Wemby Gets Revenge, Morey’s Out, and a Trade-Fueled Mega-Mailbag With Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry to discuss the Spurs taking a 3-2 lead against the Timberwolves and the 76ers moving on from Daryl Morey (2:27). Then, David Jacoby joins to answer some mailbag questions with Bill and Kirk (41:49). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and David Jacoby Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Uber Eats makes last-minute gifting easy. https://www.ubereats.com/ The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to by FanDuel. We're also brought to by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables. On Monday night, we did Tropic Thunder as part of Comedy Month, which we tried to tie into Netflix as a joke. All these movies are on Netflix, by the way. So we did Tropic Thunder Monday. That was me, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan and first timer Joel Anderson. I'm pretty sure next week is going to be Borat. So I'm just giving you a heads up. That's also on Netflix. They have a bunch of great comedies in general, including a bunch of comedies that we've already done on rewatchables. Like 48 Hours, Mrs. Doubtfire, Long Cape Polly, Ghostbusters, on and on and on. So go check that out.

• 1:27Bill Simmons?

  Coming up on this podcast, Kirk Goldsberry and I are going to recap an impressive Spurs game five win over Minnesota. I have some big picture thoughts about this game that aren't even tied to game five. So we'll hit that. We're going to talk about Daryl Morey getting ousted out of Philly. And then we're going to go back in time because Kirk and Dave Jacoby and I did a mailbag on a whole bunch of NBA stuff, and it's really fun. So it's all next. We're going to take a break, hit Pearl Jam and then Kirk. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. It's been a wild playoff run, not over yet. FanDuel wants to bring you closer to the court to make all of that action come to life for you, the basketball fan.

• 2:10Bill Simmons?

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• 3:07Bill Simmons?

  All right, this segment is brought to you by Ferrero. We are going to talk about game five, Spurs-Timberwolves in San Antonio. The return of Wemby after getting kicked out of game four. Kirk Goldsberry is here. He's going to be with us throughout the podcast because we're doing a mailbag with Jacoby later. I'll just tell you my basketball fan take coming out of this game because I really thought Minnesota had a genuine chance to win this series. And who knows, they might win six and seven. As a basketball fan, you're starting to really see the ceiling potential of where this Spurs thing could go. Right? You're big spotlight, big games, more pressure now. It's like, who's going to fade from this? Who's going to jump up?

• 3:51Bill Simmons?

  And you're seeing some of their guys, Harper specifically, where it's like, oh shit, like this might be happening sooner than we thought. Which is great because I I've talked about this a million times. I like when we have great teams. That's what I grew up on. That's what I grew up on in the 80s and 90s. I like to see awesome teams. So basketball fan Bill is like, this is cool. Spurs, Thunder, this is going to be great. Celtics fan Bill and what are we going to talk about for eight months a year? Bill is kind of like, are we? Are we headed toward a world where we might be fucked here with this OKC San Antonio thing? Are they just going to be levitating above us for the next six, seven years? Like, talk me off the cliff.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Well, it's not a cliff where I'm sitting here in Central Texas. But yeah, dude, I, there was a moment at the end of the third quarter where I could see why Bill Simmons, the sports guy, would feel that way, specifically with Dylan Harper attacking the rim, finishing with his left hand, hitting layups high off the glass over Rudy Gobert's outstretched arms.

• 4:51Bill Simmons?

  Physicality, rebounds and traffic. I mean, it was the whole thing.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, Stephon Castle guarding Julius Randall, making Wolves fans completely lose their mind with a Randall stat line that I'm sure we'll talk about. But yeah, these three dudes, and no disrespect to Carter Bryant, De'Aaron Fox, but when we're talking about the brightest futures in the NBA, I think the San Antonio Spurs now have the best young trio in the league by far. With Wemby, Castle and Harper, dude. And I don't know which Castle or Harper is going to be better, but yeah, what are we talking about? We're talking about a 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama, a 21-year-old Stephon Castle, Bill, and a 20-year-old Dylan Harper making huge plays in a second-round playoff series?

• 5:34Bill Simmons?

  The Harper thing is crazy. We knew it was good. We've been talking about it all year. In the playoffs, the stuff he's doing is like year three slash year four Kobe, where he's just coming in and changing the flow of these games. Like, he, he shouldn't be doing this yet. Like Kobe came into the league right out of high school and, you know, had that really rocky first series. He didn't really start to look like kick-ass Kobe, I don't think, until midway through year two, which is where Harper is now because he's spent a year in college, but. For point guards, this should take longer. You shouldn't look this comfortable. You shouldn't be a two-way player already. You shouldn't be coming to games and swinging games like he's doing.

• 6:18Bill Simmons?

  And I was texting somebody about this. Like, to me, I don't say this lightly. Like, having Harper and Wemby back to back, and I feel like I'm disrespecting Castle, but I think he's going to be third in this. We saw this when the Celtics added McHale and they had Bird. We saw this when the Celtics, when the Lakers added Worthy after they had Magic. And we saw it when the Bulls had MJ and then they were able to get Pippen. I think Harper's potentially is a second banana. I think it's realistic to think this is a guy who could be as good as those guys, that he could be a first-team All-NBA guy and a really impact, awesome second banana. You're watching it in real time. Everything we have learned about basketball, these teams happen faster than they thought.

• 7:02Bill Simmons?

  These young guys come up faster than you think. And he's, I loved him already. I can't believe the shit he's doing in these playoff games.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's the son of Ron Harper. These moments where he feels the contact on the lane line, and a lot of guards of any age would either go to the floater or like look for a kick out. But he's like, oh, I'm going to lower my shoulder now and then go to this incredible finishing package I have through contact a lot of times. And it's just, but yeah, he has the best footwork, the best feel for the game of any young, young guard in the paint. Um, there's times where I think, Bill, he really reminds me of Shay, uh, where he is just the smartest scoring guard inside the three-point line, um, of any young player I've seen. But he was spectacular tonight, and it's particularly in the third quarter. And one of the things that Spurs fans are-

• 7:55Bill Simmons?

  It was starting to become a game in the third quarter. And it felt like, oh, here we go. This is going to be an awesome game.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  We both love Luke Cornet. Uh, but it's a roller coaster. It's like when LeBron came out for those Cavs team and you're just like, oh, my God, are, are we going to survive the non-LeBron minutes? We just watched the lead go away. Oh, we had that in the second quarter in this game, and it looked like, to your point, it was going to happen again in the third. And at that moment where, where Dylan Harper really made a few plays on both ends of the court, that just grew the lead back to a comfortable margin.

• 8:26Bill Simmons?

  Uh, I'm glad you brought up Shay. I think that's a really good comparison and it's because of the patience and the footwork. That's it. He has patience already, which you should not have when you're 20. And he had the footwork coming in. That was one of the things that made him special. I've talked about before, I was going to those Clipper games when Shay was a rookie. Harper's just way ahead of where Shay was. We all liked Shay. We thought Shay was going to be really good. I thought he was going to be like this glue guy, athletic defensive guard, who there was some offense there. You know, but clearly like a winning player. Harper's like, I don't honestly don't know what the ceiling is for him. I, I, I think as long as SGA has the best guard in the league title now. And he's going to have it for the next couple of years and Edwards is right underneath him.

• 9:12Bill Simmons?

  But I, I think Harper at some point in his life will wear that crown unless he gets hurt.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I would say. The ceiling is SGA and I say that with a great amount of respect. I agree with you. He's one of the best guards we've seen in a very long time. But when we're talking about the ceiling of this dude, that's where I would say, and to your point, like the Oklahoma City Thunder would not have SGA if he was this good at Dylan Harper's age. There's no way you would get off this guy.

• 9:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  So I think, look, that's a, that's a, that's the ceiling. SGA is, is one of the best players in the world, if not the best player in the world. But Dylan is, is, I mean, you, you're the, you're the historian of basketball. 20 year olds aren't supposed to do this in the NBA playoffs, right, Bill?

• 9:55Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about the, Mikail's rookie year, the Celtics won the title and he was the sixth man. They had Maxwell, they had Bird, they had Robert Parish. Like it was a really deep team. And he would come in sometimes and he would swing games because he, he had some low post stuff, but he had the defense. And there were times, especially in the Philly series that year, when he came in and his defense definitely affected the game. And you're like, oh, this guy's pretty special. Like, there's really something there. Mikail was like at least two years older than Dylan Harper. I'd be like, if Dylan Harper after his junior year was doing this. And that's the part, I know these guys, you know, that I know they mature faster now and I, I know. I get it. Like, like we shouldn't be surprised when somebody's 20 and impacting a series like this, but

• 10:41Bill Simmons?

  you talk about later in a mailbag, we were talking about De'Aaron Fox in a later segment and like. You Fox, you think Fox is going to be a bridge for a couple of years until you can get to these guys. And it's like, do you need a bridge? Like, what's Harper going to be like next year with a year under his belt? You know?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where I thread the needle. You do need the bridge and I applaud the move to get De'Aaron Fox. But this is the best case scenario where you have the depth right now, which was huge tonight. It's been huge in this series. But you start to look out two years, three years down the road. You start to say, maybe we have too many great guards and we don't have enough strength up front next to Wemby. Somebody to, to, to play with Nasri and Jaden McDaniels. Man, they're playing their hearts out. Uh, and that's where the Spurs look a little thin to me. It reminds me of the Thunder pre-Hartenstein where they're a little bit soft in the middle sometimes.

• 11:34Bill Simmons?

  That's a good comparison. Yeah, that, so Carter Bryan played 12 minutes today and Kelton Johnson played 22 and was great. And that's kind of, that's kind of their, their patchwork size next to Wemby. They don't really necessarily, I actually think Carter Bryan's going to end up being that guy.

• 11:53Bill Simmons?

  The, the piece like I was thinking about in context with the, with the Timberwolves. Who after game one, I thought there was a real case like, wow, this is two straight conference finals for them. San Antonio is young, not quite ready yet. And I really felt like it was a 50 50 series after game one. The odds didn't work, fuck that. And now I'm looking at Minnesota, you know, they got their asses kicked tonight. What did they finish shooting? 30, 38.6, 27.3.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Their season average. I mean, their series average, they're shooting under 40%.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  And a lot of trouble, well, a lot of trouble against the defensive pressure sometimes. And the one thing I was worried about with them even early in this series was like, man, they're kind of relying on Mike Conley here. I don't know, old guys in a series. And then you look at tonight, what was he? 16 minutes, five points, minus six. But it's, this is Mike Conley. Kudos to you, you're playing at this advanced age, but you see the young guys and the athleticism and the, and the speed that these guards are at. This is the San Antonio advantage when they can just put any combination of all the young guards or, you know, if they put Vassell out there or whatever.

• 13:07Bill Simmons?

  Really the only team that has the kind of firepower to withstand it is probably OKC.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm really glad you said that. There was a moment where our man Stephon Castle goes out with his third foul, eight minutes left in the second quarter.

• 13:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  And then you just see that depth coming in so important. You see, you know, everybody from Carter Bryant to Harrison Barnes, Dylan Harper, Keldon Johnson played the best game of of the series.

• 13:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  But this is a deep team. I think Spurs played 10 guys before garbage time and really the the Wolves are a thin eight there, Bill.

• 13:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're like, they're a seven.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's because, I mean, Dante DiVincenzo, and what I wanted to ask you about is is the Ant Man's not the Ant Man right now. He's, he's one of my favorite players to watch on the planet. He, I believe, had fewer field goal attempts than Io De Sunmu.

• 13:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  That is, that's not a great stat. He is not attacking. He didn't have that swagger as much today. There's

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, they're going every other

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Something going on.

• 14:07Bill Simmons?

  Going every other day, probably not great for him. There's a three day break, so they don't play again until Friday.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:14Bill Simmons?

  Could potentially help him. It's really gonna help, Mike Conley. They, they gotta figure out the Randall thing. He didn't shoot, he didn't shoot well again today. There's another guy that we didn't even talk about yet, that I'm really proud of us. Victor Wembanyama?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He, the French guy, right? The one of the French guys.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if you saw the beginning, but he scored a lot of points early before they took him out. Yeah, he had 16 points in like six minutes and it was a good, fuck everybody. I'm still mad I got kicked out of game four. I owe you guys. He finished with what? 27, 17 and 5, three blocks. He's plus 24, 32 minutes. And so you have that piece too of

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing that Spurs fans love. So he lays an egg in game one, okay? Minnesota comes to San Antonio, steals game one, and he was, he played like shit by his standards. And so you're sitting here in game two, people like you are like, oh my God, can Minnesota win this series? And the whole time Victor is prepping to come out and he comes out in game two and the Wolves don't score for whatever how many minutes and he was awesome. And then obviously in game four, he gets kicked out with the elbow deservedly, by the way, as much of a Spurs homer as I am. How was he going to come out in the biggest game of his NBA career? And he came out again on fire and just dominated the first eight minutes of this game with what was he is 16 and 11 in the first quarter?

• 15:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Are you kidding?

• 15:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And if I'm OKC thinking about the next series, you know, what am I getting from JDub? I need, I need all my horses for this next series. And I don't, San Antonio, the question with them was, well, history of the league says, dot, dot, dot. Nobody, nobody under 25 can lead a team to a title without having a taste of it first. No young team just that get thrown in the playoff fire can survive that first year. And they're, I just feel like all bets are off, especially with how Castle's playing. But on the OKC side, they're not 100% healthy. San Antonio, you know, knock on wood. San Antonio feels

• 16:24Bill Simmons?

  like they're running on all injury cylinders. But with the, with the Minnesota piece, pretty devastating. Like,

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Bill Simmons?

  You're in set, you win seven playoff series over the last three years. You kind of had a team built, the league has these little three, four year windows with the way the tax works that you can, and maybe OKC and San Antonio will be a little bit of the outliers because of their young guys. But for the most part, three, four years, that's what we just saw with the Celtics. And you try to catch lightning in a bottle for one of those years. Celtics caught it in 2024. They add Holiday, they add Porzingis, and they're just able to, you know, everything kind of aligns and they're spending a ton of money. If you're Minnesota, you just basically went all in. You got rid of all your picks. You're playing a San Antonio team that this is the worst version of the team you're gonna play for the rest of the decade, right?

• 17:18Bill Simmons?

  You had bad luck with DiVincenzo and you and Ant's not 100%, but he's not 80%. He's somewhere in between there. Gobert's gonna be a year older. You're not gonna have Conley. You're not gonna really have a way to get better. This was kinda it.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know if I'm Tim Connolly, and I guess I'm not getting the Dallas job because they gave it to Messiah, but I don't know what my move is at that point other than dangling Randall everywhere.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  I like their position a little bit more than you. I think that I would say Ant-Man's still 23. DiVincenzo, they, remember, this is a team without Ant and DiVincenzo that beat Joker in a game six. I like their core. I could talk myself. I think Finch is a really good coach. This is, you know, this is where I, I wonder if our standards are too high for too many teams. They've made the final four the last two years. They have one of the best young players in the league. Can they get through with McDaniels, Ant-Man, Gobert, Nas? I kinda like that core, Bill, and I don't know. We'll see. The one thing that I think you and I will agree on is it's very annoying to have Alex

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Rodriguez in the conversation because normally I would like.

• 18:29Bill Simmons?

  You wanna root against him, yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love these guys and I want them to do well, but I was like, yeah, I wonder what A-Rod wants to do. That just sucks for me as a Red Sox guy.

• 18:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's interesting that you, I mean, I agree with you. They made the final four two years in a row. They went, they knocked out Denver. I think they've done a nice job going toe to toe with, with San Antonio in this series. Might go seven for all we know, and then who knows?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not over.

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  Who knows with young guys in a game seven? I was just thinking holistically, the goal is to win the title.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:00Bill Simmons?

  And you have Ant, who is one of the best five or six guys in the league, and you have this veteran team around him and you have a real identity and you, you have defense and all kinds of things. And it's tough, man. These windows close fast. You just never know. Like, we don't know. Gobert, Gobert, I think, has defied the aging stuff to some degree because usually we see these centers start to get a little mummy-ish and a little gamey right around now.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel like 100% he has, but the bigger thing to me is there's not a lot of moves. And you're in this arms race with these two teams that, you know, OKC is. 13 first rounders over the next six years, not to mention all the other shit they have, not to mention A.J. Mitchell emerging as like the breakout star of the playoffs that we weren't expecting. So, um, I don't know, I'd be really bummed if I'm a Wolves fan because they never even made the finals.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kept wondering like, man, I don't know the math, the salary cap is not my, my expertise, but like keeping Nikhil Alexander Walker last year, they could have used him in this series. Obviously their offense is struggling. He's such a good player in Atlanta.

• 20:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, he would have cost them like a hun- like a hundred million dollars if they, a year if they kept him. Like the way their taxes, you're paying like three times as much for him.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they, but yeah, that, that's like, you're alluding to it. Like the, the new CBA makes it nearly impossible to keep a contender together for five years, unless they're all rookie scale guys, which the competitors in the West.

• 20:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Right. Which is what the best teams in the West have done with R.C. Buford, Brian Ryan, and Sam Presti's, uh, work in, in Oklahoma City. So yeah, I, I don't know. I think Ant Man's still going up. I think you have a lot to be happy about Minnesota. But yeah, I think anybody in the West, to your earlier point, is staring at these two juggernauts now at the top of the standings, you know, like, what are we going to do?

• 20:51Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, we're not breaking new news. This has been a storyline the entire season. It's just feeling more real to me because I think Minnesota is really good, right? They got their asses kicked in the second half of that game today where it was like, Jesus. You know, and the home team's supposed to win a game five. I get it, but, um.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Right. Let me ask you this hypothetical.

• 21:11Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio is getting better to me, which is the part that would scare me if I'm Minnesota.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  They're getting better every day.

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Here's my question for you. If Minnesota hypothetically in the Eastern Conference is a three or a four seed this year, that team's going to the conference finals, right?

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, I would say, well, the Knicks are on this heater right now, but I, I think they're built pretty similarly with, you know, two teams that are, that have a little bit of a window. I think the Knicks are a little bit of a lightning in a bottle, like the 24, 25 Celtics are, where the way their roster's set up. It's only going to get more expensive, whether they're going to have the appetite to keep paying for it. We'll see if Towns' contract goes up, Bridges' extension, I think, kicks in next year, if it didn't already kick in. But it just gets pricey to keep. Mitchell Robinson's going to be a free agent. What's he going to be worth? Like, you do have these windows and I think the Knicks talent, competitive wise,

• 22:10Bill Simmons?

  a guy going against the guy, best guy on the other team, like, they have the pieces to at least throw some haymakers. But I would have said that about Minnesota, too.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I like Minnesota's position a little bit more than you. I think they're hoping expansion happens and they move to the Eastern Conference because then all of a sudden their prognosis looks a little bit better, right?

• 22:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Let me ask you this. I wrote this down.

• 22:34Bill Simmons?

  Of course, I'm going to ask you this. You're my only guest and it's just the two of us.

• 22:40Bill Simmons?

  If we do get OKC-San Antonio next round,

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  I think this is the best series in eight years.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Okay, I like this trade. Yeah, I'm fired up. Yeah.

• 22:51Bill Simmons?

  Just, and now you can say, oh, there's been a lot of good series. I'm not talking about entertainment value. I'm talking about talent, ceiling of the teams and the matchups that I went through all the, all the, we've had a lot of entertaining series.

• 23:07Bill Simmons?

  I think you have to go back to 2018 when the Rockets played the Warriors, the series Chris Paul ended up getting hurt in. And the Warriors were going for back to back. I think that's the last one with this kind of level of two teams that are basically mid 60s wins teams, maybe even better, that have a lot of guys at the peak of their powers or on their way up. And, uh, and last eight years, we haven't had a series like that. We had the 2017 finals. And we had 2016 Golden State versus OKC and then Golden State versus Cleveland. I think those were probably the, the three best series of the last, four best series of the last 10 years.

• 23:49Bill Simmons?

  And talent wise, next round would be on the level of San Antonio finishes.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  And it also for the old guys like us, it's like, oh, this does feel start to feel like a power struggle that's more than a year long. It feels like it's gonna be like this for a while, like a Pistons Bulls situation, or a Knicks Bulls thing, where it's just, we've had, there's thousands of those examples. But yeah, if that happens, Bill, like, Wemby and Shay, to me, they're the two best players in the world right now. And is that crazy? Right?

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  No, it's, I'm just, I've finally given up. No, no, no, Joker, I think he had his run. I think he's out of it now.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, just some of the defensive stats we're seeing from Wemby, the fact that the Minnesota Timberwolves are shooting like 37% when he's on the floor in five games, is, his defensive impact is so incredible. But yeah, I think there's two of the best players in the world, best young cores in the league, great coaches, great organizations. I think you're right to look at it like that. This has the makings of a classic.

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  Malleability too with lineups. Teams that can throw different looks at you depending on what the situation is. Both teams can go smaller, they can play three guards, they can play three guards, a shooter and a center. They can go bigger too, to some degree. OKC probably can do that a little bit better, because as we said, San Antonio feels like there may be one, one bigger guy short. And then there's this roughing up Wemby thing, which, you know, it's funny, like, I didn't get a chance to talk about the game where he elbowed Nas and, you know, it's slow-mo. Slow-mo makes everything look worse, but it did seem like he sized him up for a second.

• 25:35Bill Simmons?

  But it was also 15, not to defend Wemby, but it was 15 small to medium things that led to him being mad enough to whip an elbow at somebody. Because you could tell the whole series, Minnesota's like, let's keep, let's keep banging on this guy. Let's keep fucking with him. Let's keep knocking him down. Like, just stay physical, stay physical. I'm old enough to remember when this was the strategy against Kareem.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  Kareem, Kareem punched like five guys, including he broke his hand punching Kent Benson and breaking Kent Benson's jaw. But Kareem, you could go find him on YouTube. Kareem knocked down or knocked out multiple guys because he would just get fed up. Shaq was the other one we had, which Shaq, I think only, maybe he tried to punch Brad Miller. There was a few others, but Shaq, they would always pull his shoulders and you couldn't do the same stuff you did to Wemby. It was more like you tried to like kind of wear him down. Almost like a boxer when you keep clinching a boxer and he would get frustrated too. Wemby's gonna have to deal with this his whole career. Minnesota's testing him. OKC has guys that will do it too. This is, this is why you have Lou Dort.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  And I remember when I worked at the Spurs, we used to complain about the contact allowances are so different for interior players than for guards, even back then, last decade. It was, it was crazy to watch like Draymond, double arm bar, Lamarcus, for instance, or Tim and just like, okay, that's cool. But I think it's really interesting to compare the whistles of guards who attack versus a Wemby. Like you cannot lay a finger on an attacking guard in this league, but the things that they're doing and Minnesota, by the way, this is great. This is very intelligent game plan. Do it until they call it.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  They did it tonight a couple of times.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. McDaniels shoved them out of bounds on the, on the play and they missed that. They teed up Nas for something they had been doing. And again, like this isn't sour grapes. Do it until they call it. They hadn't been calling, especially in game four. But to me, it just really makes me think about how different the whistle is for different kinds of players and Wemby gets fouled a lot more than get called. And that is as old as the history of the game to an extent, but it's really frustrating in a time where our guards are getting so many ticky tack calls to watch Victor get pushed around like that.

• 28:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't like it either. Shaq, you talk to, listen to a podcast with anyone who played against Shaq and there's like, yeah, we fouled the shit out of them. Were they gonna call everything? He's 380 pounds. Like what else were you gonna do? Or else he just would have dunked every time. I'll be interested to see.

• 28:23Bill Simmons?

  A Friday night, I think they dial up all that stuff with Wemba and you have the Minnesota crowd. You have Ant on the three days rest.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:33Bill Simmons?

  You have a Timberwolves team, they're on the brink in a lot of different ways because it's not going to get any better next year, right? The West is going to be, Denver will load up in some way. Utah is going to be out of nowhere contender. The Lakers are going to try to, you know, improve the team. Dallas is going to be better. And I'd say the West is just going to be better all the way around.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  And it's going to be hard to cement being the third best team. What happens if Houston gets better? You know, you just, you just don't, what happens if Giannis gets traded to one of those teams? You just don't.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  The Clippers are getting the number five pick.

• 29:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, we'll see. Impressive Wemba game. I, I'm just blown away by the Spurs. Like to watch young guys play like this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. This is something that should be two years from now happening. And it's just like, it's sped up, it's like listening to a podcast at 1.5 speed or something. They're hitting these checkmarks. I like, the Harper thing just breaks my brain. Point guards don't do that at age 20. They're not supposed to have control of playoff games for eight, nine minutes. So, anyway, uh, before we go, Daryl Morey got fired today.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Oh, our friend.

• 29:39Bill Simmons?

  The Philadelphia 76ers general manager, friend of mine for a long time. I've always tried to stay, um, you know, always weird to talk about, but I always tried to be neutral. If they did stuff I didn't like, I would say it. If they did stuff I liked, I'd say it. Um, so you knew there was going to be a fall guy after a pretty embarrassing sweep to the Knicks, where you had 70, 80% Knicks fans in the last two games. And, um, and there's a couple of different things you could probably point to. The Embiid extension, uh, the McCain trade seemed for some reason to be the catalyst for

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:12Bill Simmons?

  people to really turn on him. And a good example of like, Sam Presti has it right by never saying anything. Daryl talks, you know, sometimes to his own detriment, made the sell high comment with McCain. The irony is, he traded McCain because they, they clearly told him to get into the luxury tax. Right? So there's a couple of moves you can make, maybe trade Grimes. I don't know if Grimes had any value. To trade Grimes without taking a contract back, which is hard. And in the McCain case, they got picks and other stuff and McCain was kind of buried behind two guards, but that became the catalyst. So, um, when I look at the job that he did in Philly, which was really up and down, like some, some really big hits and some, some misses too.

• 31:00Bill Simmons?

  I guess my question, are they in a better or worse place than when he took over? Cause he was able to get them out of the Ben Simmons thing. He was able to trade Harden and get some pretty decent picks from the Clippers back. I mean, I think one of them's unprotected in, in, uh, 28 or 29.

• 31:17Bill Simmons?

  BJ Edgecombe, they pulled that off where they now have Maxey and Edgecombe as like the centerpiece for what they're doing. So to me, this isn't like, oh my God, this guy fucked our team up, but at the same time, I wasn't surprised at all. So why wasn't I surprised?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think your worst contracts draft, which we'll talk about a little bit later, is, is the number one reason. When you look at what you guys had determined, the one and two worst contracts in the entire association right now. Daryl did those deals. He did it with Paul George and he did it with Joel Embiid. And what do they have in common? These are guys on the wrong side of their prime. And he is committed to paying them ridiculous amounts of money in this second apron era. So that's what's, that's what's, if they only had one of those deals, you'd be like, oh my God, they have a really good team building opportunity here to get over. But they're handcuffed. I mean, if Paul George is going to be healthy or Joel Embiid is going to be healthy.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  But you and I have seen this for too long to know that's just not going to happen. So that's ultimately what it is. I don't think it's like a disgraceful firing. I just think this thing, they needed to refresh it. I think Daryl will get another job. But ultimately, if I had to hang it on something, Bill, I would say those two contracts, the Paul George and Joel Embiid, that's what got it done.

• 32:36Bill Simmons?

  I would add a third one. And this would have been controversial, but I also, you know, I always used to joke that Daryl has no emotion in any of this stuff. Like, he's just gonna do what, what the analytic move is at all times. Like, that's the McCain trade. There was no emotion tied to that trade. Like, if, if you and I were his conciliaries and he was about to make that trade, we would say, yo, man, Philly fans really like this guy.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  And if you do this, and he goes and plays well in OKC, they're gonna be fucking pissed. And this is Philadelphia. Like, I don't know. Like, figure out another way to get into the luxury tax, right?

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:15Bill Simmons?

  But he's, he's analytics. That's just the way he piles ahead. I, I said this at the time. The move was to trade Embiid when, before the Knicks got Towns, when the Knicks were clearly desperately trying to, you know, made, had all these picks that made an impact. And they had a real relationship with Embiid. They had worldwide West and they had Leon Rose, who were like, those, those are Embiid's guys. Leon Rose was, that was his agency, you know? And I think out of anyone, they valued him the most. And you just had Embiid coming off these two seasons where he played the most games he'd ever played. And it was like 66 and 63. His stock was never gonna be higher. The history of centers and guys

• 33:57Bill Simmons?

  that size is usually gonna start doing this. And I just think he could have gotten a fucking motherload from Philly. Now, would the fans have been happy about it? I don't know.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:08Bill Simmons?

  But I think in retrospect, hard to say, but in retrospect, the move is like, I'm selling high, not on Jared McCain, but on Joel Embiid right now.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably right. And one more thing on the McCain thing. I always like to laugh at, like, if, if Sam Presti is very interested in one of your guys.

• 34:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, hang on.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, go back and be like, oh, what, what, what am I, what are we doing? Like, that's our best player or whatever. Don't trade with that guy.

• 34:36Bill Simmons?

  Huge red flag.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  When Pat Riley was in his prime or R.C. Buford in his absolute prime and they were on the phone, people would be afraid to deal with them because they, they had such respect for these guys' basketball opinions. What do you, why would they want that guy? Oh, you hang up the phone, Bill.

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  The Brewers are like this too. The Red Sox have traded for him two years in a row with the Brewers. They basically have Sam Presti in the baseball and got fleeced each time. So, yeah, so for Daryl, this is a 20-year run for him, right? He got hired by the Rockets in 06, took over the team in 07, had the whole Rockets run, came really close, had some bad luck, especially Chris Paul getting hurt is a great injury what if?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Bill Simmons?

  We have injury what ifs every year. That's a really good one because they had game seven at home. They were toe to toe with the Warriors. The Warriors were a little rundown at that point from 15, 16, 17, 18. They were vulnerable. Their team chemistry was going a little sideways. And I think, and then they missed all those threes in game seven. That was the closest he got there. And then, and Philly never really felt like that team was ever gonna actually make the finals. I never felt like they were.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it felt like he sort of walked away from that Maury ball. I'm gonna push the edge of the calculator over further than anybody else. And it felt like this, this Philly era Maury was more conventional, just signing the superstars and maybe even antithetical to some of the analytics movements, including like, hey dude, have you ever seen an aging curve? Like, don't overpay guys in their 30s. That's, that's not something we should be doing. So, you know, it definitely, it never really felt like a Daryl culture had set, set up in Philadelphia. Like, you're, you're alluding to these legendary teams with Harden and Dantoni and Houston that, that sort of changed the sport, Bill, forever. And people say Steph, and I agree with that, but that, that, it was Steph shooting them and it was

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Mike and, and Daryl building that whole team around the three-point shot that changed this league forever.

• 36:39Bill Simmons?

  Also, the spending isn't a small thing either, right?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, the Knicks are spending right now. That's one of the reasons they have a really good team. They've been aggressive. Golden State during the whole run. Spent a ton of money to try, you know, try to put together good teams. The Celtics famously spent so much money that the dinner check came this season. They had to make all these trades or else they would have had to pay, you know, 300 million in luxury tax. Philly's not done that. They have not.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  Spent Philly and honestly Philly and I don't think Denver really has either. They've been two teams that had, you know, two of the best players of this decade, but always were pretty responsible with how they spent. I don't know if that would have made a difference with Philly, but it did make a difference with little stuff like the McCain trade.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  My last thing is my first games were at the Spectrum in Philly in the eighties with Barclay and Dr. J. When they they overlapped and I was really stunned by the

• 37:37Speaker 01

  the number of Knicks fans in this in the building in Philadelphia. And I wonder if that played into it. I wonder, could you imagine that ever happening in Boston? Or in Madison Square Garden? It was kind of crazy, right? Philly, I think, has a stronger backbone than that. What are your thoughts?

• 37:54Bill Simmons?

  I never, if you go back to the Dr. J era,

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  and even go back, you can go back on YouTube, watch some of their home games. Not like huge crowds. I always thought, when I was growing up, I always felt like they were a Flyers, Flyers city more than anything. Like that was like their team and Philly's obviously Eagles. And I always felt like the Sixers were fourth, even though they had Dr. J for this great run. Thought like it started to flip a little bit in the eighties, especially after they won the title. And then when we got to the nineties, you know, they had a really bad run there. They trade Barclay. And I, I just think that's an Eagles town first. And, you know, I don't, I don't know if the Philly, if the Philadelphia 76ers ever got there.

• 38:42Bill Simmons?

  Also, the process is pretty weird, man.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:45Bill Simmons?

  Like, like if we're gonna do like a deep dive on, huh? How do you end up with 80% Knicks fans at a home playoff game? Maybe you gotta look backwards at what did the process really accomplish? Cause you're, you're losing four years of fans you have a chance, young fans trying to decide on a team. It's like, should I like the Sixers? Well, they intentionally lose every year. I'm gonna like the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry instead. So I don't know. I'm sure there's a million different reasons for it, but I always felt like they were not like, never really the main team in Philadelphia. I think that's safe to say.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe that's it is. I, I was just surprised to see that. And again, like you watch these environments in Minnesota or in San Antonio tonight. It's like, man, these, these crowds are electric. There's no way you're getting, you know, 30% of the lower bowl for the visiting team in these arenas. But in Philadelphia, which I think is a pretty good sports town. It's just crazy.

• 39:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a weird one. Well, we'll see what they're, I'm sure. It's gonna be tough this year because I don't know how many jobs are available, but I'm sure he'll be lurking in some way. And I don't see him ever.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  He could be a great podcast, he could be a great podcast host. Who knows?

• 39:57Bill Simmons?

  So as his friend, I would almost recommend he didn't do that because I feel like that would get him into even more trouble. But he would be amazing because he, he doesn't always have the self-edit button.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't have the filter.

• 40:10Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  He'll just.

• 40:11Bill Simmons?

  So I don't know if I'd want him to have a podcast, but anyway. And so end of an era of Philly, we'll see. We talked later in the mailbag about is there, does Embiid even have trade value? How do you even handle that situation? Whole bunch of good stuff coming. Me, Kirk, Dave Jacoby doing a big ass mailbag next. Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel. We are in full swing with the NBA playoffs. Every game, every possession, every swing, every zag, all of it matters. Hey, all customers on FanDuel get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger. FanDuel giving you better payouts. Same game parlays, all NBA playoffs long. I'm gonna take a swing on Twitter on the Cleveland Detroit game.

• 40:57Bill Simmons?

  The last time I did it was Saturday, which I hit with, with the Cavs and with a bunch of Mitchell point overs. I had a bunch of different bets. I think all of them won except for the 36 points it up. I am going to do another one for game five, leaning toward taking the Pistons at home just because I think this is really proving itself as a home team wins every game series. And until that doesn't happen.

• 41:22Bill Simmons?

  I like the Pistons. Lock in your bets, boost your odds, make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. I like Jared, I like Durin to have a comeback game in game five. Maybe that'll be in there. Head to FanDuel.com/BS to get started. FanDuel, play your game. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Uber Eats makes last minute gifting easy. Whether it's Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, whatever, you blink, they're here. But just because it snuck up on you doesn't mean your gift has to feel like it. The Uber Eats Gift Hub has something for

• 42:06Bill Simmons?

  everyone. Flowers, perfume, champagne, even their favorite takeout order. Hmm. It can show up in as little as 25 minutes, even if you just remembered five minutes ago. The best part, you can add a video message and a personal note, so it actually feels like you planned it all along. Order on Uber Eats today. Must be 21 or older to purchase alcohol. Product availability varies per region. See app for details. All right, we are moving back in time. It's Mailbag. Me, Kirk Goldsberry, Dave Jacoby. We're recording this late after, late morning Pacific time. So if anything happens in the next eight hours before the Timberwolves Spurs game, we're not going to apologize. We were all together in the 2014 Finals in Austin, Texas, when the Spurs, Tim Duncan,

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  it was the last gasp of the Duncan era, trying to pull off one last title. We were eating barbecue, we shot, shot all kinds of stuff. We went out, it was great. Jacobes, did you ever think the Spurs would be this relevant again? I felt like the last hurrah for them when we were there.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  I did, I did think they would be this relevant again because it's just very Spursian of them to do this, you know? Like, there's only been a few dark Spurs years, and they're dark, but you know, a lot of, a lot of sunlight in San Antonio. I believe we also had Prince J. Leen with us, if you remember correctly.

• 43:25Bill Simmons?

  We had Prince J. Leen. We reunited some of the Fab Five. Jacko joined the Fab Five in the Chris Webber spot. It was emotional stuff. Kirk, did you think the Spurs, I mean, granted, they- They nailed the lottery three years in a row with three pretty obvious picks that I don't think they should get that much credit for, but three top four picks in a row and now they're back. But we worried that they were just going to become small market New Orleans for the next 30 years?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  I wouldn't go that far. I knew they would be back, but you're exactly right. Going one, four and two in consecutive drafts. If the Spurs get that opportunity, they deserve the respect here. They were going to get that right. And not only to get those picks right, those were great one, four and two. Obviously, Wemby, Castle's a great four pick. And man, Dylan Harper is a great two pick. So dude, I think that the bigger story is like, I think that one, four, two run the Spurs just got to get them back to relevance is one of the big reasons we have new lottery rules.

• 44:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, especially they were helped out that three teams passed on Castle was the other thing that really helped them. I thought he should go first. I have a bunch of mailbag emails for us. We're going to start with the lottery. And this is because it just happened. I don't know if you guys saw it, but the lottery happened. Watch someone.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I did.

• 44:40Bill Simmons?

  Mike says, on Monday's pod, you correctly pointed out how awkward and weird the half hour lottery telecast is. What about how lame the team representatives are when they're on camera? They just sit there stony faced. They barely even seem happy when the results are good. I am a 49 year old lifelong Wizards bullets fan. I've been rooting for a team that has not won 50 games since I was two. My son and I felt like we were going to throw up during the lottery. We got in the top four, bouncing up and down. We won. We screamed so loud, our dog left the room. What if instead of putting executives or former players in these seats, we get super fans? Wouldn't that be more entertaining? Jacoby, who would you put in the seats as representatives?

• 45:20Speaker 02

  This is easy. You've come to the right place as a, you know, to put my producer hat on here. You, you treat it like a reality television show. So you cast the people that are best for television because the executives and the ex players, they've all been there, done that. They're sort of like, when you, when you sit in the press seats at the game, you're not supposed to like cheer or like drink beer. It's boring. Like I'm going full reality television style and we're getting the craziest, most boisterous fans. They're going to lose their minds when their team does something good or bad happens to them. Like we're auditioning it like it's like American Idol, season three.

• 45:57Bill Simmons?

  You agree with that, Kirk?

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, the gravity of that moment, the telecast just doesn't match it. The cadence happens too fast. It's like, oh, my God, what just happened? Like total craziness can happen. And like you said on the other podcast, like there's 15 minutes of nothing. And then they, they don't, and it's not like I want the American Idol pregnant pause after pregnant pause when somebody gets voted out or whatever. But dude, they don't, the gravity of the moment isn't respected on the, on the broadcast. And I do think it would be fun to put Joe House and have Joe House with a six pack of beer and just let him get going and let's, let's see what happens when, and they should have confetti fall. But ultimately, my thesis is this, Bill, and you hit it on Sunday. The gravity of these moments is monumental.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  We just talked about the Spurs and the broadcast doesn't respect how important this is or how electrifying it is for these fan bases.

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they seem very determined just to show us that everybody who's about to be picked has a parent and they're all excited to be there. And wherever I go, we got like just the most generic terrible interviews possible. And then we get, we meet all the representatives. I don't know why, it's not like we interview any of them. We just kind of see them for a second. I had no connection with them. Conconiples like, why am I here? I had, so Jacoby, I had three ways this could go. And the, the, the fan thing, which Mike mentioned as well. So you have super fans, you have a contest, you basically cast the fan. You could even turn that into some sort of reality show where it's like, here's how we landed on the Wizards fan. Cause the thing is, we're all talking about who's going to win the lottery and tanking

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  and all this shit for seven months. And then we just kind of rip through this lottery show in 10 minutes. Like, it's like a walk of shame for the league. They're, they're just trying to get away with it. So celebrities, celebrity, I'm sorry, actual fans who won a contest. Then celebrity super fans as a second model, where you do have like your Joe House. You have, you know, you go, the Atlanta Hawks, like pick anybody from the Atlantic music, Atlanta music scene, right? Gucci Mane could just be there as the Hawks representative. And you just go through and then it's like, we have it our show and we talk to each representative. Here's my third idea, and I'm going back to the basics, and I think this is actually the best idea. I think the GMs should have to be there as the reps. I think this should

• 48:18Bill Simmons?

  be part of the job. And the reason I mention this is you have Kevin Pritchard there, who's just done this all time hit or miss trade, where now it's a 50 50 chance to either be in the top four, or you lose the pick to the Clippers. What's better drama than that? Like, the famous clip was Jerry West with the Grizzlies LeBron one, right? Where it's like, if he gets the first pick, he gets LeBron. Second pick, nothing. It comes up, Grizzlies are second, and it just cuts to him, and it looks like he's the guy in scanners whose head's about to explode. So Jacobs, why can't it just be the GMs? Like, hey, guys, if you're gonna be a GM of a team, you're at the fucking lottery, and you're gonna be the representative, and we get to see your reactions, and this is just how it's gonna go.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  And you have the GMs and the super fans sit side by side. So like, the Indiana super fan can just like, turn his head and look at Pritchard and be like, look at what you've done.

• 49:16Bill Simmons?

  Why?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Look at what you've done. Yeah. And I think Kirk hit something, too, is like, the rhythm of it needs to dramatically change.

• 49:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Because like, let's every reveal, let's discuss. You know what I mean? Like, let's discuss every reveal, because it does, like, sometimes my brain isn't fast enough to like, figure out all of the machinations of what it means that that team is in that spot.

• 49:40Bill Simmons?

  The host always misses one. I think Malika missed in the moment that Brooklyn lost their pick for like, five seconds.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Well, Ngandy, remember Ngandy last year with the Sixers pick?

• 49:49Bill Simmons?

  Right. He was completely screwed. Well, that leads to the next question from Alex in Charlottesville. He said, now that we're gonna have this new lottery system with the increased volatility, how would you redesign the 30 minute telecast? How do we space out the reveals? Could we draw 60-1 in front of the audience? So, the NHL did this the last two years. My dad, probably the biggest fan of the NHL draft lottery, like really genuinely loves it. And this year, the Bruins, if the Maple Leafs fell from five to six, the Bruins got their pick. But they revealed that the picks in the, in the correct order from one down. And the Maple Leafs won the lottery. And he said, even though it sucked for the Bruins, it was amazing. So I think it could be an hour.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  I think you reveal the picks, you reveal the first pick first, and then you go backwards, you know, through the top four, whatever we have with these lotteries. And I think it's the actual GMs. And you just do it that way. And then you have like 20 minutes after where you can explain to the audience all the ramifications. Why not, Kirk? Why can't we do it this way?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  No, that's the way it should be. And it should be somebody like you and Zach and Bobby Marks reminding us what this means for the Dallas Mavericks or what this means for all of these.

• 50:59Bill Simmons?

  So would you stop after each pick for like two minutes?

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would. I mean, and Jacoby's the TV producer here, so I'd turn it to him. Jacoby, why can't we just have a full minute or two? Just be like, what does this mean for the Mavs? Let's reset where they are. What, what are the TV people thinking?

• 51:14Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I just said before. And another thing is, is I, I want to take it all in. I want to soak it in. It happens so fast.

• 51:24Bill Simmons?

  Right, you need time.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  We pay such close attention to this league that like even I am like racing up to keep up with the pace of the thing. Why? Why are you doing that to me? Like make it more dramatic and make it me fully understand exactly what all of this means.

• 51:40Bill Simmons?

  It would be funny if the Oscars did it this way and they did like this three hour show. And then the last like two minutes, they just raced through the best five categories. Best picture winner, one battle.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  No, that's right, dude. Till last year, when it was, it was, it came down to the, the Spurs and the Mavs last year, right? And it was like, holy shit, are the Spurs going to get Cooper flag?

• 52:00Bill Simmons?

  Right. You need to take like five minutes just to.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  That needed to be like five minutes, dude. Like, oh my God, this is incredible for the state of Texas, first of all. But man, if, if the, if it's gonna be Wemby and Cooper flag, yeah, like let's have five minutes there.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All right. We all agree. Derek from Indianapolis wants to know, as a lifelong Pacers fan, I have to ask, did the Pacers sell their soul for all the insane playoff comebacks in 2025?

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  Because since then, game four of the 2025 finals became the Scott Foster experience. Game seven ended with Halliburton's Achilles. Halliburton became the only NBA player to get shingles and put on weight and is on all the, has to recover from that, too. And they lost their top four pick and it went number five to the Clippers. Most fanbases lose. The Pacers specialize in cosmic level timing. What was exchanged exactly for those comeback wins? Jacoby, do you, do you believe in the sell your soul theory? The Halliburton shot going up in the air? Like, do you, do you think the karmic forces have to like bounce each other out?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  I have good news and bad news for Derek. The bad news is absolutely yes. I mean, like absolutely yes. The shingles thing and the weight thing because of the medication and they, this big trade for Zubac, who was like great two years ago, but this year Clipper Zubac was not like tearing it up. And then lose the pick. But the good news for Derek is he'll be the super fan representing the Pacers.

• 53:34Bill Simmons?

  Got your job, you're it. What do you think Kirk? Do you believe in this stuff?

• 53:39Speaker 01

  No, that's not my job, but I, I think they need to be thankful. They have Tyrese Halliburton, guys, that you have one of the best point guards in the league. This guy is offensive efficiency in a can. He had one of the more electric playoff runs we've seen last year. We just need to get that guy's foot and ankle right. Uh, and they'll be right back where I think they should be near the top of the East next year, Derek.

• 54:00Bill Simmons?

  So that's kind of near where I landed. Last year was an amazing ride for Pacer fans. Like it didn't get better than that. I can't think of a more fun playoff run where they became the most memorable thing about the playoffs, even though they didn't win the finals, which never happens, right? You think about the 25 finals, I think of the Pacers before I think about anything else that happened. So it wasn't terrible. They still have Tyrese and Siakam, they have Zubats, Nembhard, Neesmith, Toppin, TJ, Jarrus Walker, Shepard, they have all of their firsts except one. And they were losing Myles Turner either way last year. So I don't, you know, um, the free agent centers this year weren't that good.

• 54:44Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Hartenstein's in there, Robert Williams, Nurkic, maybe Deandre Ayton. So you could argue they needed Zubats.

• 54:54Bill Simmons?

  The counter though, to that Zubats trade, and the part that never made sense to me would happen is, why did you have to do it in February? Because if you get the, even if you get the fifth pick or the sixth pick, I still feel like the Clippers are gonna be like, yeah, you're gonna trade us that for Zubats? Let's do it. That the risk didn't match the reward because I don't like making trades that are still gonna be sitting there a few months later. They just could have traded Toppin's contract and something smaller and the number five pick for Zubats and not giving up the other first rounder that was in there. So I just, I never thought the risk matched the reward. And I thought, Jacob's, I thought even they could have put like a, like a thing like, whoa, if this becomes the fifth

• 55:36Bill Simmons?

  or sixth pick in this draft, then we get our 29 first back or something. Cause I like Zubats, but it just doesn't match what the reward was, I don't think.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Well, I don't wanna like be too second guessy after the coin flip went heads instead of tails, you know what I mean? But I do wanna say that I do like Zubac as well. I thought that like him and Harden were a great duo a couple of years ago. But when I think about the Pacers team in that electric run that you're talking about, what do they do? Like they get out and run. Like they don't want you to set up your defense. Like they don't wanna be in the half court. So I see a lot of like Zubac getting that rebound, throwing it out, and then just kind of standing under his own basket. Like, go ahead, guys. Like, go ahead, guys. You guys take care of this. I'll be here.

• 56:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, the other thing Kirk is, you do a trade like this and it's 50 50 odds, right? If they get the pick, Pritchard's a hero. You don't get the pick, now your fans are kinda looking side out at you, but now you've put Zubats in a tough spot too, who's a really good player. I voted for him 13th in my NBA a year ago. But now. You look at him and you just watch him during games and you're just thinking about if like if Keaton Wogler's awesome for the Clippers, right? You're just constantly thinking about that as you see Zubats. The other thing I didn't like about the trade was before the trade deadline, you do it. And we thought there was a top four and then we still knew after that the draft was good, but we knew there were four guys and that's probably how the Pacers assessed it.

• 57:01Bill Simmons?

  But where you're not factoring in is who's going to make a leap in February and March in college basketball and what happened was Wogler and Akoff made a little bit of a leap. So they're not in the top four, but they're really good value at five or six. And that's why I just would have waited. I feel like this trade would have been there in May, Kirk.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't have, I, as somebody who worked for a small market team, like you're just taught like, don't trade your first round picks, especially when you're near the top. Like just don't do it. Like, we're not, we're not playing in the free agency game. Free agency is largely dead anyway for everybody. So like these draft picks, you have to be very, very sort of protective of if you're in a market like Indiana especially.

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  You're not paying the luxury tax.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Right. So when they made the deal, guys, it was like a Russian roulette moment. It was such an incredible moment, like for that lottery, again, go back to the broadcast. Like that was a moment where the producers needed to be like, we need to give this the gravity it deserves after it happens. Either the Clippers fans are going to go crazy or the Pacers fans are going to go crazy. And it just, again, it blew through it, but man, I would not have done the trade just as a small market guy. Don't give up a lottery pick if you're the Indiana Pacers.

• 58:13Bill Simmons?

  Mike Rohr emails us about this. He's, he said how in the podcast Sunday, I didn't see a conspiracy for the Pacers. Like the Pacers not getting a pick actually didn't, conspiracy bill was not triggered by that. Mike Rohr says there was a conspiracy potentially and he doesn't have a dog in the fight. He said, the Knicks are set up to be good next few years. So are the Celtics, maybe even the Sixers. Three big markets. Do you think the NBA really wanted small market Indy to get better and spoil the East party? When they have small market juggernauts in Oklahoma City and San Antonio, could they've had a third one? That's all I've got. That's the conspiracy. I don't know, Jacoby, I kinda like it.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  I'm not buying it.

• 58:53Bill Simmons?

  Okay. I appreciate the effort.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  The part you said the Sixers are like set up to be good for the next three years. Like, really? Like the John Paul George making a hundred million dollars?

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll be about that later. All right. I respected that he tried. Dan from Tucson says, I'm sure you must feel conflicted with Jalen Duren after the playoffs so far. A beast in the regular season. Many voted for him for all NBA, including, I voted second team. What'd you vote for him, Goldsberry?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Jalen Duren, second team, clearly. Best team in the East, yeah.

• 59:25Bill Simmons?

  And then he says, on the other hand, he's been awful in the playoffs, getting punked by Wendell Carter and now the Cavaliers. Restricted free agent this summer, what would you do as the Pistons GM? Would he get a max offer from other teams? Do you match it for your trade, sign and trade? Please help, Podfather. I'm a Pistons fan in crisis. Well, I think you're gonna make the conference finals, so calm down a little, Dan from Tucson. But it's a really weird one. He, game four, that might've been his worst playoff game out of all the bad playoff games. And what was interesting was Mobley really, I thought Mobley was awesome in game four. I thought he really, you could feel him in the game, which has always been my disappointment with Mobley.

• 1:00:08Bill Simmons?

  It's like, sometimes I'm not sure you're even out there. And yet, game four, you felt him the whole game. I guess the problem for the Pistons is, is Duren such an obvious Lakers offer sheet guy, Kirk?

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  If they're gonna have cap space and you could keep Reeves, obviously have Luka, and then Duren, and make that your three, like, I'm just doing that. I'm overpaying him, and then I can feel like I can... Do around the fringes. I think he could also be a Clippers offer sheet guy too, but I think somebody's gonna offer him at least 40 plus a year regardless of how he looked in the playoffs, right?

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then they're gonna match it because you're the Detroit Pistons. You don't get Jalen Dern. Jalen Dern's 22 years old.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  It's his first real, I guess they had a deep playoff run last year, but it has been disappointing, Bill. 20 and 11 in the regular season, clearly all NBA caliber by my standards, but he's dropped down to essentially 11 point a game, eight rebound a game guy. And in the Orlando series, looked like the second best big man in the series behind Wendell Carter. That's not good. But yeah, again, you're the Detroit Pistons. We're not getting cute. We are gonna make the conference finals, I hope, if we, if we finish the series out. And he's a big part of their success and their plan going forward.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  So you're just doing it. You don't even care.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I'm doing it.

• 1:01:24Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  What do you think, Jacob? What's the other, what's the other play?

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  You, you kinda have to do it.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  I want to give him credit to my mismatch co-host, Verno, because he flagged this like two months ago. He was like, you're in a spot where you're gonna have to pay Jalen Dern and he, you know, you can dedicate so much of your percentage of your salary cap to him and like, maybe he doesn't deserve it. And maybe him underperforming in these playoffs is actually helpful to the Pistons, but I would be concerned about this. Where I, I, I don't know if I'm ready to just sign Jalen Dern to the max. I'm Cade and Dern forever, especially after what I saw in the playoffs.

• 1:02:02Bill Simmons?

  Right. It's tough because we've seen teams get in just incredible trouble with this. I, I kinda feel like Memphis with Jaren Jackson was a little similar, right? I don't feel like he's a guy that should be making close to max money or max money and, and it kinda bore out. The worst one ever was Bradley Beal. But we see with this max stuff, especially with the way they changed the caps. You know, the, the way the cap works, you basically only get two of these. So they're gonna have to do it and they're just gonna have to hope that he had a bad playoffs. He's 22 and the pressure of the contract that was looming kind of scattered his brain a little bit because I'm watching him and it's like, this is not the guy I watched in the regular

• 1:02:43Bill Simmons?

  season. The guy in the regular season was so confident, so physical, was so good around the basket and this guy feels like he's second guessing everything he's doing. So, you know, that I can, I could, it's understandable. If you're 22 and you have 230, 40 million dollars waiting for you, you're trying to win a title and you're just, you put too much pressure on yourself. So really tough one, Jacob's, I don't know.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  The, uh, do you remember when Cade was out? Like he was, he stepped up. He was getting 30 point games and stuff. That's when I really believed in Jalen Dern, but I'm watching the game last night. I'm like, I kind of like B-ball Paul in that spot. You know what I mean? I'll take B-ball Paul. Seriously. Like watching the game. I was like, that guy jumps off the screen. Like if I can, if I can, if I'm watching a playoff game and I'm like, I'd rather have B-ball Paul out there than my max guy. That's concerning for me.

• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  We got an email. I didn't even put it in the document, but, uh, is B-ball Paul the best third string center of all time? Can you research this? And I was like, I'm definitely not researching that. But if anyone has any thoughts on the greatest third string centers of all time, please, please send them. Gabe from Orange County, I got this a few times. I'll give the credit to Gabe first. Um, he, he was talking about how I suggested Oklahoma City FC as a Thunder nickname because they flop like a soccer team. And he doesn't understand why that's not just OKFC. And he, he, he's saying he'd even buy a hat. What do you think, Jacob's? OKFC?

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Wait, then hold on a second. Multiple people wrote you about this?

• 1:04:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, because they were saying I screwed up. They screwed it. They're saying you screwed it up. It's not Oklahoma City FC. It should just be OKFC.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  OKCFC is like, there's a, there's a team here, NYCFC. It rolls off the tongue much better than OK.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  So you go OKCFC?

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  Yes, OKCFC.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  Not just OKFC.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  We have an NYCFC here. Maxi Morales is my favorite player.

• 1:04:36Bill Simmons?

  OK, CFC, Goldsberry or no?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a lot, but it does not give the fried chicken that OKFC does. It gives a lot of fried chicken right there.

• 1:04:46Bill Simmons?

  That makes house hungry, like there's a lot of good.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Sounds like you want some lemon pepper.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  Lot of good benefits. All right, this is a good one from Andrew Ball. He said, I know you tend to avoid draft what ifs, but did the Warriors 2020 and 2021 drafts change the trajectory of the league? There's not a lot of precedent for a team as good as the Warriors getting three lottery picks in a two year span, and they pretty much whiffed on all three. What if they hit on multiple picks or traded them for real talent? So I've talked about some of this before about Wiseman or LaMelo. It's COVID draft. They can't work out any of those guys. There's no March Madness. Understandable.

• 1:05:24Bill Simmons?

  They could have jumped back maybe and traded for Tyrese, but they claimed that nobody wanted to trade up. But even if you look back, could they have talked Detroit into trading up to two and they go back to seven? And instead of Detroit taking Killian Hayes, they get LaMelo and then the Warriors take Halber. Whatever, that's a lot of what if stuff. 2021 is more simple. It's basically they took Kamingo over Franz and they took Moody over Trey Murphy.

• 1:05:50Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty crazy, A, that they went 0 for 3 and then B, that they won the 22 title anyway. The part that I was interested in, guys, the trades that they missed out on with those picks, if they had just done like the LeBron Cleveland thing and been like, fuck it, we're trading these picks, let's get a player. The best players traded from November 2020, because we were post COVID, through March 2021. Drew Holiday, six days after the draft. So that Wiggins would have had to be in it, but maybe, maybe you could have said, we'll give you the number two pick and Wiggins for Drew Holiday. I don't know if that Portland would have, I'm not, I'm sorry, New Orleans would have thought that was a better one.

• 1:06:33Bill Simmons?

  Harden to the Nets in March 2021, I don't think that would have been a fit. Vucevic, March 2021, there's no way the Warriors would have given as much as Chicago Stuply did. Here's the one that jumped out at me though, guys. Aaron Gordon, March 2021, pre-trade deadline.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Basically is like Gary Harris, another, who is that guy? RJ Hampton and then a, then a first.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  The Warriors could have traded like the number seven in Oubre for Aaron Gordon and had Aaron Gordon from heading into the 21 playoffs on versus, I don't know, France? That's Jacobs, that's like not a, not a small what if, right? Aaron Gordon turned out to be like this huge playoff guy. He would have been perfect for them.

• 1:07:18Speaker 02

  It's a fun what if, but like, again, like, it's easy to say now.

• 1:07:24Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  At the time, I was like, James Wiseman is the perfect fit for the Warriors. And I was like, this is gonna go great. He can shoot, he's big, he can defend. I was like, this is an absolute exactly what they need at the time.

• 1:07:38Bill Simmons?

  But what if you kept Wiseman and traded, what if you traded the Kaminga pick for Aaron Gordon?

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  I mean, Aaron, I mean, you know, they, they would have obviously gone on a much better run. And also the whole like two timelines thing, Aaron Gordon fits perfectly with, you know, the, the timeline that was winning the championships. It would have, that would have been amazing.

• 1:07:55Bill Simmons?

  I think that was the mistake, Kurt. Like, well, no, just because Curry's not a guy who's gonna demand stuff. You, you were at the Spurs when Tim Duncan was there at the tail end. Same thing. When you have no pressure from your star to do anything, you could try to do that dumb two, two timelines thing. And meanwhile, looking back, it's like, clearly the move would have been Aaron Gordon, I think.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and look at the 2020 draft, and you alluded to this, was a complete, you know, cluster F, whatever. Like, nobody could see anybody, so you almost give a pass on Wiseman. I do think the next one is the more interesting one to look at for what they did and what a team in their position should have done, like, doing Kaminga and Moody. I appreciate what they tried to do there. They missed on better players below Moody especially. I think Shangoon is in there.

• 1:08:41Bill Simmons?

  He was.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  And yeah, you said Trey, I'm looking again. Jalen Johnson is in there. Cool, like, that team would have been much better if they drafted Jalen Johnson. But they didn't, and draft is really hard. But yeah, I think it is probably in retrospect, you put a bunch of 30-year-olds next to Steph and for the one last run. But, yeah, it's a hard one.

• 1:09:03Bill Simmons?

  The bigger issue to me is, for whatever reason, in that cluster of years, which is like a year and year plus, there weren't like a bunch of amazing guys to go to get Jacobs.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Bill, so if you're gonna go back in time and change time, I don't know, you're familiar with the like the films of time travel films, have you ever seen any of those? You have to remember that, that, you know, that there's, if you put Gordon on the Warriors, what does that do for your guy Jokic?

• 1:09:29Bill Simmons?

  Right. And what does that do for the 22 finals? Yeah, it's, it becomes a Back to the Future thing. It screws up a lot of stuff. Gordon was a pretty polarizing, he was a pretty polarizing trade asset though. Because people are like, what is he? Is he, is this somebody that would be happy being like a complimentary player? Or does he want to be the guy? It was a little similar to what Igudala was. All right, Jacobs, this one's specifically for you. It's from Jake, Jake in Illinois. This happened like three weeks ago, I noted it. Did you see the Laker playoff game with an approximately four month old baby sitting courtside next to Lakers bench on its mother's lap? What the fuck? What are these parents thinking? Do people not

• 1:10:11Bill Simmons?

  understand what a six foot eight, 240 pound person hitting you at full speed feels like and the damage it can do to a baby? Who intervenes here? Who's at fault? It's pure insanity. Should the sports are weigh in? I'm, I'm on the record always, I don't think anyone under like five should be courtside at a game. I've seen, you see it, I don't know, once a week, you see somebody go fly into the stands. I think it's irresponsible. I would never, I brought my eight year old daughter to a WNBA game in 2013, I think. I felt a little safer on that one, but I just wouldn't in a million years bring a four month old baby anywhere near courtside, Jacoby. You have, you have seven kids? How many kids do you have now?

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  I know, I knew when I've eight now. The, so that baby was essentially like an expensive handbag for that family. It's an accessory. Like that baby, one of my big things is like, if a baby's not gonna remember it, we're not going to Disney World. If the baby's not gonna remember it, we're not throwing you a one year old birthday party. Like, until you can remember things, you don't experience things. Also, put that baby to bed. It's nighttime. Like, what are we doing? It's like, they are just bringing the baby to be like, look at my baby like it was a hundred thousand dollar watch or something. It's like, that's a fashion accessory, a look at me, I'm a Laker fan in the front row thing. And like, I don't, the safety of the baby is whatever, but for me, it's more just like, this is stupid.

• 1:11:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're you obviously, the other thing would be like, oh, I took the baby because we couldn't find a babysitter. You're sitting courtside. I'm pretty sure you could afford a babysitter, Kirk. I don't know where you're staying on this one.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Well, I, yeah, it is dangerous down there. I mean, you watch this Wolves Spurs series like, dude, there are, there will be at least drinks spilled, if not human beings spilled over there during these games. I think that is a, it reminds me the exit row seating on an airplane. If you bring a kid on an airplane, you can't, you know, try to get to that Delta X row. That's not happening. Um, it seems, yeah, it's in, in baseball, too. It's like they have net everywhere. It's like, maybe we should be thinking about this, especially with kids under like three or four years old, right?

• 1:12:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because there's two different ways you could have the person just flying in full speed, like, uh, doing the Roman Reigns spear on you, basically trying to get a loose ball. You also get the person who tries to dive over the courtside, but then they kick their leg. And you get like the whiplash kick in the head. Uh, either one of them, not good for a four month old baby. I just, I thought that was crazy. I think that should be an automatic loser seats.

• 1:12:38Speaker 02

  Remember the Austin Reeves pass last night? He just, he just, I think it was a left-handed, just threw the ball right into the front row and it hits this guy's drink and explodes the drink. Like, if that's a baby instead of a drink, like, that's huge implications there.

• 1:12:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that would be bad.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Did Austin Reeves go, would he go to jail if he did that to a baby, Jacoby?

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  No, the, the parents go to jail.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  Let's, uh, we're gonna take a break and come back with some Joel Embiid questions. Oh, yeah. All playoffs long, I have been sifting through the slate and putting my favorite bets and parlays from FanDuel Sportsbook on my Twitter feed, tweeting them out, trying to get it as close to the game as possible. I share my favorite parlay along with possible add-ons. We hit on Friday with the, uh, with Cavaliers and a bunch of different Mitchell point totals, just depending on how aggressive you wanted to get. Uh, for game five. Pistons, Cavs, the home team has won every game this series. I think it continues. This is a prove it game for, for Duren. I actually like the rebounds for him. I think this is the biggest game of his career, especially with restricted free agency coming.

• 1:13:40Bill Simmons?

  And I like the Pistons in that game. So I'll have some sort of bet for that. Futures, Knicks funder for the finals is even odds right now. It's probably the last time that will be the case for, for the rest of the playoffs. So if you're interested in that Brunson, I think for the finals MVP is eight to one, which if you like the Knicks, I think they're six to one to win the finals. Just take the Brunson finals MVP. Anyway, when I bet, I bet with FanDuel, a brand I trust. Easy to build NBA bets of all types on FanDuel. And I know I'm getting great odds payouts in my parlays boosts every day and I'll get my winnings instantly. FanDuel, join me. Play your game. This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays,

• 1:14:25Bill Simmons?

  but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible. The workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetrades.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

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• 1:15:15Speaker 04

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• 1:15:27Speaker 05

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• 1:16:14Speaker 05

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:16:20Bill Simmons?

  All right, Joel Embiid email from Frank Farrell. He said, "The Sixers unexpectedly beating the Celtics won Embiid enough goodwill that all my friend chats after the absolute Nick thrashing subtly shifted from the Sixers should swallow Embiid's money just to move on psychologically to the Sixers should trade Joel for peanuts to give him a shot somewhere else. What insane careers he has had. My question, does winning an MVP automatically get you an automatic place in your Hall of Fame pyramid? If so, who is the lowest MVP in the pyramid? It has to be between Embiid, Derrick Rose, and Westbrook. Well, I have Embiid and Russ in my pyramid. I have, they're level-two guys. I have Embiid low 70s, and I have Russ in the 60s.

• 1:17:05Bill Simmons?

  I do not have Derrick Rose in the pyramid, and I don't even really think it's debatable. Like, you go through his career, it's basically the 2011 season when he won the MVP and made first-team All-NBA. It was the only first-team All-NBA he won. And I just don't, I don't think it's enough to be like one of the best 100 guys in the history of the league. When I was researching this, though, in 2021, he finished ninth in the MVP voting. Are you guys aware of this?

• 1:17:33Bill Simmons?

  There was a fan, there was a fan vote, which he won and he got 10 points and finished ninth in the top 10 for MVP. Um, Jacob, is Rose a top 100 all time guy for you? Or how do you assess his career? It's a weird one.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  This is much more your lane, Bill. I don't know if you know this. I don't keep up moving, running.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but give me your Derrick Rose piece though.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Top 100 players of all time.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  Give me your Pete Derrick Rose.

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  That's the thing is Pete Derrick Rose is top 100, but the peak just didn't last that long. It's a very sharp point at the top of the mountain, you know?

• 1:18:05Bill Simmons?

  That's how I feel.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  For me, I look at it more or less like counting stats and stuff. It's just like, uh, how he like, you know, we talk about like roll gravity and gravity on the court, just like grab fan gravity towards Chicago, just attention, you know, barbershop discussion. Derrick Rose sort of conquered that and led that and had a little bit of like an Iverson coolness factor in a different way. Remember when he didn't dance at the All-Star game? Like he was, he was just like, he was sort of like cool in a different way than Iverson was, but at the same, in a comparable level. Like he sort of had like a, a culture implications too.

• 1:18:41Bill Simmons?

  He was incredible in person. I just think to me, Kirk, he's in the, he's in that group of just awesome guys where the career, they either had bad luck with injuries or bad luck with something else. And he's like first ballot for whatever that group is, but I don't think their career was there for.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  No, but it wasn't there for a reason. Like his body broke in the NBA, playing this way, these guards doing what they're doing now this often, they're going to break their knees. And it sucks. And I don't want to penalize guys like that who are clearly all NBA level players, MVP caliber players. And if I'm ever gonna be in charge of MVP or a Hall of Fame consideration, like Derrick Rose is going. Like I love what Jacoby said culturally, he's important to the sport and its fans. Um, you can point to it, season in Chicago, like he is more significant than a lot of people that are currently honored in that museum.

• 1:19:32Bill Simmons?

  So that's a different convo and I agree with that. I think if you win the MVP, you're in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Bill Simmons?

  Which is a little different than the pyramid because there's a little higher, like the top 100 guys ever, but Hall of Fame. I think I'd be P's are in. You're the best player in the best league for one year. That's probably, that's probably enough, I would say.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  Wait, can I ask you an Embiid question?

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  How did you react after, on the heels of the Celtics series, watching Joel do what he did against the Knicks?

• 1:20:02Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I wasn't surprised. Were you guys? It felt like he could, he had a good week in him, right?

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Remember, I was in, I was with you in LA and that Chris Ryan was like, we should sit him out game one.

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  No, before game one, he was, CR was saying like, we should maybe even sit him for both games.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  We all saw it coming, right?

• 1:20:20Bill Simmons?

  No, it's, it's Jacob's, it's like a pitcher that maybe has an 85 pitch start every six days. And you just have to kind of craft the rotation around it. But what's, I thought, honestly, I thought the same thing happened to LeBron in the round two. Like just going every other day when you're 41 years old. It's just, I, you know, there's certain things, the schedule is unforgiving.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  I, I don't think Embiid was dramatically different between the Celtics and Knicks series. I thought the Knicks did a much better job of.

• 1:20:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's also true. Yeah, I agree with that.

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  Like.

• 1:20:53Bill Simmons?

  You mean putting him in pick and pops all the time?

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Like, make him defend in space?

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Sometimes if I have a fat guy covering me and pick up, I'll run from one side of the court to the other. Like, you should have just done that. You know what I mean?

• 1:21:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And the Knicks had better guys to throw at him too, than I think the Celtics did. And also the Knicks are just playing out of their rights. Like that, that seven game run they had with all the blowouts was about as good as you're going to do in the playoffs. So, yeah.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  Eight game run, eight game run.

• 1:21:20Bill Simmons?

  You end up with the Celtics team that.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Seven.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  Seven. They, you end up with the Celtics team that's trying to figure out what they are on the fly. And then you go into this Knicks team that kind of figured it out. And that the Towns thing, did you, Jacob's, did you watch Towns? And we're like, why don't they use him at the top? He could be like Bill Walton? Cause I don't ever remember you saying that to me.

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  No. Um, no, he has like, over his Knicks tenure, he has a ton of like really fun highlight passes. Sort of like behind the back out of the post stuff or like, you know, like some, like sort of Jokic, like someone makes a back cut and he threads the needle. So that he's shown that ability in flashes, but not with this kind of quantity. I did not say, you know, we should do, make him the fulcrum of the offense at the nail. Let's do that.

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  They definitely, Kirk wanted to be a little more, or a little less Brunson centric. I think would have been the criticism and it was like, you know, kudos to them for figuring it out 85 games into the season, but it was a really good wrinkle. Like once, once they figured out how to not be so reliant on Brunson, it was like the whole team took off.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Well, it helps when Cat stays on the floor. I'm going to say some really nice things about him, but man, some of these fouls, it's like, dude, don't be that stupid. You're too good for that. But yeah, I think Fred Katz on Zach Lowe's show yesterday had a great stat that the Towns' touches per 100 are way up in these playoffs compared to the regular season. Just another analytical piece of evidence that you guys are exactly right. They are, they are relying on him to be a centerpiece of this offense and a passer in a way that we hadn't seen. And credit to Mike Brown here, too. Like this guy took a high stakes job and this Knicks run is featuring a lot of depth and a new look Towns. And to your point, Bill, yeah, a little bit less Brunson hero ball kind of stuff.

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  You know, you know what this reminds me of? Jacoby, a guy by the name of Dave Jacoby.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  Pickup, our pickup basketball days. Just keep them involved. Water the plant. If Jacoby's running the floor, reward him for running the floor. Give him the ball. If you go a little half court, run a little pick and pop with Jacoby every once in a while.

• 1:23:29Speaker 02

  Gets a little pouty sometimes.

• 1:23:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you know what? Let's start rebounding more. Let's start running the floor more. You just gotta water the plant.

• 1:23:36Speaker 02

  A couple of things about Cat is you're completely right. Um, is the, the, the offensive involvement creates defensive involvement. Like they're related. His defense has been much, much better. And also like, you know, you guys aren't on like Knicks Reddit and like all my Knicks group chats and everything, but like the whole story of the season, it was like November. He's like, I don't know my role in the offense. It's not clear yet. And then it was like January. He's like, I just don't understand my role in the offense. And it was like a month ago. Like I was like, I still don't really fully understand my role in the offense. And it's like, well, I'm glad we figured that out in game four of the first round of the playoffs. You finally figured out your role in the offense.

• 1:24:13Bill Simmons?

  Hey, listen, some things take time. One more Embiid one. This one's a little more interesting. Just from Ted. And that was all he gave. No Town.

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  The Bear?

• 1:24:22Bill Simmons?

  Early rumors are that Daryl will be out in Philly. I'll believe it when I see it. Can we do a deep drive and dive into possible trades for Embiid? My dream trade would be Embiid for KD. That's not happening. Does Embiid make sense for anyone? Jazz, Kings, Pelicans? Please tell me there's some option. All right. He's got three years, 200 million almost left. This is, these are the only four teams I could possibly come up with. The Pelicans straight up for Zion. Pelicans, just roll the dice, hope he gets healthy. I don't see them doing that, especially they're not exactly a lavish organization. So I'm gonna say no on that, Kirk.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a no for me, dog.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  Kirk's just, Kirk's just not, just shaking his head sadly.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  One context question. You guys do the worst contracts draft, you and Woes and House. Where did Embiid land this year? Do you remember?

• 1:25:16Bill Simmons?

  We was, I think Paul George one, Embiid two. Or it might've been reverse, yeah.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Good context.

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  And then they beat the Celtics.

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  Next team, I know they did. Next team I have, the Sacramento Kings, just for Levine's expiring. Just under the guise of it's the Kings. Who knows what they're capable of? Vivek's like, we have Joel Embiid.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can never rule out, can't be ruled out. Stauskas.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  Can't be ruled out.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  It took Kobe masterpiece, Stauskas.

• 1:25:45Bill Simmons?

  Like, look at our team on paper. We have, we traded up one spot to get Darius A. Cuff. We have Joel Embiid, we're back, baby. They'd be, their fans should revolt if they do that. Golden State, just for Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy Butler expiring, coming off knee surgery. Golden State with the 11th pick. They convinced LeBron to come. They have Curry already and Draymond. And they just, they do the expendables thing that I've been joking about. I don't think Golden State should do that. I'm just gonna mention it. Kobe's making a small smile.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  I'm just thinking, can we get Mike Conley involved somehow?

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Al Horford.

• 1:26:26Bill Simmons?

  Really not Golden State. All right, this last one, I kinda talked myself into. The Brooklyn Nets, who don't have their first round pick next year.

• 1:26:38Bill Simmons?

  Could we just do Embiid for two years of Claxton and Mann? Who make 39 million and 36 million combined the next two years? Just a straight salary dump. Throw in a year of Clowney to make the contracts work. And if you're Brooklyn, now I have an interesting guy. Instead of the Liberty just blowing away my team every year, where there's way more Liberty fans, sold out crowds and people. It's really like Barclays is like a Liberty's arena, not a Nets arena. Now I have Embiid. I still have salary space, maybe to go get a free agent or maybe to make Giannis trade with all my other picks or trade for whoever. And I'm at least more interesting and I just hope he stays healthy. Jacoby's, looks like he smelled a terrible fart.

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  No, this is the only one that makes sort of any sense. And I don't really, I don't know why Philly would be motivated to do this. Like we're just gonna get off the salary a little bit, but like, I was smiling a bit because the difference between Nets and Liberty games is it's absolutely wild. It's like difference between, it's like your birthday at like 25 and 55. Seriously, like it's so much fun.

• 1:27:43Bill Simmons?

  It's so funny. It's the same arena in the Liberty game.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  Completely different vibe.

• 1:27:47Bill Simmons?

  If you're the Nets, you can't say basketball doesn't work in Brooklyn because the Liberty, it's as good as like half of the NBA games.

• 1:27:53Speaker 02

  It's awesome.

• 1:27:54Bill Simmons?

  So would you do that if you're the Nets, Kirk?

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  No, no GM and my friend Sean Marks from my time at the Spurs. No GM should be trading for Joel Embiid at this phase of his career with these. There's a amount of money that is owed. I anticipate if I had to put the over under on number of games, Joel Embiid will suit up for next year. I would put it at 43 and a half, Bill. Are you taking the over or the under?

• 1:28:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, the question is, when does he play the 43 and a half? Because he came back for that Celtic series and had three good games in him and that was enough to kill the Celtics. I don't know. If I was a team that had no hope and I had to spend the money anyway. If I'm the Nets, what else am I gonna do? Right? I have, I have salary. I, I'm completely irrelevant and I don't have my pick. Like I've gotta take a swing at something.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  Well, okay, but like, I think that's a jaw move. You know, like if you're trying to sell tickets and just and you know, put some energy inside your building, like if you have Ja Morant or Joel Embiid, which one, which

• 1:28:57Bill Simmons?

  How about both? Can I offer you both?

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  Ja Morant and Joel Embiid.

• 1:29:03Speaker 02

  What could go wrong?

• 1:29:04Bill Simmons?

  Why not? Next question from Danny, another one, Namor Simmons. Did you ever explain why you thought Jalen Williams played in game two of the Lakers series when you didn't? Please tell, please don't tell me you're cutting corners, not watching sports and turning into Rick Riley. What happened? Riley shot.

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  You want to talk about this? You put this, you put this in the rundown. You copied and pasted it. You wanted to address it.

• 1:29:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm happy to talk about it. Here's my thing. So we're, we're taping right after that game too. There's two games. I'm putting together, I want to do, cause I have Letterman on the show after, and I'm trying to put together 25 minutes of thoughts as I'm doing it. I'm going full speed and then we tape it live right after the game. And it's like Speed Chest and I'm old and I'm going around, I'm trying to figure out the minutes and I'm doing everything. I'm trying to get to the next thing and I look at the box score and I'm like, and I just kind of brain farted. This is my second brain fart. Like I'm telling you, it's like, obviously Jacoby, you're on some of the text threads with me. I'm watching all the games. I wish I could bring my wife on to be like, hey, some people are wondering if you're watching playoff basketball. Cause she'd be like, yeah, I could tell you they

• 1:30:10Bill Simmons?

  are. Cause I fucking hate you during the first two rounds of the playoffs every year. Cause all you do is watch basketball. Um, the thing is, I think I'm allowed four of these a year. And then if I get to five, maybe a series, maybe I have to talk to the family. Yeah. Well, my, cause my other one this year was Seattle thinking the Seahawks never won the Superbowl, which I said, even though I know, not only do I know they won the Superbowl, but then they, the next year they would try to go back to back against the Pats. I was there for that. So I think I'm allowed, cause I'm old now. I'm in my mid 50s. I think I'm allowed one just inexplicable brain fart a corner, a quarter, and everyone's just got to deal with it. And if I get, if I'm at 10 at the end of the year, let's have a real convo. But I think. Four is okay, right Kirk?

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, I blame our friend Jalen Rose. I mean, if it weren't for him, then we wouldn't have this crazy situation. And having two guys named Jalen Williams on the same basketball team, like, come on.

• 1:31:06Bill Simmons?

  It was.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  Tricky situation for all of us.

• 1:31:09Bill Simmons?

  It was a double brain fart because I looked at the minutes. I forgot there were two Jalen Williams and I forgot that the good Jalen Williams was scratched for game two.

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  He was wearing, okay, a couple of things. He was wearing a pink leather jacket.

• 1:31:25Speaker 02

  It doesn't really help your case.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  Pink leather jacket that cut to him a lot. Like, I'm not, I'm your friend and I love you, but like, you know, it is.

• 1:31:33Bill Simmons?

  It was an old guy moment, I'll take it.

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  But I literally, you know, I taped last night between 1:30 and 2:30 in the morning after watching five hours of basketball. I'm sure I messed up. I literally just interrupted you to say the Knicks are on an eight game run. And I'm a Knick fan instead of a seven game run. I was like, Bill, no, eight. Like, that happened four minutes ago. Like, it just sort of the way it is. But here, as someone who's been in this industry a long time, Bill, you're handling this wrong. Your talent, this is where you throw your producers under the bus.

• 1:32:01Bill Simmons?

  No, I've never did that. This is my fault.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  I've been doing this a long time. Your talent now, Bill, you can't, you can't be level headed. You have to have the big ego.

• 1:32:09Bill Simmons?

  I'll own it.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  My producers are supposed to correct that. That's why they're there. Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. That's the talent play.

• 1:32:16Bill Simmons?

  Now, I'll fuck up. Listen, I'm gonna have one a quarter and that's it. The podcast is free. This is just who we're, what we're dealing with now.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  Bill, as you're constantly, I have to say this. I think four might be a little low.

• 1:32:30Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm gonna, my goal is four.

• 1:32:34Speaker 02

  I think you must have set the bar a little bit lower for yourself there, buddy. Let's go 10, yeah, let's go 10. You're doing a lot of potty.

• 1:32:40Bill Simmons?

  I think I can pull a four. This is my one for the quarter. Now, I'm not gonna have another one or quarter. Uh, Josh from DC says he's been a big fan of the podcast since the picture me rolling days. What a classic year that was when picture me rolling was the theme. Thanks to House's Mother Day karma, the Wizards are finally interesting. And we have two passive contention. One is just draft AJ. Two is trade down the spot. Get some stuff for Utah. What would you do is to trade machine Makaso? So I already answered this on Sunday. I, I don't always feel this way with the draft. I feel like sometimes you gotta like dig in. I like this guy the most.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  Kirk, this is such a weird drafter. I'm honestly happy with any of these four guys. And I don't know if there's any real way to say one of them is going to be the most awesome. I think AJ is probably the safest. Peterson is the highest ceiling, but I'd also be happy with the other two. And if I could move back one spot and pick up real assets, I would just, in this draft, I would do it. So what would you do?

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm Peterson curious at the number one spot. I'm also like.

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  Peterson curious.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm Peterson curious. I want to come out and just say that I love Darren Peterson. I think all of the analytics guys in the NBA that I like to represent here from time to time are Cam Boozer enthusiasts. And so the eye test is DeBansa. There's Peterson, but so I, I think the Belichick move here is to go to three and just take, I'll, I'll take whoever's left.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. Move down two spots.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  If I can get something, if, if, who's that? Memphis? Sorry. I haven't studied the draft. Memphis is three.

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  Chicago's four. Yeah.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  If Memphis would give me anything valuable because they feel strongly or, yeah, I don't know if I'd go to four, Bill. But I do think there is some jockeying potential for people at one and two to think about just a little bit backward. Like your buddy Danny Ainge did so famously to get to that Tatum over Fultz era.

• 1:34:42Bill Simmons?

  I think that's a good, that's a good parallel. That, that was another drafter. It's like, I kind of like all of these guys. And they moved back, got an extra pick that ended up not even being.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Turns out that was a big, big effing deal for the Boston Celtics to do that. So Washington has to be playing with that concept.

• 1:34:58Bill Simmons?

  Jacob, so what would you do? Would you just be like, I like this guy. I'm taking him one. Don't, don't offer him any trades. Or would you sniff around?

• 1:35:06Speaker 02

  I think you can only, as a GM, you're worried about your job and making the wrong move. I think you can only make the wrong move by trading up in this draft because all four of them, it feels a little bit like the MVP. Like if you have SGA, you can make a great case. If you have Jokic, you can make a great case. If you have Wemby, you can make a great case. Right? So it's like, all four of these guys are different players and, but they have sort of like, they're all equal to me as prospects. So if I'm, if I give up assets to move up and end up with the fourth best guy of the four.

• 1:35:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34Speaker 02

  There's egg on my face.

• 1:35:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Bill Simmons?

  Shane wants to know, when you brought up the Wizards in the Lottery Karma Draft, Nick Wright immediately brought up Joe House's name and it made me wonder if Joe House is the most famous Wizards fan at this point. Can we get a celebrity Wizards fan ranking? And then he asked, this was written last week, can House represent the Wizard, the draft lottery? So I asked the Washington fans I know, here's the, here's the list of famous Wizards fans. You tell me where House ranks. Wale, Dave Batista, Wolf Blitzer, and Tiafoe, the tennis player. Maybe Scott Van Pelt? I don't know if he's a Wizards fan or not. I know he's a Maryland guy. I assume maybe he likes the Wizards. Honestly, that was all I could find. So I don't know.

• 1:36:16Speaker 02

  Andrew Sharp?

• 1:36:18Bill Simmons?

  Andrew Sharp's in there? Okay. Would you have House fifth? Or would you bump him above any of those I mentioned, Jacobs?

• 1:36:26Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm biased here, you know, but I will say that Wale was the only one I actively knew was a Wizards fan. Everyone else was news to me. And like Tiafoe's out there, you know, like doing post-match interviews about Trey Johnson.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  Kirk? It feels like House is in the top five.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Dude, I think he's number one. I'll take a strong stance here. I think Joe House, in part because of his platform here with us at The Ringer, is clearly the most famous Wizards fan. Like, when people think Wizards fan, they think Joe House. And I think-

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

  He tried to do the Dougie on the podcast Sunday. He got so excited, the camera burned out. Like, he's a real fan.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  He's had some camera issues. We'll give him that. But I think the Wolf Blitzer one, screw Wolf Blitzer. That guy doesn't, get him off the list.

• 1:37:17Bill Simmons?

  Never seen him with Wizards once.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  No, he doesn't like basketball. I don't want to live in a world where that guy is noteworthy in the NBA.

• 1:37:22Speaker 02

  Can we split the baby and have a House-Wale partnership? I think they would make a good-

• 1:37:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I like that. Maybe we'll give them a podcast. Zachary Gilbert in Westport, Connecticut, writes in, he's 12 years old, and he says, I'm sending this on my dad's email with his permission. My father is a longtime listener of yours. Put me on the podcast, which I love. I always get excited when new one comes out. How come whenever you talk about Kevin Durant and the Warriors, you don't mention that he played with the greatest shooter ever and a top five shooter ever? That made life so much easier for him.

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  Went on and on about Durant. So it's interesting. And Ethan, Ethan Strauss actually wrote about this last week on his Substack about longevity rot, which there's different versions of this when, just when either somebody stays around too long. And I've talked about this a bunch and I haven't talked about it in my book about how the memories of somebody near the end can somehow taint the actual memories of their peak. And then you could, you see it with TV too, with like Barclay being on TV all the time versus Karl Malone not being on TV. And the other stuff that's up with Karl Malone. And now it feels like Barclay's career was more significant than Malone when that wasn't the case. When it's happening. I think KD, the last 10 years

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  really overshadowed how good those last seven OKC years were. When from 2010 to 16, he won the MVP. Runner up three times, five straight first teams, made the 12 finals, won 10 playoff series. He's either the second or third best guy of the 2010s. I'd have him third behind Curry. I think it's LeBron Curry and KD. 2015 was hurt. 2013 playoffs, Russ got hurt. Harden trade in 2012 screwed things up for them too. And then the only thing you can really ding him on is the last three games of the 16 playoffs against Golden State. Cause they, I thought they had a better team. And I thought Golden State was dragging a little bit. I thought they could have finished him.

• 1:39:17Bill Simmons?

  Jacob's, do you feel like all the Durant stuff from the last 10 years is now starting to kind of cloud people's memories of how fucking good Durant was?

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Yes, I believe it's a little unfair. Like, if you look at his former teammate, James Harden, who has famously sort of like, underperformed in big spots. There's not a lot of those with Kevin Durant. There's injuries and like, weird Kyrie Irving stuff and that took down that team and like, bad vibes in Phoenix. It's, it just sort of seems like it is his fault, but simultaneously, he's still performing.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, it's, if his career just ends with the Achilles injury, right? Let's just say it's, it's over, he doesn't come back. We would still talk about him reverentially for what he did for those 13 years, Kirk. So I don't, I do think, I do think it has clouded how good he was in his peak.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's not forget he tore his Achilles tendon. Like, that you just said, like, holy crap. Like, Dominique was my favorite player growing up. It ended him. Like, he technically still played after that, but it was, it was over. Kevin has done a marvelous job, I think, extending his relevance since, what is he, 37?

• 1:40:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  And he's the best scorer, in my opinion, the NBA has seen since Michael Jordan. Uh, you can tell me it's Kobe, I'm not going to get too mad at you, but it's like, this dude is by far one of the best scorers in the league's history. He's doing it at a high level at 37. That's a Houston team who, who, who had a disappointing run in the postseason. The vibes are not immaculate. But let's not forget Freddie Van Fleet was not there. Steven Adams is not there.

• 1:40:58Bill Simmons?

  Durant got hurt, yeah.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I'm sitting here on the 40 acres at the University of Texas. I'm not going to say anything negative about Kevin Durant, but I will say it is better to burn out than it is to fade away. And sometimes that long tail, uh, at the end of an artist or an athlete's career can, can sort of damage how you look back at the prime.

• 1:41:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I would highly encourage, um, Who wrote that email? That was young Zachary. I would highly encourage. I would highly encourage you to go on the YouTube's and go check out some Durant from, check out the USA Basketball stuff and two that was a 2011 in Turkey. Check out the Rucker Park. Check out the 2012 playoffs, him running through them beating the Clippers like Durant was unbelievable.

• 1:41:40Speaker 02

  The day you were born, he probably had 40.

• 1:41:42Bill Simmons?

  Right. I mean, he's definitely second or third best part of the 90s. I would put him third, but I also have him ahead of Harden. Uh, another career thing from Andrew B. He said, one of the greatest takes in recent BS lore was that Harden was the guard Carl Malone. Just for record, that was Zach Lowe's take, not mine. I was jealous of it.

• 1:42:01Bill Simmons?

  After watching the Thunder finish off the Lakers, I watched the SGA very vanilla walk off interview. And I thought, does anyone actually list SGA as their favorite player? Will he be remembered as guard Tim Duncan? Both dominant, but with no fans. I, I thought that was a character assassination. People love Tim Duncan. I love Tim Duncan. I ride for Tim Duncan. It is, it is interesting though, Jacob's like, have you met a diehard SGA guy? Have you met anyone who's like, my favorite guy is SGA. I'm wearing the SGA jersey. This is my dude.

• 1:42:35Speaker 02

  I, well, okay, I'll answer that question in a second, but first I want to address something like, Bill, you're one of the biggest Tim Duncan fans in the world. Kurt, you are biased by the Spurs. He was boring. Like, you know what I mean? Like, let's just have freeze over this. Like, what do you mean? Tim Duncan was awesome. He was boring. Like he was, his personality didn't exist and his game was to turn around and like hit off the window. You know what I mean? Like he was a dominant basketball player, won a lot of championships, but like, it's not exactly like he was Anthony Edwards in the post game interviews and whatever.

• 1:43:03Bill Simmons?

  One of the four greatest teammates of all time.

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  There, there, I do not know anyone who's like, I love SGA. I don't see any SGA jerseys anywhere like, like you see the other mega stars in New York City. And I do want to say this though, I, I am enjoying some of his personality flares outside of his outfits. Like we need that, like, like I just, I have the answers. I just need to see the test. He started to have these sort of like, they feel pre canned, but some good post game stuff. That's kind of like this calm, cool that I'm starting to dig. It's he's not like personalityless, like your guys' favorite guy, Tim Duncan.

• 1:43:41Bill Simmons?

  You mean pre canned, like Noah Eagle breaking out the Cavaliers? It's a Cavaliers.

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  That was quite a while ago.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  It was a Cavaliers, though, to be fair to Noah. That was a crazy third quarter.

• 1:43:55Bill Simmons?

  Kirk, do you know any diehard SGA fans?

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  No, I think that's the more interesting part of this question. I think the comp to Tim is just wildly unprofessional for a mailbag question.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  SGA, it is really interesting. And this is like Jacoby's wheelhouse and your wheelhouse too. It's like, yeah, his approval rating outside of his home market seems to be the lowest we've seen for a player who is that dominant since we've been doing this, right, guys?

• 1:44:22Bill Simmons?

  No question.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  If I'm in New York or if I'm in LA and I start talking about SGA, I kind of know what the person across the table is going to start to say. I think that is sort of the more interesting part here.

• 1:44:32Bill Simmons?

  I like, I think it's actually great for him that he belongs to OKC and everybody else is kind of poking holes and it makes OKC want to love him more. And we're probably in an OK spot with it. And now it's time for embracing the era brought to you by New Era, the official cap of the NBA. Take a trip back through some of the most iconic court defining moments with the new era NBA hardwood hardwood classics collection, which is awesome. Let's be honest, it's hard to top those legendary 90s logos. Perfect time, we had figured out that the 80s were a little over the top. We're getting a little more creative in the 90s. You can feel the influences of culture back then. And speaking of the 90s, so I think the most underrated star of the 90s,

• 1:45:16Bill Simmons?

  I'm biased here, but I think it was Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics, who was really coming on as an asset, who was the only two guard of that generation. Really to go toe to toe with Jordan when they played and was awesome in the in the 92 playoffs. They lose to the Celtics lose to the Cavs in seven, but it was a real breakout thing for them. He was just really good and there were a lot of good players in the early 90s. So, you know, when you look at the all MBAs and stuff, um, really hard because you're getting bumped by guys who were Hall of Famers. But I feel like he was either the second or the or the third best two guard of that generation.

• 1:45:56Bill Simmons?

  He tragically, he went down the 93 playoffs and uh, and passed away that summer in the prime of his career. And you look at the guys, the two guards from that era, Mitch Richmond, um, Reggie Miller, Draymond Petrovic, who also tragically passed away. Um, Reggie was right up there with all of them and and I thought was just better than Reggie Miller. So I always think about when the 90s, there's a lot of guys that, oh, man, Kenny Anderson, Derek Coleman. Like you go through and there there's some guys that never reached their potential and then Reggie is at a whole other level. But um, I really think he could have had a fun 90s if it had just kept going with him. Anyway, the Celtic stuff from from the early 90s, pretty cool too.

• 1:46:37Bill Simmons?

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• 1:48:34Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. Zach from Chicago, he just says, I know you're really from the Celtics. I'm really from the Nuggets. What about Jamal Murray for Jalen Brown, straight up?

• 1:49:09Bill Simmons?

  Kind of interesting.

• 1:49:11Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  You would do that if you're the Celtics? I'm not doing that if I'm the Celtics.

• 1:49:19Bill Simmons?

  Kirk? Uh, I like Jalen's defense. Jamal doesn't have the defense. I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to mess with it. No. What do you think, though, Bill?

• 1:49:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, what happened to you, Bill? The guy goes on Twitch and all of a sudden, he was like your favorite player of all time, like 10 minutes ago. Now you're like, oh, that Twitch stream makes me want to trade him for Jamal Murray.

• 1:49:37Bill Simmons?

  It's a no. It's a no for me, but I did go down a 10-minute rabbit hole thinking about, oh, we could replace Jalen's minutes with Hugo and Shireman and Walsh. And now we'd have these three guards and Tatum. And offensively, we'd be so much more interesting. I did. I did entertain it for a second.

• 1:49:57Bill Simmons?

  That leads us to, this was your big assignment.

• 1:50:02Bill Simmons?

  Here's the, here's the email. Go on the record right now. Predict four NBA trades, but do it like that. And the four would be separated as boring but logical, conventional, major and somewhat surprising. And holy shit, I can't believe that guy got traded. And that email is from me. I wrote it. I would never, I would never fake a mailbag email. I could have just said it's from like Larry in Indiana, but I wrote that one because I want to do it. I'll give you the three ones I had and then I gave you the assignment for the holy shit trade. So boring but logical. The Warriors get Anthony Davis, the Wizards get Butler's expiring and like a lottery protected first and 27 and we just call it a day. That trade makes a lot of

• 1:50:47Bill Simmons?

  sense to me. Um, if the Wizards can get one more asset, they're going to obviously take either DeBance or Peterson. They're not going to be good this year. I don't think they want to see what they have. Could they get one small asset for Davis? He's probably not going to be happy there. And then the Golden State, if you can then get LeBron. Now I have Davis, LeBron, Draymond, Curry and Kikita. The boring but logical Kirk, would you agree with that?

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's boring, but I don't think AD is very happy there. And I could see that trying to just get away from it. And there has been interest right from Golden State to sort of reestablish having a traditional big beyond just Draymond. So I could, I could see that one. Boring but logical.

• 1:51:29Bill Simmons?

  Jacobs?

• 1:51:32Speaker 02

  I don't really understand why Washington is doing this. Like we're just taking on Butler and like, what asset are you getting back? Like, I think,

• 1:51:39Bill Simmons?

  Get like a top, top seven protected first next year.

• 1:51:43Speaker 02

  Don't you think you could get a better package for AD than Butler and some sort of pick?

• 1:51:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's unhappy and he keeps getting hurt and he's in his 30s now. And he makes a lot of money. So that, those would be the things you worry about. All right. Conventional. This would be the Yanis trade. I think the lottery, I talked about it on Sunday, Yanis and the Celtics, I think, became way more realistic after how the lottery played out. So there's a world where you can get Portland gets Jalen Brown.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  The Celtics get Giannis and they also get Kuzma in their, uh, in their trade exception thing. And then Milwaukee gets Grant's contract, Scoot Henderson, and a slew of firsts, including all their Milwaukee stuff that they could get back. And that ends up being the trade. Seems pretty conventional. Out of those three, Kirk, who is like, I'm out. I don't want to do this.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  I'm worried about Portland. What do you, what do you think about Portland's just general? They, I don't know what they're doing. They're sort of an irrational player in the marketplace, right? Um, what are your thoughts on what they're trying to accomplish?

• 1:52:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, if I could have, if I'm Portland Jacobs and I have Denny and I have Jalen Brown and I have Kling and I have Kamara and, you know, maybe I don't have to give up all the assets I have for Milwaukee.

• 1:52:58Speaker 02

  Dame Lillard.

• 1:52:59Bill Simmons?

  I have Dame coming back. Shaden Sharp coming back. Um, so that, that's probably the one, if we're talking about three teamers, that's the only way. The other, the other way with Giannis and Jalen would just be the two of them. Okay. Major and somewhat surprising. This idea came from a listener, Jack in Orlando. I really like this one. I was jealous of it. Orlando gets Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson's expiring. Denver gets Franz and Suggs. It's a straight two for two. Franz and Suggs for Murray and Cam Johnson.

• 1:53:34Bill Simmons?

  It's a pretty good trade.

• 1:53:35Speaker 01

  I like that for both teams.

• 1:53:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was like, I like that. I like that, dude.

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  And Cam Johnson. Uh, yeah, put it in. Call silver.

• 1:53:44Bill Simmons?

  Cause, cause Jokic could basically be the point guard for Denver anyway. And Suggs could be the guard, the other team's point guards and bring the ball up. And then Franz with Gordon and Joker. Now my defense is better. And then Franz unleashed without Palo. And then Orlando figures out the, the guard situation and splits up Franz and Murray. I don't know. I thought that was really good. Okay.

• 1:54:08Speaker 02

  But let's not breeze past that. That's, that's pretty good.

• 1:54:10Bill Simmons?

  It's a pretty good trade.

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  That makes the NBA better. That makes the NBA better right away. Yeah.

• 1:54:15Speaker 02

  Like somewhere there's like an intern that works in the front office. It's just like, hey, do you listen to the BS pod?

• 1:54:20Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna do a tweak and be like, well, Orlando's gotta throw in Anthony Black or, oh, Denver probably. And I was like, I don't see a tweak. I think that's a really fair two for two. I, you know, and eventually also saves Orlando money.

• 1:54:34Speaker 02

  Orlando has, like, there's a defense problem. And Franz isn't exactly a lockdown defender. But there's a defense problem in Denver. There's a shooting problem in Orlando. We both want to shake things up. That works.

• 1:54:44Bill Simmons?

  All right. I asked you for a holy shit trade.

• 1:54:48Bill Simmons?

  You go first, Jacoby. What is it?

• 1:54:51Bill Simmons?

  So the concept is not, we'll never have the Luca trade again, but a trade that would make people go, oh, my God. So what is it?

• 1:55:02Speaker 02

  So I just want to say that this is, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm not predicting this.

• 1:55:07Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:55:08Speaker 02

  But it's like all great things. It starts with Joe House, right? Washington has the number one pick in a great draft. That's a huge asset, but they're open for business.

• 1:55:21Speaker 02

  Also, our colleague and friend, Rich Paul, has been working the phones. And he's been pulling some strings behind the scenes on behalf of his clients.

• 1:55:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Speaker 02

  And Washington has found a dance partner. They send the number one pick and Anthony Davis and next year's number one pick. Cause if you acquire Anthony Davis, because of some weird voodoo magic, you also get the next.

• 1:55:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, it follows. Yeah.

• 1:55:53Speaker 02

  That's in, that's in the trade. Okay.

• 1:55:57Speaker 02

  You trade that package, number one pick and Anthony Davis and the voodoo spell for Cooper flag, Kyrie Irving and the number nine pick. And here's why it makes sense. There's a, Ujiri did not draft flag. He doesn't see the vision. He's going to have the number one pick. He can start with his guy.

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then there's absolute chaos in the streets of Dallas, like rioting. Mark Cuban has got a face paint. He's got a flag. A helicopter has to land on top of the Mavs office. And for Mr. Smith and Ujiri to get in, to get them away to safety. Like it's, it's Jerry Jones is involved. It's just chaos. Like the National Guard has to come in and it's just like, and Mark, and then somehow Mark Cuban just, just ends up, uh, you know, negotiating a piece between the fans of the Mavericks and the city.

• 1:56:51Bill Simmons?

  That's a great one. Yeah. I mean, them trading Cooper flag, I think, could lead to a civil war in the United States. I don't, it just, it would be like the, the Archduke Ferdinand of, of America. I don't know how Dallas would start rioting. God only knows what happens next. Kirk, what do you got?

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Well, this one hurts and since we're back in time, this is tough, but I'm going to stick my neck out here and be like, the Spurs are going to trade De'Aaron Fox. And I think they are going to get a, another younger wing, strong player. I haven't worked out the full details. I didn't do my homework as much as, as Jacoby did. But what I've seen in these playoffs and in this Minnesota series, and again, I might be speaking so stupidly now, for those who have time traveled with me. But I really think what I've seen in these playoffs is like, what, why do we have De'Aaron Fox on this team? We have Dylan Harper, we have Stephon Castle, we have Victor Wembanyama, we have a clear need to get stronger on the wings and in our front court.

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  Can we find somebody like Toronto or Houston that can give us some depth and some strength to, to fight with these types of Minnesota guys? So I, I haven't done the full homework, but that's my holy shit, the Spurs are going all in with this young core moment.

• 1:58:12Bill Simmons?

  That would be interesting. Tough one for De'Aaron Fox. Attaches himself to Wemba and it lasts a year and a half.

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  I know it is, but I, I mean, I, I also love the, your idea, like the other one I had runner up is, is the Jalen Williams, the, the one who's currently hurt with his hamstring and Chet Holmgren, one of those guys for the similar reasons, like a lot of us, these young cores, they have to get ahead of the second apron. They have to do stuff like that. So, you know, Jay Adande says, real trades travel in silence. And we never saw the Luca thing coming.

• 1:58:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  So I think there are, the holy shit moments are like, oh my God, I couldn't believe that, that could happen.

• 1:58:49Bill Simmons?

  Right. Like Jalen Williams, just getting traded straight up for the third pick.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  Like, oh. I told you on that, I told you on the text, yeah, like that, like that, that's a great one. But I told you on the text, Jacoby's going to have a better one. And I was right.

• 1:59:02Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:59:03Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 1:59:03Speaker 02

  I mean, I forgot the ending. It ended up with Joe House in a bathtub full of Arby's roast beef.

• 1:59:10Bill Simmons?

  With Cooper flag.

• 1:59:11Speaker 02

  Picture of Cooper flag. Yeah.

• 1:59:14Bill Simmons?

  I'm dialing it up a notch from your holy shits.

• 1:59:18Bill Simmons?

  What about Ant to Atlanta?

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:59:24Bill Simmons?

  T Wolves get Jalen Johnson, they get 8 and 23 and 26. They have, there's, Atlanta has a Bucks, New Orleans, worst pick in 27, the worst one of those two. They have some other stuff, first swaps. What if, Kirk, have you, how long do you think Ant's gonna actually last in Minnesota?

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Well, this is, but where's Anthony from? And like, this is-

• 1:59:48Bill Simmons?

  Where's Anthony from, Jacoby? Do you have any ideas on that?

• 1:59:51Speaker 02

  Do you know how long, do you know how long people in the media have been trying to send basketball players back home? It's what we always do. It's, well, he's from the, KD's from the DMV, put him on the list, we always do this.

• 2:00:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, this point in time right now is when Atlanta has the best possible, we're gonna overwhelm you with an Anthony Edwards offer moment. And, um, and I was trying to think of like, every year, there's a holy shit one. And usually we have some semblance of it, and then sometimes we don't. And if like, the, the series ended badly, you know, with the new owners in place, who knows? Um, and what if he's just like, send me to Atlanta? And then the other piece of it is, Ant in Atlanta.

• 2:00:36Bill Simmons?

  I can't even imagine what that would be like. They'd never, not since Dominique had a guy in the, the brief Michael Vick moment, but putting Ant in there would just be one of, I love their crowd, like it would just be crazy. So that, I think that's why-

• 2:00:49Speaker 01

  He's a perfect Atlanta representative, right, Jacoby? Like, the, the, because you go to a Hawks game, they are unique, they are fun, but they are sort of flat in a sense, like they don't, it feels like he would be the perfect guy to change the vibes in Atlanta. And I know for a fact that that organization for years has circled him, like a lot of teams do with certain players that they're suitors for, uh, years in advance, being like, that's a guy, I think he might wanna come to live here, uh, because he is from there. And I, I, I don't know, but I, I like it and I could see it, um, from Atlanta's perspective now. Will, will Tim Connolly agree with me? Probably not.

• 2:01:26Speaker 02

  But if, also if you're Anthony Edwards, you look at the starting five you're currently playing with, and the starting five you would be playing with in Atlanta, like you're dramatic downgrade.

• 2:01:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the only way that trade's happening is if Anthony Edwards says, you're trading me.

• 2:01:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:38Bill Simmons?

  No, we don't want to.

• 2:01:39Speaker 02

  Chris Finch have a fistfight on the court.

• 2:01:41Bill Simmons?

  You're actually going to trade me. The other one I was thinking for a holy shit was if San Antonio just said, fuck it. Um, we'll put Dylan Harper on the table. We'll, we'll put every pick we have and just make a run at trying to put Wemby and Ant on the same team, which would be, I don't know how the alpha piece of that would work because Wemby's definitely an alpha. Um, but that said, from holy shit ones, I went through everybody and it was the only holy shit guy that really jumped out of me.

• 2:02:09Speaker 02

  Oh, no, there was one, there was one I was building that was, um.

• 2:02:13Bill Simmons?

  A holy shit guy?

• 2:02:14Speaker 02

  Le- LeBron convinces the Lakers to trade Luca.

• 2:02:19Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty, it seems like Luca's really embedded in there. Yeah.

• 2:02:22Speaker 02

  It's out.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  I had, I had that to Jacoby's, I had Luca in my notes.

• 2:02:27Speaker 02

  It just feels too much.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  The other one is like, what if Denver's like, we're never getting over San Antonio and OKC?

• 2:02:35Bill Simmons?

  With trade Jokic now? I guess that's, that would be the other holy shit guy.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Minnesota. Yeah. We couldn't get past Minnesota without Ant in this game six. How, so that, that'd be the one where it's like, well, this is the Herschel Walker play for, for the, the future of the Denver Nuggets organization.

• 2:02:51Bill Simmons?

  There's one more holy, I went through the Ringer 100 and I had my holy, my holy shit glasses on and my little detector and I was going through each guy. I was like, do, do, do, do, and the only other one was Tatum, because I think that would elicit the proper holy shit where the Celtics were like, you know what? Jalen was right. This actually is this team. We're trading Jason Tatum. We'd be like, holy shit. They're trading Tatum. That's, that's the other. I think Ant and Jason Tatum in that order are the two holy shit guys. Everybody else you could believe, like Donovan Mitchell getting traded, I'd believe it. Like, you know, you go on through the league, Booker, it'd be shocking, but not really.

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  The other bigger names are never going to move. You know what I mean? Like Luca, SGA, Wemby, Flag, like these guys aren't really going to move, but I could, I could see the Celtics trading one of the Jays.

• 2:03:40Bill Simmons?

  And Joker getting traded, the risk would be, he would just be like, all right, I'm going to go raise some horses now in Serbia. I'll see you guys later. And you never even get to play one game with them. Um, that's it for the mailbag. I took you guys up too much, but that was fun. Holy shit stuff. All right. So our holy shit trade rankings, Ant one, Tatum two, Luca three?

• 2:04:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:04:01Bill Simmons?

  Cause Luca already got traded.

• 2:04:02Speaker 02

  Luca, I'm not putting Luca on there.

• 2:04:04Bill Simmons?

  He already got traded though.

• 2:04:05Speaker 02

  It's just never, ever going to happen. He's in Los Angeles. No.

• 2:04:07Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. Got hurt.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:10Bill Simmons?

  All right, Jacob's, we can hear in the mismatch. Goldsberry, thanks for being on two different segments of my pod today. That was great.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 2:04:19Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Jacoby. Thanks to Gao and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back here on Thursday. No game on Thursday night, actually. So I'm going to be back on Thursday. I'll have some sort of fun podcast for you. And don't forget new rewatchables. Tropic Thunder is up and you have six days to watch Borat, just in case we do it on the rewatchables next Monday. So I will see you on Thursday.

• 2:05:03Bill Simmons?

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