An NBA Mini-Mailbag and All-Star Picks, Plus Kon Knueppel Stops By

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons opens up a mini-mailbag to answer questions from the listeners before talking about his NBA All-Star picks (1:51). Then, Kon Knueppel joins to catch up on life as a rookie in the NBA, discuss his toughest matchups, and much more! (52:54) Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Kon Knueppel Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is presented by State Farm®. Dishing the assists you need off the court. State Farm® with the Assist. 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?

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

• 0:28Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Tuesday night. We did What Lies Beneath. It was me and Molly Rubin and Chris Ryan. Get it wherever you get your rewatchables podcasts. You can also watch it as a video on Spotify. This is my third BS podcast of the week. We had football ones on Sunday, and on Monday, I have another football one coming on Thursday, as I try to go 0-5 again with my playoff picks. Please go against me. Today, we're doing basketball. Conkend apples coming up later. At the very top, I am going to do a little mini mailbag and my NBA All-Star picks. So that is next.

• 1:08Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. FanDuel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play your way. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs, one of my favorite times of the year all month long. Download the FanDuel app or head to fanduel.com/BS to get started. Get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. Must be 21-plus, present in select states, 18-plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-79777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  All right, this isn't an official mailbag. It's a mini mailbag. I really just wanted to do my All-Star starters and reserve picks and just bounce through what I was thinking. But I thought it was a chance to sneak in some timely mailbag questions. These were questions that were sent in to [email protected]. First one came from Rob from Long Island. Then in parentheses, it says via the Cape. So he went from the Cape to Long Island? To each his own, I guess. He said, with the recent Jokic injury, was wondering if the NBA went too far with the 65 game minimum for awards, which has been a controversial topic. He said, he suggested, what if all players were eligible for awards, but if you don't

• 2:56Bill Simmons?

  play 65 games, you become ineligible for contract incentives? He had another thing about a sliding scale for MVP points. I keep getting questions like this and it keeps being a topic. And it's interesting that Jokic was the catalyst because I think people realized how absurd it would be to have a award season where Jokic wasn't represented. And as I've said many times in this podcast, for whatever reason, I care about this about as much as anyone because it all goes back to when I was working on my book. The All-NBA stuff was really important, trying to figure out a snapshot of the year. This is why I've been so fanatical about, they changed the rules. You could basically vote for 15 guards for the three All-NBA teams. I'm not doing that. I like to obey at least some of the

• 3:40Bill Simmons?

  things that went through the first eight decades of the league, where big men mattered in awards, wings, guards, we had all types of players. So I care about this stuff. And here's where I landed on this, because we could have had this conversation last year. There are other players that got hurt. For some reason, Jokic became the catalyst because he's having the best year of his career. He is one of the best players of the century and is now in the running for a top 10 best players ever. And then just have, if he plays 59 games, 60 games, whatever, and he's not on an All-NBA team, it's just gonna seem stupid.

• 4:16Bill Simmons?

  I don't mind the 65 game thing and I don't want people to forget the premise of why that was created because the league was under the gun a little bit with guys just skipping games and people paying to go to a Clipper game, Warriors game, a Celtic game, a Nets game, whoever, and they thought somebody was gonna be in town and they go to the game and that person just doesn't play for rest, to rest a minor injury, whatever it is. And they're really trying to incentivize teams and players not to do that. So I get it. I think 65 games is fair and I think we should keep it. I do think there should be a wrinkle that if you have a specific injury that you're knocked out and we could say

• 4:57Bill Simmons?

  it's 12 straight games, it's 14 straight games, we can even say it's 15 straight games. But let's say 12 because 12 is basically three weeks. So if you miss three consecutive weeks with an injury, maybe that drops from 65 to 60. I don't think, the problem with what's happened here is that Jokic, who's a durable guy, who is available for just about every game and is reliably there if you're paying to see the Denver Nuggets come to your town, pretty good bet Jokic is gonna be there. We're penalizing him for something that he couldn't control, which was he had a serious injury that knocked him out for

• 5:34Bill Simmons?

  a month. So if Jokic plays 60 games but misses 17 in a row, I still think he should be eligible for the NBA. So that's what I would do. I would have a 12-plus straight game, knocks you to a different tier where now you can get to 60 and you still play. And I think that, I think that solves this Jokic issue. So that's my first one. Next, emails from Samir from Brooklyn via Boston. Lot of vias today in the mini mailbag. He said he was switching between the Boston and Indiana broadcast for Celtics Pacers and he heard Brian Scalabrine call Pritchard, quote, "unlike any player he's ever seen." And then Quinn Buckner, who's the Indiana guy, called Pascal Siakam an All-Star. So Samir asks-

• 6:22Bill Simmons?

  Why haven't we had a booth that pits local color commentators against one another so they can bring each other back down to earth? Instead of having neutral booths for national broadcasts, we could have color commentators from each team saying most unabashedly biased things possible while the other says things like, wait, you just called an average player and a last place team an all-star. So home court gets the play by play guy who's desperately trying to keep the things moving. And then you have the color guys from the local markets fighting it out. I love this idea. They always talk about what is the future of alternate broadcasts? And normally they're pretty terrible or you're just going to end up watching the normal broadcasts. Like the Manning cast is fine. I always watch Buck and Aikman.

• 7:04Bill Simmons?

  I have no idea why anyone would watch the Manning cast when I could just get the game on a bigger thing. All casts should have some sort of bent. Like if I'm in the playoffs and all I have is the national team, I should be able to watch a broadcast with the Celtics announcers. If I have the Patriots game and I don't want to hear Romo, well, I don't even know who's doing the Patriot. I actually don't think it's Romo. It's Collinsworth. But let's say I hate Collinsworth and as you know, I love Collinsworth. Well, let's say I didn't like Collinsworth and I want to hear the Patriots announcers. That should be an alt cast for that. I like the idea of an alt cast where it's basically a regular season free for all between the two color commentators for the two teams. I think that would be pretty funny. They would just be incredulous with each other for two and a half hours.

• 7:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't blame these guys for doing it though. They have to ride on the team plane. They're incentivized. Like if the team wins a championship ring or something, they get a championship ring. So they really do think it's like we, that's why they get so bent out of shape with the calls, but it would be funny to just pit them against each other. Marcus Temecula via Phoenix has a question about the Phoenix Suns. He said, last year's Phoenix Suns, most unwatchable NBA team of the decade. I think that actually might be right because we've had bad teams. But when a team hates playing with each other, that's way worse to watch. He said, slow, old, predictable, stagnant offense, no defense, no chemistry, iso ball, overall disgraceful effort, professional basketball team. I agree with all that. Then he says, this year Suns an absolute delight.

• 8:31Bill Simmons?

  Fast, young, unpredictable, flowing offense, intense defense, amazing chemistry.

• 8:36Bill Simmons?

  Objectively, it would appear that the Phoenix Suns have accomplished the George Costanza, just do the opposite of your instincts with great success. Can you name another team in NBA sports history that succeeded with the Costanza theory and is Dillon Brooks the actual human Costanza to Bradley Beal? Lot to work with here. So the Suns over under was 31 and a half. I went under. Michael Pena on The Ringer wrote some, he was doing an increasingly crazy predictions piece. And one of the predictions was that the Suns would have the worst defense in the league. So just those two small events, Pena making a crazy prediction and everyone on our podcast,

• 9:18Bill Simmons?

  I think Going Under, has now turned the Suns fans into the, you didn't believe in us, it's us against the world. It's like, well, your over under was 31 and a half wins. Like, nobody believed in you. And this is a great story. You have an awesome coach. You play really hard. Guys like Gillespie showed up. Brooks treats every game like it's a game seven. I think all this is awesome. And the crazy thing about it is it was a complete 180 from how Ishbia built the team in McBeath, right? He did the new owner syndrome. I gotta do something fast. I'm gonna trade everything for Durant. Oh, let's get Bradley Beal. And just, he's trying to put it together like it's a fantasy team. And now he's attempting to put it together like a real basketball team.

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  So I think to just call that a Costanza kind of belittles how cool it is that they pulled off all the stuff they pulled off. The biggest thing is they hired an awesome coach, Jordan Knight. And I was, I was texting somebody in the league about this today about, it feels like we have more good coaches than we've ever had before. And a lot of them are younger, a lot of them are analytics based, Nets, Raptors, Celtics, Suns. You go on down the line, there are just these young guys that come in and you watch the teams, they have a specific identity, they have players that fit that identity. And it's really cool to watch.

• 10:35Bill Simmons?

  So if you're gonna talk about like, is this an actual way to do something? A Costanza where you just go against yourself? The obvious next team to try this would be the Sacramento Kings. A team that has been the most pathetic franchise of the century, I would say. In by NBA purposes. I don't, I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think it's true. Probably in the bleakest situation they've been in in a long time. Where they just have not a lot of assets and a lot of contracts untradeable. They're basically they're, everything is gearing toward can they get a top four lottery pick now? And yet they're still playing all these veterans trying to win games. I don't understand what the Kings are doing. There's a million things we could say about the Kings.

• 11:21Bill Simmons?

  Could the Kings go Costanza and what would that mean? I think that would basically mean they just ask Vivek what to do. He gives a recommendation and then they just do the opposite. That would be the full Costanza and also a pretty good idea for a franchise. So it worked for the Suns, even though I think it belittles how much smart thought they put in everything. But I think the Kings should be the next Costanza team and I like the theory. Next one, this is a text from every single fan, every single Laker fan friend that I have in my life. Because I've gotten over the last two hours and it's some combination. I just did an now a malgam of all the texts I've gotten. You're an evil genius. You launched this game over podcast with Rich Paul and Max Gorman solely so you could destroy the Lakers.

• 12:07Bill Simmons?

  And it's working.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  First of all, I'd never do that. As much as I despise the Lakers, I would never use a Ringer podcast to try to bring them down. That, that just, that's feels like bad karma. It feels like something bad would happen with the, with Celtics. So how dare you on that?

• 12:28Bill Simmons?

  This podcast has made a lot of news for the Laker stuff, especially this week. And if you haven't listened to it, it's Rich and Max, they've known each other forever. It's a really good podcast. My one, I won't call it a fear, but my one question with it was, is Rich gonna be candid? He's still an agent and a power broker, all these things.

• 12:48Bill Simmons?

  Tied to LeBron, obviously. Is he gonna be candid? Is he gonna be candid about the Lakers? He's been incredibly candid. And I was, I was walking around LA on Monday, listening to it. And all of a sudden, he's talking about how the Lakers need Jaren Jackson. And then it's like, well, they would have to give up something to get him. And, you know, maybe Austin Reeves if they don't want to pay him. And it sounded like my podcast, but Rich is LeBron's agent. I love it. I think this is great. And by the way, this is what's happened with podcasts the last 10 years. We've had players like Draymond and those type of guys have started Paul George, Jalen Brunson, all of these guys have podcasts where they just talk about their life and they talk about the sport like they're fans. And now Rich is doing it.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  But he's the most powerful agent in the sport. It is fascinating. I couldn't be more delighted that the Ringer is involved. And if it's caused trauma for Laker fans and, uh, and disarray behind the scenes. I can't say that was the intention. But it's, it's a pure delight to me as a Celtic fan to just watch this happen. So yeah, unintended consequence, but, um, I've been, I've been really enjoying the podcast. Go Rich. Next question, uh, speaking of Rich, it's a LeBron question. It's from Sam and Sam says,

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  he's trying to figure out what would LeBron have to do to, to pass? It's a long email and I'll just try to summarize it. Basically, if you get six rings to match MJ, LeBron is at two Miami, Cleveland 2020. So he's got four? Yeah, four. He's behind, it's behind Kobe. I mean, MJ six, Kobe Duncan five, LeBron four. He's asking basically what, what would have to happen for him to get the last two? And do it, does it count if he's like a coach or a GM? Or even an owner?

• 14:48Bill Simmons?

  My short answer would be no, I think he has to be a player. And I think he can win the post-playing career. MJ, by all accounts, pretty horrible basketball owner. No offense, MJ, I think you're the GOAT. You're the best basketball player I've ever seen. You're a bad owner. You just were. So he can beat him in the NBA player afterlife as a GM owner or whatever. I don't think that's going to be hard. If he, let's say he leaves the Lakers and he goes to Cleveland. Sam's thing is, could he, could he be a six man? Lead the bench? What if he even won six man of the year?

• 15:31Bill Simmons?

  And maybe finish some games for a team? And won the other two rings? Would that discount the rings at all? I don't think so. I didn't feel that way with Karl Malone when Karl Malone was going for a ring on the 04 Lakers. He wasn't one of the two best players on the team, but he was still a really important player on the team. So if LeBron went to Cleveland, became a six man, closed some games, they won two more titles. That's six rings. I'm sorry. Like it, it doesn't just take one player to win a ring. It takes about nine and there's four or five crucial ones, plus the coach, plus the GM. Like, I think that would count. I wouldn't feel like he was chasing it as long as it was organically, he was really part of the team.

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  So the last part of this question is, would success in a basketball role other than player significantly alter his legacy? I think it would because we just saw it with Jerry West. Jerry West was the logo. Jerry West was one of the eight best basketball players of all time when he retired, maybe one of the six best. Even in my book now, he's in the pantheon. He's one of the top 15 still. But then he had this whole other career as a front office executive that made, completely changed his career. So if LeBron chooses to go that way, I think it would affect him. Next question is from Tyler. If Linsanity happened in 2026 instead of 2012, would it be a bigger story, smaller story, or no difference? I think smaller. There was a 2012.

• 17:00Bill Simmons?

  Whatever was happening with basketball and the internet, basketball writing, Twitter, there were all these variables. And we were at, we were right in the middle of it. It was the first year at Grantland and it was really when, if it felt like just a lot of things were changing. It was post-lockout.

• 17:19Bill Simmons?

  It was accessible clips. It was the first year, like you could actually go on Twitter and watch a dunk that you just heard about or somebody forwarded you.

• 17:29Bill Simmons?

  And there was really good basketball writing. I mean, that was, I, I think my favorite time ever for journalism was that early 2010s, where we just had blogging still mattered. Long form journalism was still on the internet. There were a lot of good writers. There were people willing to take chances with their voices and their angles. And the insanity was perfect. And that was some of my favorite stuff that we wrote at Grantland that year. I remember Jay Kang had some good pieces. I had a bunch of fun writing about it back then. We had a bunch of NBA people that wrote good stuff. And just general, it just felt like it fit into everything that was happening in 2012. Now I just feel like there's so much stuff going on all the time. I don't know if anything would cut through like that in the same way. So that's my answer.

• 18:14Bill Simmons?

  I might be wrong. All right, next question is from Will from Somerville, who asks, I got a bunch of these too, about the Celtics traded for Jaren Jackson. There were rumors that they were interested. I'll just say when there are rumors about the Celtics being interested in players, I never believed them because nothing leaks from the Celtics ever. Like when they traded for Derrick White, it's not like that was being rumored for a week or a month. I always feel like they're very stealth, under the radar, and then shit happens and then you find out about it. So when I hear stuff like, "The Celtics are interested", I just tend to not believe it. The Jaren Jackson thing's interesting though, because Memphis clearly should be trying to trade him and Ja and just reboot and completely start over.

• 19:00Bill Simmons?

  Will said, "As a Celtic fan, he likes the idea of adding his elite rim protection force spacing." I'm out on this one. I'm not a giant Jaren Jackson fan.

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  I liked him when he was in the 25 million range as a center, but his next four years started next year, 49, 50.5, 52 million, and then 53.5 million player option, which I'm just gonna guess he's picking that up. I don't love when big guys don't rebound. I actually think he needs to be next to a center, like why Zach Eadie was so interesting when he got to play next to Zach Eadie or when he got to play with Steven Adams way in the past.

• 19:40Bill Simmons?

  You know, three point shooter. I don't really love his low post stuff and to pay that much money to him and now Jalen and now Tatum, like that's my team. I don't, I can't get out of that. So that leaves the Celtics with no outs. There's trades that they could do, like they could definitely do the Simons contract with Hauser, with like Luca Garza or something. You could patch up the contracts, take the extra money and pull it off, but I would just be against it. I would not want to do this. And with that side, if they end up trading for him in two weeks, I'll talk myself into about 10 minutes, but right now I'm against it. Next question, Matt Edwards in Richmond, Virginia. Is Hillary Swank the Steve Nash of multi Oscar

• 20:21Bill Simmons?

  winners? Or is Steve Nash the Hillary Swank of multi MVP, multi NBA MVP winners? Also, who should be more offended? It's from Matt in Richmond.

• 20:37Bill Simmons?

  Obviously he came to the right place for this question. I would, I would say I'm the perfect person in the universe to answer this. I think Steve Nash should be more offended. And I say this with all due respect to Hillary Swank, who won two Oscars, two best actor, not a long list for two best actress Oscars. She won for Million Dollar Baby, a movie that if somebody gave me on Blu-ray or 4K UHD, I would throw in the garbage. Only want to see that movie once. I'm still mad at it. And then she won for Boys Don't Cry, which is a really good independent movie. She's great there. Here's, here's where this falls apart though, because you could say, well, then Nash won his two weird MVPs. And it's just like Hillary Swank winning two Oscars is weird. Nash winning the two MVPs is weird.

• 21:22Bill Simmons?

  Here's where this goes off the rails. The rest of her career just doesn't add up. To those two Oscars.

• 21:31Bill Simmons?

  And really, it's one of the strange IMDBs you've ever seen. Like, I think probably the third best movie she made was Insomnia, which I really like, Chris. It's on the rewatchables list. Christopher Nolan, Robin Williams, Al Pacino, who can't sleep the whole time. He's, "I can't sleep."

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Next three, maybe The Hunt, Logan Lucky and The Corps. For movies you'd ever want to see again. It falls off fast. Plus, she has The Next Karate Kid,

• 22:01Bill Simmons?

  which is how we got to know her. Not a good movie. And then she had Season Eight, 90200. She joins as Carly, the waitress who works at the Peach Pit and has a kid and falls for Steve Sanders. They wrote her off the show. Steve Nash does never have, he doesn't, I guess you could say the Suns traded him. So when they had, I think it was Kevin Johnson and Jason Kidd. They had too many point guards and they traded him to Dallas. That's the equivalent of being written off a show. But I would say not being able to find chemistry with Ian Ziering in season eight of a long running TV show. And, and they, they had to send her away. It was one of those things like, my mom got sick. I have to leave. And she was just gone. I think Ian Ziering might've, might've even cried for a brief second.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  But, um, that's, Nash has nothing like that. And then Nash's whole career, I mean, Nash was one of the 10 best point guards of all time. I have him low 40s in my pyramid, somewhere in the 40 to 44 range. I can't remember where. The 05 Suns and then that whole seven seconds or less Suns, widely credited and rightly so for saving basketball. I don't think you remember how terrible it was to watch basketball back then. So, um, and it was just the defense and the shit. It was just, everything was a rock fight and the Suns kind of opened the doors for that. And then the 2010 Suns team,

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  which I think really could have made the finals and had some bad luck in the Lakers series. But he was in the title mix there for five or six years in a real way. Plus with the 02 and 03 Mavs, he was in there. I, I think he had a way better career. So I think Steve Nash should be more offended. Mark Atkinson, I get this question a lot too about basically upon Tatum's eventual return, are you at all worried about the Celtics falling into their old habits of walking the ball, playing not to lose in the games, iso ball, that stuff? Because everybody loves watching the Celtics team.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  So it's weird because one of the things people seem to think is that they're playing with more pace, which technically when you watch it, eye test wise, it seems like there's more pace. But they're 30th in pace in the NBA. So it's not like Tatum's going to slow that down because he's not. I think the difference, the part they need to figure out is more of this is being initiated by Derrick White and Pritchard and then Simons when he's in through the guards, through Jalen Brown. And the big guys that come out and set picks for them are just better at it, Kada and Garza. So how is Tatum going to fit into this new identity? To me, it's a good problem to have. He's taking minutes from guys like Shireman and even somebody like Hauser.

• 24:48Bill Simmons?

  Hugo Gonzalez is one of the best plus minuses in the league, but he'll probably lose some minutes. But Tatum, they're going to ease him in when he comes back. He'll play probably two nine-minute parts of the half. And with his defense and his rebounding and his, his scoring and the fact that he was probably the fourth best player in the league when he went out, like I, I'm not worried about this. Could there be a little Tatum Brown stuff? Who knows? Is there a little alpha doggy? We'll see, but the, the team is currently constructed is not winning anything. They're not winning a title. Tatum might change their ceiling a little bit, so please don't overthink this, everybody. Next question is from Aaron.

• 25:30Bill Simmons?

  He talked about, recently we, we did that mailbag thing about NBA, when I had Mahoney on to do the NBA mailbag, about NBA awards for players that were best at certain skills. They basically named after Steph Curry, who year after year was just by far the best at shooting.

• 25:47Bill Simmons?

  Aaron says you could take it even further and recognize the best weirdo skill each year. I love this. As saying this takes over the game, let's recognize niche skills that are never captured in box scores. For instance, TJ McConnell's ability to continually steal the inbound pass, which he just did the other day and actually like won them a game. Like he, he, he does this sneaky, you know, almost like he's hiding in the bushes and then pounces out. It's amazing to see people continually fall for it through the years if tape didn't exist of him doing this all year long. So that's from Aaron.

• 26:21Bill Simmons?

  I love this. So I was thinking the weirdo skill finalists and I just did this. I, I, I probably left out two people.

• 26:30Bill Simmons?

  I'll be interested in Zach Lowe's take. Maybe Zach Lowe will tackle this as well on his podcast. Weirdo skill finalists for me. McConnell and the inbound steals. I think Alvarado had that title for a second. The McConnell just took it back.

• 26:43Bill Simmons?

  Derrick White guard blocks. The best bet, the best player prop you can do is the Derrick White block with any other result you want from himself the game. He always gets one, especially if it's a big game guaranteed. He's also, he has another weirdo skill, which is the same one. Dave Jacoby can back me up. Jacoby, if you're, if you're watching or listening, back me up. Derrick White really good at breaking up two on ones and three on ones, which is its own basketball skill. And not to toot my own horn, not to compare myself to NBA star Derrick White, but I was really good at breaking up two on ones and three on ones. And Jacoby saw it for years and years. You just kind of lay low and then you use quick hands and you try to strip them before they, before, uh, as somebody makes it.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  You kind of play possum with it and then you jump on it. And he's one of the best I've ever, the best ever at this was Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd was either, he would strip the guy. He would, he would draw a charge. It was almost like if it was a two on one or a three on one and Kidd was the guy back, you felt like Kidd had an advantage. There's never been anyone like that. White is really good. I would throw him in there, guard blocks or that. The Jokic 70 yard one handed passes in there.

• 27:57Bill Simmons?

  Pritchard's end of the quarter shots. I wish he was a little better at this. I really wanted to put this in there because they run anytime there's four seconds or left. They always have Pritchard, they cut it out and he's really good at getting the shot he wants, but he's been cold lately. I don't think he'd win. And then this might be too good of a skill. But Michael Porter Jr.'s coming off a pick, off balance, almost like he's 45 degrees floating and being able to straighten up and shoot is unlike any other, and he's been doing it, by the way, since the Nuggets. He's just shooting more in the Nets. But that's the one that always makes me marvel. I just think it's so freaking hard to do that. And when I watch him play in the Nets, I'm always like, how does he do that?

• 28:41Bill Simmons?

  So I think that counts as a weirdo skill, but I would say Pritchard would be minus, I'm sorry, McConnell would be minus 180 to win that award. Ricky Brackett asks, since it appears an NBA team is nowhere close to coming to Seattle, I have another idea. Let's make Seattle University an awesome college team that becomes the city's team. Couldn't a rich guy basically buy a coach and some awesome players and make them one of the top 10 teams in the country? Short answer, yeah. I love this idea. This is one of the best ideas we've ever heard. Seattle's not getting an NBA team anytime soon. If anything, if they do expansion, it's just going to be Vegas and that's it. I don't see Seattle. I don't see it happening. I'm sorry.

• 29:27Bill Simmons?

  They just reached, Seattle University just rejoined the WCC, which is the one with Gonzaga, all those teams. Pepperdine's in there, whoever. Just blow everyone out. Rich guy. There's rich people in Seattle. Just go in. All of a sudden, Seattle, you, people are buying the merch. Great idea. I love it. I think Alja Baylor went there too. So rename the, rename the arena, the Alja Baylor arena. This could work. End of the game situations. Amir Schur writes saying about, how do we fix close games turning into a free throw parade? What if we make fouls in the final two minutes, result in three free throws instead of two? Would that strongly discourage intentional fouling?

• 30:11Bill Simmons?

  I was there for three free throws to make two as a kid. I think it was the 1980 season, somewhere around there. A complete abomination. Please never do that again. I would go the other way. In the final minute, if a team is up by four points or more and they get fouled, they go to the free throw line. That first free throw, if they make it, counts as two. And we just keep the game moving. And the guy gets credit for two free throws, even if it's on one shot. If he misses the first one.

• 30:40Bill Simmons?

  Gets to take the second one. So it's still advantage to the shooting team, but I really think that would move it along. I think, how about this? Find me somebody who disagrees with that idea. We're gonna have less free throws. I think everyone's like, great. I would also, you cannot call a timeout after a timeout. I've been saying this for 20 years. I think I've been saying it ever since I have a calm. No timeouts after a timeout and we're good. Chris Leary asked about the where did you come from award? Would she really like for, that was my idea for the break, the most improved player. Instead do a breakthrough player, the where the fuck did you come from award? He tweaked it to, could it be a guy last season who had no chance at having his own shoe? But now has revoked for the awards.

• 31:24Bill Simmons?

  He actually now has a chance to have his own shoe. I thought that was pretty good. So he said like people like Jalen Johnson, Stephon Castle, et cetera. People that before the year you would have said, no way that guy's gonna have a shoe. By the end of the year, like that guy might have a shoe. It did prompt me to look at all the people who have a shoe and I was kind of stunned. LeBron, Durant, Ja. I'm sure much longer Ja's gonna have a shoe. Yanis, Booker, Wemby has one. Cade's got one coming next year. That's all with Nenke. Shays at Converse, Jordan Brand's, Luca, Tatum, Zion, Russell Westbrook, probably coming to an end soon. Adidas, Harden, Edwards, Dame, Donovan Mitchell. I mean, we're already like 16 players. Curry is a free agent right now, but he'll have one soon.

• 32:09Bill Simmons?

  CJ McCollum is Li Ning. Kawhi's at New Balance. Austin Reeves is at Rigor? Rigor?

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

  361 degrees, 361, whatever you call it, they have Aaron Gordon. Puma has LaMelo Ball and the Scoot Zero. Which matches the number of minutes he's played this year. And then Anta has Klay Thompson and Kyrie. That's a lot of guys. So it's almost like the ones that don't seem to have one are Jokic, which is hilarious. Who's been the best part of this decade, hands down, doesn't have a shoe. And a couple others, but I like that idea of the, oh, he might get a shoe now. Would be a fun goofy word. I'm keeping track of all these to the end of next year. All right, two more. Next question. This is from Mike Grandy and he has a theory and the best trade of the year. It's a conspiracy theory.

• 33:02Bill Simmons?

  So he's activated conspiracy bill. He mentions how Hal Burton hurt his calf in the finals in game two. The Pacers traded their first round pick that year for next year's first round pick to Atlanta, right before game five. And he hurt the calf even more in game five. And he's wondering, did they do the trade as an insurance policy for exactly what happened? Everyone keeps saying they got lucky, it was a cat move. Mike Grady thinks they did the deal as insurance in case something worse happened to his calf that they knew was playing on it, it was too risky and it was almost like an insurance policy. I gotta be honest, even Conspiracy Bill wants no part of this. It's good, he appreciated it, he likes the way you're thinking, you're thinking outside

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  the box, you checked a lot of Conspiracy Bill boxes, staying away from that one. Not staying away from this one, from Marcus in New York. My friends and I are 30 and we're recently talking about how crazy it must have been when the NBA Finals were interrupted by the OJ car chase. I can tell you it was amazing. I've talked about this before, but I was in Portchester, New York at my buddy Jim Grady's house with him and our buddy Camp and a couple other people. We were drinking and we were gonna go out and we ended up watching this finals and the car chase and we never actually went out and we just could not believe that OJ Simpson was being chased around. Marcus asks, who would be the 2026 equivalent to OJ from a fame talent standpoint to be in this exact situation? His first thought went to Barkley and Shaq.

• 34:31Bill Simmons?

  Then he asked if it was a basketball player interrupting the Super Bowl, if you need a cross-sport interruption, if it was Shaq with the Super Bowl cutaway. He goes in a lot of directions here. And then asked who the least famous talented athlete that would cut away from the Super Bowl to, if they were in a car chase like OJ? And he said Carmelo might be the border for basketball. He thinks the news waits until the commercial break for Carmelo, but if it was Dwyane Wade, they cut away during the game. And then he asked for my lines, he said, football breezes the line, baseball poo holes. Great question.

• 35:08Bill Simmons?

  So if you're using the OJ blueprint, because OJ was massively famous, you can see OJ behind me. See that? See that poster right there behind me? It's a spot-built OJ poster and it says the juice is on the loose and it was made well before he actually was on the loose.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  It's a super famous athlete who remains super famous after they stop playing. That would be one. It would have to be a complete surprise, goes without saying. It would have to be somebody that everyone likes. And that's a tough thing to say in 2026, but that you know, there's a like test that you could say, people that you're just instinctively like, ah, I love that guy. We all loved OJ in the seventies, eighties, early nineties, especially with Naked Gun. We were all in on him. So my nominees, none of these are the winner, are Charles Barkley,

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  Serena Williams,

• 36:03Bill Simmons?

  and Jason Kelsey. I was really proud of the Serena Williams idea. Because you think it's male, but what if, what if we switch over? Everybody loves Serena Williams. Serena Williams, Charles Barkley, Jason Kelsey nominees. And none of them are the winner because the winner is Peyton Manning. It's clearly Peyton Manning. If, I think they would cut away from any sporting event if Peyton Manning

• 36:26Bill Simmons?

  was trying to escape the police after a murder involving his wife and a waiter. I don't care what the, it could be the Oscars, it could be anything. They're cutting away to Peyton Manning in the White Bronco. Cut offline, guys. I have Wade for the NBA, David Ortiz for baseball, and ironically Eli Manning for football.

• 36:46Bill Simmons?

  I thought that was funny. It all came around with the Manning brothers. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure this will never happen again. I think the OJ car chase, which was the most unbelievable TV experience, I think, of my lifetime. It's in the running. I'm pretty sure it's not replicable. All right, we're gonna take a break and then I'm gonna do my All-Star picks. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The divisional round. I call it round two is where the NFL's best takes center stage. And with everything on the line, FanDuel is turning on playoff mode. I wish I could turn on playoff mode because all customers get a profit boost pack. Every NFL playoff game day waiting for you in the app. More boosts mean more ways to level up your playoff bets.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  And FanDuel makes it fast, easy and fun to get in on the playoff action. If your bet wins, you'll get paid instantly. So visit FanDuel.com/BS. Grab your profit boost pack every NFL playoff game day. Good luck. You must be 21 plus, present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opting for a bonus issued as non-d withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.FanDuel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates.

• 38:14Bill Simmons?

  And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, for your car, and for much more. Whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full-court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. All right, I'm back. I'm going to quickly go through my All-Star picks. Thanks to everybody who sent in a question, by the way. It was fun to, it was a mini mailbag that somehow ended up being almost 40 minutes. So classic me. All-Star picks, I'm going to try to make these really quick and then we can bring in Conk Nipple.

• 38:56Bill Simmons?

  We had to hand in starters today. For the West, I did SGA, I did Joker, I did Anthony Edwards. I think those were the three that had to be in. No question.

• 39:10Bill Simmons?

  Don't need to make the case for any of them.

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  My fourth was Steph Curry, who is averaging 29 a game, 47% field goal, 39% from three. He's Steph Curry, and selfish say I want to see him in the game, so shoot me. It's basically him versus Jamal Murray and Devin Booker for that spot. And I thought long and hard about giving that to Jamal Murray because I think he's been amazing this year. He's been 25 forward and 8, 48% shooting, 44% from three. He's been awesome. You think about last year, early November, how depressed everybody was about how bad he looked. He just signed that contract and it felt like he had sunk cost potential for the Nuggets. And now he's come like a bad ass hell and I really wanted to vote for him.

• 39:58Bill Simmons?

  But Curry's one of the 10 best players of all time, 12 best players, whatever your list is. He's in 10 for me and he's having a really good season. And it's not his fault that he's on this weird Warriors team that he's on. Fifth one, you could have talked me into Murray for this spot too. It's a begrudging one. It's Luka Doncic, clearly has to be on this, averaging 34 a game, 34, 8, 9. Typical Luka season. It's tailed off a little from the ceiling of where it seemed like we were going to be a couple, a couple of months ago, first month of the season, when it seemed like it was revenge Luka. The defense is really bad.

• 40:38Bill Simmons?

  The, the, the mono ball is really bad sometimes too. I'm not positive he's that fun to play with some nights. But as a force of nature, I don't know how you don't have him on there. So West starters, SGA Joker, Ant Curry, Luka, I don't think any of that is that controversial. For the East,

• 40:57Bill Simmons?

  Giannis has played enough games, I think, to be on, so I'm putting him on 25 games. And then Jaylen Brown, if he's not out, I don't know what we're doing. I think he's an MVP candidate as well, averaging 30 a game. One of the many reasons why the Celtics are a two seed. Three guards I have after that. I have Maxey, Cade and Brunson in that order. And it's interesting, some people have that ordered a little differently and might go Cade, then Brunson, then Maxey. I would have Maxey first. I think what he's been able to do on that kooky Sixers team where you never know who's playing night to night, the most reliable other player they have is a rookie. You never know if Embiid's playing, you don't know if

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  George is playing. It's just, just a bizarre team. And night after night, he either brings that, they're down 10 and he'll just maxi it up for two minutes and bring them back. He's relentless. I think he's been really good at the end of games. Unusually good at the end of games, especially because you know he's probably shooting. And I don't know how he's not the first guard out of all those guards. Cade's been great and is the biggest reason Detroit is good. And if you want to say Cade over Maxey, that's fine, but both of them have to be on there. And then Brunson is, as the third guy and Brunson's, you know, still looming if the Knicks can get going as MVP candidate. So Yanis, Jalen, Maxey,

• 42:22Bill Simmons?

  Cade and Brunson for that. Okay, reserves for the, for the West. This is what I have. I have four locks for me. Jamal Murray, Devin Booker. I still have Shangoon and you could feel Shangoon when he wasn't in those Rockets games. You know, to have a big guy who's 22, nine and six. I just think he's the one that tilts the Rockets. So they become really unusual and really hard to play when they just seem like they have too much size and too much offense. And once you remove him out, they seem a little bit more normal. So Murray, Booker, Shangoon, and then Wemba Yama has to be on there. I don't care that he's played 25 games. I don't care that he's probably going to get to.

• 43:08Bill Simmons?

  1800 minutes for the season, whatever he ends up in. He's 24 and 11 and 3, three blocks a game. They played the Celtics Saturday night and he was on a minute limit. And every minute he was out there, it felt like they were going to go on a 10-0 run. The stuff he does on defense, which you don't need to hear me expound on it for 10 minutes, but it's, it's the most important defensive thing anyone's doing. He's in everyone's head at all times. Even Jalen Brown, who all year was able to get any two-point shot he wanted and able to go to the basket anytime he wanted. There was a couple of times he was just like, ah, I'm pulling this back out. But Wemby stuffed him in the second half on one play that Jalen's gotten it all year. Wemby's like, no, thanks.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  He tilts the floor in all these different ways so that a 12-footer now becomes a 15-footer. And then offensively, it's getting better and better with figuring out how to use him. Against the Celtics, they won the game by just going to Wemby over and over again, right around the foul line and have him shoot over people. And he may, it feels like he's going to make it every time. So he has to be on there. That's nine. I'm just, I tilt All-Star toward the proven famous guys sometimes. Everybody's got their own method for it, but to me, KD has to be in. Averaging 26, 5 and 5, there's good advanced metrics with him too.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  And I test wise, end of the game, still seems like he's 95% of where he was seven years ago. It's amazing. Have to have him. Abdi on Portland doing 26, 7 and 7, keeping them near 500, which makes no sense at all.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  And it was a team that, when you thought in the West was just going to have no chance just because of how lopsided the West was, but he's been.

• 44:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't know where this one ranks on, on a. Biggest goddammit's for the Wizards that you've had this century of just like, ah, god damn it. But he's gotta be way up there. And then the last one I have, so on the bubble, before I say who I gave the last spot to, Kawhi was the toughest cut. I just think the team record disqualified him. It's not his fault. They're 16 and 23, but he has been on the team the whole year and they're 16 and 23. And as good as he's been for the last month or so, I just, somebody's gonna get cut and it's gonna hurt. Brooks was another one because he's the tone setter of that, of that Suns team along with Booker. And I just love what he's doing game to game and how competitive he is. And I think the culture

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  that he brings in really matters. Never thought I'd say that about Dillon Brooks. Chet Holmgren, sure. It's just weird. Only have one OKC guy. Amen Thompson was another one as a two-way guy, also averaging 18 a game, marketing with the scoring. And then I would have Fox in here until about 10 days ago, but I felt like he's gone backwards a little bit. And Castle is another one. I don't think they've done quite enough. My 12th spot goes to Randall on Minnesota because that team has really rounded into being an actual contender. And Randall is now at 22, 7 and 5. He's 50%. They're plus 6.2 when he plays. I test wise,

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  him and Edwards, I just like them together. I really feel like they've figured out him, Gobert, Edwards, and just how those three guys work. I really enjoyed watching Randall this year and I wanted to reward a second guy from that team. So I would rather go Randall than Kawhi. And I think if you switched Kawhi and Randall, I don't know if Minnesota has a better record with Kawhi. I'll just say that. Plus, he's not as reliable as a, as a durability standpoint. So that's who I have. SGA Joker, Ant Curry, Lucas starting, Murray, Booker, Shengun, Wemby, and then KD, Abdi, and Randall. That's in the West. In the East, already said as the starters, Maxey, Jalen, Cade, Brunson, Giannis. Mitchell was

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  the toughest cut. He's gotta be in there. He's averaging 30 a game for a typically,

• 47:17Bill Simmons?

  week after week, just a Cavs team that seems like you're on a double date with a couple that you, you're driving home and you're like, oh, man, you think they're gonna break up? That's how you feel about every Cavs home game? Jalen Johnson has to be on there 24, 10 and 8 and they traded Dre Young to make it his team. We'll see if he can deliver. Scotty Barnes, 19, 8 and 5, 50% shooting. Some bully ball defense, some bully ball stuff in general. There's a physicality to him that he's always had, but I feel like he's channeling it better than ever. He's got to be on and Toronto has overachieved. He's the biggest reason. Jalen Durin up to 18, 11 and 2 this year, 63%

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  shooting and a physicality and an intimidation presence. Just an old school. You could see him on the 2004 Pistons, which is the highest compliment you could play. He absolutely could have played on that team in one of those spots and you wouldn't have lost a beat. I love how competitive and hostile he is in a good way, not a bad way. So he has to be on for me.

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  I had to put Michael Porter Jr. On. He's averaging 26 a game, 8 rebounds. I look at it this way because this is, I think they have the worst record of any All-Star I put on. And I'm deliberately zagging from my Sam Kawhi take that I had earlier, but there's less, less All-Stars in the East. So it's more defensible. If it was in the West, he wouldn't have made it. There's been

• 48:51Bill Simmons?

  eight to nine games this year where he's just been the best player on the court, or he's going against somebody who is a top 10 or a top 15 player and matching that dude, which is the same case for Jalen being an All-NBA guy and an MVP candidate. You have to have a guy like that in the league now because the league is so deep and so good. You kind of need your, and Obby has been the way for Portland and Cade's been the way for Detroit. You go through, if you don't have that guy, you get in trouble. That's like the case for why Sacramento is in trouble, among many other reasons. They just don't have that guy to match the other good guys. Porter's just been, if you didn't know anything, if you're in a coma for the last five years and you just watched this season, you watched him play, you would have thought he was like a five-time All-Star or something.

• 49:34Bill Simmons?

  It doesn't make a lot of sense. And I think he's an incredibly important trade piece.

• 49:42Bill Simmons?

  Especially if Golden State can get him, which I've talked about earlier. If Golden State can get him, I don't think they win the title with him, but it raises their ceiling and he's exactly what they need. Somebody who can create his own shot, another three-point shooter, another variable, heat check guy, everything. If they can get him, interesting. All right, two spots left for three guys.

• 50:05Bill Simmons?

  Norman Powell on the Heat, basically a 500 team. He's 24 a game and has played with a massive chip on his shoulder all season because he can't believe the Clippers traded him and I've really enjoyed it. Plus 2.6 is advanced metric

• 50:19Bill Simmons?

  for on off. Towns,

• 50:23Bill Simmons?

  21 and 12. Catch him on the right night, seems great.

• 50:29Bill Simmons?

  Gets a little, little gamey every couple of weeks. You'll watch a game with the Knicks every once in a while where it just doesn't seem like he's interested in guarding anybody.

• 50:41Bill Simmons?

  Zach and Mahoney, Zach's podcast last week, they talked about him and whatever Zach said I agreed with where it's like, it seems like he should be an All-Star, but something's holding me off and I feel the same way. So we'll just complete the exercise here. Bam and Mobley are out, by the way. They're not even in the bubble. The third one is Derrick White, who

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  the, the way to ding him is he's only averaging 19 a game and he's shooting 40%. And part of that is because if you watch the Celtics, there's times when the plays break down and whoever has the ball with four seconds left just has to put up a bad shot.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  He's plus 8.2 on off. More importantly, they have the second offense net rating in the league. Miami has the 21st rating, for example, with, with Powell. So if you're saying, well, Powell's a better offensive player, what happens if you switch White and Powell?

• 51:35Bill Simmons?

  What happens to those two teams? Are the Celtics still the second best offense? Is Miami better than 21st offense? I don't know. It's an interesting thought exercise.

• 51:45Bill Simmons?

  I think Towns unfortunately has to make it because you really only have for bigs, Giannis and Durant, and that's it. And you have too many guards and forwards.

• 51:55Bill Simmons?

  And the Knicks probably could get two. So it comes down to White and Powell. And if White was shooting 44%, 43%, I'd feel better about it. But it's like 39.7. It's right on the cusp. I think he's, it's almost like if this was the MVP voting, I think he would be higher than Powell. But if we're just talking about All-Star, somebody killing it and Miami doesn't have an All-Star, the Celtics already have one. I, I think I'd feel like a homer if I gave this to White. And I, as I joke about all the time, I like to take my vote seriously. So my heart says it's Derrick White, but my heart also says that I might not be thinking about it, be thinking about it rashly. So I'm going to go Powell. So Maxey, Jalen, Cade, Brunson, Giannis starting.

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  Mitchell, Jalen Johnson, Barnes, Durant, Porter, Powell, Towns. Toughest cuts Derrick White and Kawhi. And I think if anyone gets injured, so we're already going to have Jokic is, I would say probably going to miss the All-Star game, but somebody will miss it between him and Wemby. So then maybe Kawhi makes it anyway. And then, and then maybe Derrick White makes it if there's an injury in the East. But I think that's the list. Those are my All-Star picks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing me pontificate. We're going to take a break and come back with Charlotte's Con Knipple. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers.

• 53:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places.

• 54:09Bill Simmons?

  Sign in to save, savings vary. All right, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. The most efficient rookie in the history of the NBA is here, Khan Canipple. Did you know that?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I did not.

• 54:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, your shooting stats and all the, you're very efficient.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Try to be.

• 54:24Bill Simmons?

  People have been comparing you to players from the eight decades of the NBA. And they're like, you know, who's really efficient? Khan. You passed, last time I had you on the pod, people still didn't totally know how to pronounce your name, who are NBA fans. Now, it's like, I don't feel like you get any Canipples.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:40Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 54:40Speaker 01

  We got it set now.

• 54:42Bill Simmons?

  And you're having a really like steady, awesome rookie year, which I don't fully understand because you're the youngest podcast guest we've ever had.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Really?

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my daughter was the youngest, but she's May 2005 and you're August.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  August.

• 54:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so you beat her by three months.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  A couple of months. That's awesome.

• 54:59Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, I don't understand why you seem like you're 27 years old in these games. So what is it? How did you fit in so easily?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I definitely have a more mature game. Just, I've grown up playing in, you know, adult men's leagues all the time. My dad's run a men's league in Milwaukee for 20 years. So had to develop that aspect of playing off the ball that, you know, youth basketball doesn't really get you nowadays.

• 55:26Bill Simmons?

  Just trying to fit in and?

• 55:28Speaker 01

  With the whole AAU world.

• 55:29Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Like it's, you know, and the Instagram trainers and all that stuff. It becomes more about, you know, one-on-one skill and stuff. But playing in that men's league, I think you learn to grow and be more physical, how to move off the ball, all those things that are really important in today's NBA.

• 55:48Bill Simmons?

  And rebound.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Rebounding.

• 55:50Bill Simmons?

  That was the one thing I told you before the season. I said, don't forget to rebound. You're like six a game.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, almost. I'm getting down there. I think I'm at five now.

• 55:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, now your whole team's back.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  I've been watching a lot. It's been my favorite league pass team. And even though your record, when you're like 12th in the East, but you've been in a lot of these games. You haven't had LaMelo the whole time. And LaMelo is somebody I think I've changed my opinion on 100 times, but he's looked awesome lately. And like, it's the first time you can see your team like, oh, this is what the team could look like, right?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and we're playing our brand of basketball.

• 56:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  We want to play fast, want to play unselfishly and together. And, uh, you know, we're, we're a good rebounding team and we could hang ourselves, our hat, hang our hat on that, you know, on the offensive end. I don't know if you watched Diabate at all, Musa, but man, he's just all over the glass every night. You know, it's a fun brand, fun brand of basketball to play.

• 56:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, everybody seems like they give a crap.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:45Bill Simmons?

  Lovable team, good future. All right. We did the generic basketball stuff. I want to dive into rookie season.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:51Bill Simmons?

  So you go in, training camp starts September.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  You've never had a job before, really. Does Duke count as a job? I don't know. I guess you're getting an IO money.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it still doesn't though. You're, you're in class and that's fun.

• 57:03Bill Simmons?

  So you have a job. So, all right, walk me through. Do you buy a place? Do you rent? Like, how did that whole go? How'd that whole thing go in Charlotte? What do you do?

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I rent.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, got a nice apartment.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  Do you have like, family member, anything, anybody with you, or you're just on your own?

• 57:20Speaker 01

  No, I'm on my own.

• 57:21Bill Simmons?

  On your own? Interesting. No roommate? Nothing?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  No roommate, um, by myself, which is obviously first time ever, um, which I've kind of enjoyed.

• 57:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  It's kind of cool having an own space. I was worried about that kind of at first, but, you know, that's, that's new. And to do it when you're 20.

• 57:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Is a little bit earlier than others. Um, but I'm in like a nice part of Charlotte. A lot of young people, growing city, so. Good, good spot to be.

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  You're just so much more impressive than I was as a 20 year old. We moved off campus when I was 20 and, and I was sharing a, a room with my buddy Jacko with two beds and we lived with two other guys and we thought like we were really.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Quite a blast though.

• 57:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we had four people cramped in a small two bedroom place. We thought we were really living it. You're by yourself, living in Charlotte. All right. So training camp starts. Did you get a car? You leased a car?

• 58:09Speaker 01

  No, I, yeah, I bought a car.

• 58:11Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So you buy a car. Are you like a cheaper guy? Are you like an extravagant guy?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Probably say cheaper. I got a Ford Explorer.

• 58:17Bill Simmons?

  Right. Oh, that's smart. Okay. All right. So practice starts. You're fitting in. Do you feel like the rookie or people nice to you? What's happening?

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we, we got a great squad of just, you know, guys that kind of embrace you right away.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  You know, you know, sometimes it doesn't happen. Obviously we have a younger team.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  Which is good for you, I think, right? Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  And, and we have four rookies.

• 58:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  So you're coming in with three other guys, kind of going through the same stuff. Um, but also just the, the vets on the team being really receptive to a rookie is not something, giving us advice is not something you see on, you know, every, every team, uh, so I hear.

• 58:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, plus you were part of this incredible rookie class.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:57Bill Simmons?

  That I can't, kind of can't believe how good it is.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  It's a good group. Um, you know, it's fun to see the success around the league every night. Uh, that's a good group of guys. Hopefully, uh, it continues that way.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  And how many of them have you known since you were like 13?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  You know, I, I was a little bit later onto the.

• 59:15Bill Simmons?

  The circuit?

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I was, I was playing UIBL, but I'm, I'm from Wisconsin and I wasn't getting really invited to some of the, some of the bigger camps early on. But you're, you're, you're aware of the guys and, um, playing in the Nike circuit, uh, you play against a bunch of the players.

• 59:30Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Played Dylan Harper, um, Liam McNeely, like all those guys we'd, we'd play on, on, and Derek Queen, uh, we played on, on the circuit.

• 59:39Bill Simmons?

  So you see the Queen stuff where they trade the, the future pick for him. Everyone goes nuts, including me. Like, how can you do that? Well, I didn't like that. Didn't even put a protection on it.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:48Bill Simmons?

  But then he starts playing and he's just as good as he was in high school and college. And then people are like, okay, I didn't love the trade, but.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  He's awesome.

• 59:57Bill Simmons?

  He's really good. Yeah. And his, his game just translated to the NBA, it seems like.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  He was, he was awesome in high school.

• 1:00:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Like we playing in, uh, the NBA, MBPA has their camp in Orlando. Like he just, every time he threw it in there, it was like basket.

• 1:00:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Obviously, super skilled. He's having a heck of a year.

• 1:00:14Bill Simmons?

  And then Dylan, Dylan's fit in on a really good Spurs team.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:19Bill Simmons?

  Flag's been, I mean, that's your guy.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's awesome.

• 1:00:22Bill Simmons?

  Pretty strange Dallas situation for the most part. He's following that trade.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Bill Simmons?

  Kyrie's not there. Davis has gotten hurt multiple times. The season started out badly. They're playing a point. Were you surprised they're playing him at point guard? It seemed like a big ask.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think for your first 10 games in the NBA, you're trying to figure it out. I feel like it's, it's tough. I, I think,

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  he definitely embraced it, embraced the challenge.

• 1:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  But you know, it's, that's, that's tough to do. Playing out of position like that is, is your first time playing in the NBA at all, but, um, I actually thought he did, did pretty solid.

• 1:00:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was, I, in a weird way, probably not the greatest experience, but then also a great experience because you're, you're literally thrown into the fire.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  To make all these decisions with the ball. So there's no way some of that. But you had the opposite. They're just, they put you in, you're doing all the stuff you're good at. You only have to worry about that. I, I, I don't know. I thought it was a little unfair, but it seems like he came out of it all right.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's playing, he's playing great now.

• 1:01:21Bill Simmons?

  Is there like a Duke text thread with all your old guys or no?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  We, we do, um, it's Coach Carwell, Seawell, his assistant, and he, he'll text us on the group chat at, at certain points.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  But you know, well, we were, when we were in Cleveland, um, me and CM went over to Tyrese Proctor's place for a little bit. Just hang out and enjoy some time together.

• 1:01:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, the most fun thing you did was you brought your entire team to your house.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Bill Simmons?

  That, which went viral for like two days. People loved that for some reason.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I didn't, we didn't think anything that it was that big of a deal.

• 1:01:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah.

• 1:01:55Bill Simmons?

  I think people like knowing that NBA players are adorable and that you would just go to somebody's house when you're on the road. I don't think people think of the players like that sometimes.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, you know, we, we were on the plane and, and obviously I'm from Milwaukee, so.

• 1:02:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Grant's like, where are we going to eat? Grant Williams. Um, I was like, well, I'm going, I'm going home. And they're like, oh, we're going to Con's house, I guess. And then I thought about it. My parents were like, invite whoever you want. I was like, I'm gonna invite the whole team over. So yeah, the guys came and.

• 1:02:23Bill Simmons?

  So what'd you wanna make?

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Fajitas, chicken fajitas.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, there's a nice Mexican grocery store in Milwaukee, El Rey.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  So she, she got all the, the fixings and everything from there and, you know, just in the crock pot. And, uh, yeah, the guys enjoy it. Like, we don't get to do stuff like that.

• 1:02:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Very often, especially like when you're in Milwaukee, Detroit, like, uh, Cleveland, like, it's cold. You don't, you don't really wanna get out of the hotel. So it was, it was a good experience for us.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, when I talk to different coaches, players, whoever, they all say the schedule was so unforgiving with, like, not being able to practice enough. Not being able to actually do anything. Like, you're, you're in LA right now. You had a game Monday against Clippers. You have a game Thursday. You actually have a couple of days to.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:11Bill Simmons?

  Kind of hang out, maybe even have a practice, work on some stuff, relax. The schedule doesn't really work that way.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's interesting. Like, I, I can't even remember the last time we had practice, like, in our facility in Charlotte. Like, it was probably two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's not good.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  And that's, and that's, I mean, we're just with how the schedule changed where you're basically playing every other night.

• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  It makes it, I mean, it makes it so hard to practice because your body can't really physically handle, you know, practicing on the in-between day.

• 1:03:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  When you play every other night.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  It needs a catch-up day. I mean, the good news is the travels. Can you imagine doing this in the seventies when they had.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, on the train.

• 1:03:50Bill Simmons?

  Flying like coach, doing trains and stuff. That would be crazy.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, and then wearing Converse.

• 1:03:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, wearing the shitty sneakers, like, all that stuff. Eating, like, cheeseburgers at three in the morning.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Smoking cigarettes at halftime, like. I don't, I don't know how guys did it.

• 1:04:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a little better now. Yeah, so you played thirty-nine games. The season started, I guess, like, October twenty-fourth range. So it's like thirty-nine games in two and a half months.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Right. And we played thirty-nine games at Duke last year. That was a whole season.

• 1:04:21Bill Simmons?

  So are we in rookie wall? When is the rookie wall? Is it fifty games or forty games? I can't remember. Somewhere around here.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel it yet? Do you feel it in your body?

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  I think.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  I think it honestly, I feel like it's more mental than anything else. Like it just gets really repetitive. And you know, it's just the, the same thing like you're shoot around again today.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Going over to the gym in the morning.

• 1:04:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  I think that finding a way to embrace that and enjoy that every day can get tough. Especially for younger guys.

• 1:04:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, you have the wild card of you play with Lamela, who is such a wild card game to game and can go on these. I, I can't imagine what it's like to play with somebody like that. I mean that in a good way. Like you just don't know when he's going to go off. Like he had that game the other night when he had 33 off the bench.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  And it seems like there's, it, it definitely seems like he has his bounce back.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Bill Simmons?

  Right. And he's got his first step back and is starting to seem unstoppable again.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:21Bill Simmons?

  But we haven't really seen a stretch like this in a while where he can just like stay healthy for four months. But when you're, when you're playing with him and then you're seeing the other guards in the league, like it feels like athletically and talent wise, he's with those guys, right?

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And I mean, he's doing a really good job. And I think the training staff just trying to like manage his, his minutes to maximize the amount of games he can play. And that's tough to do. Like when he's, it's tough to get in a rhythm sometimes when you're, you're going like, you know, 28 to 30 minutes.

• 1:05:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  You know, you're going to come out or there's, there's some times in the fourth quarter when, you know, you want to be in there and, and affect the game. So he's, he's been battling that and I just, he's been really locked in this year.

• 1:06:04Bill Simmons?

  Have you gotten to the point playing with him where you can kind of tell when he's about to go off? Like you can notice when he's feeling it on the court almost.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and there's just some situations where he has the ball and, and especially in like transition where it's just like, he has those alley-oop passes that

• 1:06:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Like half court. It's like, how do you, how do you throw that when Brandon Miller's at the free throw line?

• 1:06:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  And he's throwing, he's throwing it. It's like a quarterback anticipating just some of those plays he makes are pretty head scratching.

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then you had Miller come back. And he's shown flashes of like, if you catch him on the right night, it feels like he's like gonna be an all NBA guy, you know? And he can rebound. He's a little, in a weird way, like a really nice compliment to you because you guys both rebound, you guys can both shoot threes, you can both handle the ball and play without the ball. But I like the combo.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, he's a really talented player. And then just the athleticism and, you know, he has some of that like chase down block stuff too. That you can just make plays like that. You know, that a lot of guys can't make, just with his, his frame and, and his athleticism. And it's a fun group to play with.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he seems easy to play with.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Bill Simmons?

  Like all your bigs kind of know where to go and what to do. And it's, it's a fun team to watch. And I'm not even sure, I'm sure in the summer when they try to add to it, figure out what's next. I'm not even positive. I'm sure like rim protection would be something, but I, for the most part, it's got a nice nucleus.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel, I feel like, you know, when we have all our guys playing.

• 1:07:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  You know, we're in a good spot every night.

• 1:07:39Bill Simmons?

  It's a good upset team. It's like one of those teams, you'll be like a giant underdog somewhere and I'm like, I don't know. They got all their guys, watch out for, watch out for them tonight. All right, so you're going through the league. You've played just about it. You haven't played the Celtics yet.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  I haven't played the Celtics. They're, they're one of my favorite teams to watch.

• 1:07:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. This year's been good.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Especially on film. Like we were watching, cause they played the Clippers recently.

• 1:08:06Bill Simmons?

  I went to that game.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:07Bill Simmons?

  We kind of killed them.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were, we were watching with Jalen Brown, right? He had 50. We, we were watching them just defensively and how they guarded, you know, Kawhi and, and Harden. And they just have a bunch of guys that are always in the right position defensively.

• 1:08:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  So we're just watching them, you know, how they shipped off the ball. It was, it was a good game, good game to watch, just how they guarded the Clippers.

• 1:08:29Bill Simmons?

  So is that part of the process? You try, you guys try, cause you have a really good coach. We had him in Boston for a little bit. But you try to, if you're playing a team, you watch a game where somebody did something successful against that team and figure out what they, try to unlock what they did?

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, we have a bunch of clips that we'll watch together as a team.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Just from, just from games. But I think in general, just as a player in the league, like if you're, know who you're playing on the schedule or. Um, just, just catching a game as we, we all get league pass.

• 1:08:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Just catching a game of, you know, who you're going to play. Um, is always good and see what, see what they want to do. Um, seeing it for, it for a whole 48, just as a, as a, as a watcher.

• 1:09:09Bill Simmons?

  In your hotel room at like one in the morning, just zipping through the NBA app, trying to watch who you're watching.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's gotta be so much easier than the seventies or eighties.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, the tape delay.

• 1:09:20Bill Simmons?

  It's, well, yeah, you got tape delay, you have no games were actually on.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  If you had to queue up something, you would have had to go into like some video room and they would have had to have like the, the projector showing you clips.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's the video, the video guys that we have like do a really good job or even, uh, I don't know synergy. Have you heard of synergy?

• 1:09:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  We just, you just look up, I want to see all of Peyton Pritchard's shot attempts or whatever.

• 1:09:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  And you can watch them all.

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, you can scout yourself too, right? Like you can look at every single time you dribbled off the pick going right and what you did.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like each, each move, um, hotspots on the court. Um, all that stuff is really interesting.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  It's the league. I was trying to figure out my all-star stuff because I have a vote and I was, and I always write down everybody's points, rebounds, assists stats. And then their shooting splits and I'll do like PR out a couple of things and I just put everybody on a list. The shooting stats are unbelievable now.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Bill Simmons?

  And it's, it's like, and you're kind of the poster boy of this next generation that like just efficient everything where everybody's kind of like high forties field goal.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Somewhere between 38 and 42 three-point, 78 to 85 free throw. And it's like everybody.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Bill Simmons?

  Like Maxie's 31 a game.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Bill Simmons?

  But all his shooting splits are really good. It's not like he's like a volume shooter. Like they're good shots.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think the, the shot quality throughout the league is a lot better.

• 1:10:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Um, where it's just an emphasis on, you know, at the rim shots, at the rim twos.

• 1:10:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Um, free throws and, uh, you know, quality threes.

• 1:10:55Bill Simmons?

  Open threes in this, in the spots that you know are the right spots.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Right. And, uh,

• 1:11:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Or, and then I call them like shots of mastery. So, you know, like a, a guy like, uh, Harden, like his, his step back, it's a shot of mastery.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Or like a Kawhi, you know, mid-range fall away. Um, those, those type of shots that are really maybe not, or maybe not, uh, efficient for everybody.

• 1:11:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  But for certain guys.

• 1:11:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, you have one of those. You have though, like right around the foul line, like when you do the hard dribble and

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:26Bill Simmons?

  You come back a little bit.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  A little fade away to the left.

• 1:11:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that one, uh, that feels like your shot.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like getting to that spot.

• 1:11:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it feels like that 2.15 footer is coming back. Jalen reinvented himself this year with that. Like he, he added two moves and he became an over 50% 15 footer guy out of nowhere.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, um, if you can add, add one of those shots in between, you just become a little, little bit harder to guard.

• 1:11:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  Keep you, keep you honest and you can shoot it really efficiently. Um, those are good shots.

• 1:11:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's felt like the league was too three happy there. I mean, there's still a bunch of threes, but the pace is, there's just more shots.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, the pace is, the pace is crazy.

• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  Pace is crazy. Like Denver was at 124 a game before Jokic got hurt. You think like that's like, that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago that anyone would average 114 a game.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Bill Simmons?

  But I like it. I, I think for the most part, they've really figured out the rule stuff. I mean, I'm sure like when you're out there, like how slow the last five minutes go. Must be annoying, right? With all the timeouts and reviews and

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34Bill Simmons?

  Just trying to stay like, keep your energy.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Challenges and

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Stuff, but I think the challenges are good. I think they were a good addition.

• 1:12:41Bill Simmons?

  Your pro challenges? Have you played the FIBA where it's like, it kind of just goes like soccer almost? You haven't played in that year, right?

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  No, I haven't.

• 1:12:51Bill Simmons?

  You'll probably be on one of the teams we have pretty soon, I would guess. I predicted you for the 28 Olympic team. You were my dark horse when I went on Zach's spot.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Bill Simmons?

  And he got the whoa. Now I'm like feeling like I might be in on that one.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  We'll see. We'll see. That'd be awesome.

• 1:13:07Bill Simmons?

  You're at a good pace. That'd be one of my better predictions. My football picks have been shit this year. That might have been my only good prediction.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be pretty sweet.

• 1:13:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Prove you right on that one.

• 1:13:17Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, it does seem like there's more twos. The games are more interesting. There's more big guys, too. I feel like we have the most big guys we've had in like 25 years.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, the the small ball thing was getting real popular there for for.

• 1:13:30Bill Simmons?

  You can't do it anymore.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you gotta have a good big.

• 1:13:32Bill Simmons?

  Even you guys, the the question with Charlotte even being competent this year was like, well, who's playing center? Like they traded Mark Williams. But you've patched it together. There's like we did it with the I say we like on the Celtics. We did it with Kaden Garza.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Bill Simmons?

  And all those guys do. They set picks and they protect the rim. They can stretch it. Kaden knows he can't shoot threes. Garza shoots threes a little bit, but. So I don't know. It's a your generation is coming in and all the big guys know how to play 20 feet from the basket instead of just like clogging the lane and you know what I mean? Like something has shifted.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I think just from an earlier age, I think guys are, you know, learning, learning to play basketball in an applicable way.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  It's maybe future levels or higher levels of hoops.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, the big guys want to shoot threes, right? Every big guy you ever played with probably want to shoot.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Wants to wants to stretch the floor and and affect the game in that way. So I think I think we're going moving in the right direction basketball wise.

• 1:14:33Bill Simmons?

  Can we go through some of the guys you played against without getting you in trouble? So you played Giannis a couple of times already. What's that experience like? I mean, there's no way you ever played against this seven foot alien who's just made out of concrete before, right?

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, just just so strong.

• 1:14:50Bill Simmons?

  Did you bounce off him ever? Did you have one of those plays where you're just like get swatted like a mosquito on a windshield or something?

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  He gets you. He has a little chicken wing.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  Um, that he gets guys with and it's really hard for the officials to see.

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  What is it? Explain it.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  He just like he loves going baseline. So he's on the baseline and he'll he'll kind of get you with the high elbow. If he gets you up in.

• 1:15:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh, to push you back a little bit?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  He'll just no, he'll he'll get it around you, around your body.

• 1:15:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  And kind of. Kind of it's a it's quick, so it's hard for the officials to see. And he's really, really good at it. And that chicken wing just kind of gets you gets you off and it'll get you baseline. It's really hard to stay in front of him. And then obviously in the in the the full court, how he's mastered like the gather rules.

• 1:15:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  And all that stuff. It makes it really hard to guard.

• 1:15:36Bill Simmons?

  It makes one of us because I have not mastered the gather rules. I just I think I'm too old. I think it's a travel.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Every time.

• 1:15:43Bill Simmons?

  I just every time like travel up then caught.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's well, it's one of the things that I've really had to work on.

• 1:15:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  That I've I've gotten better at is like, we've been working on like the low pickups, but as as soon as you put that second hand on the ball. You get that's a zero step, the step you're on.

• 1:15:59Bill Simmons?

  And then you get two more. Then you get two more. Yeah.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  It's it's a different footwear. It's hard. It's a little bit tricky to learn, especially coming from college and high school where they're calling Euro steps to travel.

• 1:16:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  But yeah, I think the the way he does it, especially in the full court, how he can throw the ball to himself and then gather and it looks like it's three steps, but it's not.

• 1:16:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, you played. We're taping this Tuesday. You played Harden last night, who's another one who's I I don't understand how he does it where it seems like he's going 12 feet with five steps, but it's two steps because he used to gather.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Bill Simmons?

  So and he's going right, left, right. You can't even keep track of what he's doing.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  And yeah, it's a gray area too. And it's it's really hard sometimes to appreciate and the guys that that are good at it and and and work on it all the time. Becomes really effective.

• 1:16:45Bill Simmons?

  Lamela's got a little bit. He'll he'll throw it out from time to time.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  He'll throw in the slow step too.

• 1:16:49Bill Simmons?

  Did you have to guard? I didn't see the Clipper game last night. Did you have to guard Kawhi at all?

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Uh, I was guarding Harden.

• 1:16:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Jesus. What was that like?

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  It was good. Uh, it was fun. You know, I he at the third quarter, he they put up up. He moved into ninth.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  All time scoring. So they put that up on there. I'm like, man, this is it's pretty, pretty cool.

• 1:17:08Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Guarding a top 10 scorer ever.

• 1:17:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  No, it was it was great.

• 1:17:12Bill Simmons?

  Who's been in the league almost as long as you've been alive because he was 2008.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  2008, yeah. So I was three.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's wild, wild how these guys can, you know, reinvent themselves and like Lopez too, or Pen Lopez last night and even him. That's a that's a guy who's reinvented his his career to be able to play.

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, him and Al Horford. There's a couple of them. They were back to the basket guys who just flipped it.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  And like awesome all star back to the basket guys who can. Reinvented themselves, shooting threes, stretching the floor. Um, just stick around and be effective.

• 1:17:44Bill Simmons?

  Did Harden get you at all last night? Cause you're trying to play him a certain way, right? And he still gets the shot he wants anyway.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, he got me with a foul too. I was.

• 1:17:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you got the flop?

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  No, I had my hand in the, you know, the one I had, I got my hand in the cookie jar.

• 1:17:59Bill Simmons?

  And he did the.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  And he did the, went right into the three. Um, and you got your hand out here and he got me. But, uh.

• 1:18:06Bill Simmons?

  It's probably my least favorite call. I just think that should be a foul. I don't think you should get free throws for that.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  But that, there's a bunch of things that would change officiating wise.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  It's, it's really hard. Um, because the guys like him and Shay, like the, the, the way they, it's, it's a skill. You know, it's, it's a skill. You feel the guy's hand on you, just rise up and get somebody's hand caught in there.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  Have you, you've played OKC?

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we put him twice.

• 1:18:33Bill Simmons?

  So did you have to?

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  I got, I got a Jalen Williams, uh, a lot. Um, but you know, you get switched on Shay a couple of times and.

• 1:18:43Bill Simmons?

  Then you're like shit.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  He's really, he's really hard to guard. You just gotta, gotta stay solid, stay square, keep your hands out of there.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  I'd be so scared. Cause you'd think you would get him and then he can do like one more spin. Or like a second step and, and then all of a sudden he's going another way.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Shot fake, gotta stay down on the shot fake.

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Got super long arms. Guys are really, really skilled. You know, it's, it's fun, fun to compete against those guys.

• 1:19:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we have a, Maxie's another one. Who has just become almost impossible to guard. And we have Jordan Walsh. I say we like him on the team. And it was one of like Jordan Walsh's breakthrough games. Like he kind of figured out how to defend Maxie for like two minutes. I don't know if it's sustainable, but he kind, he just kind of unlocked what to do. And Maxie was getting bad shots and was like, oh my God, somebody unlocked Maxie. And then Maxie probably fixed it the next game. But the, the, when people have like the three moves they can do at any time and you just don't know what they're gonna do. And they can just, and then that's it. Those are like the best scores and like Brunson's like that too.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, Brunson, Brunson is, is, um. We played them twice as well. He's different than than some of the other guys because all of his stuff is, a lot of his stuff, I should say, is off two, two feet.

• 1:20:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Um, and the pivots and the shot fakes, um, which is, and it's almost like he's like posting up at like 16 feet and he's six.

• 1:20:08Bill Simmons?

  Crazy. It's like this herky jerky stop and start bouncing off you.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  And he's six foot tall and and strong and those, uh, he's, he's, he's got a little different, different herky jerky game.

• 1:20:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Um, but he's, he's just as fun to, to compete against as, as any of those other guys.

• 1:20:24Bill Simmons?

  Did you have Ananobi and Bridges defending you that game? You must have.

• 1:20:28Speaker 01

  Bridges, um, Brunson guarded me a little bit. Um, yeah, I, I don't think Ananobi played when we played them both times.

• 1:20:37Bill Simmons?

  Who, who was the one who, um, the defensive player we were like, oh my God, I'm in the NBA.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  First game, first time we played OKC, Kason Wallace.

• 1:20:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's a nightmare.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was, they had a tough game. That was a back to back. We just played the Bucks in Milwaukee, came back home to play.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  That unit, great game in the Milwaukee game. Yeah.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Good game. We lost in overtime. It was like a, I played like 40 minutes. It was a tough one. It was like one of our first back to backs.

• 1:21:03Bill Simmons?

  And then you have to play OKC.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  Play OKC at home. Off the flight, we get in at like two, uh, because you lose the hour coming back to the East Coast. Yeah, that was tough.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  The Kason Wallace is waiting for you with a fork and knife.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I don't think Mello played because it was a, it was a back to back and he, he was resting. So it was a, it was a tough one.

• 1:21:21Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my Lord. Yeah. And they have Dort's no, no prize either if he, if he decides to dial it up.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  He's, he is huge. He's jacked.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Caruso's doing the.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  Swiping and everything and bouncing.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're a tough defense.

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that, it's weird because they.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Hartenstein is so like, because we played him, we played him the second time in OKC and.

• 1:21:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  We beat him. Um.

• 1:21:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was one of the upsets of the year.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, we played, we played great. Um, but Hartenstein was out and he makes such a difference for them. Just, uh, he's, he's physical on, on the glass.

• 1:21:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Just defensively and what he can do in, in the pick and roll defense. Um, and, and what he does offensively too, running all the, you know, the dribble handoff actions.

• 1:22:06Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  And zoom actions with all those guys. He's a really important piece for them.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  And you played Joker, right?

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did play Joker.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  How's that?

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, he seemed like.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  He wasn't even like trying that hard and

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he always seems like that.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  You look up and it's like 29, 13 and nine.

• 1:22:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  Like it was like 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter and it's like he just dominated the game.

• 1:22:30Bill Simmons?

  Right. He seemed like he was jogging around.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  We played them too. Murray had a really good game. He had like 20, 25 in the first quarter. So.

• 1:22:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. He, Jokic was just impressive.

• 1:22:42Bill Simmons?

  I have Murray. I always, every week I do my all NBA team.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  Cause just as a process, cause I'm one of the few people that actually cares about this shit who has a vote.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do you feel about the, the non?

• 1:22:54Bill Simmons?

  I've decided I don't like it.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Positionless?

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I hate the positionless. I always put as, I always try to make it look like at least somewhat of a basketball team.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:23:04Bill Simmons?

  So even if it's not like necessarily a center, I have to have a rebound. I can't have four guards. Like I really want to have a, like a wing forward. I try to have on each team.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  I think it's kind of a disservice too, where you can just get like five guards and it's kind of a disservice to the history of the game. You look back at like the eighties or whatever.

• 1:23:21Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  You got three centers or, you know, like Andrew Bogut's on third team.

• 1:23:26Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Like you're not, you're not going to see many of those anymore. Um, I don't know.

• 1:23:31Bill Simmons?

  There's really, there's guards, there's wings and there's bigs, right? And I, I feel like each team should have at least one of the, at least one of those three positions and then you can go nuts with whatever else you want to do.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Whatever. Yeah.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  Or two guards, one wing, one big, and then you can get wacky with the fifth spot. It should be five guys that could conceivably play basketball together.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:52Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:53Bill Simmons?

  So like for me, I, I still have Shangoon on my second team, all NBA. I don't think he's been one of the best 10 players in the league, but I think he's been the second best center.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  So he's going to make the team for me. But yeah, I, uh, Jamal Murray is definitely going to make it for me. I mean, we're halfway through the year. He's, especially what he's doing without Joker is nuts.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're putting, they're playing well.

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  Came in and kicked the Celtics ass. I'll tell you that much. Um, I feel like the guards are as deep and scary as we've ever had.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  I mean, there's like 30 good guards.

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Like all, I think there's like 30 capable all-star guards. It's insane.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. There's no, even you see like teams like Garland, who's, doesn't have an all-star case this year, but even he, if he had his own team, I feel like he would probably be putting up 22 and nine on his own team, you know?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. We played, we played them a couple of times too, and he's, he's quick. Stuff to stay in front of and he's got all the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom handle stuff.

• 1:24:50Bill Simmons?

  Have you played Indiana?

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, we put him, we lost him twice.

• 1:24:54Bill Simmons?

  So you had, so you had your first McConnell experience.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  He's unreal. He's one of the hardest guys to guard.

• 1:25:01Bill Simmons?

  He's another herky jerky weird, can't figure him out.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  And he's so low to the ground.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Like his center of gravity is so low. He's, he's really hard to stay in front of. And then he has that, that rise up like mid-range, like 10 footer. Where he's got the ball like way above his head like that.

• 1:25:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  He's really hard to guard.

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  It's like the, it's brought back the golden age of these guards that can go in the paint and bounce off people and do footwork stuff. Like Pritchard does this too now for the Celtics.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  He's so skilled.

• 1:25:30Bill Simmons?

  McConnell does it. Brunson does it. Um, there's a few guys in the league now, I don't know where it came from. And nobody wants to foul them because they're always going to call it when you're trying to foul a little guy. But yeah, McConnell, they beat the Celtics last night in a very frustrating Celtics loss. And it was like they, you realize how good the league is because they're finally healthy. They made the finals last year. They don't have Halliburton. They don't have Myles Turner. But they still have a lot of the DNA of last year's team. It's like they're not easy to play.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  You know, they're, and they play hard and you know, Carlisle's obviously a great coach.

• 1:26:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we lost them at the buzzer. And then they go.

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  I watched that game.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Bill Simmons?

  It was a little, yeah, it was a defensive mix up at the end.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12Bill Simmons?

  It's frustrating.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:13Bill Simmons?

  I've always rooting for the Charlotte, Charlotte franchise. They're my league past team.

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  We appreciate it.

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was like, ah, why don't you switch out? 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 Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT. With a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails.

• 1:27:03Bill Simmons?

  So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new workday. Don't say the team because I don't want to get you in trouble. But did you have an NBA experience yet where you played a team and you it felt like the team didn't like each other? Or there was like the vibes were off and you could just feel it on the court?

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  You know, Mason Plumlee says that half the battle in this league is having everybody still like each other in February.

• 1:27:31Bill Simmons?

  That's a great quote.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  That's what he says.

• 1:27:35Bill Simmons?

  So maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you'll see it a couple of times.

• 1:27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:27:40Bill Simmons?

  Maybe you'll see it Thursday night.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, we're right around the time when some teams start getting gamey. Cause either you're not as good as you thought you were going to be, or you're about to start tanking. Guys are in trade rumors. You guys, you haven't had any trade rumors stuff with Charlotte, I don't think. You're one of the, one of the few non playoff teams. I haven't seen anything, but there's other teams that the names are just, it's like trade season now.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Falling around, yeah.

• 1:28:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's great for content people like me.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's gotta be, I mean, just ignoring the noise is a skill that I think teams have to have to, you know, kind of keep it together and still compete at a high level every night.

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  How online are you? Yeah. How are you checking this stuff? Are you like going to NBA Reddit, places like that?

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  You know, I, I don't have like, uh, social media on my phone anymore.

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  Great idea.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Just kind of, just kind of deleted it.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  Really smart. See, this is why you're the most efficient rookie in NBA history. You deleted social media.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  More so just like, I don't want to be like scrolling on my phone and be like, oh, there's three hours that just went by.

• 1:28:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  There's more so for that than anything else. Um, so I've been off it for, you know, almost a week and a half now. Cause it's kind of a recent thing.

• 1:28:55Bill Simmons?

  That's really, it's a good New Year's resolution.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess it did kind of fit around that time. Um, but yeah, so I've been off it a little bit, but obviously, you know, keeping up with podcasts and stuff like that is something I like to do.

• 1:29:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so you listen to some of the NBA stuff?

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. NBA, NFL. I got a big, big sports, sports podcast listening. I listen to a bunch of stuff.

• 1:29:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I want to talk NFL with you in a second. We got to talk about a couple more players. You played Kawhi.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:29:23Bill Simmons?

  One of the strangest games, I mean, he's one of the top 30 players of all time, but the shot release, the line drive shots.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, line drive. So it's a strong shot.

• 1:29:30Bill Simmons?

  Quick release.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Bill Simmons?

  Physical as shit, crazy hands on defense.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  Dribbles the ball like harder than anybody I've played against.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Like just like pounds the crap out of the ball. It's weird. But I mean, he doesn't.

• 1:29:44Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't speak?

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  Doesn't lose. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't say much.

• 1:29:48Bill Simmons?

  Nah, he's not talking shit. He's not there to make friends.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  No, I, but just one of the more impressive players I've played against, like just the shot making ability.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Kawhi's back.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  All business.

• 1:30:01Bill Simmons?

  They're 16 and 23, which before they were like 6 and 20 or some. So they're like, I don't know.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  They're on a good run here, too.

• 1:30:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  And he's, yeah, he's unbelievable. And you got Harden still, too. They're just really, really tough to guard.

• 1:30:17Bill Simmons?

  What about Minnesota? Did you play them yet?

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  We played them early. No Ant, so I.

• 1:30:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, if you're ready for somebody to talk shit to you, he's your guy.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's great for the league.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  He's been awesome.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  It's good to have a guy like that, you know, just, I, you know, I didn't get the chance to play against him, but he was talking shit. I could see him kind of in the corner. He was talking, talking stuff a little bit, which was, which was, which was cool to see.

• 1:30:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, in 28, it'll be you guys leading America against the, against France and Germany. You, the two of you. I love the way they've been playing lately. Randall, Randall, I think is going to make my All-Star team. Gobert, if Wemby doesn't get the, the limit, the 65 games, Gobert is probably the Defensive Player of the Year. But I like the way they're playing. Ant's been unbelievable. I mean, he's just a top five guy now, by whatever list you have.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  And I mean. This is a shooter too, like.

• 1:31:16Bill Simmons?

  Like doesn't miss.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's shooting 10 threes a game.

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  Makes like four of them.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's ridiculous.

• 1:31:23Bill Simmons?

  And he's been clutch. The thing I love about him, and I think LaMelo has this quality too, actually.

• 1:31:30Bill Simmons?

  These guys that really do think they're the best guy on the court, they might even be wrong, but they they think it. And like, he definitely thinks he's the best player in the league. And I think LaMelo, sometimes you can see like, he just thinks he's the best guy on the court. It doesn't matter who else is out there. But I, I do think you need that if you're gonna actually try to win the title.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:31:51Bill Simmons?

  Like plays OKC. He's like, I'm definitely not afraid of these guys. I think I'm better than Shay.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

  I'm better than all these guys. We're gonna beat them. And he really does believe it.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, he's, I mean, he's exuberant.

• 1:32:04Bill Simmons?

  Confident.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Very confident. I just, like I said before, I think it's just good for the league to have a guy like that. Super confident, talks his game. He was in Hustle when he was young and like.

• 1:32:15Bill Simmons?

  It was good movie, yeah.

• 1:32:16Speaker 01

  It was great. I mean, he's great in it.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  And I just think having, having guys like that in the league is really, really good for it.

• 1:32:23Bill Simmons?

  I think Wemby has that too. He, they beat Boston on Saturday night.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think Wemby thinks he's the best guy in the world.

• 1:32:29Bill Simmons?

  He kinda came back in with three minutes left and they just kept giving it to him and he just kept scoring. And he had like a real disdain for the, it was like one of those.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, on opening night, when he, who, who were they playing on opening night? I forget. Or his first, the first game of the season, this, who were the Spurs playing? I forget. We had like forty.

• 1:32:46Bill Simmons?

  Rockets, yeah, somebody.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Something like that. And I was like, oh my God.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  You played him yet?

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  No, we haven't played the Spurs yet. It's like, oh my God, we'd like, the league might be in trouble.

• 1:32:57Bill Simmons?

  I think the league is in trouble. We'll see. He's so freaking tall. I, I just, I worry about him over the course of 10 years. Like, how do you stay in the court? Like, he has no room for error with guys around his legs, you know?

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody's around his legs.

• 1:33:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, everybody. Um, yeah, he, he looked, that team is really scary.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're very good.

• 1:33:18Bill Simmons?

  Cause way before your time, the 1986 Rockets, um, your guy, Bird.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Bird.

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't your guy. You're a Milwaukee guy, but he's my guy.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  He's one of my, he's one of my favorite.

• 1:33:28Bill Simmons?

  When you got, okay, good. Um, the 86, we were supposed to play the 86 Lakers in the finals. It was like headed this way. We'd play them in 84, 85. And then the Rockets had Hakeem and Sampson.

• 1:33:40Bill Simmons?

  And they just like killed the Lakers like just like out of nowhere. They just beat the shit out of them and it was like a mismatch and they were just too big and too and I do wonder if the Spurs can do that to a couple of teams in the playoffs where they just.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  They're kind of a little bit ahead of like ahead of schedule.

• 1:33:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think it's in play. We'll see if they're healthy. Trying to think who uh what other what are the other great players? You did you you didn't play against Jalen yet. That's coming. And then Joker, I think we covered everybody.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  Was there anyone that's.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Luca, we played the Lakers already.

• 1:34:15Bill Simmons?

  Did you have to guard him?

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Uh, a little bit. Um, not just a couple, a couple of switches, not really.

• 1:34:22Bill Simmons?

  He's one of those like you just can't talk shit to.

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's he's talking the whole game.

• 1:34:27Bill Simmons?

  You almost have to go the other way and be like, Luca, it's an honor to meet you. I can't wait to play basketball against you for the next three hours. And just like butter butter him up.

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  He's he's great though. He mean, some of the some of the shots, some of the difficulty of the shots he was he was taking and making against us. You know, just 19 footer, one legged off the glass.

• 1:34:50Bill Simmons?

  It's crazy.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's he's really good. Reeves was Reeves was really good too when we played. I mean, he he had an off night shooting, but man, he's before the calf strain, he was having a heck of a heck of a season.

• 1:35:01Bill Simmons?

  He's another one of those guys who just knows where to go and what to do. Did you have a holy shit? I can't believe I'm playing against this guy guy like who was your hero growing up or did you have one? Um, do you have a favorite that you had to be on the court against?

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  Our third game of the season, we played the Wizards and we played Middleton. Middleton was being from Milwaukee, like one of my favorite guys. And so most of our staff, you know, Charles Lee was assistant for Bud in Milwaukee. So most of our staff was in Milwaukee and they're like, oh, yeah, well, they're all saying what up to Chris Middleton. You know, I got to meet him after the game. And that was like the first first time after that, after a game or something, I talked to a guy and that was pretty special for me. Just because, you know, rooting for him all the all the time growing up and is this some some of the simple is, you know, just like, nice to meet you. Appreciate all you did for the city. Um.

• 1:35:50Bill Simmons?

  He was a good basketball role model for you too, right? Just like completely additive player.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:55Bill Simmons?

  Knew where to go, what to do.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  Defended.

• 1:35:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  You know, good shot maker in the mid range, three point shooter, knows how to pass, knows how to play. Um, he was he was awesome.

• 1:36:05Bill Simmons?

  Are you ready for all this All-Star Weekend stuff? It's gonna be in LA.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:36:11Bill Simmons?

  I assume you'll be in the all rookie game. As the most efficient rookie in the history of the league. I think they're gonna invite you.

• 1:36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I think that'll that'll be cool. I can't remember the last time I watched the Rising Stars game.

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I might have wagered on it a couple of times. So that'll be the only reason.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  A little gambling.

• 1:36:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Bill Simmons?

  I'd add some money on it.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  It'll be sweet. Be cool to get out there with some of the rookie guys and and see him again.

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's good because it's like the it's the the way the league goes. You start there. Get to go to All-Star Weekend. You're like the wide eyed little baby of the league. And you get to go through. And then by year five, you're an All-Star. And you're like, oh, I remember that time when I was I was like the wide eyed rookie. Now I'm used to this. You know, you get to do up. Then you'd be the grizzled guy trying to make it one more time. Try to have the long career.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. It'd be sweet.

• 1:37:00Bill Simmons?

  The last time you were on,

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

  we didn't really dive into your brothers. And I was told that it was the one of the great misses of my podcast year last year. This whole

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  By who?

• 1:37:13Bill Simmons?

  This whole, uh, one of our ringer guys, J. Kyle Mann, who's obsessed with the Knipple family and thinks you guys have a chance to potentially have three to four NBA players conceivably.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 1:37:24Bill Simmons?

  What? What's do the proper deal? So how many brothers are there?

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Four. I have four brothers, five of us total.

• 1:37:31Bill Simmons?

  Four brothers and all of them are good at basketball.

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:37Bill Simmons?

  So what are the ages?

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  My brother Cager is a junior. Kinston is a sophomore. Cash is a freshman and Kidman's in eighth grade.

• 1:37:47Bill Simmons?

  And do the high scorers play to get there on the same?

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  All three of them are on the same on the varsity team.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  The eighth graders in the?

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Eighth graders on is just the middle school. Middle school.

• 1:37:57Bill Simmons?

  So the the law of professional sports says the eighth grader is going to be the best one.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:01Bill Simmons?

  Because he's trying to that's what happened with Drake May.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Because when I started like getting in the gym every day, I was in fifth grade and he was five. So he's been been shooting and getting shots up.

• 1:38:12Bill Simmons?

  And he's just trying to catch up with you guys. Yeah, he's annoying. He's like, get out of here. You're not big enough to play yet.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Typically, the youngest is supposed to be the best.

• 1:38:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:21Bill Simmons?

  That was the Drake May thing. His brothers were like great, great, great athletes.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  I'm sure you've seen the video of, uh,

• 1:38:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  The draft video. Where they're like, pretty boy. That video's great.

• 1:38:33Bill Simmons?

  He was a good Hooper too.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  Did you ever see the videos of him?

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, high school.

• 1:38:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  He's from Charlotte. He's a, he's Myers Park. He's a Charlotte kid, so he's a Hornets fan. He wants to come, come to a game.

• 1:38:46Bill Simmons?

  Now he's a Celtic fan now. We've, we've corrupted him. We brought him over. So what are the heights of the brothers?

• 1:38:53Speaker 01

  Cager is 6'9". He's a, yeah, he's huge. He's way taller than me. Kinston is 6'6". Cash is like 6'2" and Kidman is like 5'10". Yeah, Cager's, Cager's a big boy.

• 1:39:07Bill Simmons?

  So 5'10", 8th grade.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:09Bill Simmons?

  6'9"?

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's.

• 1:39:10Bill Simmons?

  So is he a legitimate big man? Or is he like a 6'9 shooter?

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  No, he's a shoot, like shooter. Stretch four, super long arms. Guard the best player.

• 1:39:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's one of those guys.

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:25Bill Simmons?

  So what is his, like, like, is he on the list? Is he, I should have researched this. I actually wanted to find out from you, but I didn't want to cheat. But is he like on the list? Like, is he gonna play like high div one?

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's got a couple of offers.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  Butler, DePaul. He's gone a couple of visits. Purdue, Marquette, Xavier, they're, they're at his, one of his high school games. So we'll see. You know, he's, he's only a junior, so he's still got a little bit of time.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we'll see how, keeps getting better.

• 1:39:57Bill Simmons?

  At the worst case scenario, you could just have your franchise guy for a team and just all your brothers have contracts with it. They're all, they're all with you. You just have like the three guys.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Couple of times.

• 1:40:08Bill Simmons?

  15 man roster. There's like their fork nipples on the team. So the young one, 5'10", 8th grade. That's the one with the most pressure because of the younger brother thing.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess we're putting that on him now.

• 1:40:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm gonna throw that on him right now. So what, how's the family after the Packers thing? That the, one of the worst playoff losses of the decade.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  Still reeling from it.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  I wonder how many of those, like, did you put a list together of like?

• 1:40:33Bill Simmons?

  I did it on Sunday night. I went through like 20 losses.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  20 losses? How many of them were Packers losses?

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  No, I did all the Packers losses. All the terrible ones they had on. I mean, like, they own five of them overtime games.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was putting that together in my own notes. Uh, the one in Seattle is one of the worst. I was like nine or 10.

• 1:40:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Cause even that involves when the onside kick gets involved, that goes to another level.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Onside kick. Um, I think of, well, my Morgan Burnett had an interception in that game with five minutes left.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  And he slid down with like 30 yards of running room in front of him. They like slid down and my grandma, who's a Vikings fan, was watching the game with us and was like, looks like the Packers are going to the Superbowl. And my dad was like, no.

• 1:41:22Bill Simmons?

  Don't put that out there.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, there are a lot, a lot of, you know, playoff heartbreak. I think of the Cardinals when Rogers had the two Hail Marys.

• 1:41:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, and then the, what was it? A fumble touchdown or something? Or that was the Favre.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Favre had a fumble touchdown and his.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that was, that was Rogers first game in Arizona.

• 1:41:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  So you had two horrible losses in Arizona in the playoffs. Um, we had the.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, you were too young for the Freddie Mitchell, fourth and 26. That was abominable.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  My dad, my dad has horror stories about that one.

• 1:41:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Um, I think of Rogers' last playoff game in Lambeau, blocked punt, touchdown for San Fran.

• 1:42:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Um, and then there's just ones where we just got smoked.

• 1:42:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  By Atlanta, San Fran, when Raheem Mostert had 200 yards.

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The case I made.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  I think this one is, I mean, it's to the Bears.

• 1:42:14Bill Simmons?

  This one was way up there.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  This is top two.

• 1:42:18Bill Simmons?

  I think the only difference with this one is I don't think anyone thought it was a Superbowl team.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:42:22Bill Simmons?

  But you lose to the Bears. So that kind of.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  It would have been a successful season with all how the, all the injuries went. Um, if we were to beat the Bears in the playoffs, uh, in Soldier Field, I feel like it would have been successful considering.

• 1:42:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  The Parsons injury and, and all that.

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  Tucker Craft.

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  Tucker Craft. Um.

• 1:42:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I said to Sal, it's weird because the Packers have won two Superbowls in the last 30 years, right?

• 1:42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47Bill Simmons?

  Like if you're the Jets or the Bengals, like you'd take one of those.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:51Bill Simmons?

  You're made.

• 1:42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53Bill Simmons?

  But you've also had all of these awful playoff losses and they never get, the Packers never get thrown into the tortured fanbase list because you won the two Superbowls, but then you had all this other pain.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:04Bill Simmons?

  And it also means the most there. You know, it's like.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And to have, you know, Favre and Rogers, it's the.

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  Leave.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Two of like the top five quarterbacks ever, depending on.

• 1:43:16Speaker 01

  I want to look at it and to have those guys and you know they each of them gets one but you know you feel like the window was open basically every year they were they were the quarterback.

• 1:43:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  That's tough, tough feeling. I was talking to one of my teammates. It's like he's a Panthers fan and they've had a couple of Super Bowl losses, but like when you're out of the playoffs, it's you'd you'd much rather be in the playoffs like rooting for the Packers in the playoffs every year, but it's way more painful to lose like a game away from the Super Bowl or just like a heartbreaking way in the playoffs than it is just like, oh, we missed the playoffs. You want to be in those situations as a fan. You want to be in the playoffs, but sometimes it's like, all right, we missed the playoffs. Not it's a little, little, little more painless.

• 1:44:00Bill Simmons?

  You're walking me through where I might be on Sunday after Pat's Texans if the Texans defense kills the Pats. I actually think the Pats are going to be in good shape, but.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, Grable's awesome.

• 1:44:11Bill Simmons?

  We have a great coach and I think our quarterback is like legitimately has a chance to be one of the great ones.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy how quick that happened. He's awesome. Drake May is awesome.

• 1:44:22Bill Simmons?

  Good demeanor too, but it's it's interesting. The way that teammates talk about him, I think you almost have to like, I always look at that stuff when the other guys are like, this guy's special. Like this guy's a crazy competitor. Like I love that. Like they just kind of go out of their way to say these things and after a while you're like, maybe they're saying this for a reason. Like I've just seen this in the past. Usually the guy's special when the teammates are.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  And I love the, I love how he deflects in the in the post game.

• 1:44:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Just like the MVP chants and he's like, I think those might have been for Baker.

• 1:45:00Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  How he deflect or you're leading the league in passing yards and he's like, that's because we haven't had a buy yet. Like I love that stuff too.

• 1:45:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's not cock, not remotely cocky, but he's crazy competitive, which is a good combo.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  Great combo.

• 1:45:13Bill Simmons?

  He's definitely not one of those.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  Humble confidence.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  Look at me, look, look over here.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:45:18Bill Simmons?

  We'll see what happens. I, it's, everything's heading toward Josh Allen potentially coming to New England for the Super Bowl, who's the mountain that they now have to get over as a franchise anyway. He kind of took the Brady spot.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:31Bill Simmons?

  But it's really fun football season. I'm getting killed in my picks, but I've enjoyed the games.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's been good and it feels kind of with everybody we have left, it feels kind of like, I, I'd feel good about anybody winning it.

• 1:45:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  Whatever team.

• 1:45:45Bill Simmons?

  It's a goofy season.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:45:47Bill Simmons?

  Wait, tell the story about you trying to find out what the Packers score was when you were playing.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we were playing the, uh, playing the Jazz.

• 1:45:55Bill Simmons?

  Killed the Jazz.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're, we're up by a bunch. But I, I watched the whole first half and, uh, it's 21 to three at halftime. So I'm like, great mood.

• 1:46:06Bill Simmons?

  So you're playing during the second half?

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Uh, the, the Packers get, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Our game starts.

• 1:46:13Bill Simmons?

  Is happening in the second half.

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  Starts, we're up, we're up huge. We're up like 77, 38 at halftime. Like it was.

• 1:46:19Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  It was a blowout. And so we have a assistant coach who's a, who's a, is a Packers fan as well. And you know, the game, the game was over.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Later in the fourth quarter, we're like, yo, what's the score? And it was like, you guys are down four. And with like a minute 40 left and we were like, what? We were up 21 to three. Um, yeah. Yeah, that was probably one of the worst, worst feelings. I got a bunch of Shire from, from Duke is a Bears fan. I'm getting all these texts.

• 1:46:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's talking shit?

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, just kicking me while I'm down.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Bill Simmons?

  What a jerk.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely a brutal, brutal night. Like after we went by 60, I was like, that was great.

• 1:47:02Bill Simmons?

  Did you have any Bears fans on the team?

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:47:06Bill Simmons?

  On your team?

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:47:07Bill Simmons?

  That would have been it worse.

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  No, no Bears fans. Well, Drew Peterson, uh, Celtic is a Bears fan. We waved this year, but he was, he texted me after the game. I was like. I hate you.

• 1:47:19Bill Simmons?

  It was. It was, I mean.

• 1:47:23Speaker 01

  I'm glad I didn't get to see it.

• 1:47:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, you.

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  Would have been tough.

• 1:47:26Bill Simmons?

  You have two first downs in that last try. You're up, you're up three with the ball. They have two timeouts left during their 21. And it's like, there's no scenario where they should win the game at that point. You're either running the clock out or you're killing enough clock that they can't do it.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  I don't know if you saw the graphic about teams being up 10 points with five minutes left and like the record.

• 1:47:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, weren't they like.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 1:47:49Bill Simmons?

  The second one ever to blow the lead?

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Everybody is like 300 since 1970 is like 300 some and two or one. And the Packers this year were six and three. We lost three games this year with a 10-point lead with less than five minutes.

• 1:48:03Bill Simmons?

  Jesus. Did you ever play football or no?

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I played in high school, played my freshman year.

• 1:48:09Bill Simmons?

  And then you realized it was.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Bill Simmons?

  They'll take it with hoops. Yeah.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which is tough, you know, that's kind of how it goes nowadays.

• 1:48:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  More specialization.

• 1:48:21Bill Simmons?

  Football's a tough one though, because that is, there's some wear and tear you probably don't need.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  We run the option too.

• 1:48:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Quarterback gets hit every play. Like it was, I played QB. So.

• 1:48:30Bill Simmons?

  You played QB?

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:31Bill Simmons?

  Interesting.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you're getting, you're getting hit every play.

• 1:48:34Bill Simmons?

  Could you do any little like side flag football stuff with, with the Hornets? Could you have a game? Couldn't you, couldn't you guys?

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  Organize a flag football game? We should. That would be awesome.

• 1:48:48Bill Simmons?

  I'd love to see LaMelo running.

• 1:48:51Speaker 01

  Oh, he can, he can throw the ball.

• 1:48:52Bill Simmons?

  Miles Bridges would be crazy too.

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  Probably be a pretty good.

• 1:48:55Bill Simmons?

  LaMelo would be the other QB. So you go back and you get Brandon Miller.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  LaMelo and Conneton can throw the ball country mile.

• 1:49:02Bill Simmons?

  I forgot you, the Conneton piece. Yeah, Conneton I think played, didn't he?

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  He played baseball.

• 1:49:07Bill Simmons?

  That's what it was.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  So, yeah, we'd, we'd have a couple of good arms.

• 1:49:11Bill Simmons?

  So you guys have, you have a couple of really good vets on the team.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:15Bill Simmons?

  And.

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:17Bill Simmons?

  The whole concept of a vet, I think is.

• 1:49:21Bill Simmons?

  I've been around the block. I've seen some things. Let me impart my wisdom.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:25Bill Simmons?

  And yet, most NBA teams forget to put vets on teams with young guys, but the Hornets did not.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:31Bill Simmons?

  Plumlee and Connaughton, who've been around the block.

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Plumlee, Connaughton, even Grant Williams.

• 1:49:36Bill Simmons?

  And Grant, yeah, Grant's been around too.

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  So, um, you know, those, those guys have been great.

• 1:49:44Bill Simmons?

  Seen some things, been in some different situations.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of taking us under the wing too and, you know, treating us just like any other teammate, which has been, which has been great, not really getting that, the rookie, the rookie treatment to like go away.

• 1:49:57Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 1:49:58Bill Simmons?

  Carrying bags.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, which has been great.

• 1:50:01Bill Simmons?

  Connaughton won a title. Anyone else win a title?

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:50:06Bill Simmons?

  I think that's it. I think that's your only title guy. Miles didn't win a title.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  No. Um, yeah, just.

• 1:50:14Bill Simmons?

  Charles, oh, Charles Lee won a title.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Charles Lee. Most of our staff was in Milwaukee or, or, uh, Boston. Um.

• 1:50:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was a good hire.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Josh Green was in the finals, but he didn't win.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Connaughton, Milwaukee, baby.

• 1:50:31Bill Simmons?

  Um, what's going on with the ladies? Is there time? Do you have a girlfriend?

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  I got a girlfriend.

• 1:50:36Bill Simmons?

  How long have you had a girlfriend?

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Uh, three and a half years. Yeah.

• 1:50:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting. Where, and where is she?

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  She's at Marquette. She's a freshman at Marquette.

• 1:50:45Bill Simmons?

  So you're long distance relationship? The Marquette, okay.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Bill Simmons?

  How's that going?

• 1:50:51Speaker 01

  Good. Yeah, she's, she's great. Uh, you know, she comes down as much as she can.

• 1:50:57Bill Simmons?

  Were you expecting that answer to how?

• 1:51:01Bill Simmons?

  Long distance with the Marquette student? I knew, I would, I wasn't on my bingo card.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we went to the same high school.

• 1:51:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's great. She during breaks, she got to come down a couple of times. Um, yeah, she's, she's awesome.

• 1:51:12Bill Simmons?

  Maybe you'll end up like Drake May, marrying his sixth grade girlfriend.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  Is that, is that what it was?

• 1:51:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what it was. Or sixth or seventh grade. Yeah.

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  That'd be awesome.

• 1:51:19Bill Simmons?

  They just stayed together ever since. The Pats fans loved that because they were like, obviously like incredibly loyal guy. Yeah. And she's cool, but it's like, well, he's, that means we'll have him for 20 years.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  20 years. He's a loyal dude. Yeah.

• 1:51:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  That's a great call.

• 1:51:33Bill Simmons?

  So girlfriend, long distance girlfriend. Wow.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:39Bill Simmons?

  So you're on the road, little FaceTiming.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  FaceTiming.

• 1:51:43Bill Simmons?

  But then when you go into Wisconsin, she can come to a game?

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yep. Go to Milwaukee. She came.

• 1:51:47Bill Simmons?

  Chicago, she can come?

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  Yep. She came to the game.

• 1:51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great. Just getting updates. She loves pictures of the hotel room. All that stuff is, uh,

• 1:51:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:58Speaker 01

  The nice, the nice resort that we're in here in LA or the, uh, we did a tour of Sony Studios today. So we're getting pictures of the car from Ghostbusters, the original.

• 1:52:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  Or the, the RV from Breaking Bad. So I sent her all that stuff.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  And you said you'd never been to Los Angeles before.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:52:16Speaker 01

  First time.

• 1:52:16Bill Simmons?

  Is there any other?

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  It's a shame.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's great.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really nice. It's January. It's January and we're, I was walking on the beach.

• 1:52:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, you can see why all the NBA players end up coming this way, right?

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:52:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Like, that's why they've signed all these free agents.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Right. It's the, the best time when you, it's, everybody looks forward to the trip.

• 1:52:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  Come out here. Um, that's been nice so far.

• 1:52:39Bill Simmons?

  The other big trip that everybody loved but doesn't exist anymore was the Portland, Seattle, uh, Vancouver trip for some reason was a popular one. And then I guess Texas would be a trip, but I don't know if that's as exciting.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  I have a funny story about my mom. Um, she, she knows best. She played. She knows basketball.

• 1:52:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:58Speaker 01

  But she doesn't really keep up with professional sports like that. So we were getting my passport. I had never been outside the country. So before the season, we were getting my passport. Cause we played Toronto kind of early in the season at Toronto. And so she was like, all right, when do you play Toronto? Like, we gotta get this. I was like, we play them in November. And she's like, okay, what about Vancouver?

• 1:53:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, she thought they were still around?

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, they haven't been there since like, I don't know, 2000.

• 1:53:21Bill Simmons?

  Maybe she was factoring in expansion.

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe we were going back, going back to Vancouver.

• 1:53:26Bill Simmons?

  That was the last thing I wanted to talk to you about was the parents thing.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:30Bill Simmons?

  Cause you, you have a pretty close family. You have parents like, so how, how much do you check in with them? Do they check in with you? Do they make, I'm trying to think of what I would be like as your dad in this situation and be mad. We didn't hear from Khan. He played last night. He even sent us a text. Like, how much parent maintenance is involved here?

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  Um, my mom. She um, kind of works for me uh, as far as like. Oh, handle that. Are you off the court stuff? Yeah, off the court stuff. She, she really helps out with that. So she, she comes down um, a decent amount, you know, to help take care of things at the house, but. Yeah. Or at the apartment. Um, so she does some of that stuff, but you know, they, they come down probably for a game uh, once a month, maybe. Are they sending tips? No.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  Your dad like, I watched, I watched the Wizards game last night. What were you doing in the third quarter? Crashed the offensive glass. What are you doing? No, they'll, they'll text me before every game. Uh, like my mom will just be aggressive, play hard. Dad will be, say something, uh, light him up, DM up. He always texts me that. Text all of us that. So they'll, they'll, they'll hit me with that stuff before the game. Um. And then they're going to all their kids' games too. Yeah. So it's this, it's awesome. Every day. So my brothers have a high school game tonight. So in the family group chat. Light him up, DM up, cash, Kinst, Cage. Yeah. Whatever. And then uh, it'll be the same thing if I'm playing or Kidman's playing. Um.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  So yeah, that's, that's kind of cool, but no more, no more tips really anymore. Did you, did you win a title when you were there? In high school? Yeah. Yeah. My senior year undefeated, thirty and oh. Wow. They're uh, yeah. So we won my senior year. They won last year. So my brothers. What school is this? Wisconsin Lutheran High School. Um, so my brother was on the, both those teams. So he, in the, they went twenty-eight and two last year. So they're fifty-eight and two in two years. And uh, they have two state championships. So Kater likes to brag. Like I got, he didn't even play as freshman year, but he likes to brag. I got two losses and two, as many rings as losses. Yeah.

• 1:55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they have another great team this year. My cousin's on the team.

• 1:55:46Bill Simmons?

  Your cousin? What the hell is going on with this family?

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  He's a stud. He's going to Northern Iowa.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  And then the coach's kid is on the team and they all, they all play. So it's a, it's a heck of a, heck of a high school squad.

• 1:55:58Bill Simmons?

  Did you get used to the eating schedule of, and playing at night and all this stuff and traveling and like, when do you, when do you, eating dinner at 11 o'clock at night, all that stuff?

• 1:56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we like a team dinner after the game last night and it's like 11:30, but it's 2:30 on the East Coast. You know, like kind of barely adjusted.

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  I'm waking up at like 5:00 AM out here, but um.

• 1:56:21Speaker 01

  No, I, the, the eating stuff, it is, it is kind of different because I was never a big, um, I wouldn't eat much on game day.

• 1:56:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  It's like you play 82 games, you gotta, you gotta eat food.

• 1:56:31Bill Simmons?

  Right. Cause you don't want to lose weight. You don't want to be like skinny.

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  So, um, I've got a good kind of operation where I'm always eating a, a big like brunch after shoot around.

• 1:56:41Bill Simmons?

  And there's not really time to work out, right? Or like it's almost like recovery stuff.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So yeah, a lot of recovery, but we'll lift up before and after the game. Like it'll be kind of split in half because you want to take advantage of the days where it's like.

• 1:56:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Speaker 01

  Like this is a high effort day where we're playing a game. So we're going to lift on game day and then tomorrow will be a complete off day.

• 1:57:03Bill Simmons?

  So what's, what's the right number of, like, what would be a crazy number of minutes for you to play this year?

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Um. When, when someone, we had Brandon and Mello Otto, there was a couple of games I played 40.

• 1:57:17Bill Simmons?

  But I'm saying for like, for like, uh, the season, how many minutes is like.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  Total, total minutes or just like minutes?

• 1:57:28Bill Simmons?

  2400 realistic for you?

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  I don't know what the math is.

• 1:57:33Bill Simmons?

  Hold on, I'm looking you up. So you're playing.

• 1:57:39Bill Simmons?

  Thirty two point five a game. You played every game?

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  I missed one.

• 1:57:44Bill Simmons?

  So you played thirty nine of forty? Alright, so if you're on a pace of eighty times thirty, that's like twenty five hundred minutes. It's impressive.

• 1:57:52Speaker 01

  It's a lot. Yeah, I was ticked. I missed that game.

• 1:57:55Bill Simmons?

  What'd you miss the game?

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  I sprained my ankle like pretty bad in.

• 1:57:59Bill Simmons?

  I saw that. I thought you were gonna be out for like three weeks.

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did a great job. Training staff did a really good job.

• 1:58:04Bill Simmons?

  They fly to Italy?

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  Wasn't as bad, no.

• 1:58:07Bill Simmons?

  On the Kobe jet?

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  The Kobe jet. No, it wasn't wasn't as bad as. I broke both my ankles in middle school. So every time I roll my ankle or sprain my ankle.

• 1:58:17Bill Simmons?

  Playing basketball, you broke your ankles? Jesus.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  It uh, it kind of feels like that pain.

• 1:58:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  And it's. Um, cause your your mind just kind of does that, or like it feels like that sharp pain. So I thought I broke it right away, but then as soon as I could put weight on it, I was like, okay. Like, that's kind of the telltale. If you can't put weight on it, you probably broke it.

• 1:58:37Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  So I missed that game. I I'd missed the game in high school or college, so I was ticked.

• 1:58:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man, you're you're like putting together the who's the street guy now?

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  Bridges, Mikel Bridges.

• 1:58:48Bill Simmons?

  Did he cheat out? Did he do the thing where he came in for one minute?

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  He did.

• 1:58:52Bill Simmons?

  I'm against that. A C Green started that.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  You're just coming.

• 1:58:55Bill Simmons?

  Josh Allen did that.

• 1:58:56Speaker 01

  There's still a Laker guy started.

• 1:58:59Bill Simmons?

  Classic Lakers just starting some dumb. Yeah, Josh Allen did it. He played, came in for one play and left.

• 1:59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:05Bill Simmons?

  And I was like, come on. What's your theory for all the tendon injuries? That we're having in football and basketball and like all these calf strains and Achilles stuff? Is it, is there something we're doing wrong?

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  They're being really careful with it too. Like if a guy has a calf strain, like.

• 1:59:20Bill Simmons?

  Now they overreact.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  We're shutting you down for, you know, a month.

• 1:59:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they just did that to Reeves.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Reeves.

• 1:59:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:26Speaker 01

  Uh, Mason Plumlee had one early in the in the in the break in the. Offseason.

• 1:59:32Bill Simmons?

  So you think they just know more about it now that they to be more careful than they used to be?

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  Or? Maybe, or they're just kind of scared from seeing it happen. Um, I think we are playing a lot more possessions. Um, in games and the pace, like everybody's playing fast.

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  But it's happening in football, too.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  Right. So I don't know.

• 1:59:52Bill Simmons?

  So I think it's a combo of.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  You think it's maybe the specialization like I've heard that where it's like guys that played a bunch of different sports are more durable because they're using different muscles. In high school, I don't know. You're you're playing like I've been playing basketball for basically year round for.

• 2:00:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:08Speaker 01

  I don't know 10 years, like it could be that maybe I don't.

• 2:00:11Bill Simmons?

  I think basketball, I argued about this with Eddie Johnson, the former NBA player because he has that serious NBA show and we. We argued about it once because he's like basketball is not harder to play now. And I'm like. Dude, watch how much running there like that. I guess there's no way to really measure it. They'd have to have somebody measure all the games in the eighties versus now.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:30Bill Simmons?

  There's no way you're not running more now like because you have to run out on defense.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  Well, you just look at the possessions.

• 2:00:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:35Speaker 01

  Like we're playing way more possessions than teams did in the nineties.

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

  No question.

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  And it's like, and then you talk about the spacing, like we get a rebound, like most of the time it's like sprint to the corner.

• 2:00:48Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:00:48Speaker 01

  For the spacing. So like you have to be in really good shape to sprint to the corner and like you're doing that. You know, thirty, thirty more possessions.

• 2:00:53Bill Simmons?

  But then on defense, you have to sprint to the corner to go get a shooter.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Right. And so it's you're just covering a little more surface area. Um, and I, I was looking at something that the guys that cover the most ground. In the league, like it was like top five, I was running like two and a half miles and that's just like a game, just run into the corner.

• 2:01:15Bill Simmons?

  The fucking refs are getting hurt now. Bill Kennedy just got hurt.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Bill Simmons?

  No, it does seem like way more running than it used to be.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot more possessions. I think that might have something to do with it.

• 2:01:24Bill Simmons?

  Because if you watch the eighties and nineties games, stuff's packing in, it's more physical.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:30Bill Simmons?

  But there's more time to kind of, you're playing, but you don't have to move as much. Now I just feel like guys are chasing, they're chasing guys around picks.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if you watch like nineties, early two thousands, like Mark Jackson's bringing up backing down.

• 2:01:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Running the show. All right, we're going to dump it to this guy in the post.

• 2:01:47Bill Simmons?

  Everybody kind of spaces out a little.

• 2:01:47Speaker 01

  No matter who it is, it's like Latrell Sprewell in the post or something. And it's like posting up your three man, your four man, your five man, kinda, um, and everybody's, you know, kinda watching. It's just a different, different type of game.

• 2:02:01Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, it's amazing to watch now. And I was there for all of it. And now when I watch it and I see the spacing, I'm like, how did we not know?

• 2:02:09Speaker 01

  Think of this, yeah.

• 2:02:10Bill Simmons?

  How do we not know that you're posting up McHale and two other guys can just jump down on him because the shooter is 10 feet away from him? Like, why did he not just move back?

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:20Bill Simmons?

  What were they doing? But they just didn't have any idea.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. It is different. And then it's hard. It's, it's so much harder now to compare. Like you're, you're in the business of comparing eras and.

• 2:02:31Bill Simmons?

  There's no way to do it.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:32Bill Simmons?

  The stats are all fucked up now.

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when you came out with your book too, like.

• 2:02:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  Didn't really see that coming either. Like, it was hard, it was hard to, 2010. It's like, you could still kinda compare, you know, 80s to 2008 Celtics, you know, it was a similar game.

• 2:02:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was thinking about it. Somebody sent me a good email about maybe there's like four different eras and you just have to, there's like the era before Russell, then there's the era from basically Russell all the way to when the leagues merged, 76.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:06Bill Simmons?

  And then it's basically 76 to when Curry has his first good year.

• 2:03:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, like all that's a big era.

• 2:03:12Bill Simmons?

  All that, you can, the stats kinda make sense, pace of play, some, some seasons are fast, others are smaller. But around 2013, 14, it shifts. And it's almost like, once Horford and Brook Lopez start shooting threes, the game's different, you know?

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  And even, I, I, I think I saw something like the Warriors' offensive efficiency from like that 14, 15 season is like, middle of the pack this year.

• 2:03:35Bill Simmons?

  Right, it'll be like 17th.

• 2:03:36Speaker 01

  Which is unreal. Like, we're even now at a higher efficiency from 10 years ago.

• 2:03:43Bill Simmons?

  The thing that's, that's to me, like the Celtics had the second net offense this year so far. We'll see if it drops down a little, but, um, no Tatum.

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52Bill Simmons?

  And you look at the team and it's like, this is. One of the 20 best offenses in regular season history like with the guys we have like I don't know, but they've just kind of figured out all the math and the possessions and the pace and the right shots and crash the offensive boards.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Guys know how to play together.

• 2:04:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The offensive boards is a big thing for.

• 2:04:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Creates extra possessions.

• 2:04:14Bill Simmons?

  Stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like more shots.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  Like we.

• 2:04:18Bill Simmons?

  Defend. Don't care if you give up a fast break basket because the offensive rebound is more important.

• 2:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll see. Like we put a huge emphasis on crashing the offensive glass.

• 2:04:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  And so you'll have, um, you know, like a wing like me is getting one offensive rebound a game or one and a half, you know, getting a hand on a ball. Um, all that stuff is important. Just gets you maybe one more, one more three or one more, you know, opportunity to shot.

• 2:04:45Bill Simmons?

  So Doc Rivers, like his last couple Celtics seasons, when they almost made the finals in 2012, but they're an older team.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:53Bill Simmons?

  And one of his rules was we're giving up offensive rebounds. We don't want to give up fast break possessions at all. So it's basically one shot as many people back as possible.

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:03Bill Simmons?

  It's completely different than what you do now. Now Doc's coaching Milwaukee, probably telling everybody to crash the boards. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's the math. I think they just figured out some shit with basketball.

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:14Bill Simmons?

  We just didn't have this stuff 20 years ago.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Right. The analytics, um, like basketball, baseball, it's harder to do, harder in football.

• 2:05:23Bill Simmons?

  If football, it's almost like defense came back a little bit in football.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:05:27Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 2:05:28Speaker 01

  Definitely. I mean, just how they disguise.

• 2:05:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  It's just harder for quarterbacks now.

• 2:05:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:34Speaker 01

  To decipher defenses, but it's a little bit hard. Like the analytics decisions are harder in football because at the end of the day, you still got to go execute. Like they could tell you to go and go for it on fourth and two. Like we should go for it, but you still have to be in the game. Go out there and get the first down.

• 2:05:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah. This first round, which you probably missed because you were playing, but the, they were way too fourth down heavy in this first round.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  The Bears.

• 2:05:55Bill Simmons?

  And it burned some teams. Bears were 0-4 on fourth down and won somehow.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:59Bill Simmons?

  Or 1-5, whatever they were.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll see. What did you learn anything from all the analytics about you of things not to do? Like, do you think about that stuff?

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  You know, I, like I said about the synergy, I try to look on that a little bit.

• 2:06:12Bill Simmons?

  Like what your weaknesses?

• 2:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, or just like, man, this, there was like halfway through the season, my, one of the corner threes was like below average.

• 2:06:22Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 2:06:22Speaker 01

  And I was looking at it. I was like, one corner, I'm like 56% and the other corner, I was like 38. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. It's evened out now, but it's kind of.

• 2:06:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because that could just be a small sample size.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Smaller sample size, but like, I'll look at that stuff and it's kind of interesting. You can kind of, you can see in different areas where you rank. And it's just like a scale of like excellent, very good, good, average, below average, poor. So you can kind of look at that stuff to, you know, maybe get a.

• 2:06:53Bill Simmons?

  It's depressing.

• 2:06:53Speaker 01

  Get a grasp.

• 2:06:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God, I'm poor. I'm in the poor category. Do you look at like five man lineups and all that stuff?

• 2:07:00Speaker 01

  I, I looked at that a little bit. I did that in college. There was, there was a Evan Maya did something that I was looking at. But I enjoy that stuff. You know, it's interesting to look at. I look at, I look up different players to see, you know, who's really good, like Shays is unbelievable.

• 2:07:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:17Speaker 01

  He's like green everywhere on the court.

• 2:07:19Bill Simmons?

  Now, yeah, he's like plus 18, no matter what the lineup is. I like looking at the three man stuff sometimes. Because sometimes there'll be these weird combinations of players.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  Like good.

• 2:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  That you wouldn't expect.

• 2:07:30Bill Simmons?

  Like, well, with the Celtics, like you would expect it's like Kada, Brown and White all together. Now, they play a lot of minutes together.

• 2:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:37Bill Simmons?

  But with those three, you can kind of fit any other two around them. And if you have those three, we're going to be good. But sometimes there'll be ones that surprise you.

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:46Bill Simmons?

  And there'll be ones where like, okay, see, we'll have like Wallace, Dort and Caruso. And it's like small minutes, but their defensive ratings like 88.

• 2:07:53Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 2:07:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. Those guys are like three pit bulls trying to bring the ball up. But, all right, we covered everything, I think, right?

• 2:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:08:01Bill Simmons?

  So rookie wall hasn't happened yet. Girlfriend's still going. You're on pace for 2,500 minutes and incredible efficiency. Teams coming together. Lamelo's got his mojo, it seems like. And he gets to play the Los Angeles Lakers in LA. It's amazing. LeBron James.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  Can't get any better.

• 2:08:19Bill Simmons?

  This could be his last year. Who knows?

• 2:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that'll be, that'll be, that'll be sweet.

• 2:08:24Bill Simmons?

  All right. Well, congrats on everything. It's been fun to watch.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

• 2:08:28Bill Simmons?

  Trying to think when we do the third pod together, we'll have to, I don't know what the, what the inciting incident will be. This was, we did one before you got drafted. Now we have one halfway through your rookie year. So we got to figure out like the next for the trilogy. When that is, maybe that's like right before the playoffs or something. First playoff.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:46Bill Simmons?

  If you can make it, probably not this year, but maybe.

• 2:08:49Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 2:08:49Bill Simmons?

  A year from now. All right. Thanks for doing this.

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thanks for having me.

• 2:08:53Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Khan and Gahal and Eduardo. Uh, don't forget, rewatchables went up Tuesday night. What lies beneath? And don't forget, I have another podcast coming on Thursday, football podcast. So that'll be the fourth one of this week. You will be able to watch it on Spotify. You'll be able to listen to it wherever you want. You could also watch it on Netflix. So please watch it in one of those places. I will see you in 24 hours.

• 2:09:31Bill Simmons?

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• 2:10:13Bill Simmons?

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• 2:10:57Bill Simmons?

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• 2:11:14Speaker 02

  New York.