The NBA Summer Movement Preview With Ryen Russillo

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the upcoming NBA free agency, plus some big deals that already came from the Rockets and Timberwolves (2:07). Then, they talk about their favorite free agents, Yang Hansen, and the Collin Sexton trade (35:33). Finally, they talk about the possibility of a LeBron trade, the Pelicans’ mess, and the most desperate teams (49:44). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is presented by State Farm®. Dishing the assists you need off the court. State Farm® with the Assist. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 0:21Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by State Farm. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. It is the last installment of New York City Month. Five movies, because we had five Mondays in June. So this will be the fifth one. We did Working Girl, we did Die Hard With A Vengeance, we did Marathon Man, we did Out For Justice with Steven Seagal. This is going to be After Hours. It is a cult classic directed by Martin Scorsese. It's me and Sean Fantasy, and we dove into not only all the reasons why this is a great New York movie, but why this is such an important Scorsese catalog movie and such an important time of his career. So you can watch that on Monday night as a video podcast or on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel.

• 1:05Bill Simmons?

  By the way, you can watch all the stuff on this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. We have an Instagram and a TikTok as well. And, uh, and we're going to talk to Ryan Russillo in one second because basketball threatening to heat up. I can't say it's red hot right now. It's pretty lukewarm, but there's been a lot of fascinating subplots and things to look for as we head into July. So Russillo coming up next. We're going to take a break, get into Pearl Jam, and then Russillo. This episode is presented by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. I've been saying this for years. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car, and more. Whether you need an in-person or a digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full-court press.

• 1:49Bill Simmons?

  Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability and eligibility vary by state.

• 2:27Bill Simmons?

  All right, 5:30 PM Pacific Time on a Sunday night. You know, in years past, and we've been doing this since I think 2018 range, and there was always something, either a massive event, Russillo, or like something we didn't expect, right around like in that 36-hour stretch before July 1st. I don't think the Jabari Smith extension has really qualified for me. I don't know if you feel differently. It's just nothing's really happening yet, and yet there are all these moving pieces right now. And I was just gonna throw a bunch of stuff that I'm fascinated by so far since the finals have ended. I'll start here. I really like everything Houston's doing.

• 3:11Bill Simmons?

  It's getting a 10 out of a 10 approval rating for me from the Durant trade, which we've already talked about. They signed Jabari Smith today to a five-year, $122 million extension. They renegotiated with Van Vliet, got him at 25 years, 25 million for two years each year. And I just like the roster they put together. It makes sense to me. I'm not sure they need to do anything else, and I think they're a real threat in the West now. And they have stability and assets. I think they have flexibility to do more stuff in December, January, February if they need to. And I think they're in the mix. I really do. What is your take on the Rockets?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Love what they've done. I think we've kind of touched on just a bunch of the things, even going back to like last year, where they were one of the rare teams that spends a top pick on Jalen Green and then just doesn't give him the full max because he scored a million points. You know, they structured that deal in a way where it was like, we like you, but we're still not sure. And so I think that showed you.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  The rare, I want to get into some of these other deals where it feels like the overriding sentiment the last couple of days, it's just been teams doing players favors. But they've been really just smart and calculated about it all. Like when the Van Vliet signing happened, you looked at the total numbers, you're like, well, that's nuts. And it's like, what are they going to do with that player option? Well, or excuse me, the team option. So they declined the team option because it didn't really make a ton of sense if Van Vliet was going to make 45 million for one year. They do the new deal, two years, 25 million. So that's a win for them, probably a little more stability.

• 4:42Bill Simmons?

  Kind of a win for him too, right? Because they were going to decline the option and now he's out in the open market and not looking at 45 million anyway. 25 million would have been the range.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and even then it was going to be tough to find a landing spot as everybody like sits here. Every article you read, it's like, other than Brooklyn, other than Brooklyn, other than, you know, so some of these numbers, but even the Jabari deal, it's five for 122. But seriously, like, he's probably kind of like in a make or break season. But 20 plus million a year for him at this age, knowing that if it doesn't work out, you can trade him. And then I was looking at, this is where it can get a little confusing on like, if they do this or they do that, and you know, they had to get cute with, with some of the restructuring of how they were working their books, but I think they can still use a full non taxpayer mid level if they want to get greedy.

• 5:28Bill Simmons?

  For 14.1, yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they've positioned themselves really well. They'll probably do the Durant extension, I'd imagine, which is always going to be a little scary. But hell, I was even like thinking, man, if I'm at another team and Jay Sean Tate is available, I loved him when he got minutes and then they find a way to keep him. So I'm incredibly impressed. So I don't even know, other than what, Steven Adams, three years, 39 million? Is there anything to really go like, whoa? I mean.

• 5:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was like, if it had been three years, 30, I would have been like, nice deal. 39 is like, ah, a wee bit rich, but you know, splitting hairs. They're number four on the, on Fendles champion odds right now, nine to one. OKC is the favorite, Cleveland is six to one, Knicks are nine to one, and the Rockets are nine to one. And I think that's, I think that's fair. I, Minnesota is. 14 to one, which I thought Minnesota and Houston would have similar odds, but the better is like Houston a little more than Minnesota. I mean, and that's the second story that we have to hit that ties in Houston and also ties into the big picture of all this. They keep Nas Reed, which I thought was impossible in February and I didn't realize what was going to happen with the market. They kept Nas Reed.

• 6:38Bill Simmons?

  That contract next year starts at $21 million. He's a $30 million player. Like in, in normal times, like basically what this new CBA has done is like when you buy a car, there's like this new car tax that you're basically paying where the moment you take the car off the lot, the, the number of that car decreases by 25%, right? You're just basically paying because you want a new car. And NBA free agency has had this forever where it's like, well, Nas Reed's not worth 160 million for five years. He's worth probably 120, but now you gotta pay the extra 40 million to get Nas Reed. It feels like this new CBA has eliminated the new car tax and Randall is 100 million for three years. It's not 125 for three years.

• 7:23Bill Simmons?

  The last deal that we have that I think teams are, a team would regret is that Brandon Ingram deal where Toronto trades for him and then gives him, what was it? 120 for three years. It's just out of whack. He's not, I don't think he, I think he should be in that Randall range of three for 100. So we've seen a resetting and we've seen the smarter teams kind of lock down these contracts. And I think it's going to be a free for all with these free agents where that we're just a bunch of guys who are like, wait, I thought I was worth this and say, no, you actually aren't.

• 7:55Bill Simmons?

  You're actually, the numbers have moved down here and that's just the reality of it.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Minnesota is a big part of this because you had to figure with the cap trade, because how big those numbers get at the backend. And then Rudy did an extension, which was less annually than what he was building towards. It's like, okay, they're, they're probably trying to figure out a way to like lock in this number that doesn't prevent, you know, total flexibility here.

• 8:21Bill Simmons?

  But, but did, but did you think they would be able to keep Randall and Nas? Cause I would have thought that would be impossible in February.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Well.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  I mean, who's going to pay Nas more than 25, 30 million a year?

• 8:35Bill Simmons?

  Nobody. Nobody has the space.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:38Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. Like you, I just, maybe I didn't look at it hard enough four months ago, but I just assumed there would be the way the league works where it's like somebody creates space or there's a sign and trade or there's some suitor. It's like, whoa, Indiana's getting Nas Reed. How did that happen? It seems like that era is over. Nobody can do it.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know that we're going to have a year where there's one team with major cap space and then nobody else does. But I, I think there was also teams that were like, you know, where do I park my shit? Where do I park it? Oh, there's, there's nowhere to park it. I mean, think about like Brooklyn. They have their five picks. It's like, what are you going to do? Offer them another first to take on a contract? The Sean Marks is like, hey, boys, you know, open up the notebooks. We got six.

• 9:26Bill Simmons?

  You got the ball handling guard? We'll take him.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And even then they took on Terrence Mann's deal. So there, it, it's just such a rarity that you really didn't have anybody, especially with the way the Detroit stuff worked out. Like at one point you thought, could Detroit get a $25 million player in there where their cap space, but then Cade gets the bump. So then that kind of eliminates that. So Nas, when I had heard the first like offering, like four years for a hundred, I just assumed whatever number I hear you like tack on a little bit more to it. So when it came out, I wasn't entirely shocked. The Randall one, like I was really looking at it this morning. So he goes three years for a hundred, opts out of the player option, 35.8. All right. Now, too often I will look at a deal and go, I'd hate to be in the Randall business

• 10:13Speaker 01

  for a hundred million dollars, or I'd hate to be like, there's too often I say it with too many players where it's like, hey dude, like I have to check myself and go, well, at some point you have to sign somebody and you can't just let assets just walk for absolutely nothing.

• 10:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. If it's a top 60 guy, you just gotta blink and suck it up.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And so if you think of Randall's, because I think there was still a little sticker shock and that's probably just the recency bias of the last series. And you could say, well, hey, he was really good in the first two rounds. Well, was that potentially the matchups that he was going up against? I don't know. I mean, all that stuff I think is totally fair. But I went back to 2021 where Randall signed a four-year deal with the Knicks for 117 million.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  So it is four years, 117 million. And that's when the salary cap is at 112 million. Well, now the salary cap's north of 150 million and you're getting Randall for like, you know, depending on how they stagger with 8% raises over the years. It's kind of the same contract and this is somebody four years ago, you were wondering before he was, actually, excuse me, we were thinking back to last August. If he was going to do a four year, like 184 million dollar extension. Like that was one of the things that was on the table. Like, what if he puts up this huge, granted, I don't know with Brunson, he was going to get the same number of touches. But, you know, three years for 100 million, even though I don't love the guy, that kind of puts him in the 70th highest paid player range. That's kind of what he costs.

• 11:39Bill Simmons?

  This is what's changed though, where it's become a little more like movies. The star stars are going to get even more money. Like Booker's going to get 75 million a year for two years or three years, whatever that extension is. That's where.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Whatever Luca wants to wait for.

• 11:54Bill Simmons?

  Luca, SGA, Tatum already signed. The, especially if you have some sort of NBA, you're looking at 65 million and up. But then there's that class right below. And we're seeing like some of those Toronto contracts that none of, neither you or I really liked. And you go back and look at some of those deals now, like what quickly signed for, what Ingram signed for. And I just don't think, I think those guys would be 20 to 25 million dollar guys and whatever this new version of the market is.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Quickly got five years, 162, fully guaranteed.

• 12:27Bill Simmons?

  Which was my thing with Nas Reed. It's like, if, if that's Quickly's price, how is Nas Reed not a 30 million dollar a year guy? But apparently those days are, those days are over.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  But I looked up some of this other stuff too, like Nick Claxton was four years, 97 million. So like you get sticker shock over Randall. And it's like, well, there's way more to Randall than what Nick Claxton is at this point. Tobias Harris, granted, it was shorter years, but it was two years, 52 million. Cause Detroit's like, well, we've had him in here before, make some shots. John Collins, I mean, this deal was in 21.

• 12:58Bill Simmons?

  That was one of my favorites.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Five years, 125 million, fully guaranteed.

• 13:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 13:05Bill Simmons?

  He's making 26 this year. Well, that's why Reeves turned down, would Reeves turn down four for 97? Cause he's gonna, he's one of those guys that actually can get to the 5150, I think.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Everybody knew that was getting turned down.

• 13:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Even the Lakers were like, we knew he was going to turn it down, but we just wanted to make them know that we were interested. But that was like a done deal because it doesn't make any sense for him to do it, knowing what's coming or he's potentially eligible for. But um, yeah, I mean, when Collins picked up his player option for 26 and a half million. Do you know how old Collins is, by the way, off the top of your head?

• 13:39Bill Simmons?

  Isn't he still in his twenties?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  He's 28.

• 13:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He's just, he came in the league pretty early. Yeah. Cause if you look at the, the, uh, the big free agents that are left, because everybody basically got locked down and then Harden looked like he did a deal. So Kyrie's three for 119, Harden's two for 81. So for that caliber, it seems like 40 million a year. Randall, it seems a little light, but it also seems like he wanted to lock down a little long-term security. So that Randall range is like 33 to 35 billion a year. And then that Nas Reed range, five for 125, that's about 25 a year. And that seems like that's where, that's the hierarchy now. So if you have a guy who's not one of the best three players in your team, but

• 14:24Bill Simmons?

  is super valuable like Nas Reed, it's in the 20 to 25 range. Trava Smith, right? That's another one. I don't know if this is gonna lap. By the way, the cap keeps going up 10% every year. So it might, as we keep going, there's more teams with cap space next year. There's gonna be a bunch of them. Maybe this will flip, but this was the reality of this year. Uh, Davion Mitchell, two for 24, which just seems like a normal free agent contract than the other year, but that's probably the price now for a role guy. 10 million, 12 million, maybe shorter money. So when I look at Finney Smith opting out with the Lakers, which I thought was interesting today, and really speaks to the, how weird the Lakers situation is right now. But I don't know, is he getting more than that? Probably not.

• 15:08Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he'll get more years. But he's looking at that 14.1 million free agent exception, which half the teams in the league have. And maybe you can add three years to that. It's three for 50, something like that. But in the old days, he might've gotten like four for 75, like, like some really dopey Max Strus. Remember that contract? I think those contracts are done. Max drews four for 64. That's not happening anymore.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  It may happen in the way that a team is not worried about the apron. They're not worried about the tax and they go to, we don't want to lose the asset for nothing. I mean, I think you're still going to see some of that stuff happen because I think there's another part of this.

• 15:49Bill Simmons?

  This summer?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I'm talking like.

• 15:51Bill Simmons?

  Down the road. Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I just think it's very rare that you have, like it was two forces fighting each other. One was one team with cap space that doesn't want to do anything with it. And then also not a ton of available free agents. So I think that there are teams that probably could have held a much harder line if they wanted to be like way harder on teams.

• 16:12Bill Simmons?

  Happening right now.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Okay, but think about the Harden deal. Like Harden has a player option of 36 and a half million. He signs for two, for 81.5 million. So he gets a raise of like maybe a couple million for one year. I mean, you could envision a scenario where the Clippers go, hey, if you opt out, you really want to go to free agency? Well, who's, who's signing you? So why don't you just pick up the player option? And like granted, all this stuff is worked out ahead of time and I'm sure they're very happy with how productive he was. He was all NBA in a way that he didn't really expect. Like this isn't about the playoff part of it.

• 16:47Bill Simmons?

  Are they happy?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Well, they gave me one and a half million, so they must feel pretty good about it.

• 16:53Bill Simmons?

  If we were at dinner with the Clippers people before they agreed to that contract and wine was going around and it's like 10:30 at night at the table.

• 17:04Bill Simmons?

  Do you think somebody would have been basically just like, I just gotta say this.

• 17:11Bill Simmons?

  Game seven. Are we sure we want two more years of this? Like, there's no way they didn't have that conversation in the room at some point over the last four weeks. Like, are we sure we, we want to do this? Should we just talk about game seven again? Cause I think it's so hard to find guys in the top 50 that you just gotta suck it up. And you start going glass half full instead of glass half empty. But there had to have been a moment in the last four weeks. Like Ty Lue, there's no way he didn't crunch that game seven tape one more time. And just like, my God, he won't fucking look at the rim. Like, we're gonna do this for two more years? He won't fucking look at the rim. But they did it because their, these teams are so scared about not having an asset.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  They'd rather have the asset they're not happy with. Like, all right, we'll just get them figured out. But I don't know, they sent them in the open market. What was he gonna do? Where was he going?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  That's my point is there were multiple examples these last couple of days where a team could have been like, all right, you want to opt out? Like, you want to raise from us? And you want to throw in another player controlled second year? Cause the 81 and a half, the first year is fully guaranteed. The second year is partially guaranteed, but it is a player option. So we can be right back to this.

• 18:21Bill Simmons?

  But he was never opting out. Worst case scenario, he's opting in and grabbing that, making sure he gets that one thing. So that, that was always how this was going to play out. And the same thing for Randall. I think Randall was ultimately, he had to opt in and that's, that's the leverage the team set. Now, whether this will be the case in three years from now, when the cap is way higher, right? And everybody has recalibrated their books to some degree. I don't know, but I think this is the, this is the weirdest summer since 2016 for just looking at either, in 2016 was the opposite. People had so much cap space, they were like fucking at the strip joint at three in the morning. Just Evan Turner, Lu Al Dang, like that could be like a documentary. Think about that summer.

• 19:04Bill Simmons?

  All those guys made more money than most of the free agents are going to make this summer.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And then the players didn't understand for the most part, what was going on. And then once they realized they were like, hey, so we were told not softening the cap would be good for us. And you know, the way that story goes, the people were trying to explain it to players, leadership and players, you know, association was like, absolutely not. And, you know, I can understand it too. It's like, what does that mean? Like, no, we want all of our money and the money that we're just like, the way it works is this is how it goes. And then all of a sudden, everybody's just flush with cash. And you're right, like the Evan Turner contract, when that one happened, I just remember thinking like, well, that's wrong. There's, there's no way Evan Turner got, what was it 70 million bucks or something?

• 19:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't even think that was the one I was the most upset about or like most stunned about. I think the Noah one was the most shocking one to me because there were real signs that he might be headed toward the downside. It was like, nobody had watched, watched the, uh, the previous season. Speaking of cap space, this is another story I have my eye on, Russillo. And this has multiple tentacles to it. Detroit now is going to have cap space, it looks like, because everyone thought they're going to re-sign Malik Beasley. And apparently they had, uh, it was reported that they were thinking about three years, 42 for them, for him. And that was going to take them out of free agent cap stuff, right? They're probably going to let Schroder go. Tim Hardaway Jr., who knows, but Beasley, so Beasley was going to be their free agent.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  Then we get, we wake up this morning and he's in a gambling, uh, being investigated. Detroit has backed off of the thing. He's now in some sort of, God only knows what's going to happen with that. We could talk about that piece later. But now Detroit is going to have like 17 million. And then if they can trade some contracts or, you know, get somebody to take somebody out, they could probably get to 20, maybe even 25. If somebody took Fontenacchio.

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  And all of a sudden, they're probably the biggest suitor out of all these dudes. I don't know if there's anybody left, but, uh, that could be a Finney Smith spot. I don't know. I, I think we've talked about in the past, like the East, who knows? Indy, Boston, you know, you, Detroit could have a chance to be like a two or a three seed. This is a really big decision for them, who they're going to add. And there's a lot of guys that I like too. So what do they do?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, how, how many guys do you like? How many guys do you like that are playing in their playoff rotation that are worth a multi-year investment? Knowing that there's other players they're going to have to pay soon.

• 21:35Bill Simmons?

  All right, I'll give you some.

• 21:38Bill Simmons?

  I do like Alexander Walker a lot. I don't know if he's a top three guy, but I, we watched him play in a playoff series. I liked how he played. I still like Ty Jerome. I'm not going to get thrown off by that weird Indiana series. I watched too many games during the season when he was just incre- and I know you're an even bigger fan. He was just too impactful off the bench too many times. Finney Smith, Yavaselli.

• 22:04Bill Simmons?

  Then it starts getting, those are probably the top four for me.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  That's why I was surprised that you said you liked that many people. There's probably.

• 22:12Bill Simmons?

  Four good ones though.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  There's probably a conversation about Jerome allowing Cade to be off the ball a little bit instead of just having him run high pick and roll like, you know, 90% of the game and providing spacing because Cade clearly, I think this one year proved like if you give this guy a little bit of spacing, which you could potentially lose the Beasley thing because you know, Beasley is another guy even prior to all this news like, I don't know, I don't really want to pay you $14 million a year. Um, and he may have just because he shot it so well this season. So who knows? I mean, teams are always desperate for shooting.

• 22:43Bill Simmons?

  I think I would have done that. Not knowing.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Done it.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think, I thought he was really good last year. I know the playoffs, he was a little up and down, but I, I really liked how he played last year. I thought he was important to them. I thought he was feisty. The real, Ty Jerome on Detroit, I, I like the feisty factor. I could see him holding back Ron Holland. I could see him convincing Beef Stu not to charge back at the other team's shuttle, but maybe also trying to agitate things too. I could see him in there.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  I could see Stu being like, well, now that Ty's here, we have two dogs.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  But Jerome can initiate the offense. He can play off of guys. Cade could play off of him a little bit. And I, I do think they tried to find ways to have Schroder initiate some stuff to give Cade a break from just being the same every single time. But it's very, it's very clear that you need to have spacing around him. So I think that's more important than them having another big guy, even if you felt at times, you know, it's asking a lot of Dern to just hold up the entire time against some of the bigger teams if they're going to go a little bit deeper. So, yeah, I just don't think it's really that long of a list of 14.1 million dollar guys for the non taxpayer mid level.

• 23:58Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have Ty Jerome or Malik Beasley no gambling scandal next year for the Pistons?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I'm not saying this because of what happened today. I don't really trust Beasley. I think he's the guy that hits shots and then the last two minutes of the game, I don't expect him to go in.

• 24:12Bill Simmons?

  It would have been funnier if you said, I trusted him before today.

• 24:17Bill Simmons?

  Now I don't trust him as much.

• 24:20Bill Simmons?

  I went in an amazing rabbit hole with him. I was, I was all the way into the 2023, 24 season game logs. I was looking at.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  That's the one that's being investigated. I, I actually think it's awful.

• 24:30Bill Simmons?

  That was reported.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, this is not a rant about the innocent until proven guilty, or the guilty until proven innocent way that it seems to work now, where people can just be charged with stuff and then it's just like your entire reputation is tarnished. I just think there's a lot of dudes out there that see a bad play and then they post it and everybody's so excited to be like, yep, look at that. He didn't get back on defense.

• 24:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh, the stuff that happened after that. Yeah, that was rough.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, wait. So I thought that's what you said you were watching?

• 24:59Bill Simmons?

  No, I was watching the, I was just, I wasn't watching. I was looking at the game logs and trying to figure out, cause they, it was reported on ESPN that they were studying January 2024. And I'm like, huh?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Well, let's lock in here.

• 25:14Bill Simmons?

  Went, went through and uh, who knows? But um, it sucks because first of all, shitty story. I feel bad for him because he played really well last year. And you know, it, it doesn't seem great. When the feds get involved, not awesome. So we'll see what happens with that, but they're going to have cap space to do whatever.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it might, you know, sometimes teams go, let's use it now, no matter what, like just make sure we use it before we lose this. And then we'll worry about the asset management part of this a little bit later. But you know, the length of the commitment to the guys that are left over.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Like there's only a couple of names that I'd feel really comfortable about going like a bunch of years with.

• 25:59Bill Simmons?

  Alexander Walker?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  I like him, but he's a bench player on a good team. I mean, he could, he could close with you, maybe if he gets hot. You know, it's not the worst thing, but it, you know, with the way Detroit is trending right now and hoping between Assar, Cade,

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Ivy coming back healthy, Durin, Harris, when you're paying him north of 20 million a year. Still trying to figure out what you have with Holland.

• 26:30Bill Simmons?

  Kaminga?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  No, I, I'd rather pay Alexander Walker than Kaminga.

• 26:38Bill Simmons?

  So you, you agree with me that Ty Jerome would be the move?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  It makes the most sense. I can, I can already see it.

• 26:45Bill Simmons?

  I really like it.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Now, we also could be like overrating him a little bit. But he was so, like, he was so impactful in so many different games. And I'm sure, like, you know, best case scenario, it's like, does it become a a Ty Jerome Thompson debate of what they were doing even against the Knicks? It's like, well, what do we want to do? Do we want to close with defense? Or do we want to close with, with shooting?

• 27:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Because to this point, a star is just not somebody anybody's going to close out on, never mind like a playoff game, even in the regular season. So at least Jerome, I think, brings that respect and probably clean, uh, clear up some of the stuff for Kate and what he wants to do driving.

• 27:19Bill Simmons?

  The free agent, 14.1 million free agent spot teams. I think I have this right. Indiana, Indiana, Atlanta, Philly, Milwaukee, Washington, Charlotte, Chicago, Sacramento, New Orleans, Utah, OKC, Houston, Portland, San Antonio, and Golden State if Kaminga goes. It's more than half the league. And then you have, uh, Brooklyn and Memphis have that 8.8, a couple of other teams do.

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how many people get the 14.1. What would you do over under on Fanduel? How many guys get the 14.1? Would you say more than five?

• 27:57Bill Simmons?

  From the list you've seen?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I mean, it seems like it's No, it does feel like it's a low number, but

• 28:06Speaker 01

  you know, it's how many teams think that they're in it. Are teams in the West going like, hey, let's go to ownership and be like, hey, what do you think we're going to do? We're going to win 48 games and be like, okay, now let's use our 14.1 tax.

• 28:19Bill Simmons?

  So Houston was the one, like, I don't even know if they need Finney Smith.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  But Houston's the one where it feels like

• 28:27Bill Simmons?

  Think about it.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Right. Like, let's go for it here. Right?

• 28:31Bill Simmons?

  It's like, if you have Finney Smith with Tari, with Amen, and it's like, just, I don't know, that, that did, that was floating around a little bit today. And I was like, oh, man, I don't even know if they need him, but that, if that, if they're going for it this year. Uh, for the people listening, the UFAs, Finney Smith, Myles Turner, technically right now, but everyone thinks he's going back to Indiana. Ty Jerome, Alexander Walker, Capella,

• 28:59Bill Simmons?

  Bruce Brown, now underrated. I don't know if you want to join me on buying some Bruce Brown is now underrated stock.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Postiokic.

• 29:08Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Yabaseli? Can I interest you in a, in a

• 29:12Speaker 01

  At 14 million?

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  Can I pour you a glass of Yabaseli?

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Maybe 8.8?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, to me, like, anything under 10 is like, and you can play, you can be a rotation guy.

• 29:25Bill Simmons?

  Luke Kennard?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:30Bill Simmons?

  Where's the range for him there? 8.8?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  The thing is, is like, if you go, hey, we'll give you four for 40, and then every agent's just gonna say, we can get 14. And then with as many teams as you just listed, like, good luck being the GM that's gonna call the bluff on a guy that you actually want. So you're probably just gonna pay him the 14.

• 29:48Bill Simmons?

  I think I've said this to you, but my dream Luke Kennard team is Denver. Putting him with Jokic, I think would be really fun. Schroder, who I think is probably not a 14 guy, but might be an 8.8. Man, this one hurts. I, Luke Cornet, I think teams like him. Like, I don't think this is gonna go well for the Celtics. I thought there was gonna be a way that they were gonna bring back Luke Cornet and Horford, and I don't see it.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So far, everything is working out for him. So I'm not gonna rule out anything.

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  I still can't believe that they were able to dump Drew's contract and get back Anfrin Simons. And I still can't believe that it's another fan base that holds out hope that Porzingis is gonna be healthy.

• 30:31Bill Simmons?

  I said it was a borderline miracle on my Thursday pod, that they shed 28 million dollars with those two guys. It was incredible how it turned out. I was getting texts like, yo, what's up with Brad? Is he like a fucking wizard? Like, what's, how did he do this? I still like KP, but I, you know.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Why?

• 30:54Bill Simmons?

  Cut 22 million, I thought was, was a miracle.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Can you expand on why you, you like Porzingis?

• 31:03Bill Simmons?

  I think for what Atlanta gave up, like, whatever, it's one year, it's a one year flyer in him. When he played last year, he was really, really good. I have no idea what happened to him in the playoffs. Nobody's been able to answer it. And we've all agreed never to talk about it again for some reason. The guy was unplayable and looked like he had like a, like a virus. I don't understand what happened. And now he's fine, he's playing for the Latvian team. It's really weird.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  When he's healthy, he's good. And the idea of what he can be is a rim protecting stretch five is still really valuable. But even when the Celtics had made that deal, even though I liked them a lot, I was like, so you had to tack on like two more years at 30 plus million for this guy. And then I still feel like Celtics fans revisit 24 being like, you know, he was huge. It's kind of, it's kind of like the guy that's getting laid off. And you're saying it like the lunch where people are getting cake or whatever. And it's like, although there's usually not a lot of cake.

• 32:00Bill Simmons?

  That's where, that's where Porzingis was for you? The guy getting laid off at lunch?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but people would just like pat him on the back and be like, you know, this department just, none of this would have happened without you. When the reality is if he was that valuable, then he probably would have still been there. And it felt like that's what people were saying about Porzingis in the 24 title run. It was like, well, those, that Dallas, that one Dallas game. Do you really think?

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  He was great during this season though. Come on.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  He was great during the season, but I'm.

• 32:28Bill Simmons?

  He got hurt. He got hurt. Like, everybody was worried that he would get hurt and he got hurt.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  The time.

• 32:34Bill Simmons?

  He got hurt again.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Right. And so the way I've seen the Atlanta part of the acquisition is like, oh, you know, like, like, sure, maybe. And at least for them, it's only one year. And then Celtics had to make that extra investment. But it, it becomes one of those transactions that's going to be remembered as a win because they won a title when they didn't need him for the title run 24 whatsoever. And not having him again this year and having this version. I understood why Missoula tried to play him. It was clearly just trying to get something out of him. But I actually feel like that transaction was a loss, but no one will ever remember it that way because they won a title.

• 33:13Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a win because they won a title. Last year sucked and then they were able to get another contract. So I think ultimately the fact that they were able to escape, but they escaped because it's weird. I don't, I didn't do a good job of talking about this the other day. I still don't know what Brooklyn was doing. Getting the 22nd pick and Terrence Mann, who makes a real, real amount of money, like 15 million. We just were, I was going through those UFAs with you. Terrence Mann was a free agent. I don't think he's getting 15 million, right? Like I said, the other guys I was going to mention was Schroder, Cornet, Kevon Looney, Batum, Porter, Gary Trent, Tim Hardaway, Brogdon, Chris Paul, Levert, Horford, Duncan Robinson now.

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  You go on and on, but um, Terrence Mann for 15 million is not exactly a bargain. And I wasn't that excited about the 22nd pick in the draft. So I don't really know what Brooklyn was doing with that. Did you understand that?

• 34:09Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird one.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  When they already had, when they already had all those picks to take on the money.

• 34:14Bill Simmons?

  Four fucking first rounders already.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And especially the way people felt about this draft. I guess there's all sorts of like Mann, Bogdanovich net stuff that I don't understand like collectively about the whole transaction. It's like, okay, so you didn't want to lose Bogdanovich. You were sick of him. Granted, he just sucked this past season that he was with Atlanta.

• 34:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  And so it's like, all right, let's get this guy out of here. So they trade him at the deadline. And don't forget Bones Highland in that transaction. And then they take on Mann's contract and then it's like, now we have to dump it. And granted, you know, leadership had changed and everything. So uh, it, it was just a weird series of transactions. Like why did you trade for him?

• 34:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Five months ago.

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta basically trades Niang, Terrence Mann and the 22nd pick to take a real flyer on Porzingis with some flexibility to do some other stuff. I still kind of like it. This episode is brought to you by Verbo Private Vacation Rentals. Verbo, you can save over $200 on select homes when you stay for a week or more. Say if you wanted to go catch a couple of baseball games in Boston, take some time off work, fly into Beantown, watch the Sox play. After that, you can do anything. You can go book a Verbo in Cape Cod for a week. The world is your oyster. Or your lobster roll or clam chowder. Really? It has shells, gills, and it's indigenous to the Atlantic. It's your edible metaphor of choice. They're crustacean crazy around there. Guess what? Since you stayed longer than a

• 35:43Bill Simmons?

  week, you saved over $200. You know what that means? More shellfish. I love shellfish. Hope you're not allergic. Next vacation, stay longer and save. Make it a verba. By the way, this special portion of the Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by Loom by Atlassian. When you're feeling stuck at work, they can help you trade out linked emails and unproductive meetings for something better. Loom's video messaging with it. You can record your screen, you and your voice to share messages easily. You can do this with Chris Long, just send him a couple. So you can save time and still stay connected, share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague, and everything in between. Try Loom today at loom.com. That is loom.com. So we're talking about those, uh, there's

• 36:28Bill Simmons?

  six RFAs and it seems like Grimes is going back to the Sixers for in that 14 to 60 million range.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it seems like a pretty big number.

• 36:38Bill Simmons?

  I was surprised. He had like one big month for them. We've got to watch him for the last four or five years and it just seemed a little aggressive. Didn't you think? I thought it would have been like around 10. Unless they thought he, there was some team that was just going to sign him if they didn't give the money.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think sometimes too, it's like anybody, like you're only making so much. They go, well, he, you know, he's going to make that much after the fact. And I've always kind of liked him a little bit, even going back to those Knicks years. And then it was something else to get on Dallas's case about by getting rid of him and then bringing in the Caleb Martin contract where you're like, why are you bringing in this?

• 37:15Bill Simmons?

  That's part of Nico's plan.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  How about that guy? Uh, people starting to understand the vision because the lottery just worked out for you?

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  There was a vision all along. The vision was we're gonna, we're gonna cash in on 1.8% chance with the lottery. We've had a vision all along that we would have a miracle in May.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Sixers have been busy though, because Oubre picked up the option.

• 37:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I thought you were gonna report that. I was waiting to hear that from you.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Well, honestly.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  Heard it from another reporter.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  He hasn't been one of my favorites, but for 8.4 for him, that's kind of a win. But that's.

• 37:49Bill Simmons?

  For Philly.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's one of the differences though, between like, what's Oubre's representation saying to him about like, what's out there for him? And if they're coming back going, hey, we didn't even think you'd get the 14, then that's clearly why he's picking that up. Lonnie Walker, see Eric Gordon, you know, I mean, I don't know, there was some rumor that declining to 3.4 million means they can give him a lower number, bring him back. Certainly that's still in the ballpark, but the Grimes number, he was really productive. But yeah, I think we're in agreement that I was like, man, that thing's gonna get north of like 15 million for him.

• 38:20Bill Simmons?

  I was surprised. I would have guessed in the 10s. There's, there's some other veterans, like Russ is back. I know you're excited about that as a free agent.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  I can't wait.

• 38:29Bill Simmons?

  GP2 is out there.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  I like him.

• 38:33Bill Simmons?

  Brook Lopez, who I did not think was good last year, but I think there's so few centers out there that he'll get one more. Where do you stand on LaRavia?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  I like LaRavia.

• 38:43Bill Simmons?

  I just kinda like him too.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  You know, as a one more shot, probably short years, maybe I'd overpay for a year to give it a, but I'd have to have like a club option on the second year, maybe. And then maybe his reps are like, absolutely not. Like it depends on where he's gonna go and what kind of options he's gonna get.

• 39:01Bill Simmons?

  Do you have any Keon Ellis excitement?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Very active player.

• 39:08Bill Simmons?

  Dinwiddie, I know you're not a fan.

• 39:12Bill Simmons?

  We know where you stand on D'Angelo Russell, who's available. Tyus Jones, not a quit himself great in Phoenix. It really starts going downhill from the, from the RFAs. Santi Aldama, I think is an interesting one. And I wonder if he could slide into that 14.1 potentially for somebody trying to pull him away. I think Memphis will match.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Well, they'd be psyched. They'd be thrilled if they took an offer sheet at 14.1 because I think he's a $20 million guy.

• 39:41Bill Simmons?

  If Jabari's 20.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. I think that Bane.

• 39:44Bill Simmons?

  You'd put him in the Jabari level.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  He's more productive than Jabari is. I actually think he's shown more than Jabari has.

• 39:51Bill Simmons?

  In my head, I am a notch lower, but maybe you're right. I don't know.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Aldama is actually pretty underrated. I'm not telling you like, did I think he's like a two on a really good playoff team? But the Bane contract and that deal, even though we had a lot of fun as soon as it had happened, it seems pretty clear that it was about flexibility for whatever is coming for Aldama, a Jaren Jackson extension, and then, you know, figuring this thing out on the fly again. And maybe if they hit a rotation.

• 40:19Bill Simmons?

  There's another piece. I think they were excited about, uh, maybe they knew they had a chance to get Coward in the draft. I think they love Wells. They have all these other dudes. I think they just, it seems like they felt like wings by committee. We can replace Bane's stats, which I'm not against. I still don't think they should have traded him, but I get the logic. I'm not against, I'm not against the logic of it. I just wouldn't have traded him.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  But it does feel like they're, and look, they're one of the smarter front offices. I think what they do is they go, okay, you know, this is a haul for Bane. And we really like him, but we're getting in front of this and then we can clean up our books. And now we're going to have multiple chances here to fill things in around how, you know, we identify the top three guys. You know, maybe Aldama's that third, maybe he isn't. Wells is certainly more of a defensive guy. Yeah, okay, but I, if Aldama were, there's no way he's going to sign an offer sheet for 14.1 million because the Grizzlies would be pumped. But I would think their refs would already know, like, hey, partner plan is getting you settled. You think he would sign that?

• 41:22Bill Simmons?

  No, I just, I don't know anything anymore with these numbers. I don't know who, I, I can't get a handle on it. I'd be the first one to admit it. But, so the difference with that Bane trade versus how I felt about the New Orleans trade a couple of days ago. The Bane trade, I get the logic. I just personally wouldn't have done it, but I get it. And if you feel like you can replace him with the wings, like, I get it. The New Orleans not putting a top five protection on that pick. I don't get, you're never going to convince me that that was a good idea. And I know you feel the same, and I know everybody else who follows basketball. Like, nobody will ever understand why you played it that way. It was poorly done, and that's it. And it has nothing to do with whether you think Derek Queen's good or not. He might be really good.

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  The point is, you put this crazy price on moving up 10 spots that you didn't need to do, and is absolutely reckless and incomprehensible. And I still don't get it, five days later, four days later.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  I don't get it, man. Everybody's talking about it, too.

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  Still?

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Bill Simmons?

  It's the, it's the, them and LeBron are the, been the two kind of stealth topics right now. Been the, what the hell is New Orleans doing?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Been a lot of Nets in there.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  They really did it.

• 42:43Bill Simmons?

  Lot of ball handlers. There's some, there's some, your guy Yang, I definitely feel like, uh,

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  I think your guy Yang.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Give me, Bill, I want a couple of minutes on him. The floor's yours.

• 42:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the thing.

• 42:58Bill Simmons?

  And, and this goes back to your New Orleans point. So if they're really calling around trying to move up for Derek Queen,

• 43:05Bill Simmons?

  and they're for Portland, can we move up to your spot?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Eleven.

• 43:10Bill Simmons?

  To number 11, before they trade back to 16. Can we move up to 11? Cause we really want Derek Queen. And you can have 20, 23, whatever it was. And you could just, and we'll give you this crazy unprotected pick. They could have taken Yang at 23, right? Nobody would have, nobody would have taken him from there before that? You really feel like he would have gone before 23?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  He was killing it, the combine, dude.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Chances are, no.

• 43:43Bill Simmons?

  Chinese Joker?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Cause I was getting a, a few of the picks, like ahead of time.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  And so, I got, all I got was a, oh my God, wait until you see 16. So the guy wasn't gonna like,

• 43:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Give it to me, cause he wanted me to experience it live.

• 44:02Bill Simmons?

  Do you have any cha, you have any thought in your head Yang could go in the top 25?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  No, no, but I did get a few texts of like, your guy. Uh.

• 44:17Bill Simmons?

  The backdoor shit was really high level. I mean, I couldn't watch enough of it. Oh, I watched all of it. I was, I was, uh, he, I gotta admit, he wasn't on my radar going into Wednesday night, but he, he jumped into the radar.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  I tell you, if you watch his mixtape, you're like, how did he last until 16?

• 44:34Bill Simmons?

  See the future of basketball. I heard that at the very least, they just feel like there's revenue from him because of the China pipeline. When you, when you have these guys on a team, you just make money from them. You make real money and if he, and if he's good, it's a bonus. But then they obviously liked him as a player too, as a project. But if you can get this guy and keep them on your team for five years, there's real revenue that comes with that.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  It would help if he's good too. Hollinger does a really good job on like, just pointing out like, there's a lot of international stats that are good indicators. They're better than college stats and how they translate to what you should expect. College player becoming an NBA player. And his argument was like, hey, look, like the league he played in, he wasn't exactly killing it there. And that's a little alarming.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  You should not have a good sign.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  NBA cast offs are crushing it.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  That can't even stick in the NBA and they're killing it in this league. And like, now granted, he's really, really young, but for somebody that big that moved that well, that had these little flashes of like, well, that was kind of cool. Like I figured, okay, this guy's definitely going to get drafted now, uh, but I didn't, yeah, there's no way I thought it would be 16.

• 45:43Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's so funny that he went to Portland, the team probably that you and I talk about the most, that just makes no sense, that should be in our lives in any way. And now like, you know, the true thing, I still feel like there's some real benefits with the, uh, with the leadership stuff and the veteran stuff with him and just having like a real adult in there and he's a beloved teammate. There's reasons beyond just trading Simon for him.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  That's a pretty expensive beloved teammate, man, two years from now.

• 46:10Bill Simmons?

  Listen, they're trying to change the culture. They're trying to build around a defense.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  To keep them last time.

• 46:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, two years ago, they're trying to tank as part of the trade.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  All right, but I don't know. Yeah, I get it. Right. All right. They're tanking it and now they're rebuilding. I just, I'd rather not pay a 37 year old guy, two years from now, 37.4 million for vibes.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  Here's the other problem is the playoffs, I think made us all nervous with him.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  It wasn't awesome.

• 46:43Bill Simmons?

  If he's moving toward a slightly different phase of his career, that 37 year contract. But listen.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  I thought it was a big price to pay and I still like when we were talking about it more on the Celtics side, but I can't get on Portland. They took my guy, Lobz, Scoot to Yang. And then here's the thing, I don't even know he was, he was Hanson Yang at the combine and now he's Young Hansson. So who knows opening night, what his name's going to be then. It's going to be Dave.

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  Dave Yang.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  No, I'm serious. Like there's so many times with international guys, you just go through the cycle of what the fuck's this guy's name again?

• 47:20Bill Simmons?

  So potentially we could have Scoot, Drew Holiday, Kamara, Denny and Yang out there all at the same time. I don't know. I'll have a good time.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  I can't wait for the first Ayton quote when Yang's getting his minutes.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Cause they still have Klingon too.

• 47:40Bill Simmons?

  I assumed as teams got desperate for centers that there would actually be an Ayton market that would materialize and I'm not going to count it out because I mean, what's, we should talk about the trade that Sexton Nurkic trade today. I thought that was a dumb founding trade. I didn't understand that at all. Utah traded Sexton with a second round pick to get Nurkic back. And I can't tell if this means centers have become more valuable or what's going on because Phoenix tried to trade Nurkic for two months last season and nobody wanted him. And they finally had to attach some stuff to get rid of him. Sexton, say what you want about the dude. The guy's like a 40% three point shooter and, and scores 18 a game in like 28

• 48:21Bill Simmons?

  minutes. Like he's a real guard. He's a real offensive player that would help a bunch of good teams and Charlotte just basically took him. I didn't understand that trade at all.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  The only thing I can understand is between Collier and Keontae George, who you know, you still have hope for with Utah. And then, you know, you just feel kind of guard heavy.

• 48:44Bill Simmons?

  And Clayton Jr. is coming in.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Clayton Jr., the draft pick who was awesome as we all know.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  You know, they clearly, they don't really know what they are at this point. And we'll see what happens with Ace and all these different things like they wanted to make some room. But I would tell you like the player you're getting back in Nurkic versus the player that's going out. And they're both expiring around 19 million and you can get on their case for having to attach a second rounder. You know, whatever. Uh, it just feels like player for player, Charlotte got the much better player.

• 49:15Bill Simmons?

  And I have an extra reason that I think that trade happened, but we have to say goodbye to uh, Loom by last scene because that special portion of today's episode is brought to you by them. Video messaging from Loom. You can trade out those novel length emails and back to back calls. Finally stop feeling stuck at work. Simply record whenever you need to share it with your team. No video production writing skills are needed. It has easy to use skills and AI features to help you make it exactly what you want. Get back on track. Try Loom today at loom.com, L O O M dot com. That trade was so weird that I now feel like Utah, that was the trade before the trade. I really do. I, I, and you know, there's been rumors about them trading Kessler. The Lakers have wanted him for two years, but um,

• 49:58Bill Simmons?

  I was just in a trade machine rabbit hole, trying to figure out what the next move was and

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Do you have any?

• 50:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's a LeBron piece we have to talk about because there's

• 50:08Speaker 01

  With Ace Bailey, the mentor?

• 50:09Bill Simmons?

  Not LeBron to Utah. I don't, I don't feel like that would happen, but I think Utah is a facilitator in a three team trade. With Utah and Cleveland.

• 50:19Bill Simmons?

  I just feel like I, it just sent my shit detector off and that rarely happens with trades where I'm like, huh? I'm pretty sure Danny Ainge knows basketball and I know Austin does. And they just traded Collin Sexton with a pick to get Nurkic. And I just feel like that means something else is going to happen. I was in the trade machine trying to figure it out because they could send a bunch of stuff. They could take contracts back. And the bigger question is, is LeBron gonna stay with the Lakers? Which is the other topic that has been a big behind the scenes thing. He did the thing today where he opted in for the 53 million. Had to put out through Rich Paul that he's gonna be monitoring closely all the movement.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what he thinks the movement's gonna be because they're paying him and Luca combined 98 million dollars. The cap's 154. They're keeping Reeves. They have 70 million dollars more in contracts. There's not a lot of movement. They're not gonna be able to trade Reeves for a center. They can't extend Reeves either. And I don't know what he thinks is gonna happen with this team. And I don't, I don't know if he's staying. And I don't know what the move is because once you opt in, you're basically saying a trade. And at that point, it's Cleveland. There's a buyout possibility, which I don't understand in a million years why they would ever do that. And I don't know how this plays out, but it feels like we're gonna be talking about it for the next three weeks, is my guess.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  When he first opted in, like the first thing I was looking at was like the Dorian Finney-Smith decision on where that would put them between a full mid-level and a taxpayer mid-level, which is, you know, you're talking about some of the names we've already covered, or maybe Brook Lopez, you know, for the taxpayer mid-level. So when I was looking at that, I was thinking, did he really take like the full boat? And now they can't bring in a full mid-level guy when they desperately need a center? Are they gonna be left?

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  With the no trade, too.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Right, right. And so after Finney-Smith opts out, and then I looked at it again, it looks like they're gonna have the full taxpayer mid-level. So like the angst that I think LeBron, some of like the early angst was, is this gonna cost the Lakers a decent center option versus here's the budget bin of centers? Because however, now it still could get a little weird. I'm sure there's, there's moves to be made, but I don't, I don't really know like why. It's not about him taking less money because I don't know that I ever feel comfortable being like, hey, you should take less money, you should take less money. But what he can't do is be upset.

• 52:55Bill Simmons?

  You can't out thin and be upset, which we've seen over and over again in the NBA. You've chose to re-enter this situation. You can't then.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  You can't get mad about the lack of options that the team will likely have. And you know, like Kobe got that massive extension at the time when none of us could ever believe it. And if you don't have the pieces around it and you're kind of just paying a collection of guys that aren't very good. And then you're kind of stuck financially. And then it's like, man, nobody wants it more than Kobe. He's like, he can want it all he wants, but there's no outs. There's no outs where any of this talent coming out. So, I mean, unless there's a Reeves deal where they feel like, hey, we're less like dominant on the perimeter, or it's three guys taking turns. You know, maybe, maybe there's something there.

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  It's beyond that though with the three guys, because none of them are good defensive players. I mean, LeBron is sometimes a good defensive player, but when you're thinking about a team built around those three, we saw in the playoffs, it's not going to work if those are your three guys. I don't think. And especially LeBron's going to be 41 next year. This is only going to get worse. It's not going to get better, even though I thought in the regular season, he exceeded expectations. But he got hurt in the playoffs in the first round. You get older, you're just going to get hurt more often. It's the way it goes. And they're paying him and Bronny together is 55 million. You add Luca, Luca has a big extension coming. There's just no way to improve the roster. And every Laker fan I talked to says, well, you just got to trade Reeves for a center. It's like, well, who's the center?

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  Go through all the teams. Who are you getting? Like, are you going to be happy with like a Kangu? And why would Atlanta do that? Like he's just, I, I just think they're stuck with this roster and they're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. And it's going to lead to

• 54:44Bill Simmons?

  some sort of move with him. I don't believe for a second that he doesn't want to win another title and that he doesn't care about rings. I think he does. I just don't believe it.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  You don't believe what part?

• 54:57Bill Simmons?

  When he's talking about ring culture, that stuff doesn't matter. Like, I think he wants to win the title again. He's gonna try to go to a situation where he can win the title.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  So you think this is, this is the precursor to him actually moving on? Cause that Cleveland thing.

• 55:10Bill Simmons?

  I do. I think it's in play. I really do.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Okay. All right. I'm not disputing it, but when I look at the Cleveland side of it, that's the one that I don't understand. And, you know, a third team, I know that's always our kind of default of like, hey, to make this happen, who's gonna third team this thing? But why would I move out Garland and Jared Allen?

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  No, it wouldn't be. I don't think it's Garland and Jared Allen. I think it would see there. I think it would be Jared Allen with Hunter. And then you could get a third team involved and make something work with that pretty quickly. But the Garland piece is weird because I think he is out there a little bit.

• 55:46Bill Simmons?

  In, in like a.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  I think he's, I think teams feel like he's attainable. Like you're gonna have to pay for him. You're not just gonna steal him, but I, I don't think he's not, I wouldn't say this. I don't think he's untouchable.

• 56:01Bill Simmons?

  The, the stuff about him being the Durant trade was wrong. I think that was something Phoenix wanted, not them. But I do think. You know, I, I do wonder from a Cleveland standpoint. Do they worry that this is the guy who gets hunted in the playoffs and can we change our team? If we change our team in some way, that's. Who we should do with? You know where I stand on Garland? I would not trade him. I think his two injuries, he, he had a fucked up toe, which could happen to anybody and he broke his face. Like it's, you can't say like he's injury prone. And I, I just think he's really good. And if I was another GM, I'd be trying to get him right now. If there was even a shadow of an opening that he might be available, like if I'm.

• 56:44Bill Simmons?

  Name a team. I, I would be like going hard after trying to get him.

• 56:49Bill Simmons?

  Sacramento ironically.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Well, now that Orlando did the Bain thing.

• 56:52Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know what Sacramento has that's enticing at all. Chicago already traded all their guys. But even when you look at the Lakers, like, is there a Rui deal out there for somebody? Is Vando have any trade value at this point? Does anybody care about Gabe Vincent at 10 million for the one? So if this team is going to, because there was that stretch there, right? They figured out defensively, like, the funniest thing about the Lakers timeline is as soon as they make the Luca trade, you're like, okay, well, this is for the future. It makes all sense in the world. You're one of the best players in the world. Who cares about 25? And then they figure some stuff out, right? And then they get this great seat and you're thinking defensively. And then people are actually talking about him. And I think it was a bit of like the overvaluing, just the Lakers part of it. Where everybody's picking him in that first round series against Minnesota.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  And then that seems like one of the most absurd things ever now in hindsight. Because you're like, why did they think they're going to be able to hang with him? And Jackson Hayes is so bad that JJ just pulls the plug. Because like, if you're telling me that Jackson Hayes getting more minutes would have solved your problems in playoffs, then I would say that we're just going to disagree and move on from that whole thing. So.

• 57:54Bill Simmons?

  And they, they were really physical with LeBron in a way that was surprising.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Randall was excited when LeBron was on.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  That was a weird thing to see.

• 58:03Bill Simmons?

  But that's the thing when I talk about building around those three guys. I mean, we, we'll see what kind of shape Luca's in next year, but if those are your three, with what we just watched from Oklahoma City, I don't, I don't think it works. And I think LeBron is smarter about basketball than just about anybody on the planet. And he has to see that. Like his, his supercomputer brain has to look at like, all right, if these three guys are out there in crunch time for us, and I'm one of them, and we're playing a team like OKC, who else needs to be on our team? Well, we need like an awesome rim running center, defensive shot blocker to protect all of us. Well, how the fuck are we going to get that guy? We've already traded all of our, like, that guy doesn't exist. Oh, is it gonna be Kessler?

• 58:47Bill Simmons?

  That's gonna be, that's gonna change you from being

• 58:50Speaker 01

  But it's so much better.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  Game to four rounds.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  I know, but it's still so much better than having no one.

• 58:55Bill Simmons?

  But also, why am I trading Kessler if I'm Utah?

• 58:58Speaker 01

  That's the other part that I don't understand.

• 58:59Bill Simmons?

  Something back. Like, there's, nobody has centers like that anymore. Even like, somebody like Klingon, I feel like, has more value. So I think you're looking at like a Deandre Ayton type of, you know, moving a bunch of contracts, attaching a pick and trying to roll the dice with like, somebody like him. And is that gonna get you four rounds? No. So I, I just think he's trying to figure this out, cuz I don't, I just don't believe him. I think he wants to win the title again.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Good luck on the Ayton thing. I do wanna see it happen. It's just that, I mean, that's such a massive, it's 35 and a half million for him in this final year.

• 59:34Bill Simmons?

  You could do the Kleber, Vincent, like, you could throw some, you could patch some contracts together and attach an asset and maybe, I don't know.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  I just wanna see him go somewhere to watch that fanbase talk themselves into it, and I'll sit back and be entertained.

• 59:49Bill Simmons?

  Fair.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Like Miami would be my favorite.

• 59:53Bill Simmons?

  Can I walk you through a fake trade I made?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Please. Well, I probably don't have a choice, but I do wanna hear it, so.

• 1:00:00Bill Simmons?

  I think it's in your wheelhouse.

• 1:00:03Bill Simmons?

  LeBron and his son go to Cleveland.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  What if his son is like, actually, no?

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Does he even trade me though?

• 1:00:12Bill Simmons?

  Utah gets Darius Garland and Rui Hachimura.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  The Lakers get Kessler, Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson, and John Collins.

• 1:00:26Bill Simmons?

  And, um,

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Utah has to throw a pick or two, has to sprinkle some picks around, because ultimately, they're getting Darius Garland. The youngest, best asset in the trade.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  This is your Sexton thing.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  This is tied to the Sexton thing. You get Nurkic because you know you have Kessler going in this other trade. I don't know, I was excited about it.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  It's like, Bane goes to the Magic, be like, is Jaren Jackson better with the Lakers or the Clippers?

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  I just, I'm on the record, I don't think Cleveland should trade Darius Garland, but I'm just saying, like, I wonder if those types of deals are being talked about, or could you do like a Darius Garland to our team Toronto?

• 1:01:10Bill Simmons?

  For who? With Max Struce and the Lakers get Pertle and RJ Barrett and LeBron just goes to Cleveland. Like that, the reason I'm bringing up these trades is like, if LeBron's actually leaving the Lakers, these are the type of trades that would have to happen for this to happen. And the other option would be where the Lakers buy him out and he just jumps on a team. And I don't know why they would do that in a million years. So I think this is, the whole reason I'm talking about this is I think this is going to be really hard now that he's opted in. For any other outcome, then he's just on the team doing the, I don't know. We'll see what they do. I'm monitoring it. It's like, okay. Glad you're monitoring it. Like, we're not gonna be able to get a center.

• 1:01:56Bill Simmons?

  Like, do you want us to trade two unprotected first rounders for Kessler? Like, why, we have, the Lakers have Luka Doncic now. Why are they doing that? Like, they, they're in Luca mode now for the next 10 years. How do we build around Luca? So it's really awkward. I, and I'm surprised it's not a bigger story. I think this is pretty strange.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Okay, but what do you think should have happened? You think he should have taken less? Do you think they should have? Well, he has the no trade, so he's going to be able to veto anything. Do you think they should have tried to figure out a way to do it for a year?

• 1:02:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think that's what he wanted. I think he wanted a longer commitment.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, come on.

• 1:02:33Bill Simmons?

  He's 40, gonna be 41.

• 1:02:37Bill Simmons?

  That's, this is why I'm talking about this. Like, I think this is a really weird situation. And on top of it, they just sold the team and they didn't give his whole side a heads up on any of it.

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  Which you could argue, well, how do you not get a heads up?

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  That transaction's been talked about for two years.

• 1:02:53Bill Simmons?

  I get it. Just, I'm just telling you the stuff I've heard.

• 1:02:59Bill Simmons?

  So I don't know. It's a weird one. And you could feel the Lakers shifting toward Luca, which is a situation he's never been in before. Now, granted, he's been in the league 23 years, so it's maybe time for some new situations. But I think they have a new owner. The guy paid a lot of money.

• 1:03:19Bill Simmons?

  And they're gonna gear this thing toward Luca. And they have to figure out the LeBron piece, and I don't know how they figure it out. And maybe this will turn into like, you know what, actually, let's, I'm good here. Let's stay. But I think it's worth monitoring.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the likely outcome is what? They figure out some sort of center. We don't know which world they'll be in. They probably get the benefit. Okay, but they're gonna, I doubt they're gonna go into it without one again.

• 1:03:45Bill Simmons?

  Do you have Laker fans in your head for like, we just gotta get Bam?

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Not in my life, but I'm.

• 1:03:52Bill Simmons?

  That's like, like, people just think like, we'll just, well, we'll just get Clint Capella. It's like, okay. You seen Clint Capella the last couple of years?

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  That would have been a huge. Clint Capella would have been a much better option than the Jackson Hayes.

• 1:04:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Uh, even if.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Okay, so let's say.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  It's, it's pretty clear that Capella is on the decline here and why Atlanta went the route that they went with a Kung Fu. But the likely scenario here is what? He doesn't, does he really want to leave LA? He makes his 50 plus million. His son's still on the team. Luca comes back even better shape. You know, they're, they're able to outscore teams.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  Luca's in such good shape, LeBron's reinvigorated. That's probably how, it's probably I would bet on that as the maybe most likely scenario, but I still think.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Do you think their win total is gonna be?

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  I think there's a lot of smoke.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Like 47 and a half, 48 and a half? I mean, we still gotta figure out what the center's gonna be.

• 1:04:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you gotta add the extra two. They always pad the, it's like the Red Sox over under for wins. There's certain teams where they pad the over under because they know the fan, the team has a huge fan base. So I'd say probably like 47 and a half, 48 and a half.

• 1:05:00Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing. Luca could come, show up. And look like, like, look like the best shape. We were all in disbelief how good he looks. And he's one of the best five, six, seven players in the league. And maybe that's 50 wins if he's just in awesome shape, playing great. You know, we've seen guys just be like so good that they're just in the 45 to 50 win range because they're on your team.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  And really what they need is they need like a 28 minute a night center who can run all night, can run for Luca. You don't have to necessarily be a stretch five. I mean, they're not going to be able to afford the rim protecting run all night young guy who's also a stretch five. So that's, that's not going to happen. But considering what Luca has done in the past with some of those Dallas teams, and you figure offensively, you're going to be fine. They ran into the worst matchup. If they had, if they had faced Golden State with their lack of size, you know, maybe Golden State's like, hey, this is great. We actually don't have to worry about the Laker size conversely, but it's probably, there's probably like two matchups there with how weird the seeding was just shuffling throughout the last couple of weeks of the

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  season, where something that looked like it was a benefit to the Lakers to fight to get a three seed. So I still think they're probably, even with their flaws last year, just anything that's a plus, anything that JJ Reddick can look down at the bench and go like, okay, well, at least I feel okay with this guy for 20 minutes. And if there's nights that we want to go small, and he doesn't necessarily have to play because he's not a guy that's a $20 million a year center because that transaction is not going to be able to happen. I still think they'll be like in a decent enough spot if everybody's healthy, again, that it's, it's going to feel like they're somewhat competitive and that'll probably be enough, I would think. But you seem to think that there's much more like, there's some really potential, like you, the reason you keep bringing this up is you think there's potential for something crazy, all like some crazy scenario.

• 1:06:54Bill Simmons?

  I think crazy is in play now. There's also like, there's regular season versus playoffs, which we talk about a lot. Whatever happens in the regular season with, with whatever team they end up with versus what we know is going to be needed in the playoffs that we watch every year. And we're like, oh yeah, defense. Oh yeah, you need depth. Like they just have a lot of shit that they need to pull off. That's a big one for me.

• 1:07:24Bill Simmons?

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• 1:08:07Bill Simmons?

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• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta's $25 million trade exception,

• 1:08:57Bill Simmons?

  I think is fascinating because in some ways, that's the best spot for, I don't know what. Like whether you, could that be like a DeMar DeRozan spot? If Sacramento just wants to get off his deal, could that be part of like they help out with a trade package? In general, and I know people have talked about it all week, I think Atlanta is in unbelievable shape with the roster they have and the assets they have to put, you know, they're not at, they're not at where Houston is from a close to win the title standpoint, but it's a little similar in that I just like a lot of their pieces and they have flexibility and they don't have to, you know, they have some extension stuff coming. You're going to have to pay Trey in a year. They're going to have to pay Dyson.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  But for right now, they actually have the flexibility to do a couple more things. And I think they should. I think, I think the East is, as we've talked about many times. Is sitting there to make a move and that's a team that I think I'm really interested to see what they do over the next 10 days.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  You know, they're probably going to end up having a decent record if they get this group right.

• 1:10:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  With what's happened in the East. I do think it was funny too when you're mentioning Miles Turner. It's like, okay, this Pacers team never pays the tax, never pays the tax. Turner's going to be a free agent. It has to be north of 20 million. You know, if Randall can get 30, if, if Nas gets a five-year deal.

• 1:10:20Bill Simmons?

  He's somewhere between those guys, right?

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to feel like he's north of whatever the number is that puts him in the tax. And then I was like, I wonder if because Halliburton's injury, they could be like, well, you know, since we're not going to have Halliburton, like, does that turn into some weird Turner thing? But I doubt it. I highly doubt it. But yeah, I could see a scenario where the Hawks, every year they disappoint me with like, I think we've spent three summers in a row going, I kind of like a lot of the pieces. You know, look at all this depth and look at all these different options that they've had.

• 1:10:50Bill Simmons?

  This is the most excited I've been about them.

• 1:10:55Bill Simmons?

  I really like, I really like the nucleus.

• 1:10:59Bill Simmons?

  It makes sense to me. We're going to find out once and for all about Trey Young, I think this season.

• 1:11:05Bill Simmons?

  What's actually there? This is the perfect roster to have around him for the most part, although it still feels like they're one kind of reliable scorer short that would, uh, would help him out if he didn't have it.

• 1:11:20Bill Simmons?

  Is Cleveland standing pat? We talked about Garland earlier. That's another one. Are they just going to be?

• 1:11:26Bill Simmons?

  Are they going to feel like they need to do something? Or I was thinking about, especially in the eighties or nineties, when a season doesn't turn out the way you think it's going to turn. You know, the Lakers had a couple of those seasons in the eighties where they weren't like, oh, now we have to trade Byron Scott. We lost in round two, you know? And they're just like, no, let's stay with the infrastructure. The smartest teams kind of didn't panic if a season didn't turn out the way they thought.

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland, I don't know. I, I, I could, I think they should stand, I would roll it back with this team.

• 1:12:00Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna lose Ty Jerome, but I would just be like, you know what? The East got worse. We won 64 games. That was fucking weird. Garland was hurt. Mobley missed the game. Like, we lost a fluky, crazy Haliburton buzzer beater game. Let's not overreact. Let's just run it back. But these teams in 2025 and the 2020s aren't wired that way. Like, they always overreact. So would you overreact or you run it back?

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  No, I mean, even when they lost, I was, you were ready to fire up the trade machine. You had two laptops open like an oils future guy.

• 1:12:31Bill Simmons?

  I did.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Oil futures. Yeah, so if anything, I mean, after what just happened? With Tatum, Halliburton, throw Dame into that mix. What's gonna happen with Milwaukee? I think it'd be irresponsible to not run it back and give this group one more year together. And granted, the Sam Merrill deal means Jerome's probably gone, so.

• 1:12:54Bill Simmons?

  Sam.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Happy to see my guy Sam getting paid.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  I thought, gotta say, that was a little rich. I was surprised.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  It was.

• 1:13:03Bill Simmons?

  Would've guessed like, it was basically Hauser money.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Be 1 million more than Drew Holiday makes in three years.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  He really didn't like that trade.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  I didn't, and I like Portland, too. I just thought it was really expensive. You know what we didn't do? We didn't really even finish any of the Pelicans stuff. We kind of teased at it.

• 1:13:22Bill Simmons?

  I had that next. Let's go.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  All right, so if I understand this correctly. So Joe Dumars comes in, let's go, right? Brings in Troy Weaver. Troy Weaver has spent the previous year with the Wizards as a consultant. So there were rumors before the draft, even the day of, that they were gonna take Queen 7. All right? They don't. They take fears. But at that point, everybody in the NBA world knew, like, Pelicans love Queen. They love Queen. All right? So then, Jaeger goes 8 for the Nets' first piece of their adventure.

• 1:14:01Bill Simmons?

  American.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  Adventure, right?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Bunch picks go off the board. You've got the coward trade. So that takes out 11. Essing gay for him to leave his team to come to the draft. Meant that somebody high up enough like was telling you, we don't, we are going to draft you. And he's like, I'm in, I'll get a suit. So then it gets to the, the Derek Queen pick. So it's like, okay, so Pelicans clearly liked him and boy, did they really like him.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  And they, they move back. Well, they move up 10 spots for the unprotected. And when I first saw the trade, I, and I know you've already touched on, I talked about it on the first day I could do it on Thursday, but I kept waiting to think I was wrong. I was like, is there some language in this that I'm not understanding? I don't, I don't quite get.

• 1:14:53Bill Simmons?

  Right. Oh, it was the second of the two picks.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  They keep the better one. And then, yeah, yeah. Which by the way, I think Atlanta might've done.

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  So we get the worst of the Milwaukee or New Orleans, like, all right, so we're done.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Right, right. And it's like, I'm going, because the other thing too, is like to move up 10 spots because I don't even know if the Nets, if the Nets wanted to move from eight to six, does Washington say yes for the other four? Like, I don't, that might be a no. Washington might not take four extra first rounders just to move back two spots.

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Because the NBA draft, it doesn't really work that way. So you're moving back. You're moving from 23 to 13. And so then you go, okay, so Weaver did really like him. And then there's the Weaver part of it. They've already traded for Jordan Poole. Where you're like, all right, you want to tell me it was just a bad roster and he got shots up and he didn't take it seriously? Like the tape isn't very good. You know, these stories, he was great in the locker room and all this different stuff. It's like, okay, but that means you're paying an extra 30 million. You've got an extra $30 million year for the CJ expiring that's sent out. You want to tell me you think CJ's on the downside of everything? Fine. But he was kind of like, the whole point of him being there was the adult in the room. The guy that got it, the guy that wanted to be in New Orleans, which is pretty rare.

• 1:16:06Bill Simmons?

  Two holiday in Portland.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  There you go. Exactly. A little cheaper, but you trade out.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  CJ, fine, but for Poole, who, no, I'd rather have CJ on my team, but now Poole's an extra year at 30 million, another Wizards guy. Okay. So you've taken a Maryland kid that you've done this unprecedented trade for because you just still can't believe it. You traded for the extra $30 million here in Poole. You brought in Micah, who played at Georgetown. You brought in the undrafted Hunter Dickinson, who was a DeMatha kid. There's an alarming connection of like how regional this is becoming, whether it's the Wizards stuff or anybody in that area. And I, I gotta tell you, like, the idea,

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  like, I know Dumars, because I was looking for it. When he, when he did the press conference, he was like, we took, you know, once pick seven went off, like, you know, they had fears, they take him seven, then we started calling everybody.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. Do you really think that, like, does Memphis say no if they offer that unprotected in 26 because they've already done the deal with Portland? Maybe. Do you think Phoenix says no because of Malawatch for a pick next year? The extra pick? They could have taken somebody at 23 in the movement. Maybe they desperately wanted-

• 1:17:28Bill Simmons?

  By the way, why would Brooklyn have said no?

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  At eight? I would have done that in five seconds.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Maybe because Brooklyn was like, can we use one of these picks? You know?

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  That's, that's-

• 1:17:41Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I mean, I just thought that Milwaukee-New Orleans pick was such an amazing asset. Cause God only knows with Milwaukee and then New Orleans, that, that, you know, that team's gonna be, that team's gonna be a mess. Uh, Chicago at 12, it would have been criminal if they turned that trade down. Like, that's, everyone should be fired if they turned that. If that was offered to them and they're like, no, we have our guy, like, you should quit.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  You think Toronto would have turned it down for Murray Boils?

• 1:18:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, as we found out, we don't even really know who was running Toronto.

• 1:18:16Bill Simmons?

  They fired their, they fired their guy the day after the draft.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  That actually happened.

• 1:18:20Bill Simmons?

  That was weird.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, honestly, though, I think that happens in sports more than people realize. It's like, we're gonna get rid of you, but because you've already worked with this entire staff, the entire year prepping for this draft night. Like, you're gonna run the room, but there's probably still somebody else who, because his number two is still there. Oh, and by the way, like, the guy that, that Atlanta dealt with here was Bryson, who came, come over as the assistant GM, who used to work with New Orleans.

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  So that makes me go like.

• 1:18:47Bill Simmons?

  Who also probably knew that they let Queen, right? He was under the hood with that.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  So I just, I can't, I tried to just figure it out.

• 1:18:57Bill Simmons?

  What are you trying to land the plane on here that you feel like that it's actually even more dysfunctional than it seemed like from afar?

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  I don't know why Brooklyn would turn it down. I don't know why Toronto would turn it down. I don't know why Phoenix would turn it down. I guess I can understand why Portland in the Memphis deal would have said, hey, we already did too much work on this. But that's where a GM probably goes, are you fucking serious? Hey, Portland, guess what? Or, hey, guess what, Zach in Memphis, like, we're out. Chicago, it's like, oh, we promised Essingay. Hey, you know, I mean, the guy just flew and left his team. So there's, there's maybe individual step by step stuff. You're like, yeah, this is why all of these teams turned it down. I have a hard time believing all of those teams turned down what so many people around the league are like, I can't believe they threw in the unprotected pick. Now, the reality is, as I land the plane here, is what if Queen turns out to be really good? Awesome. What if?

• 1:19:45Bill Simmons?

  That doesn't matter with the trade discussion.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  I know, but you know what happens is that we end up only evaluating stuff historically based on the results. And this is the same as the Luka thing, not to the same magnitude. But it's like, if things were to work out for Dallas, it's like, yeah, but still the fundamental issue is you decided to not build a market for Luka Doncic. And whatever happens from that point on, that is the inexcusable part. And I think in this transaction, again, not nearly the same magnitude, but the likelihood that this, this unprotected pick in 26 turns out to like, you know, whatever, the odds and the way the lottery. Like all you guys freaked out about that a year ago and it ended being the 11th pick. And it's like, that's not the point. The point is, is that the internal discussions at some point, somebody in the room has to go, hey, is there a chance, as much as we like Queen, we're moving up from 23 to 13.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  And hey, we all like Queen a lot, but is there any chance of the unprotected 26 pick that we're including in this? Like say we in the West and things don't go well and Zion gets hurt. And I know you already saw all this on Thursday's pod, but like, is there a chance we're giving up like the number one? Could it be like worst case scenario? Could it be the number one pick of the 26 draft? When the answer is yes, that's why so many people are freaked out.

• 1:20:53Bill Simmons?

  But there's one other, there's one other extra question to that. If we just top five protected, are they still saying yes to the deal? And the answer is yes.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  We have to move back 10 spots and it's just top five protected? There's another crazy piece that I didn't even realize when I did my pod on Thursday. They traded, they got that 23rd pick.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  By trading their Indiana 2026 first rounder, which they traded during the finals before Halliburton got hurt.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Bill Simmons?

  And then Halliburton got hurt.

• 1:21:25Bill Simmons?

  So they're in 23 by using a pick that then became way more valuable. That they didn't know that it was going to be more valuable. And Atlanta somehow ends up with Indy's first.

• 1:21:41Bill Simmons?

  And then they, the Bucks first or the, I mean, it's just like insane how that played out for them. Which was why I was joking on Thursday that they're like spraying champagne on each other after that second trade.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the smart part about the Pacers thing, cause we get back to the tax thing and the Turner decision. And they're probably going, hey, we like the 26 draft better. Anyway, we're already a super deep team and even with the Turner discussion, we still have probably a couple of other decisions that we have to make on something like, hey, it's awesome. We're one of the deepest teams in the league. Downside is now we have to keep figuring this thing out because we can't always keep it together. So let's, let's just go into next year's draft. So I actually thought it was smart from the Pacers side of it. Did you?

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta has a lot of assets though. Were we gonna ask?

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  When the Pelicans official feed came after you, did you feel, what was that like for you that day?

• 1:22:27Bill Simmons?

  Laughter.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Laughter?

• 1:22:31Bill Simmons?

  I laughed.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  After pain?

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Did you feel like you could have been a social media guy? Seriously? If it's 21 year old Bill, 2025, I mean, granted, you don't make it. You don't make it a season because you'd be too clever, but they'd be mean.

• 1:22:43Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna get fired. Yeah.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you 100% get fired.

• 1:22:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, especially early twenties, I'm definitely getting fired.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  But I feel like these early twenties guys running team sites, they're like, they're your spirit animal. So it's almost like you're getting mad at yourself.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  They, they retweeted, what was it? A Shams thing?

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Shams on McAfee. Yeah. And it was absurd. It was an absurd rationalization. I mean, Shams knows way more info than us both put together. But it's like, what if Queen's a Hall of Famer?

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  It's like, okay, fine. What if he does become a Hall of Famer? It's still a dumb trade. You still gave up too much to get Derek Queen.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  It was like, yeah, what if he's a Hall of Famer? And the Pelicans feed's like, yeah, fuck off, ringer. It's not what they said. They were like, this take won't get you a podcast on the ringer. But with, you know, a pretty clear directed fuck you.

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  I love it.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  And I just, I retweeted it immediately. I love it down there. I love it down there. You know, this hurts. It's a tough segment for me to do.

• 1:23:44Bill Simmons?

  What's funny is I was looking at their roster and I do kind of, I kind of like all the pieces and they make zero sense together. Like you actually look at all the things they have and it's like, I don't know what this is. It's like, it's almost like a team you would put together in 2K. Like I guess Jordan Hawkins was probably fired up for five seconds after they traded McCollum. Right?

• 1:24:08Bill Simmons?

  Like if you're Trey Murphy, how are you feeling right now?

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Well, thank God he's not from like Russia. You know, he's, he's from, he's from North Carolina. So, you know, like hopefully that's close enough to the, the DMV.

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, good point.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  To, to keep them aligned with the, some of the recent decisions.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, what's weird is. The team they're putting together is a team you'd put together if you didn't care about next season and you actually secretly wanted a really high lottery pick. It's just this whole weird collection of assets, but they don't seem to think that way at all. They seem to feel like we're gonna be good next year.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:48Bill Simmons?

  And it's like they haven't noticed what conference they're in or that the talent of all the other teams and also how unrealistic it would be to have a good team with the point guards they have and with Murray coming back from this injury and with how unreliable Zion is. And it's just like, you'll be kind of fun to watch on League Pass, but you're, you're not going to be good next year. Like, they can't actually think that, right?

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  The overriding message is we're going to be aggressive. It's like, all right, well done.

• 1:25:19Bill Simmons?

  You certainly were aggressive. Mission accomplished. Yeah, you did it.

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  You pulled it off.

• 1:25:28Bill Simmons?

  Couple other things. I was gonna do the July desperation tears with you, but let's, let's take one more break and then we'll do that. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group,

• 1:26:11Bill Simmons?

  Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association Member, FTIC. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. All right, July desperation tears.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Is this a real thing?

• 1:26:50Bill Simmons?

  I think Milwaukee, would you, would you have them one?

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  With how do we make this roster better? I don't believe it. I still don't believe any of the Yanis stuff about he's undecided. Like, I think he's gonna be back Milwaukee, but I also think there's pressure on them to have a good roster. They're bringing back Bobby Portis, but it's a little bit of make or breaky, I think, for Yanis and the Bucks this season. If we're not gonna be a contender within this season, now you have to really reevaluate. So I would put them number one on my desperation tiers for we have to get better right now. Is there anybody you would put ahead of them?

• 1:27:28Bill Simmons?

  As the number one desperation team?

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  You're treating this like the 25 draft, though, like Cooper's in his own tier. Because if you're telling me Milwaukee's in their only tier.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  I have them number one. I had a couple other possibilities.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  He's gonna be in this conversation with Milwaukee, right?

• 1:27:42Bill Simmons?

  Had them down as well. I had Phoenix because of this Beal situation that they just...

• 1:27:51Bill Simmons?

  What do you do?

• 1:27:55Bill Simmons?

  You can't buy him out. That'd be idiotic.

• 1:27:59Bill Simmons?

  Do you hope he's gonna be better? You can't trade him.

• 1:28:05Bill Simmons?

  Do you bury him? Be like, you know what? You're just not gonna play basketball anymore. We're not gonna play you.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Getting ready for the road trip. We have you in B21 Southwest.

• 1:28:18Bill Simmons?

  We have you in a room with two double beds.

• 1:28:22Bill Simmons?

  So I don't know what they did.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  They probably just suck it up this year and then it's an expiring contract, even though it's $57 million.

• 1:28:28Bill Simmons?

  But he still has the no trade clause.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  It's an expiring contract that you can't move. I think the Lakers are in there from a desperation standpoint on getting some sort of person that makes them feel different than they were last year.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  I'm putting Sacramento in here because I think they're just a no man's land and they've been and they're somehow back to who they were for the entire 2010s. And they just have this weird team that doesn't make sense and are they capable of anything? Like Zach did his little thing for us yesterday and he was talking about, uh, didn't think Jalen Brown was going to get traded, but he was like, you know, that Sacramento is a team I would watch for that. There is this team every summer that's just like, fuck it and make some crazy trade. And I think that would be my number one draft pick for that category. But would you put them in a desperation tier or no?

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  I don't know. They changed management again, even though I think Monty McNair did a really good job there.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  But now you're paying $90 million to Zach Levine and Sabonis.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:29:36Bill Simmons?

  You don't like that plan?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I know I could get dumped on for being like, look, they traded Halliburton for Sabonis. Although the Halliburton Sabonis, you know, that was like a 1,200 page book. It was like, oh my God, this is the worst, but like, hey, look at this, maybe good for both teams. Oh my God, like looking Sabonis, I mean Sacramento.

• 1:29:53Bill Simmons?

  Everyone's happy.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then it's like, oh, disaster. But Sacramento was judged based on Sacramento's history and considering their history, I felt like it was actually like a really nice, stable, competitive run. They're in that game seven with the Warriors and they smoke them in the plan. And, you know, nobody was like, looking at them going, can they make some noise here as they flirted with playoff seeding? But for that organization, like that was a real improvement. And so now you look at it and you're like, man, this got bleak quick. I just don't like paying those guys that much. I guess DeRozan's the asset, but he's 36 years old and he's, you know, look, his number at 25 million is totally fine. It seems like he's just going to age really well. I remember the Bulls doing the first deal with him, bringing him in years and years ago. It was like, man, that was a lot for DeRozan.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  And it just seems like this guy, the way he plays, like he still could bring something to a team. But what, what would be, what's like a realistic tier of player based on the, I mean, unless you want to start talking about Keegan or Devin Carter having a market, you know?

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  Not that teams wouldn't trade for Keegan, like he's, but you gotta pay him after next year.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't think the Celtics are trading Jalen and I don't want to, but Zach did make me wonder like what kind of Sacramento crazy trade was sitting there. Like how crazy would they get?

• 1:31:13Bill Simmons?

  Cause we've seen them do it before. I hope it doesn't happen.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Would you do Jalen Brown for Trey Murphy?

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  So I did look at.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  I know that doesn't work, but.

• 1:31:24Bill Simmons?

  No, you'd have to, there'd have to be a third team. There'd have to be a third team where I think Jalen goes to a third team and Trey Murphy would be, and the Celtics would cut salary. There's ways to figure that out, but I do think when they lopped off the $28 million, it's like, kind of ended the Jalen, any sort of entertaining a phone call. I think that they, they already got to their objective. I'm going to put Miami in the desperation tiers. We can figure out the tiers after I go through all the teams.

• 1:31:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I said this a couple of days ago. I just don't know what Miami, what are they? What are they trying to do?

• 1:32:03Bill Simmons?

  Like even if they get Kamingo, which I think is a good idea and I like Kamingo. I like their draft pick. I like to, they got a 20 on Thursday, on Wednesday night, but I still don't know, like they're going to pay hero. I guess a ton of money, which now when you're seeing some of the other money going, it's like, yeah, is he, see, should he be making $15 million a year more than Julius Randall? I don't think he should. I just don't know what's going on with that team. Do you have any handle on it?

• 1:32:31Speaker 01

  Better hang Sacramento?

• 1:32:35Bill Simmons?

  A great hang bad hang?

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  No, I'm just saying like, are they Sacramento in a more desirable NBA city?

• 1:32:45Bill Simmons?

  That's interesting. So if you did, if you did a draft of let's draft guys from Miami and Sacramento, Bam goes first?

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bam goes first.

• 1:32:56Bill Simmons?

  Sabonis second?

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, but Sabonis is like, you know,

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  I think it's pretty clear against certain matchups in the playoffs, it's probably not gonna go great for you.

• 1:33:11Bill Simmons?

  He still goes second, though.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Over Tyler Hero?

• 1:33:14Bill Simmons?

  Hero's third. Who's fourth?

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  DeRozan's gotta be fourth, right?

• 1:33:20Bill Simmons?

  You wouldn't have Levine over DeRozan?

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Dude, it's me?

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you, sorry, I forgot who was asking.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Oh, we have like Pell Larson? You'd be like, Zach Levine's still on the board, Russillo. Like, I'm aware.

• 1:33:34Bill Simmons?

  Alright, so we'll go, we'll go Rose, DeRozan, Levine, four, five. And then who's the next guy in Miami you would have?

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  I love Jovic, but, I mean, nobody should like him that much.

• 1:33:49Bill Simmons?

  So did Miami. They wouldn't include him in the Durant deal. I didn't think Jovic was good last year. I don't, the times I watched Miami, I just felt like, I didn't really see it. Maybe it's, maybe it's lurking under there somewhere.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  No, I mean, look, I, there's guys I still hold out hope for. I mean, we spent probably too long talking about LaVravia, and as I was doing it, I was like, this could also be a huge mistake. Maybe if LaVravia stays in Sacramento, he goes higher in this draft. Malik Monk's gonna go before Rozier. Does he go before Davion Mitchell?

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Keegan goes before Davion Mitchell?

• 1:34:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, nah.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  You know, and then it's like, we were doing this two years ago with Hakez.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  There he goes, a lot higher. I don't know what, what, I mean, they, they were like done with him.

• 1:34:38Bill Simmons?

  He couldn't make a three last year.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Couldn't make one in college, and that's why he lasted so long in the draft, too. Then he started just being really good.

• 1:34:44Bill Simmons?

  I like this. So Miami, Miami is, is a higher end Sacramento.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  I'm too online. Let's start there. Not news to anybody. But what happened is, and I ended up, like, getting too much of it, but I always think it's funny when people are on social media and be like, how come I keep getting these posts? And it's like, well, that's the danger of the for you thread as opposed to the one that you're following. Because you dip your toes over into the for you, and then you start hate watching stuff. And then next thing you know, you're watching high school fights for half an hour. And you're like, I don't feel like a good person right now.

• 1:35:16Bill Simmons?

  I do enjoy this.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  I don't watch them anymore. It just got to me. It bothered me. I was worried about the future of society. But people fought in high schools. I mean, you ever see Grease? I mean, so this isn't new. Anyway. So back when there was the Embiid Jokic thing,

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  I couldn't stop like I would just hate read every Sixers like guy that had, you know, a few thousand followers and it was just always like insane MB arguments against Jokic. And I just couldn't get enough of it. And then all of a sudden my feed was just Sixer stuff constantly. So I finally was able to wean myself off of it years ago. And I was all in on this heat thing. Just every guy with a couple thousand followers with a little bit of a heat page. And again, I still think it's all teenagers. But if there was ever like a nationwide need for editors, like that's the problem is nobody has an editor anymore. You know, I could probably use one a little bit more often.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  The number of heat trades that were so preposterous and were just so fucking terrible where the heat were never giving up anything in all of them. And then it was always like, hey, 72 hours Durant, 48 hours Durant, like, hey, we're, we're like a day away. Durant thing's going to happen in a couple of hours. And it just was like, guys kept doing it over and over again, source all this stuff, Durant, Durant, Durant. Never happens. And clearly they didn't even really want him that much. They must just not have wanted him nearly as much as, you know, maybe Phoenix was.

• 1:36:39Bill Simmons?

  How about this? Never wanted him in the first place.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So you're, you're sitting here and looking at all of these options. And it's the reason I compared to Sacramento. It's just, there's not a lot here to get you excited. If you're like, let's, let's do a deal unless it's Wiggins. But Wiggins, I mean, Wiggins still has a player option next year for $30 million.

• 1:37:01Bill Simmons?

  The other problem is their 2027 first goes to Charlotte.

• 1:37:06Bill Simmons?

  So it can't be like blow it up rebuild because you don't have your first a year from now. So there are no.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  And I still think Riley, I think Riley at this stage of his life is going to go, all right, reset button time.

• 1:37:18Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't you say he's more in the stage of let's get a guy and.

• 1:37:24Bill Simmons?

  Pay as many assets as we possibly can. Just try to be better right now.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  That's what I would have thought. The Durant thing would have made sense.

• 1:37:32Bill Simmons?

  Do you think there's Lori marketing? I'm sidetracking now, but do you think there's Lori marketing trade possibilities now?

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:38Bill Simmons?

  That's been another thing floating around right now. What's your favorite Lori marketing team?

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  San Antonio.

• 1:37:46Bill Simmons?

  Had that as well.

• 1:37:48Bill Simmons?

  Vassell and Barnes.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  Couple firsts in there.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's going to be some sort of enticing pick there and Ainge is probably just gonna. You know, that's another thing with Ainge is he's just gonna go. I'm not like, you don't think you're giving me the extra pick and.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  We figured out the Ace Bailey thing a week ago.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Was that a we thing?

• 1:38:08Bill Simmons?

  It was a you thing. I I signed on. I jumped in the car in the passenger seat. We talked it through. We did his pedigree. We had a whole thing. It was great.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  It was good. It was really good. And then you talked about his high school pedigree. So it was it was great.

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  And now Ace is super happy to be there. It all worked out great.

• 1:38:27Bill Simmons?

  Is there a James Harden and Derek Jones for Zach Levine? Anything that excites you?

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  No, I don't know that you could have presented anything that'd be less excited about.

• 1:38:40Bill Simmons?

  Just for those that like as a trade.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  What? What was the point of that?

• 1:38:46Bill Simmons?

  I just don't think the I don't think the Clippers are gonna roll into October with the exact same team. I'm just not convinced.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Maybe not, but like. Hey, how about me sticking up for Harden? I think you're a little dismissive of just the comfort of. Hey, look. It's a little more expensive. We probably could have played hardball. He made all NBA last year. He's probably gonna play a ton of games. He doesn't even need to be in great shape. He's gonna put up. Numbers and it helps us. You know, at least like have something that we can depend on. Cause he's still better than a lot of the players out there and we'll just do that and give him a little bit of a bump and then whatever happens, we can figure this out in 26. Like, don't you think, but it's not like they give him a four year contract.

• 1:39:31Bill Simmons?

  Can I have a counter?

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want the counter.

• 1:39:35Bill Simmons?

  All right. So let's say I'm thinking of one of your friends that I've met, Timmy Walsh.

• 1:39:41Bill Simmons?

  You guys drive cross country, you and Timmy Walsh.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  We thought about doing it, yeah.

• 1:39:47Bill Simmons?

  Gets to Arizona and something horrible happens. Like he gets in, uh, I don't know, some sort of road rage incident or, uh, like just a bad driver. By the time you get to Arizona, you're like, I'm never doing this again with this guy. I'm never, never going cross country with him.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:06Bill Simmons?

  I think game seven was that bad for Harden.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  What are you talking about? He's not even phased by these. He's got a million of these.

• 1:40:13Bill Simmons?

  Saying he's phased by these. I'm saying if you're the Clippers and your goal is to win the title, this is all Steve Ballmer wants. He built this fucking wall that they, they genuinely, and I think they're right, feel like swung three games. They studied all the fan behavior in the wall and flew those people out to Denver. Like they're all in, they're spending every dollar they possibly can. And after watching Harden in game seven, I just refused to believe with this, whatever window they have left with Kawhi, that they're like, well, maybe it'll be different this year. They're not getting in the car with him again, just like in my Timmy Walsh example. I just want to shout out Timmy Walsh, one of my favorite conspiracy people. I just don't think they want to get in the car with him for another road trip. Cause they know what's going to happen when they get to Arizona.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  I don't think they care. They clearly don't care. It's a smart front office. They know everything that you just said. And I don't think they thought they were going to tax him because of his history in those huge spots. Because the value over-

• 1:41:14Bill Simmons?

  Asset that they're, they're whatever he's in. They now have him under contract, but this allows them to potentially do something.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  Right. Instead of just going-

• 1:41:22Bill Simmons?

  That's my take.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Right. Asset management, which is a lot of what we've seen over the last couple of days. It's like, oh, that number seems a little higher. They know, like, that was kind of my overriding thing. I know I'm repeating myself from the very top of the podcast, but like there were multiple examples of, they probably could have said, fine, cool, go to free agency. You're never getting anything north of this. The agent relationships, the history here, and then the fear of, okay, but now if I lose this piece and ownership is like, hey, cool, like our, our payroll's lower. I mean, Ballmer would never do that to them, but it's just, well, we can't just let a bunch of these stuff. We can't just let stuff walk and play hardball with everybody. And then if there's actually something available in November, December, January, February, now we don't even have any of those pieces. So yeah, maybe it is as simple as an asset management with just the one year,

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  but I do think that you're overlooking a little bit of the just from October until April, like Harden's probably going to be pretty good for us.

• 1:42:15Bill Simmons?

  I am so happy. I just got to defend James Harden for like three minutes.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  I've done it twice in my life. And that was the second time. Felt good. What about Westbrook? Where's he going?

• 1:42:30Bill Simmons?

  Who's left?

• 1:42:33Bill Simmons?

  Why you have a team?

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  Can't find one. I mean, I imagine it'll be one, but.

• 1:42:39Bill Simmons?

  I can't find one either.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  Just Brooklyn, just say fuck it for a year.

• 1:42:43Bill Simmons?

  Is there a world where Reeves gets traded into Atlanta's $25 million trade exception? For players and assets?

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  But it has to be one player that

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  makes a huge difference.

• 1:42:58Bill Simmons?

  Would you do a Kangu and, and some picks for Reeves? Would you have a meeting?

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Going, hey, we got Porzingis and let's keep our fingers crossed.

• 1:43:10Bill Simmons?

  And Reeves is a better player than a Kangu.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a better player.

• 1:43:14Bill Simmons?

  He gives us a second creator than with Trey. We might be able to patch together the center position.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  We might be able to make a real run here. I don't know. It's just, it was the only thing I can think of with the Lakers where to get a center, I think they would have to. That's the only thing that made sense to me.

• 1:43:34Bill Simmons?

  And I have a, by the way, please, anyone listening, please don't aggregate these trades and say, please whatever.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  I want to.

• 1:43:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm just throwing dumb shit out.

• 1:43:44Bill Simmons?

  Because I had a, I had a Jalen one that I'm just not going to do because I don't want it to become like one that I really liked. I'm just going to tell you offline. You know what? I'm depriving, I'm depriving the people for the pod.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  I hope that gets aggregated. Simmons doesn't tell Russillo Jalen Brown trade in fear of aggregation.

• 1:44:03Bill Simmons?

  Simmons tells Russillo Jalen Brown trade after podcast.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Any thoughts on Jay Tapper?

• 1:44:09Bill Simmons?

  And then I was thinking of available, available trade guys. Would you have George last or Beal last right now?

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  Oh, Beal.

• 1:44:20Bill Simmons?

  So Beal's still number one. He's been number one for two years now.

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  That should be some sort of wonderlic, like NBA thing. Be like, here, here's a hypothetical. You make $50 million a year.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  But the team hates you and they never play you and you have a no trade clause. If that happened to you for two years and you still had like a year left in your contract, what would you want? And if you answered like, I'd be totally fine never playing and then keeping all my money. It's like, yeah, but you're still going to keep your money. Like, would you eventually get sick of this? Would there be some competitive part of you that was like, hey, I'm a pretty talented player and I, I don't want to go out like this? And if the guy at the combine answers, no, I'm totally fine. It'd be the Beal answer. It'd be like, okay, we got to take this guy off the board.

• 1:45:06Bill Simmons?

  We've seen some, we've seen some people in the sports media world. Check out like that.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:45:15Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's.

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  I love, I love when it happens. I love getting to see it. I'm just going to get so jealous.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  Is it tougher for you and I, I think, to check out? Like, I've wanted to check out for years.

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  What's your checkout date? Like, age 58?

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, whatever it is.

• 1:45:34Bill Simmons?

  That one last deal where you could just completely check out?

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39Bill Simmons?

  That'd be fun.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  I don't, I just need more of a, a team. Like, the anchors get to check out. It's awesome.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Because the scripts can be written, the segments are produced. They'll even have people that produce the questions for them. Be like, hey, we have this person like, you know, just make sure you ask that, you know, Alex Bregman's, you know, nine for his last 18, you know, and so.

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  I think there's, you know, we're trying to carry these podcasts on our own. It's a little tougher. Like, I think it'd be pretty obvious if you start to realize, but is this guy waking up 15 minutes before he does these now?

• 1:46:14Bill Simmons?

  Can I get, can I ask you for?

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  I want to one day, though. Yeah.

• 1:46:17Bill Simmons?

  Can I ask you for your take on the dumb team hierarchy now? Cause I mentioned the dumb teams during the week on the draft.

• 1:46:26Bill Simmons?

  And I think it's Sacramento, New Orleans, Brooklyn and Chicago in some order right now. That would be my four. Is there anybody I'm omitting for you? And I think that the qualifier is you have to be from afar going, what the fuck are those guys doing? Cause Chicago's a good example. I don't know what that Lonzo Ball as a Cora trade was like, I just, that was one of those where we're just like, I, I just don't understand what just happened. You already have Patrick Williams. Why do you want Isaac Okoro?

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  Well, they're different in, in theory because of Coro. Like there's some shooting numbers that people be like, hey, and you're like, yeah, but that's not really, he's that, he's not really a shooter. There's some defensive metrics per 100, like they actually show up pretty good, what he brings.

• 1:47:10Bill Simmons?

  So you think they can play them together?

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  No, no, but I can't, but I can't. I'm saying like a Coro just by himself. There's a little bit of a discussion at 10 or 11 million dollars, but Cleveland's so deep.

• 1:47:22Bill Simmons?

  But not when you have Patrick Williams.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  No. And when you're getting rid of Lonzo, where you're like, all right, this is an expiring 10 million dollar deal. And we're bringing back a coral for a similar number, but then he's 11.8 next year. I don't, I, I don't know what they're doing.

• 1:47:34Bill Simmons?

  Everyone loves Lonzo. There, how many, I read five stories last year about like, this is the best story in sports. Everybody loves Lonzo. Amazing teammate. I thought he was really fun to play. For, oh, for, yeah, for the teams. So that's our, that's our five right now. I remember a GM told me a long time ago, I just need seven of these teams. And as long as we always have seven.

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  I'll be fine. I'll always have somebody. So right now it seems like we have five.

• 1:48:09Bill Simmons?

  Maybe there's more coming.

• 1:48:12Bill Simmons?

  It's sad that the Lakers aren't on this list anymore.

• 1:48:16Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's really all I have, except I took Ben to UFC in Vegas yesterday.

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, tell us about it. Awesome fight, huh? Main card?

• 1:48:25Bill Simmons?

  Tipori is like, I don't, I just don't know. I'm too casual of a UFC fan to put him against other guys from the past. But that guy's just an animal.

• 1:48:36Bill Simmons?

  He's just, now he's still undefeated. I don't, he moved up in weight, which sometimes can go one way or the other. More in boxing than UFC, but I mean,

• 1:48:47Bill Simmons?

  wow. It just, he just has it, man. You know, the guy is at the final level when they have the knockout and they're not phased at all by it. They just kind of walk over and like, they want to like wave to Dana White. Like they just knocked somebody out that they'd been training to fight for three months. And it's like they went and got a latte. That's when you know it's like something really crazy, but he's, he's, I think he's the biggest star they have right now. They haven't been able to blow him up as a star. Like he's not anywhere remotely close to Connor domestically, internationally, maybe, but I think he's the guy right now.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  How into it is Ben?

• 1:49:27Bill Simmons?

  He was really bummed out last night because he likes Charles. Him and his, him and his friend Enzo, uh, really took it hard. They just like him. They didn't want to see him. They, they, they had slim expectations. They didn't want to see what happened, happened where he just got fucking his clock cleaned. They were not happy.

• 1:49:48Bill Simmons?

  But that we have a new Simmons family as a new guy, though.

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:49:54Bill Simmons?

  Joshua Van just won us over completely. Just an incredible performance by him. Did you see that fight? It was the first fight. Did you see it last night?

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. I, uh, I know. I took the boat out.

• 1:50:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, took the boat out late and then you'll, I don't know if you'd be proud or disappointed. I actually think you're gonna be disappointed, but I was like, hey, lighter schedule. Not a ton of prep here on this. Like, I can go out for a little bit.

• 1:50:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  You know, because I won't drink on the boat because I gotta dock that thing. I just don't wanna, I don't wanna ever have like.

• 1:50:28Bill Simmons?

  There's been one or two bad incidents over the years with boats and alcohol that I've read about.

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So you're kind of like, oh, you know, but then I get so, even though I've done it a bunch of times now, I'm, I never want to be comfortable enough. You know, where somebody's like, oh, well, hey, it doesn't matter, you know, because I know, look, I'm, I'm not trying to act like some fucking prude about how.

• 1:50:47Bill Simmons?

  I think it's, it's the right way to think.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Right, right. Um, but anyway, so I'm like, okay, I'm running home. And I get an invite and I was like, all right, you don't, don't even give yourself a chance to shut down. Don't even give yourself a chance. Like you have to go out. You have to go out tonight. And I changed, I ran the shower. I looked at my bed. And I went, nope. Like the window was three minutes. There was like a three minute window where I was like, I'm doing it. I'm going out, I'm going out.

• 1:51:20Bill Simmons?

  That's an official sign you're moving in a different phase of life.

• 1:51:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's been happening a lot. Like there's a lot of, depending on how the week works out, because I don't go out very often, but they'll still be like, don't become a guy who just never, ever does it. And I'll, I'll get up and like my day will be going great. And I'm like, you know what? I'm in great mood, whatever, whatever. And then you just know like, hey, I ate, it's shutting down. I want to work out tomorrow, whatever. I don't care. I'm not missing anything. And then I just, I had this like peak energy, like spike where I just went, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, like fight through this thing. And then, you know, you get that brine on you day at sea. And it, it takes it out of you, you know?

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  My stepdad.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  Going.

• 1:52:04Bill Simmons?

  My stepdad's big boat guy. It's a lot of work. It's really like separates the men from the boys in the sense of it's not just like getting a car like you really if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:52:18Bill Simmons?

  Clean, you gotta, there's just some real thought and care. It's like adopting, adopting a dog. Like if you adopt the dog, it's like, I adopt the dog. It's like, okay, your life's gonna be different now. This dog's always gonna be around, you're always gonna have to figure out what to do with it. The boat is kinda like the dog.

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, at least I can, I don't feel bad leaving it.

• 1:52:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:40Bill Simmons?

  Where I think you don't have to be like, I'm going away, somebody's gotta watch my dog, but you still have to put in this extra time into it.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52:48Bill Simmons?

  That I don't think people realize when they don't get it, until they get a boat.

• 1:52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think if it's, if it's on your, like you have a lake or something, or the people down in Newport Beach where they have docks in the backyard.

• 1:52:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  Right, that's sick. You know, you don't have to hose it down immediately, although it'd be nice, you know, you don't want that salt to build, but when you have to go into Marina and, you know, the check in and all that kinda stuff and then get the thing untied and I'm, I did it by myself too, so there's always a little extra of just being like on it, on it, on it every time you have to do it. So then I got really artsy though, instead of watching fights, I watched Casablanca.

• 1:53:23Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:53:24Speaker 01

  You guys doing that, the rewatchables? Cause I'm ready.

• 1:53:27Bill Simmons?

  You're ready for Casablanca?

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's considered the greatest screenplay ever written.

• 1:53:33Bill Simmons?

  And listen, that sounds like an amazing idea for the summer for us. It's on the list.

• 1:53:39Bill Simmons?

  It's funny, it kinda lives on now in When Harry Met Sally because it has like these two big parts in When Harry Met Sally for, so for like the under 40 generation, unless you're, you know, your parents like force you to watch it or tell you to watch it or whatever. It came out in that, what was it, 1942?

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  Great recall, 1943.

• 1:53:59Bill Simmons?

  1943, so that's now 83 years ago? Like think how fucking long that is.

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Right. And so.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  It's nuts. Like Jaws is 50 years old now.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, shout out to the Vineyard, thinking of boats.

• 1:54:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you know what?

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  It's a big Jaws summer.

• 1:54:16Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna call you in for Prestige TV because Amazon has this show set on Martha's Vineyard. It's a YA show, but it's just, my daughter was out in 20 minutes, so I didn't tell you about it. But yeah, they fully Vineyard, like they went all in.

• 1:54:32Speaker 01

  Do you know the name of it? Because I forget where I was. It was kind of like one of those deals where you can't find the remote in a hotel room, so that means the channel's just not going to be changed forever.

• 1:54:41Bill Simmons?

  I'm looking as you're talking.

• 1:54:43Speaker 01

  There was this crime series that takes place on Martha's Vineyard. It's all shot in Canada, and I think even the actors are Canadian. But I think the true story behind it is that it's these fictional books where all of these things take place on Martha's Vineyard because the author's father, father-in-law, uncle or something was actually a police chief in Egger Town. So I could be sort of mauling this, but I don't know if it was the same thing. So I ended up watching, I never watch that kind of stuff, but I was like, all right, I gotta see what happens here, you know?

• 1:55:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, my, my daughter's home right now, so I, I can't say I'm watching like, I'm not watching a ton of stuff. I can't, oh, it's called We Were Liars.

• 1:55:25Speaker 01

  I have not seen that.

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  You might want to give it a test run for the Martha's Vineyard footage.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  I will. No, I'm in. I'm totally in. But I would tell younger people that are listening about Casablanca, like, don't give it too hard of a time on the action scene at the end. And I think Bogart, I think that's an over-under of four, four and a half. Here's looking at you, kids, like, you might.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  I don't know if you get away with that today in the script.

• 1:55:51Bill Simmons?

  Two of them?

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, like Bruce Willis has said,

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  you know, yippee ki-yay, motherfucker, five times in Die Hard.

• 1:56:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they tacked it on in Die Hard 3. We just did that one. I do think about people like Bogart sometimes, like when I work on rewatchables and you think about how famous these people were, like when we do movies from the 70s and Redford and Newman and like, they were just so, so famous. And they still are famous because there's a lot of people. But then when you go way back and you go to like Sir Lawrence Olivier, this is the reason I was thinking about it, because he's a marathon man. We did that one. And he's one of the most famous actors in the world, right? And he was married to Vivian Leigh, who was the lady in Gone with the Wind and was like one of, great stage actor was dead by like 54. And I was thinking like Vivian Leigh. Probably one of the two, three biggest actresses for 20 years, right?

• 1:56:45Bill Simmons?

  No longer discussed. Not in the mix in 2025 and there's no conversations. Like there's some sort of shelf life for when you're just not discussed anymore. Right? Ava Gardner. You go like, I don't know what it is like the Mariska Hargitay has this documentary now about Jane Mansfield, who probably not discussed unless there's documentary, but it does make you think like, all right, I'm going to die someday and then everybody's going to forget who you were.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Not you. They'll be.

• 1:57:13Bill Simmons?

  No, they'll bring and forget me five years after.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  They'll be a doc. Chris Ryan's going to be old in a rocking chair and be like, he wasn't the easiest to get along with, but it was worth it.

• 1:57:24Bill Simmons?

  They've been a lot of people like Bill was Bill. Will they say my name twice? You know, Bill was Bill.

• 1:57:31Bill Simmons?

  Like the Peter Ramirez Corler. So Casablanca, that's your recommendation.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  And it is, it's, it is pretty cool. Like when you think about, all right, Bogart is this mysterious guy who's in occupied, you know, Africa, and yet there's the dueling, the Vichy and you've got the Nazis and he's kind of his own man. He's almost like this Han Solo type. And it's Bogart, who's not exactly the most dashing guy ever. And yet I was reading about him after the fact. So I was trying to figure out like, if there's a biography that it was worth. I'm sure there's plenty of really good ones, but like for me to do a biography on somebody, I'm like, I don't really like doing that all that much anymore. But then the Duke of all people, John Wayne being like, that was the leading man that like I thought about

• 1:58:18Speaker 01

  when I pursued my career and like to your point, like you can say, hey, man, Bogart was really famous. And I remember like the first time I saw African Queen, it was like, you know, a movie my parents wouldn't turn off or something. When I was a really young kid being like, this movie sucks. But then even as a kid I kept, because you don't even have any channels back then. It was just on TV. I think there were three channels. And even as a kid, I was like, man, this African Queen's like kind of crazy. Like this is a crazy movie and he's so good. At being the perfect like, you know, she would have never thought she'd be with him. You know, a lot of the standard kind of like rulemaking that you have in storytelling. And there is something to Casablanca that certainly holds up in the sense that it wasn't just this super simple, straightforward love story of will they or won't they?

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  And with the backdrop of him owning his cafe and everything, it was just cool. I hadn't seen it in like forever. And so, yeah.

• 1:59:09Bill Simmons?

  It is funny how I wish I wa- I watched Sabrina a couple of months ago with Audrey Hepburn.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Right, that's the one they did on the Vineyard with Harrison Ford.

• 1:59:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they redid it. Yeah, this was the original one.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  Tons of shout outs today.

• 1:59:25Bill Simmons?

  That movie is just, when you watch it, like just through the context of now, but when they made it back then, it's kind of amazing. And just the premise of it, it's just like, great story, two brothers. She was always where her family worked for this super rich family.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it works.

• 1:59:42Bill Simmons?

  She always had a crush, she has had a crush on one of the brothers. He never realized it.

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  Was it kind of cocktail, right?

• 1:59:47Bill Simmons?

  She went away, she went away to, and then came back a woman and the brother didn't realize it was her. And then loved her, but he was kind of a rube. It was like, I was like, this is, they fucking nailed it with this. Every piece of it is just really smart.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  It's gonna be a real art house summer over here, because I watched Lawrence of Arabia a couple of weeks ago.

• 2:00:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:07Speaker 01

  And, you know, I don't know what's going on with me, but I was like, I'm just gonna start running through all of these like all time classics.

• 2:00:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, they became classics for a reason, you know, it's like, why The Godfather and Jaws and movies like, those movies are fucking incredible. That's why they became classics.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  Peter O'Toole, though, laying on a little thick.

• 2:00:26Bill Simmons?

  Dialed it up a little bit, yeah.

• 2:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was that era, that the guys were very, very over the top.

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Well, there were a lot of theater guys, so.

• 2:00:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  I would love a Lawrence of Arabia rewatchables. I don't want to be on it. I want it to be UCR and fantasy. And I would love to hear just CR breaking down O'Toole's passion.

• 2:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Really going for it.

• 2:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think we're, we're doing, we did After Hours, that's coming Monday. And then I think we're doing Jaws 2, ironically, another Vineyard shout out.

• 2:01:01Bill Simmons?

  That's the next one.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  The Vineyard's on fire right now.

• 2:01:04Bill Simmons?

  You don't have any Jaws 2 thoughts?

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 2:01:14Bill Simmons?

  Drifus wouldn't do it. He wouldn't be in.

• 2:01:16Speaker 01

  Which was the terrible one? Three?

• 2:01:18Bill Simmons?

  Jaws three.

• 2:01:20Speaker 01

  It was four 3D.

• 2:01:22Bill Simmons?

  Three was 3D. It was Jaws 3D.

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  That makes more sense.

• 2:01:25Bill Simmons?

  There's been two eras of movies when they got really excited about 3D. That this is the next thing. Here we go. 3D. And then people are like, no, this kind of sucks.

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  They tried it again.

• 2:01:40Bill Simmons?

  We're wrapping up. So we're back next Sunday. Do you think, what do you think that if you had to make one prediction for the biggest thing that will happen? In the seven days before we see each other again? Just give me a team. You don't have to make a prediction.

• 2:01:56Bill Simmons?

  Don't say Boston, please.

• 2:01:58Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I don't. I'll say Spurs.

• 2:02:03Bill Simmons?

  I like it. It's a good one. All right. Good to see you, Russel.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  See you.

• 2:02:09Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Russel. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahow as well. Don't forget new rewatching was coming tomorrow night after hours. And then you can watch all of the, all the stuff from this podcast and Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And I will see you at least once more this week, probably Wednesday, but not sure of the day yet, but you will see me one more time this week. See you then.

• 2:02:44Bill Simmons?

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

• 2:03:31Bill Simmons?

  Writer-director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island, Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.

• 2:04:04Speaker 02

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