fucking awesome. I guess that could happen in basketball too, but not in the same way because they're a little younger and they're competing against like grown ass men. In baseball, sometimes you have these dudes come in, you're like, wow. You see some of the Roman Anthony highlights, you're like, wow.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Are you worried about Devers on the flip side?

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  My dad is. It's a big conversation with my dad.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  He had a hit yesterday.

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  He was like, he came in fat in camp. It's his fault. He was like upset about it.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  I like, I like all the stories. It's like, it's one part injury. It's one part certain amount of that bats. It's one part he opened up his batting stance. And then I forgot, was it Papelbon said it?

• 1:08:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Now, too many carbs. Like, oh, too many carbs would actually be the best thing.

• 1:08:54Bill Simmons?

  I think baseball has become the new David Stern NBA where every first month of the season, they have some sort of controversy now. Like this year, it's the torpedo bats. I was all in. I read every torpedo bat thing. I've been watching the Yankees clips of them. I was like, wow, this is, why, why is this legal? How are they doing this? Why don't other teams? Like, it's really fascinating.

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  Loved it. I, I'm surprised. I didn't even know that we didn't. I didn't know that was a thing, considering like if you have a kid in little league and there's new bats coming out every three months.

• 1:09:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  Bats are like it's a iPhone updates, like new bat, this bat's no good anymore. This bat is hotter. Oh, you need this bat? This bat's out of hits. We'd have to get a different bat. There's three different bat. Like the bat technology in youth baseball is out of my control. So it was about time it caught up with major league baseball. You kind of graduated out of baseball bat parenting.

• 1:09:48Bill Simmons?

  Let me tell you something.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Hundreds of dollars.

• 1:09:51Bill Simmons?

  I look back at, uh, some of the kid sports that I had to sit through. Baseball's way up there as the worst.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:09:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  Like, was he any good?

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  No, no, it wasn't about whether he was actually good. And I think that COVID thing kind of ended the baseball.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  Oh, it stinks.

• 1:10:11Bill Simmons?

  It was just, it's, it's the seeding, like the worst possible seeding situations, the long drives everywhere, the games, nobody has control over the pitches over the mound, the ball's going everywhere. Kids are crying, like if you go 10, that sweet spot with the boys between eight and 11, anyone's a candidate, start crying during the game.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:33Bill Simmons?

  Everyone's like, it's just a roller coaster ride. But the sports I missed, thank God gymnastics, that sounds horrific. Swimming sounds awful, just for the parent standpoint. And then track and field, those are the big three of the ones you don't want your kid to do.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Baseball, I'm, I'm, I'm a baseball guy. I like being a baseball.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  Good to be outside at least, yeah.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Well, the other thing is, I think you're a little spoiled in Southern California with just like.

• 1:11:02Bill Simmons?

  We can't appreciate it.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  I also just like sitting outside for two hours. I won't do it in my backyard, but I'm happy to just sit outside in the sunshine like, oh, this is delightful. Also nowhere to hide in baseball, which is nice. Play a lot of sports like soccer. Hey, how'd the soccer game go? Oh, it's this person did this and this person like, no, dude, like you're at bat. You have to hit the ball.

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  You know what was part of the baseball thing for me? I thought the parents were especially annoying. It's a tough parent crowd, but the, the guy who has to go right behind home plate, videotape all his kids pitches and he's blocking everybody. And then the two parents who get a little chirpy with kids on the other team. You're like, dude, these kids are 10, shut up.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Bill Simmons?

  It's a pretty bad scene for that.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  I, confession, although I like all.

• 1:11:50Bill Simmons?

  You're one of those parents?

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  No, I'm a, I'm a center field parent.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's really smart.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  By myself.

• 1:11:58Bill Simmons?

  That's great. That's really smart.

• 1:11:59Speaker 02

  I just like watching the game. I like watching the game. I like watching my kids' games. And like, if I could have a, uh, like a man cave, it would be like a isolation chamber. It would be like something that that would be against the, you know, Geneva conventions. It would be just me in a room all by myself with, with, I would like to have Twitter to follow along, but I don't need anyone. I just like to be all by myself consuming the game. I don't like to hear.

• 1:12:34Bill Simmons?

  It's funny you mention this because when Ben was playing third base, I would sit in left field and I really enjoyed it because nobody was out there. I was still close enough to see what was going on with him. He'd occasionally get the foul ball hit toward me. And there were no parents.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't, ah, this. If you're talking too much about the game, I, I just want to watch. And if you're not talking about the game, I'm annoyed. So it's a kind of a.

• 1:12:56Bill Simmons?

  When the parents don't understand baseball. Isn't that a strikeout? No, it's, it's three, it's two strikes.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  I think most people, I mean, that's a really basic.

• 1:13:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. No, it's, it's only two outs. We're not adding any. I haven't had three outs yet. Let's, uh, we'll take a break and we'll do half baked ideas. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're 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 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

• 1:13:48Bill Simmons?

  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. One, two, three, Cancun. 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. So you've been doing half baked ideas of me pretty much ever since I've had a podcast. For whatever reason, none of them have been sold for millions of dollars.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  They're happening though. Every once in a while, one of them happens.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, one of them got turned into a movie, The Purge. We didn't get any credit. We did our leap year movie became The Purge.

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  I'll always believe it. Yeah. The, the, um, watch, watch TV like in a surround sound like you're in first base. Like you're in like the front, a front row seat.

• 1:14:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that happened.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  Baked idea. That just happened.

• 1:14:44Bill Simmons?

  That happened.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  I didn't get any credit for that one. All right.

• 1:14:48Bill Simmons?

  Start ripping them off. I have, I have three bonus ones too, but I'll, I'll intersperse mine later. Cause this is your show and your gimmick.

• 1:14:54Speaker 02

  Wow. Thank you. Uh, I have two odor based ones.

• 1:14:59Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  First one coming off of what happened to me last night. Supposed to take the dog out for a walk. Midnight ish. Ah, it's kind of cold. I'll just let the dog out.

• 1:15:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh no.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  I just let him out. He goes out. I hear

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  a bark that is reserved for cartoon dogs like

• 1:15:23Speaker 02

  yowzers. So what's going on here? Come back downstairs, open the door. The dog's making like, he's like making noises and he's like drooling kind of like, as soon as he gets close to me. He's, has already been sprayed by a skunk. I realized he's sprayed by a skunk. Now he's in the house and he's slobbering.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  It's almost like getting a concussion.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  Oh my, it's, it's now, and he's moving around and he's bringing this stink everywhere.

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  So you brought him in the house. That's the worst thing you could do.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  He was making noise. I didn't realize he had gotten sprayed until he was in the house. And now he's like freaking out and I'm like, I gotta take care of you. I'm not just gonna, you know, just communicate him to the garage. Like, all right, we gotta get in the tub. I bring him upstairs.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  Now you stink of skunk.

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  I stink of skunk. I bring him upstairs. My wife wakes up. What smells he got? He got. He's got sprayed by a skunk. Now I've got the ragu in there. I'm pouring it on him and he's like, kinda likes it. He's like.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  Ragu? Tomato sauce?

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a thing.

• 1:16:30Bill Simmons?

  That's what you do with a dog that's got?

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's some sort of something about the.

• 1:16:34Bill Simmons?

  So did you Google this?

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  No, I kinda knew that.

• 1:16:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  I think it's like peeing on a jelly, like a jellyfish thing. I think it's just convention, like common knowledge.

• 1:16:44Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  I don't think you're supposed to use marinara sauce. I think you're supposed to use like tomato. I don't know. In any event, now I'm covering the dog up with tomato, with marinara sauce. My wife's like, it smells like skunk and garlic in here. I'm like, I know, I'm making pasta in the tub, covering him up.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  He stinks. The place is a disaster. Moral of the story, I wanted, I needed someone to call and I had nobody.

• 1:17:14Bill Simmons?

  Like the wolf from Pulp Fiction for skunks?

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  Nailed it.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Wolf of skunks. That's exactly what I want. Some sort of wolf skunk thing. Call a guy, comes in, cause now I'm going home. And everybody else who went to work today is going home is gonna say, oh, I'm so happy I'm home. You know, home is where the heart is. And my entire house smells like something that God created to get animals away. And I'm just living in it. Also, I smell a little bit right now.

• 1:17:50Bill Simmons?

  It's like, it's, it's, it's like days. Isn't it like seven, eight, nine days? It's like burning popcorn multiplied by a hundred.

• 1:17:58Speaker 02

  So what, and he moved all around and it was on his mouth. So as he was drooling, like the skunk smells in the rugs. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Call.

• 1:18:08Bill Simmons?

  Call the wolf. So what else? I feel like that can't be the only job for the, for the animal wolf. It's gotta be, there's gotta be a couple of other things like bit by a rattlesnake. He knows what to do with that.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, he can do all.

• 1:18:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he has got like five specialties.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  Yes, that's sure. But I really, I would just like to call him. Take care of the skunk smell, but also if you also, you know, coincidentally got bit by a rattlesnake, that would also work. So then that goes into, so that's just a kind of, that's a one that happened last night. Here's the real one that I actually thought of.

• 1:18:40Bill Simmons?

  Tough one for the dog, man. This getting sprayed close by a skunk.

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  He, he, yeah.

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  It's honestly a concussion.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  He actually started to like it. He liked the attention. Okay.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna court this guy.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  This one is called Home Odors Association. This is just a coincidence from the skunk thing.

• 1:19:03Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:19:03Speaker 02

  Okay. This is gonna upend the real estate market. All right? Real estate is usually based on visuals, right? Curb appeal of the home, uh, what type of view do you have? Do you have a view of the water, a view of the, you know, a nice forest perhaps? And if it's, so it's one part visuals probably the top dog. Sometimes real estate's based on sounds. Oh, it's, it's a quiet neighborhood. Or if you're too close to the highway, it's loud and that will hurt the value.

• 1:19:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  It's, it's never based on smells. So I came home the other day, someone was having, cooking up several cheeseburgers. And I was like, wow, I was just walking home like this.

• 1:19:49Bill Simmons?

  What a great smell.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  Develop a property and maybe you gotta figure out the wind patterns or, you know, you have a little pop-up barbecue places.

• 1:19:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  And they don't even have to make money because the money is within the smell.

• 1:20:02Bill Simmons?

  So it's like a grilling, a cheeseburger smell, just a lot of the time.

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  A bakery. We have a bakery, oh, in, uh, in Portchester, there's a bakery. It smells wonderful. Riding my bike around like, wow, should I go get some fresh bread?

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  Was there another level of this where it's almost like you have a surround sound system in your house, but instead it's a surround smell system? And you're like, today I'm gonna pass, I'm gonna pass out the smell of burgers being grilled. And they just go through your house?

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  The, I, I love it. That, yeah, I mean, that's just.

• 1:20:33Bill Simmons?

  Can't AI come up with that? AI can do everything.

• 1:20:36Speaker 02

  AI is overrated.

• 1:20:37Bill Simmons?

  Pizza, pizza burning on a wood grill smell?

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Here's, here's another one. This is not, this is not artificial. I'm doing the real thing, you know? Not just like a fake, not, I'm not a Yankee candle out here.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  An old man with a pipe.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  He comes to your house because I don't, I don't want the nicotine. I don't want, you know, the, the chance of diseases and I don't want the secondhand smoke. But while you're at work, an old man with a pipe will come and sit down in a chair.

• 1:21:08Bill Simmons?

  Just for two hours and then leaves.

• 1:21:10Speaker 02

  And then leaves. But you go in there like, wow, smells like folk music here. Smells great.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  You made me think of LA Live, walk into where we both used to do TV and do TV shows and Grandland was there that, um, there was that restaurant and would spew out the hot air from the air conditioning that smelled like food, like burgers and dogs, but it was like this hot, humid, disgusting version of the smell. And when you walk through it, you got hit by it every time and you would always forget it was there. You know, I'm talking about like, bad smells, like a hot, heat, hot, heat, like kind of food that was already made, gross smell.

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  I got hit by it last week.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  And you didn't like it.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  Going in my car in the garage, did not like it. All of your odors sound much better.

• 1:21:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. If it has to be positive odors, that's what it's called. One part Winston Wolf of Skunks, one part Home Odors Association.

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  Really great. Great start.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  You want to go another one?

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  Combine.

• 1:22:15Speaker 02

  I'll start here.

• 1:22:18Speaker 02

  One of the legendary pro day story, Kobe's pro day where Jerry West brings in Michael Cooper.

• 1:22:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  And Michael Cooper was 40 years old. Kobe cooked him up. Jerry West realizes that Kobe is a superstar. He knew it, but that was a, that is a legendary pro day story. I'm seeing Cam Ward. Nobody's there. He's just throwing to no one. There's no opposition. Ashton Gentey, we had his pro day. He took his shirt off, looked great, but he's running against literal garbage cans and jumping over little cones. So here's the idea. Remember Iron Mike Sharp?

• 1:22:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:01Speaker 02

  That he would just come in and get beaten up and you're like, ah, it's entertaining. Iron Mike Sharp-esque.

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  You're talking about wrestling jobbers.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Yes. For your, for your pro day.

• 1:23:13Bill Simmons?

  Wrestling, so football jobbers.

• 1:23:15Speaker 02

  Yes, but stars. Like, like Michael Cooper S. Like Aaron Donald, look.

• 1:23:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, yeah, he's not working out lately.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Any interest in suiting up and trying to get past Will Campbell? Like, worst case scenario for Will Campbell, you hold your own against Aaron Donald. And I know what you're thinking, the pushback is gonna be, pushback is gonna be like, ah, Aaron Donald's been out of the league. Like, oh, so what? You tackled Barry Sanders, he's 45. I get it. But the, I forget which Jake Paul, Jake Paul Tyson. There is a glitch in sports fans' minds, and it's happening right now with Aaron Rodgers, that sports fans, and maybe this is because of Tom Brady's longevity and LeBron's longevity,

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  that the glitch is, we cannot process aging of our heroes, aging of superstars. We just can't quite get it.

• 1:24:17Bill Simmons?

  I talked about this two weeks ago. Brady screwed it up in football, and now we just assume Aaron Rodgers shouldn't be watched.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Of course, he's gonna be good. Because Tom Brady was good. We're not like, no, he was one of one.

• 1:24:27Bill Simmons?

  It's really only Brady and LeBron.

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  They're the only two that made it into their 40s and stayed good.

• 1:24:33Speaker 02

  But if you are, you know, if you are a little bit younger than me, that was, they were the main figures of your entire sports universe. So of course, the great players can go. Same with Mike Tyson. When I saw Mike, I'm like, oh, I don't know. Mike Tyson's got a chance. Even now, it's like, no, Mike Tyson was pulling punches. Mike Tyson is as old as you're, yeah. Of course, you can't absorb a punch. So that's why, wow, look at Travis Hunter, tracking down.

• 1:25:04Bill Simmons?

  Look at him lighting up Darrell Revis.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  Be great. Wow. Tackling Barry Sanders. Well, get Calvin Johnson out there. Can you lock up Calvin Johnson?

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Speaker 02

  I think it would be great. So I

• 1:25:17Bill Simmons?

  Also a good way for the old guys to stick around.

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  Make some money and next thing you know, like maybe you guys get another shot at it.

• 1:25:23Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah. Like Terrell Owens trying to cook Will Johnson.

• 1:25:27Speaker 02

  Yes, that would be tremendous. He shut down, shut down TO. That would work.

• 1:25:34Bill Simmons?

  Do you want, do you want my worst one? A decent one or one that I'm actually afraid to give out because I feel like it's an actual idea?

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  The, I like the, the one that you're afraid to give out. Your worst ones are usually pretty bad.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:25:50Bill Simmons?

  Remember MasterClass when all the, it'd be like Malcolm Gladwell teaches you how to write a book and

• 1:25:55Speaker 02

  Is that still a thing?

• 1:25:56Bill Simmons?

  Dave Chang, I don't know if it's still a thing or not. And you would watch these tutorials, but it was like, they would just get all these awesome people.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Bill Simmons?

  What is the biggest question couples ask one another every week?

• 1:26:11Bill Simmons?

  The number one thing couples who are married, who are somewhere between my age group and your age group, even though we're pretty close to each other.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  The number one question

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  Number one question we ask week after week.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  I mean, this sounds so lame, but like, what is our, what is our schedule this week?

• 1:26:30Bill Simmons?

  That's a good one. Yeah, that's probably, I had that number two. Number one.

• 1:26:36Bill Simmons?

  Should we watch this?

• 1:26:41Bill Simmons?

  It's like, hey Netflix, we'll go check Netflix. What's on there? Temptation Allen. Hmm. Should we watch this? Watch one episode? What's this new show Adolescence? Celtic City on Max. Ah, sports documentary on a team. I don't know. Is this a good one? Should we watch this? This is, there's so much content. You never know what to watch, what not to watch, what's good, what's not good.

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:27:08Bill Simmons?

  And then you end up like you're on Google. You're checking out like, oh, did Vulture write a recap of this? Did, did, oh wait, The Ringer wrote a piece that said, they said this was good. Oh, I heard on the, like there, there's this extra step. Well, not with Master Critic.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  Okay, let's go ahead.

• 1:27:26Bill Simmons?

  We're doing all AI for movies, TV, um, reality. So reality, it's like, should I watch Temptation Island? Dave Jacoby hasn't watched it either. He's the czar of reality. But we do have is AI Dave Jacoby, who's taken all of his takes on reality ever.

• 1:27:45Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:27:46Bill Simmons?

  Take Temptation Island, the synopsis, what they've heard of the show, synthesize, and then you click AI Dave Jacoby and AI Dave Jacoby says, I think Temptation Island is gonna be pretty good. I was a big fan of the one in oh three and just talks to you like Dave Jacoby, but it's AI. Same thing for AI Roger Ebert. Roger Ebert's back. He's reviewing movies again. We're going, we're calling, we're, and by the way, his estate gets a share of masterclass, but we're calling 40 years of Roger Ebert reviews. And AI can figure out, would he have liked the movie that's about to come out? Me, there's a new heist movie, AI Bill Simmons. I'm dead. AI Bill Simmons is like, maybe I can be alive. Yeah.

• 1:28:27Speaker 02

  You don't need to be dead for this. It's like, it can just be a time-saving thing. You don't need to.

• 1:28:30Bill Simmons?

  Wait, so it's Chris Evans and Denzel Washington are in Argentina and they have to commit a heist. And then I come in and I just say, yeah, you should watch this. That's all I got. Master critic.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  All right. So this was.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  It's all AI.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  This is a, I hate to say, cause you've done this before in our history of half-baked ideas. You don't totally grasp the concept.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  You think this is too fully baked?

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  That's just called a business idea that you should have saved for like some important meeting.

• 1:29:04Bill Simmons?

  That's why I was hesitant to give it out.

• 1:29:07Speaker 02

  That was, that's what you call a real good idea.

• 1:29:11Bill Simmons?

  AI Dave Jacoby?

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that's a real idea.

• 1:29:15Bill Simmons?

  Dive bars with Kyle, like it's, it's AI Kyle nephew Kyle. Where it's just the, the AI can look at the dive bar and the sign and find out how many bars on tap. And would Kyle go in there and spend four hours there?

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  See, that's.

• 1:29:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Kyle. I feel like Master Critic has, has options for everybody. But the AI can go and look at the background and figure out exactly what people like. And then they.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  Basically your reverse engineering, like supposedly what Netflix was doing, like picking all of these characteristics.

• 1:29:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then you're just reversing it. The thing I do like that I think you stumbled upon with, um, Roger Ebert, like sometimes. Francisco and Ebert, I will try to figure out if I want to watch something. Let's read this review and it's this interesting review that the writer is writing all of these things like, ah, all right. Here's what I like. Old school.

• 1:30:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:10Speaker 02

  Thumbs up or thumbs down.

• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  It's worth seeing or it's not. That's it. I don't, I don't need any vagueness. Thumbs up, watch it. Thumbs down. Oh, it's rotten tomatoes. Eight, you ever get like a 77% rotten tomatoes by the fans, but the other one is 62% like huh? Am I supposed to, what? Thumbs up or thumbs down? That's all I want.

• 1:30:36Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  Good. That's a real idea, though.

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, thanks. Maybe I shouldn't give it away.

• 1:30:40Speaker 02

  No, that was.

• 1:30:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, at least I got it on the record. Now somebody has that. Now I have trademark.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  Did I, if I did this one already, Kyle edited out, but I don't think I have. Did some caroling over the holidays?

• 1:30:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember this one.

• 1:30:57Speaker 02

  Okay, good. I did some caroling.

• 1:31:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, we haven't talked to you since the holidays, so we definitely haven't heard this.

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  This is, this is fresh.

• 1:31:07Bill Simmons?

  It'd be funny if you did do this and neither of us remembered it though.

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  No, I, I do think I have one of those, but.

• 1:31:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  I'll try, I'll, this one's fresh. So did some caroling. Exactly what you think. Some strong eggnog. We got some, uh, songbooks, walking around in the freezing cold, singing.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  Loved it. Loved it. To the point where I stopped, I said, you know what, Lib? We should carol. Like this should be our thing too. Maybe we go to their house to carol one week, we go another week. And I was upset that I was going to have to wait 365 days to go caroling.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  There's no law against non-Christmas caroling.

• 1:31:53Bill Simmons?

  It's just year-round caroling. Caesar Chavez Day, let's get out there, do some carols.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Any day.

• 1:32:00Bill Simmons?

  Any day.

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  Any day you want. Like, it's what people talk about. I don't golf, but like, I'm like, ah, I don't know, it's a golf. Like, look, you're out here with your buddies, it's a nice walk, you're having some drinks, you're spending some time together, and you know, it's a great time. You want to call it mobile karaoke? Sure. Let's all get together. What are we doing tonight? Oh, we're gonna have a few drinks. And by the way, if you're singing, you're allowed to drink in public. That's just a little carve-out of the law. I don't think.

• 1:32:35Bill Simmons?

  Bring caroling back.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  But I don't even know, is caroling holiday-specific, or am I just a door-to-door?

• 1:32:41Bill Simmons?

  I always felt it did. I feel like there needs to be a specific reason for caroling. Like, in the holidays, it's because everybody's in cheerful mood and they're in the giving spirit, but what does that mean?

• 1:32:52Speaker 02

  But if I showed up on your doorstep on July 4th to sing the Star Spangled Banner, you wouldn't turn me away. I got a cocktail.

• 1:33:00Bill Simmons?

  That's why this is happening. I'd probably be like, why is that guy at our door?

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  I have lots of friends. I give you a Budweiser, let's go. And we're just going down, we're just singing patriotic songs?

• 1:33:13Bill Simmons?

  It feels like this could be co-opted by bad people who would be like, let's do the thing where we pretend we're caroling and then we rob some houses.

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  Well, gee whiz, I mean, yeah. So could.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  I don't know. Look at you, that lens.

• 1:33:28Bill Simmons?

  The cynical guy.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  My goodness. All right. This one is more base. All right, I'll do the other one that I think, I don't think I've, have I done the anti-scout?

• 1:33:38Bill Simmons?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  This is a little bit like baseball, because you know, youth sports right now.

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  Spending a lot of money, lot of camps, traveling around, multiple sports, people gunning for scholarships, lot of pressure on the kids, lot of pressure on the parents to keep up.

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  Oh, then you get to high school. Oh, oh, there's a scout here.

• 1:34:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness. Scout from college or a scout from the big leagues?

• 1:34:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  Guess what I got? Anti-scout.

• 1:34:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  The parents get excited. What the, what a scout does, looking around for all the measurables, looking around to see if your kid's got what it takes to make it at the next level. The anti-scout comes to, you know, basically the parents have to hire the anti-scout. Anti-scout goes, watches the games, does the same exact thing, then has a meeting with the parents, says, I want to tell you about a little Johnny.

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  Congratulations. He doesn't have what it takes. You're like, yes, let's go.

• 1:34:53Bill Simmons?

  We've saved 48,000 hours in expenses.

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  Good news.

• 1:34:57Bill Simmons?

  Travel, camp.

• 1:34:59Speaker 02

  Got great news. And he's got like an arsenal. Like, you know, when there's ever like, like, it's always like Denzel Washington is always like out on, you know, Denzel Washington's trying to, to put his life back on the, you know, the straight and narrow. But then he has to meet up with his old CIA partners, like, I can't believe I have to do this. And they have the one scene where he has all the guns and he's got to choose. That's what the anti-scout has, like a table is like, come on over here. And he opens it up and it's just like a chessboard. There's like a clarinet there. There's just like several books on like engineering and the coding and stuff like that. The anti-scout, like you can, there's a, there's a recycling bin for all your baseball stuff, your cleats and stuff like.

• 1:35:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're just out because you're out that day.

• 1:35:44Speaker 02

  You can be out that day. That's probably too aggressive. That might, there might be a little more emotional.

• 1:35:51Bill Simmons?

  So anti-scout comes in, he meets with Johnny's parents.

• 1:35:54Speaker 02

  He's like, that's it.

• 1:35:55Bill Simmons?

  And they're like, what do you think? And he's like, honestly, I watched him run to first base when he hit that line drive single. Heavy legs. I don't think it ever changes. He's slow.

• 1:36:06Speaker 02

  But he's not upset. It's like.

• 1:36:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's just like, it's the way it is.

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, you're happy about it. It's like getting, it's like getting an offer. Like you're saving thousands, like if you get a scholarship, you're saving thousands of dollars and everyone's thrilled. If you get a positive review, which is.

• 1:36:22Bill Simmons?

  You're still saving, you're still saving the money.

• 1:36:24Speaker 02

  Thousands of dollars. You're like, I've got great news for you.

• 1:36:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  This guy should pick up, you know, I think he's great with drum. Maybe that's it. Maybe we just head to somewhere else. Like, I think he's gonna be a great windsurfer. Like, really? Like, yes. With the anti-scout and parents like text chains are always calling the anti-scout to come in. Hey, you better play his best.

• 1:36:48Bill Simmons?

  I love the anti-scout. Also, it'd be a fun sports movie.

• 1:36:52Speaker 02

  That's a good take, too. Write that one up.

• 1:36:55Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a push push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you are 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. I got, all right, I got another one for you.

• 1:37:41Bill Simmons?

  This is probably my worst one, but I feel strongly bad.

• 1:37:43Speaker 02

  It'll be the best.

• 1:37:45Bill Simmons?

  Baby names.

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:47Bill Simmons?

  When you're, when you're having a baby, we just had a couple of our friends have babies. And it, there's like this whole thing where you don't really want to ask what, what they're thinking about a name.

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:57Bill Simmons?

  Because they usually like some name and then if you weigh in and you're like, ah, then, you know, and you have some sort of take. It actually could get a little awkward. So now we've hit this world where people kind of hoard the name and they're like, ah, we don't know. But they always know. You always know around month eight, you got like your three finalists. But I'm always amazed by, and I just thought this because my dad just got a puppy because he's a psycho. He's 77, he just got a golden retriever puppy, who by the way is a maniac. But he was gonna name the dog Sophie, because they always have these IE names.

• 1:38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:31Bill Simmons?

  For their dogs.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:33Bill Simmons?

  And I was like, I don't know, they're, they're getting like this dog out of, uh, they got the litter, they got the first pick of the girls. I was like, this dog's gonna be a little bit alpha-y, like, it's a goat, like Sophie sounds that, and, and more importantly, there's a ton of Sofies right now. It's like, there is? It was like, yeah, don't do Sophie. So, and we talked during the name and the dog Ruby. So we call her Rubes and you get all these nicknames out of it. But it got me thinking, he didn't realize that Sophie was such a popular name right now. And what happens over and over again, when people have the names, they don't do all the work to find out like, oh, don't, don't name your kid Olivia. There's like a million Olivias right now. You're just gonna be like, your kid's gonna be Olivia W or Olivia S.

• 1:39:18Speaker 02

  Cause you're out of the mix. If you're, if you don't, yes.

• 1:39:20Bill Simmons?

  So when we named our daughter Zoe, we were all excited about it because we didn't know any Zoys. But we didn't realize is there had been a slow stealth Zoe renaissance right before. So Zoe gets into, uh, whatever, she's in pre-k, there's another Zoe, like one of her best friends right now is also named Zoe. And there was like all, all of a sudden Zoys, Olivias, Emmas, Ava, they're, you know. So I looked up the top five names right now for girls are still Olivia, Amelia, Emma, Charlotte and Sophia. And then there's Mia, Isabella, Ava, Evelyn, Luna. Like you, you have two relatively young kids. So you've seen a lot of these names in action.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:40:01Bill Simmons?

  The boys are Noah, Liam, Oliver, James and Elijah.

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  Oh, no, Charlie, we got a lot of Charlies.

• 1:40:09Bill Simmons?

  Charlie's a big one.

• 1:40:10Speaker 02

  We got a lot of Charlies.

• 1:40:11Bill Simmons?

  Liam's a big one. Uh, Henry is in there.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  Henry.

• 1:40:17Bill Simmons?

  And nobody zags the other way. So that this is my half baked idea, baby name consultant. So you go in and does this exist?

• 1:40:25Speaker 02

  I think it's straight up exists.

• 1:40:27Bill Simmons?

  Shut up.

• 1:40:28Speaker 02

  I think it's straight up exists.

• 1:40:30Bill Simmons?

  Like it's like a service?

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's people that do that. Maybe I read about this, that it was like-

• 1:40:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so Rudy says a hundred percent exists. Well, a half baked idea that's I guess fully baked.

• 1:40:43Speaker 02

  Both of you, you have, you have hit two fully baked ideas. You're one way.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had a whole other thing where you could go into the baby name consultant and be like, we're thinking of something in like a 1977.

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they do that.

• 1:40:57Bill Simmons?

  And then they go back and they look and the biggest name in 1977 was Jennifer, followed by Melissa, Amy, Jessica, Heather and Angela. By the way, names that no longer exist. Those kids are not, oh, Sarita says it's infiltrated his IG algorithm. Sarita's about to have a kid.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  Oh, nice.

• 1:41:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Sarita, what's the name, what's, what name?

• 1:41:16Bill Simmons?

  Sarita, just come on the Zoom. So this hundred percent exists.

• 1:41:20Speaker 03

  Yep, yep. There's a, I'll get like, there's three or four different women that come up and they basically, like you email them like, hey, I like Sophia, but I don't want Sophia. And they'll give you like a list of names that are like kind of similar vibes, come from the same origin, start with the same letter.

• 1:41:36Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:41:37Speaker 03

  You know, it's very bougie. I don't, I don't do that. I just read lists all day. We don't have a name that maybe do not.

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  Has this ever happened in half baked ideas where there's been a half baked idea? Like I, is, is this a sign that we're getting old? What's?

• 1:41:47Speaker 02

  Here's the thing. No, I think that you just need, you carve out your niche, Bill, of like sports names. That's the only, that's the only-

• 1:41:58Bill Simmons?

  Do like a sports.

• 1:42:00Speaker 02

  A sports specific name, because I think, I don't know if the baby consultants are huge sports fans. So you could be like, hey, what about Gail? Gail Goodrich. Gail for a Gail Sayers. No one's got Gail.

• 1:42:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, go all like seventies. Yeah.

• 1:42:17Speaker 02

  Like you could be like- Like that, I think works. It's like how Jalen Rose, Jalen's name took off.

• 1:42:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but now you shouldn't be Jalen. Sarudy, don't name your kid Jalen if you're having a boy.

• 1:42:27Speaker 02

  But Jalen could be one of the founders of the new business. It's like Jalen Rose, like, trust me, like, I'm the godfather of all of this.

• 1:42:36Bill Simmons?

  See, the reason I thought this was a half-baked idea, because the move is just don't do anything that everybody else is doing in the last 10 years. Go back, like, there's no Jennies anymore. Jenny was the most popular name when we were growing up. And there's like, nobody wants to name their kid Jenny because all the adults all know people named Jenny and they want to zag. But really, the move is to zag the other way and go with Jenny.

• 1:42:56Speaker 02

  I know, but everyone is zagging. That's the problem. Everyone's doing the opposite.

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  It feels like it's a big like grandma name phase right now, like names that were popular in like the 20s, 30s coming back. So like, yeah, if you go back to like Rachel, you know, just a, like a name from the 90s or something.

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  Kathleen. Yeah, I looked, the trending names right now, Wildes.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  Rachel, I believe, is in the Bible. I don't know what 90s.

• 1:43:17Speaker 03

  But like Rachel was a po-, you know, friends, the whole popularity thing. That, nobody, I don't know any, do you know any babies named Rachel anymore?

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:43:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, the trending names right now, Arthur, Birdie, Celeste, Daphne, and Dorothy. So like the 1920s and 30s names are coming back. Yeah. We'll probably have a Marge and a Madge, all that stuff.

• 1:43:38Speaker 02

  I like those.

• 1:43:39Bill Simmons?

  Sarudy, the thing you just, you just have to avoid having the name that your kid just has to have the last name initial next to their name for eight years.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds like Severance.

• 1:43:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I was, Zoe was in one class where there were three Zoys. And we were like, we thought like there were, maybe we were just naive. Anyway, Sarudy. All right, that one's fully baked. Thanks, Sarudy.

• 1:44:03Speaker 02

  Good job, Sarudy.

• 1:44:03Bill Simmons?

  What's your next one, Wildes?

• 1:44:06Speaker 02

  Um, I've got.

• 1:44:10Speaker 02

  Moms know that one's no good.

• 1:44:11Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe they're baby name consultants that this is a job. I'm just stunned by this.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  This is a quick one. I just figured here a quick take on it. We went to Duke, Alabama. We sat, we sat on the baseline.

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  It was in, uh, it was in New Jersey Prudential Center, I think.

• 1:44:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Speaker 02

  And I hadn't been to a, I don't know. The last time I went to a, I went to the, I went to the Yukon game at the Garden, but this was the first time I sat baseline and we're sitting near the Alabama band, trombones, the whole nine. And it made me realize, and I mean, I, I think I'm, I think I'm right, but I, I hold out a chance that I'm just not, I'm misremembering it because the band was so, we were next to the band. That there was no music playing during the, during the game, like there isn't an NBA game. There was no like doo doo.

• 1:45:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:05Speaker 02

  It was just in timeouts, the band going crazy. So I'm just putting it out there. Bands at NBA games.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  Bring them back. Yeah. Like you're Charlotte, you're playing at the string, put a band in there and it's happier.

• 1:45:20Speaker 02

  And it's great. It's just livelier. It's like college games are like, like bands are underrated at this point. I think bands are underrated at weddings. I think they're underrated at sporting events. You're like, no, no, it's the DJ. They can do like, I know the DJ should be better, but just do the Pepsi challenge. Have, you know, a DJ on a street corner, playing a popular song and have a full on band. The band is tremendous.

• 1:45:53Bill Simmons?

  So an actual wedding band. Yeah.

• 1:45:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Full on kick ass brass band playing in timeouts, getting you fired up. Symbols, like it's just great. It feels like you're, there's something to it where.

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're not hit songs, perhaps. Perhaps they're just big cymbal crashes. But there's something about the liveness of it that like they're performing, the game is happening. There's something special that college sports captures with a band that gets lost in the NBA. With a reliance on DJs and playing sound during the games, which I am not a fan of.

• 1:46:35Bill Simmons?

  Nobody likes it and they do it because if you don't do it, it gets too quiet in the arena and then people can yell stuff and then people get upset. The band thing, I would say one of the reasons is it's taking up space somewhere.

• 1:46:47Speaker 02

  Oh boo hoo.

• 1:46:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's, I'm just saying, these guys are all greedy. That's why we have 82 games instead of 70 because these guys are grabbing every dollar they can.

• 1:46:56Speaker 02

  I'm like, that does make sense.

• 1:46:58Bill Simmons?

  Ballmer could have done it though.

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  There's a lot of seats. Yes.

• 1:47:00Bill Simmons?

  Ballmer could have done it. Ballmer could have been like, I'm building the best arena ever. And by the way, we're gonna have a band and not like a college band. It's gonna be like a big ensemble Doobie Brothers kind of band that during timeouts. It's like when a late night TV show goes to commercial.

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:47:17Bill Simmons?

  And all of a sudden the band kicks in. That's what we're doing, folks.

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  I, I think Steve Ballmer should do that.

• 1:47:23Bill Simmons?

  Man, maybe he's listening. It's a great idea.

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  A hundred percent he should do that. I think it's good for everybody. Everyone loves a band. No one dislikes a band.

• 1:47:32Bill Simmons?

  Great one. What's your next one?

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  This, this one's too stupid. I'm reluctant. Oh, this is a quick, another quick one. Then I have an insane one. What do you have the jumping three pointer? This is a little bit of like the torpedo bat. There's a few things that happen.

• 1:47:48Bill Simmons?

  The one-legged three pointer, like what Tatum does?

• 1:47:52Speaker 02

  Jumping from the three point line to the foul line. Like when this happens, there's a few things happening in sports that are so obvious.

• 1:48:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so you jump, but you don't shoot till you're like near the foul line?

• 1:48:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:48:07Speaker 02

  So I'll give you just the background, the tush push. Hey, quarterback sneak. No, how about we get everybody and just push the guy forward? Obvious unstoppable. Seems like a flaw. I don't know why it didn't work before. Number two, hey, a torpedo bats. Hey, how about with a barrel, the sweet spot? We make that a little bit bigger and make a smaller part where no one ever hits the ball. Wow, that works. No brainer. Old school. Hey, how about we shoot more threes? Yeah, that sounds good. They're better than twos. Yep, great. The running three pointer is such an obvious idea. I don't know why it's not happening.

• 1:48:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying to think of the situations. So you need, it would need to be like a three on two.

• 1:48:48Speaker 02

  Every situation, pretty every fast break. Giannis comes down and there's no standing. You take off at the three point line. Bare minimum, you're getting to the free throw line for a little mid-range jumper.

• 1:49:02Bill Simmons?

  So you think this is the new Euro step?

• 1:49:04Speaker 02

  It's so obvious. And it's popped up on Instagram and Reddit and people have put like Dwyane Wade did it to win a game and he landed near the free throw line. There's no, it's, it's some team.

• 1:49:16Bill Simmons?

  I remember that game. That was awesome when that happened. He won the game. Yes.

• 1:49:20Speaker 02

  Some team is going to do it. Everyone's going to be like, is this allowed? Are you sure? It's like, yeah, it's where you take off. It's always been that way, but no one's doing it for God knows why.

• 1:49:31Bill Simmons?

  I like it.

• 1:49:32Speaker 02

  There's no reason not. Is there any reason not? There's videos on the internet. It's a college three. Guys doing basically long range finger rolls for three points.

• 1:49:41Bill Simmons?

  Tatum's been messing around with this one-legged thing. That's pretty fun.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Thing. It's like a.

• 1:49:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I kind of enjoy it. What's your last one?

• 1:49:50Speaker 02

  This is my buddies. I would told, I told them I would do it. I think it's insane, but.

• 1:49:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're performing other people's half-baked ideas? I didn't know. Would Bill Burr do this in his Hulu specials? Like, hey, guys, while you're still here, my buddy has a whole bit I'm gonna do.

• 1:50:06Speaker 02

  Well, you know, sometimes I don't really take requests. I'm not a DJ, but this one is.

• 1:50:10Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  Perfectly half-baked and I thought you would like it. I will read you the text that he wrote me. I have a joke premise that's looking for an audience and I'm not sure my friends who like sports nor my friends who like comedy will get it.

• 1:50:24Bill Simmons?

  Good start.

• 1:50:25Speaker 02

  That's what I said.

• 1:50:26Bill Simmons?

  I'm intrigued already.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  This is what he writes.

• 1:50:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Speaker 02

  Transfer portal for families.

• 1:50:37Speaker 02

  So I, I mean, it's a lot of, it can go a lot of ways. I'm gonna try to keep it above board. But this is just like if my son has been doing well in sports, handsome kids. You know, he comes up to me one night like, Dad, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm like, yeah, what's up?

• 1:50:54Speaker 02

  I'mma hop in the portal. I'm like, wow, really? Like, I've invested so much in you, like my time. And I, you know, I thought we had something. He's like, no, no, you've been great. You've been great. But I'm just, you know, I think I can, I'm gonna move up to a kind of a better dad.

• 1:51:11Bill Simmons?

  Want to get to the west coast?

• 1:51:14Speaker 02

  Just a nicer dad, you know, I got more opportunities out there.

• 1:51:18Bill Simmons?

  Bigger room would be nice.

• 1:51:20Speaker 02

  It's just like transfer portal for, you're clearly like, people having marital problems, like, oh, wow.

• 1:51:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I would say for the spouses, that's probably a better, better thing.

• 1:51:30Speaker 02

  I'm not getting divorced. My wife just hopped in the portal.

• 1:51:36Bill Simmons?

  I see, I like the idea of the transfer portal in general because it works for NBA coaches. It works for sports media people.

• 1:51:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, hopping in the portal.

• 1:51:45Bill Simmons?

  It's just that, uh oh, somebody's in the portal again.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  I am in the, hey, we're looking in the portal, see what's going on. Lose your job, like, I don't know. I hopped in the portal.

• 1:51:53Bill Simmons?

  Could you put dogs in the portal? Like, where do you draw the line? Houses? Houses go in the portal? Like, does everything go in the portal?

• 1:52:00Speaker 02

  The portal is just like a nebulous concept.

• 1:52:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:04Speaker 02

  The portal. Everything's in the portal.

• 1:52:07Bill Simmons?

  Here's my last one.

• 1:52:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:52:09Bill Simmons?

  You know, NBA fantasy has just been destroyed.

• 1:52:12Speaker 02

  I, I.

• 1:52:13Bill Simmons?

  It's the worst. It's been the worst for 15 years. There's too many injuries.

• 1:52:17Speaker 02

  This is the worst.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  It sucks. It is like the opposite of fantasy football, and I think it's really hurt basketball because fantasy basketball was fun in the 90s.

• 1:52:25Speaker 02

  That's a good take.

• 1:52:25Bill Simmons?

  And then as the years went along, you know, it, I, whereas football, you care all the way through, partly through the prism of your fantasy guys. And then you think about the end of the season, guys getting shut down, teams tanking. Well, how do you make that more fun? That's impossible. Well, that's why I have NBA Injury Fantasy League.

• 1:52:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:52:44Bill Simmons?

  So there's All-Star break happens, we have our draft. And you can draft players that are gonna get prematurely shut down, but you could also draft injuries.

• 1:52:57Bill Simmons?

  And you could draft either as the rounds go along. So maybe end up with six players and six injuries. And then if the player you drafted gets the injury you drafted, you get triple points.

• 1:53:09Speaker 02

  These are fake injuries like?

• 1:53:10Bill Simmons?

  No, these are the injuries they use. I'll read you some of the injuries that they use to shut down players this year.

• 1:53:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but fake injuries. They're not real injuries.

• 1:53:20Bill Simmons?

  Tyrese Maxson, finger tendon.

• 1:53:22Speaker 02

  I, I, I saw that.

• 1:53:24Bill Simmons?

  Zion Williamson, lower back contusion.

• 1:53:28Bill Simmons?

  CJ McCollum, bone contusion in his foot. Paul George, some issues with his left abductor muscle. This is my favorite, Lori Marketing, who's missed some time with patellofemoral nine chondroses with associated subchondral edema.

• 1:53:46Speaker 02

  I didn't know it was.

• 1:53:47Bill Simmons?

  That could be a first round pick.

• 1:53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, nonchondroses.

• 1:53:50Bill Simmons?

  Darren Fox, extender tendon surgery. So you just, you have like 25 things, 25 kind of fake injuries that you couldn't really, the league couldn't really crack down on, right? Like, oh, lower back stiffness.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  I guess take, I'll take your word for it.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a lot of those.

• 1:54:11Bill Simmons?

  You draft all those, then you draft all the players in the tanking team, and then you try to mix and match and try to, oh, I have Paul George and I had a left abductor muscle. 30 points. And then you go, half fake idea.

• 1:54:28Bill Simmons?

  But you can't draft bad injuries. You can't be like torn ACL.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  Real ones. No, no, no.

• 1:54:32Bill Simmons?

  It's all like the fake ones.

• 1:54:33Speaker 02

  Pretend ones.

• 1:54:34Bill Simmons?

  Like corneal, corneal irritation. Oh, that's a great pick. I thought, I thought I was gonna get corneal irritation in the fourth round.

• 1:54:41Speaker 02

  Your, your half fake ideas in this round have been all over the map. It's real like you, I think you evened out from two, two 100% ideas and one 10% idea.

• 1:54:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it may even be a 5% idea.

• 1:54:55Speaker 02

  But you evened out to a half fake idea. So you got it.

• 1:54:58Bill Simmons?

  Thank you. I nailed it. What's your, what's your closer? Do you have a closer?

• 1:55:02Speaker 02

  No, I think that was it. Family portal, offensive, offensive lineman Santa. No one cares about that.

• 1:55:09Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 1:55:10Speaker 02

  Selling phone numbers, that's boring. That's a real.

• 1:55:12Bill Simmons?

  Wilds had a great time. You can hear Wilds and watch him on First Things First on FS1.

• 1:55:18Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  Are you traveling for the playoffs? You doing anything?

• 1:55:21Speaker 02

  No. Oh, maybe Indy 500. We got Indy 500 on Fox. So we can go out to Indianapolis. I'm excited about that. I don't know if that's happening, but I'm into Indianapolis 500 all of a sudden.

• 1:55:32Bill Simmons?

  All right. Say hi to the fans. Say hi to the crew. Great to see you as always. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mahoney. Thanks, Kevin Wilds. Thanks to Kyle and Sir Rudy and Gahal for producing as always. Don't forget you can watch this podcast as a video podcast on Spotify and you can watch videos on Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch me and Joanna and Valerie do the season finale White Lotus instant reaction. Our prestige TV podcast. We're doing it live on YouTube on the Ringer Dash TV YouTube channel. And then also this weekend, putting up the Saint, the rewatchables that Kyle Brandt and I did after Val Comer passed away. We are just putting that up early because it felt

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  like we could, we could jump ahead three days. So get ready for that as well. And then Monday night, Celtic City. Catch up on the first five episodes of Celtic City on Max. Episode five was my favorite episode. So we'll see if you dig it. Enjoy the weekend and I will see you two times on Sunday.

• 1:57:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 1:57:32Bill Simmons?

  NY or text HOPE NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Minneh Sharon and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year.

• 1:58:16Bill Simmons?

  Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.