Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Kawhi in Flux, Embiid’s Next Team, Jaylen vs. Advanced Numbers, and a Mini-Mailbag With Joe House About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Joe House react to the news of the Raptors putting the Kawhi trade on hold until after the Aspiration investigation finishes. Then, they take a deeper look at the Jaylen Brown trade and why the Celtics decided to let him go. Finally, they discuss Joel Embiid’s availability in trade talks before answering some mailbag questions.
(0:00) Intro
(2:06) Kawhi trade to the Raptors on hold
(8:00) Jaylen Brown’s advanced analytics
(45:06) Are the 76ers looking to trade Embiid?
(01:01:37) Mailbag
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Joe House
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
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Transcript 21,460 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:06 Bill Simmons? The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Ali, Will Smith, Michael Mann, our ninth Michael Mann movie. That was me and Chris Ryan and Ben Lathan. Next movie we have, it's the 30th anniversary of an Ed Burns movie called She's The One. That is a very important Gen X movie. And we've been talking about doing this forever. So it is me and Sean Fantasy, because it's a Long Island movie. And a special guest who's not on the podcast too often. So we are doing that. That is on Netflix if you want to watch that one. And then the next movie we're doing after that is Hitch with Will Smith, which is also on Netflix. So there you go.
2:50 Bill Simmons? You can find this podcast on Netflix. If you do, Netflix has my list. If you just click the my list, every time I have a new podcast, it will pop onto your Netflix algorithm in a much more exciting way. So wanted to pass that along. I also have a podcast coming. We're going to go live on Sunday on Netflix. Not sure of the time yet, but stay tuned for that. And I think I'm only doing the Sunday podcast, probably taking a couple of days off next week, unless something crazy happens, you know, like Kawhi Leonard's trade being postponed, which we're going to talk about in one second with Joe House. House and I, we talked about Kawhi at the top. We talked about Jaylen versus analytics. Could Joel Embiid be traded? And would anyone even want him?
3:34 Bill Simmons? And then we did a whole mailbag and all of that is coming up next, right after we take a break and hear Pearl Jam.
4:06 Bill Simmons? All right, House, this part of the podcast is 12:15. We just finished our podcast. And then as we finished, Gahal told us that there was breaking news in the NBA. It was the Toronto Raptors saying that their trade for Kawhi Leonard is on hold. According to the statement, they said, "The NBA league office informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation of the Clippers, we would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi. In light of this, we will wait until the league's investigation is complete. The Raptors remain eager to bring Kawhi back to Toronto and look forward to a swift resolution for our players, our organization, and our fans."
4:45 Bill Simmons? So we actually talked about this in the podcast before. I'll just leave it in so we can hear, because Conspiracy Bill came out.
4:53 Bill Simmons? What does this mean?
4:56 Speaker 03 I have no idea. I mean, the league office is doing informing. The league office is responsible.
5:03 Bill Simmons? This trade happened a week ago.
5:04 Speaker 03 How much more time do they need? What are we getting to the bottom of at this point?
5:10 Bill Simmons? But this seems to indicate that Kawhi could be suspended?
5:14 Speaker 03 It suggests that there could be Kawhi consequences. This is asinine. What is the fucking league doing? The league is responsible for the outcome and whatever pronouncement it wants to make. The teams are permitted to do business. If this was-
5:30 Bill Simmons? Obviously not.
5:31 Speaker 03 A condition that was going to be-
5:34 Bill Simmons? But why didn't the league say, "You're not allowed to trade Kawhi or do anything until we finish our investigation"?
5:40 Speaker 03 Right. Why didn't the league do that? You tell me. What is the point of this communication now?
5:46 Bill Simmons? This is ominous.
5:47 Speaker 03 Finish the fucking investigation!
5:50 Bill Simmons? I know, but it's independent.
5:52 Speaker 03 July the 9th. Who cares? There aren't any more witnesses to be interviewed. There aren't any more fucking documents to be reviewed.
6:00 Bill Simmons? It's been an eight-month investigation, 10 months?
6:02 Speaker 03 Months after months after months. You don't know how many lawyers and how many, how much fees is being generated by this?
6:12 Bill Simmons? Baby Doll thinks it's a money grab.
6:14 Speaker 03 Who thinks it's a money grab?
6:15 Bill Simmons? Well, this is the first time, all of us thought the Clippers were going to get penalized. This is the first time it feels like-
6:24 Bill Simmons? Kawhi might also be punished in this. There's no other way to interpret this.
6:30 Speaker 03 That also really seems out there because the collective bargaining agreement gives the league the right to punish a player for agreeing to a, an arrangement with a sponsor where the sponsor says.
6:47 Bill Simmons? Well, but this means there's more stuff that maybe hasn't come out yet.
6:51 Speaker 03 It.
6:51 Bill Simmons? There's something that's, there's something. This insinuates that Kawhi could be suspended for a year, six months or whatever, and the team didn't know that when they traded for him.
7:03 Speaker 03 What would.
7:04 Bill Simmons? Cause they couldn't assume the risk of any potential outcome. It's like the Raptors would assume the Clippers risk.
7:10 Speaker 03 No, you're right.
7:12 Bill Simmons? Clippers are fine, but now that they have Kawhi, Toronto will have to be penalized. Like this has to be Kawhi related.
7:19 Speaker 03 But what, you're absolutely right. What, what is the scenario under which Kawhi is individually culpable for something that, that, that is outside the bounds of the league's rules on this? What did Kawhi and is this the, uh, they, they want to do something to Uncle Dennis?
7:36 Speaker 03 I don't understand it. What could he do? Like if, if the sponsor was Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola has an agreement with the Clippers and has an agreement with the league and does sponsorships and says, we also want you Kawhi Leonard to be a spokesperson for Coca-Cola and we're not going to make you come do anything. You know, it doesn't work out. The circumstances don't work out. We can't, you know, it turns out you can't, you couldn't make any of his appearances.
8:01 Bill Simmons? Can they?
8:02 Speaker 03 The player can be punished for that?
8:04 Bill Simmons? I think they should go further. I think they should postpone the Jaylen Brown trade.
8:10 Bill Simmons? I think all transactions should be postponed until we get to the bottom of this. Jaylen Brown is back at the Celtics.
8:17 Speaker 03 That would be incredible. I'm rooting for that more than anything else.
8:20 Bill Simmons? I'm really shocked by this.
8:22 Speaker 03 I'm dumbfounded. Capital D dumb.
8:25 Bill Simmons? This makes me think that, um. Oh, there's a full Clippers statement as well.
8:31 Speaker 03 I hope it says the league can go fuck itself.
8:35 Bill Simmons? The Clippers acknowledged, this is from Mark Stein, our buddy. The Clippers acknowledged that the Kawhi investigation is ongoing, but we expect the trade to be finalized following its conclusion. So was Adam Silver like on vacation last week? Where was he? Why didn't he tell them you can't trade Kawhi until we finish the investigation? Sorry, everybody.
8:54 Speaker 03 No shit. Does he not have the day that free agency and, and, and, you know, the, the transaction market opened up on his calendar? As usual, what the fuck? Why are we talking about this on July the night?
9:07 Bill Simmons? I was busy last week getting offers for our 12 NBA Europe teams and didn't realize Kawhi was traded to Toronto. My bad. The trade is now on pause.
9:17 Speaker 03 We have to assume the risk.
9:19 Bill Simmons? This is.
9:20 Speaker 03 You assume the risk. It's your risk. It's the league's risk. Eat a dick, not assuming shit.
9:26 Bill Simmons? So we could have.
9:27 Speaker 03 Why can't Toronto and the Clippers make, make a deal? Why?
9:29 Bill Simmons? So we could have Garland, Wagner, Kawhi,
9:35 Bill Simmons? Rui, my guy, Yannick. Keep Kawhi. Cancel the trade. Keep him.
9:42 Bill Simmons? But yeah, they got two firsts and two swaps.
9:46 Speaker 03 It's a good deal.
9:48 Bill Simmons? Wow, House. All right. We're, uh, we'll find out what happened with this. But, um, in the meantime, let's go backwards an hour and 40 minutes to the rest of our podcast.
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11:46 Bill Simmons? All right, we're recording this on Thursday morning, about 10 hours before the big DeBansa-Petersen Summer League game. I love how every year we forget that Summer League doesn't matter. It's one of my favorite things, when everybody gets carried away with all of this stuff.
12:03 Speaker 03 It matters because it's our first look and it's our, you know, there is genuine appropriate excitement. I will say that at least here in Washington, I encourage everybody to keep expectations in the appropriate level, like, let's just be calm, cool, and collected about it. Remember, poor Alexander Sar when he came out and went, you know, 0-for-15 in his first Summer League game. Not a bust. And whatever happens between Peterson and DeBansa tonight, it doesn't set the referendum for the rest of their careers.
12:40 Bill Simmons? And by the way, we knew Peterson was incredibly talented and the most talented guy in the class. That wasn't the reason he went second instead of first. There were... Red flags last year and you know, I thought he was one of the hardest guys to peg ever. But man, you watch the summer league games like, oh no.
12:56 Speaker 03 I've been taking a lot of bullets. I've been catching a lot of strays.
12:58 Bill Simmons? He's already stopped starting.
13:00 Speaker 03 House, the Wizards, Peterson, and Peterson's gonna look great tonight against the Wizards.
13:05 Bill Simmons? Peterson's gonna look, by the way, he might just look great. Like he might, he might've just gone to the perfect team, might be the right city, right organization, right coach. And he might be awesome and everybody knew that that was very possible. All right. I have a whole agenda for us today.
13:21 Speaker 03 Let's go.
13:22 Bill Simmons? Amazingly, we're doing more Jaylen Brown content, but not for the reasons people think.
13:28 Bill Simmons? We are also going to talk about Joel Embiid and whether he might be on another team next year. And, and then I have a whole mailbag for you, but I wanted to talk, uh, the old guys have been watching all this advanced metric stuff. Coming out of the Jaylen Brown trade and you and I have kind of straddled the fence. I'm a, I'm a little more advanced metrics friendly than you, but both of us are, you know, eye test, common sense guys as well. Just deep diving everything from this Jaylen trade for the last 10 days. I just can't believe how bad he looks in the advanced metric stuff. And it's almost like I, I find myself going back over all the games I watched and all the Celtic seasons I took in and all the playoff games.
14:12 Bill Simmons? And just wondering myself, did I get this wrong? And then I landed on, no, I don't think I got this wrong. I think there are some reasons for some of these stats. You haven't come on and talked about this yet since the trade.
14:24 Speaker 03 Since your colonoscopy.
14:26 Bill Simmons? Since the colonoscopy. Yeah. By the way, thank you for that.
14:29 Speaker 03 Success.
14:30 Bill Simmons? I'm glad we raised awareness for colonoscopies, by the way. We've talked about it a bunch of times. Go get one.
14:34 Speaker 03 Get them as, as many as you're allowed to get. I recommend them.
14:38 Bill Simmons? But yeah, so. I test going, going big picture on as you're watching the dialogue about this where everybody has now apparently decided Jaylen Brown is actually not an efficient player.
14:50 Bill Simmons? There's if, if he's your number one guy, you don't have a chance to win the title. All that like, where do you stand with all this?
14:56 Speaker 03 I mean, right out of the box, I reject the framing. I don't reject analytics. I think they are great. They are super helpful. It's information. It's, it's, it's really interesting way of, you know, trying to measure guys against one another when their situations and contexts are so disparate. Like how, how can you measure Jaylen Brown's effectiveness against Jaylen Brunson's effectiveness? Well, there's some ways to slice it and dice it. All of that is fine. I don't reject any of that, but context is super important. Remember this Boston Celtics team was in a transition year. The, the anticipated number of wins, what was their win total? Was it 41, 42?
15:41 Bill Simmons? Forty one and a half.
15:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, right. So that's where, you know, the, the markets were anticipating. It was hard to say what kind of season this team was going to have. And then through the combination of Joe Missoula and the front office, I give him credit. And Jaylen fucking Brown, they won 56 fucking games because he is that guy. He is that dog. He took the standard and made all of those guys. I'm going to say this without trying to disrespect the rest of the Celtics roster in the most recently completed season, but he took a bunch of bums to 56 wins. And you know how I know they're bums? Because he got rolled right the fuck out of the playoffs.
16:25 Speaker 03 As soon as you got into a situation where you were up against a, a proper test in terms of, of a team with talent at all levels. And, you know, the, the front court for the Boston Celtics this entire season was the development of Nemeus Kethan. Wonderful. Great job. A plus plus, two thumbs up.
16:45 Bill Simmons? Shireman, Hugo, more Richard.
16:49 Speaker 03 Development, development, development. Great. That was the point of, of, of the season. And then Tatum came back earlier than expected and immediately remember again, it was just two and a half months ago. Boston was forecasted as a potential team to not only make the Eastern Conference Finals, but to make it to the NBA Finals out of the East, right when the playoffs started. They had the second best odds because the expectation around what they were capable of with Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown, a track record of 10 years, a full decade of those two guys kicking ass when they're on the floor together.
17:29 Speaker 03 A slew of Eastern Conference Finals, two NBA Finals, and NBA Championship that Jaylen Brown was the MVP of. So I don't mind at all going inside the box and saying, well, how do we sort of measure the impact going forward? But here's the thing that I ask you, and I wonder about for Celtics Nation.
17:50 Speaker 03 Why did they give up on this season? How can you come into this upcoming season when you've done the thing that was most important, which is bring in Mitchell Robinson? An absolute rebounding miracle of a man, single-handedly contributed that rebounding role to the Knicks to vaulted them right to a championship. You bring that in, your most dire need, you've addressed it with a guy who's absolutely. And then healthy Tatum. And, and healthy Tatum. And we know, we have 10 years of evidence that those two guys, plus Mitchell Robinson, plus whatever else the front office could do.
18:30 Speaker 03 That's a team that looks to me like a possible Eastern Conference finalist, possible NBA finalist. And we punt, what's the, why did we punt? Why do, why did the front office give up on, on this Celtics team?
18:44 Bill Simmons? You know, there's a lot to unpack here. You gave me a lot there, and I do want to circle back in the advanced metrics. You're talking about overreacting to a bad result in the playoffs, which I think Minnesota did too. Minnesota did that LaMelo trade. I talked about it when it happened. They were banged up last year, right? Edwards got hurt right before the playoffs, wasn't 100%. DiFenzenzo got hurt during the first round. Io got hurt. And I don't, I just feel like they decided, well, we don't have a chance anymore based on what playoff results were, so we have to take a big swing. I don't agree with it. It's funny hearing people remember what they remember about the Philly series, which basically came down to three
19:28 Bill Simmons? games, game two, game five, and game seven. And in game two, Brown and Tatum actually played pretty well. It was the guards, I think Pritchard, White, and Vucevic were like 2 for 20 from 3 in that game. And we just couldn't hit a shot. The pace was off. Philly was, I think, 19 for 39 from 3. They stole the game. It's fine. They're up 3-1. They go into game 5. They're up double figures in game 5. Do you remember what happened in the second half of game 5?
19:54 Speaker 03 I don't.
19:55 Bill Simmons? Embiid fucking killed them.
19:57 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, that.
19:59 Bill Simmons? Embiid killed them, and it came out of nowhere. And it was, you know, this was this crazy thing that got introduced during the series, where all of a sudden you have 2023 MVP Joel Embiid just looking like Joel Embiid again. In the second half of that game, he shoots 7 for 10, and 4 for 4 from 3, has 18 points. And Max, he's 5 for 8, and they just played better, and they steal the game, right? Game 7, Tatum doesn't play.
20:28 Speaker 03 Right.
20:28 Bill Simmons? Tatum gets scratched, and they do that crazy starting lineup to whatever. And I don't know, I didn't mind the way Jaylen played in that game. I thought the reasons they lost the series, because White and Pritchard didn't shoot 3 was, well, the Vucevic thing was a terrible experiment. I don't hang that series on Jaylen at all. So anyway, they overreact to it. You asked why they did this. And I've talked to a bunch of people, and I know I've talked about on the pod a bunch of times, but it feels like they felt like there was no going back after Jaylen had a taste of being the guy in the team last year. And that whatever they were going to do with this team this year, with his contract, he wasn't going to get the extension from them at the end of July. And did this have a chance to actually go sideways?
21:13 Bill Simmons? And I think, whether you agree with it or not, I think they evaluated this as like, this isn't going in the right direction. The Tatum Brown thing's been weird for two years. There's been a lot of dialogue about that, about can you play with somebody you don't get along with? I don't know if they got along or didn't get along. I know they didn't hang out, but I also know that they had an unbelievable nine-year run together.
21:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:37 Bill Simmons? That they played more playoff games together than anybody. They won a title in 2024. I just don't think this was like a kid Mashburn, Jimmy Jackson situation. But what I do think is that they were concerned that there was no going back with Jaylen. And that after being the guy, and now, hey, thanks for being the guy, but now Tatum is going to be the guy again. And we're not going to give you an extension that they thought it was going to go sideways and they got ahead of it. And I don't agree with it.
22:05 Speaker 03 That's a confession. That that means, you know, for all the accolades that we've heaped on the Boston front office for a long time.
22:15 Speaker 03 A move like this suggests that they can't, you know, present and maintain peace inside the locker room. That there's, there is an inability to manage your personnel. And it's not, they're not new personalities.
22:31 Bill Simmons? It's not a managing thing, though. You're talking about two guys making 60 million a year. And the coach who's making 10% of that combined, like as his voice is only going to go so far. This is a league over and over again, when the superstars run the league.
22:45 Speaker 03 Well, it's not just his voice, though.
22:48 Bill Simmons? But if the two superstars about, so this is, the voice thing's important because obviously Chisholm bought the team. He's only in the team for like a year and a half. I do wonder if Wick was the owner of the team and hadn't sold. I do wonder if he would have handled it differently. And I'm not saying he would have been the hero of it, but would he have been like, wait a second? Let's all get together. Wait, we got to figure that, Rick, really, this is, that's one piece.
23:13 Speaker 03 People murdered you for the restaurant concept, but that is exactly what was called for.
23:19 Bill Simmons? What people murdered me? Who are these people?
23:24 Speaker 03 I enjoyed it so much, but you know.
23:26 Bill Simmons? I was trying to be funny, but it was also true. Like get these guys in a fucking room.
23:30 Speaker 03 That's right. Everybody get in a room and have out whatever you have to have out. This is a team that that's set a standard with those two guys as as your your focal points of getting to the Eastern Conference Finals and possibly the NBA Finals. Every year that the two of them arrive to the playoffs healthy. And this year was, you know, it was forecasted to be a potential repeat really out of nowhere. There was no reason whatsoever for that Boston team to win 56 games.
24:02 Bill Simmons? And it really was a dopey Philly series. There's never been a situation like that where somebody just comes back midway through the series, plays well for three games, basically, and then immediately goes back to not being an effective player again, and then they get swept by the Knicks.
24:18 Speaker 03 Well, it was also the kryptonite of the Boston roster because the Boston roster was an in-development roster. It wasn't anticipated that it was going to be a team that was going to win between 55 and 60 games and win its division and make a long run into the playoffs.
24:33 Bill Simmons? They overachieved by 50.
24:35 Speaker 03 Nobody in the front court. That's why Embiid had the success he had. They couldn't defend him.
24:40 Bill Simmons? Well, and we couldn't make threes either. The so the old guy conversation, there's two things going on. The advanced metrics are bad for Jaylen. And this is something I've been trying to wrap my head around for a week. I mailed you. I mailed you. There's 85 guys ever. I went on Stathead. Thanks to Stathead, by the way. I've always enjoyed it.
25:00 Speaker 03 Great job.
25:01 Bill Simmons? There's 85 guys ever who averaged at least 28 points a game with a 30 usage rate. And you could put all these different stats like win shares, VORP. VORP is like, it's not nothing. I don't like the thing is, I kind of like these stats. I don't think they should be the determiner of a player's value. But it's interesting. Jaylen's win shares were the worst out of all 85 guys. And we're talking about like World B Free in 1980, Iverson in 05, Mark Aguirre in 1984, like, and he's the worst. And then you go, you go to VORP, which is. Also, not nothing. I don't mind looking at VORP.
25:43 Bill Simmons? Jaylen was third to last, and the only two seasons worse than him in VORP were 2010 Carmelo and 2007 Carmelo. And you look at some of the names in this list, House, and it is interesting. It's all these high-usage forwards that never were able to really be, you could never build a finals team around him, right? Dominique, Adrian Dantley, Mark Aguirre, Carmelo, Alex English. World be free, you couldn't even build a first-round playoff team around him. Donovan Mitchell now, but these guys that,
26:18 Bill Simmons? you could throw a big burden on them and you could have regular season success. But as the levels got higher, that recipe didn't work anymore. And I think that's basically where we landed with Jaylen last year. We talked about this, like, let's go back to just us playing pickup basketball a million years ago. At some point, you have five guys. One of those five guys needs to regularly create a good shot for everybody else, right? Just start there. Jaylen was the only guy who could do that on this team. Pritchard, once a week.
26:46 Speaker 03 Oh, he wasn't an offensive engine, though, Bill Simmons.
26:49 Bill Simmons? I know.
26:49 Speaker 03 That's, you say, create a good shot. I don't know. The stats don't support that.
26:54 Bill Simmons? Right. And it's like, oh, his effective field goal's down. Well, maybe partly because every time they played anybody, the entire defense was like, we gotta stop Jaylen. He's gonna take 16 twos. He's gonna get to the line. Let's throw two guys at him. Let's trap him. Let's attack him when he goes to the rim. Like, he had a big burden. He played 71 games, and this is what we've talked about over and over again. Durability, consistency, and can you be the hub of something bigger? Which he did last year, and I can't accept the advanced metrics telling me otherwise, because I watched the season.
27:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, not only that, again, I mean this as respectfully as possible. He dragged a bunch of fucking bums to 56 wins. Like, he was a really important part in terms of setting a standard. Those guys, the development of Gonzalez and Shireman and Peyton Pritchard stepping up and Kada. And like, this is a team like- That was gonna win 41 games. That's what made sense. That was the sensible outcome. And Jaylen fucking Brown was like, no, I don't accept that. I'm going to go out and, and again, let's also give credit to Missoula. Because the game plan also called for a kind of, you know, radical, although not that radical under Celtic circumstances.
28:10 Speaker 03 Way of approaching every game, but they, they, they conceded nothing. They conceded nothing. They went out and played their ass off. Every night, they gave it all every night.
28:20 Bill Simmons? And he, and he took on the biggest challenge every night. Yeah.
28:23 Speaker 03 Yeah. There's a reason that they all were able to, to collectively elevate. One guy took the lead. He took the lead. He was the leader. So I don't care about the efficiency numbers. I don't give a shit. That doesn't help me understand anything about contextually.
28:40 Bill Simmons? About burden.
28:41 Speaker 03 Last season.
28:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah, there's burden and gravity and there's some things, but.
28:45 Speaker 03 He also played his ass off on defense, by the way. That's why the MVP conversation had him featured, you know. Will Bond said with, you know, a month left of, of, of the regular season that Jaylen Brown was his leading contender. Now, whatever you want to say about. Yeah.
29:00 Bill Simmons? They, they were first in offensive rating for the entire year and they ended up second.
29:06 Bill Simmons? Who else, who else were there elite offensive players in this offense? Tatum played 16 games, right? Pritchard, who I love, and I actually think Pritchard could go up a level next year if, if there's more shots thrown his way, but. I didn't know whether Pritchard was showing up night to night. He would have games where he just stunk, you know? White was bad. White was bad shooting wise all year, even though there's great advanced metrics for him. And then everybody else, you didn't know what they were getting.
29:33 Speaker 03 That, that tells you, there you go. The, the advanced metrics for Derrick White offensively were very good.
29:38 Bill Simmons? They're always good with him though.
29:40 Speaker 03 He sucked. He sucked.
29:42 Bill Simmons? He sucks shooting. He lost his confidence.
29:44 Speaker 03 Shooting. I'm talking about his offense.
29:46 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
29:46 Speaker 03 He was awesome as a shot, as a, uh, remember all the money we made, um, betting on his, uh, the over for his blocks every night?
29:53 Bill Simmons? Oh, that will they, yeah, Fanduel finally we- wised up to that. But part of the reason his shooting was down because he had such a big load, I think he wore down as the season went along. And that's another thing. Like when you talk about advanced metrics with somebody like Jaylen, and it could be Jaylen, it could be a bunch of people. But the night tonight, showing up, playing 36 minutes a game. I watched him during the course of the year guard Kate Cunningham in the last five minutes of games. Luca, Kawhi.
30:21 Speaker 03 Right.
30:22 Bill Simmons? Pick a guy, SGA, they threw him on, like he, and he would accept the challenge. And I don't know, I just feel like in basketball, you have to have one guy that's like, well, at least we have this guy. They have that guy, but at least we have this guy. We're probably getting 29 to 32 from our guy tonight. And when you don't have that, you're not going to win 56 games. So, um, with that said,
30:48 Bill Simmons? his plus minus, if you go through his career, it's like shocking. I, I think he might be one of the great advanced metrics outliers in the history of the league, if not number one. Every single year, the Celtics were basically better with him when he wasn't on the court. And I don't have an explanation for that. And I, I'm not going to be like, oh, the stats are wrong because obviously they're not. And I was talking to my dad about it because my dad, you know, pre last season, Jaylen went up a level last season. Like he really like got better as a creator and, um, you know, his, he, I thought he, he had less turnovers, even though it doesn't reflect that he had the ball way more.
31:25 Bill Simmons? But my dad, pre last season, they would have these two five minute sections when they would take six minute sections. They would take Tatum out and Jaylen would get to run the offense. And my dad would either go to pee or go get a popcorn because he's like, I can't stand this. I hate when, it would be like going to a concert and, you know, you're going to see the Rolling Stones and it's like, oh, now we're going to play the Keith Richards song. You're like, fuck, can't you play Start Me Up? It was like everybody goes to the bathroom. So that was there and I, it always felt clumsy when Jaylen was in charge of it. But last year was not that clumsy. I'm just telling you.
31:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, I, I think it's fine to look at, you know, over the, the course of, of the, the career and, you know, point out these, these vulnerabilities, these frailties to his game.
32:10 Bill Simmons? Like he was a flawed, durable player.
32:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, but we, we know from the outcomes, what kind of impact he has on, on winning, like,
32:20 Bill Simmons? Right.
32:20 Speaker 03 The, the,
32:22 Bill Simmons? Including the title, the 2024 title.
32:24 Speaker 03 And being the MVP of that team, the MVP, the finals MVP. Well, whatever, whatever.
32:31 Bill Simmons? I thought Jason should have won that.
32:33 Speaker 03 Enough people saw enough to believe that he earned it.
32:37 Bill Simmons? Yeah, well, I wonder like, do they look at that season? Where they superpowered the role players around them, which is impossible now, but they just added Porzingis and Holiday. They had Derrick White already, they had Pritchard as a bench guy. Al Horford was still there and then you have this double forward combo in their mid twenties still. Tatum and Brown and both of them were just a lot going downhill, shooting threes. And maybe that they felt like that was the peak. They talked a lot about the, in the press conference about the usage, the usage of the two guys together and the salary cap. And I get it, the argument falls apart when you also tried to trade for Giannis and Giannis and Tatum were going to be 70% of your salary cap.
33:23 Bill Simmons? I will never for the rest of my life, understand why they didn't wait to see if this deal was available until September, October. Because I think Philly saying yes on September 1st, on September 17th, on September 30th. I also feel like whatever happens with Jaylen and Philly. Can't, you can't retroactively go and fit that to your opinion of this trade because I don't know if this is a great situation for him. Going to this Philly team, that's Maxey's team. And then when Embiid comes back, everything revolve, I just don't think his stats are going to be the same. He's going to be.
33:56 Speaker 03 Who cares? He's a winner, they're going to win, they're going to be good. I mean, I love every, every, every Sixers future I'm in, like the idea of them as eight to one to win the East. Okay, I'll have a little taste of that. They're, they're four to one to win the Atlantic division between, behind the Knicks and the Celtics. Well, I think they're going to be motivated this upcoming season. Obviously, the wild card is, do you get 40 games out of Embiid? But those three guys were, are really going to help each other. I think it's going to be a really good fit, like putting good players on the full edge, Kome and Maxey and, and, and Jaylen together. That's a, that's good. That's going to be, it's going to work. I'm not worried about that at all.
34:37 Bill Simmons? These were other things I was saying heading into the 2018, 19 Celtics season when I picked them to win 70 games. Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, we're gonna be unbelievable.
34:48 Speaker 03 Wow, there, there is one flaw.
34:50 Bill Simmons? And what happened? But you could feel it right away. And this is, you know, this is what you and I have loved about basketball forever. Doesn't always make sense. Like, sometimes you can have a team like that, last year Celtics team, where it's like, we have one guy who can consistently create a shot. We have a bunch of other guys, you called them bums, which I, I let it slide. I think they were young guys, role players.
35:10 Speaker 03 Okay.
35:11 Bill Simmons? Whatever. They were all guys that couldn't be top three guys on a team, except for White. But they figured out, they figured out how to make it work. And we've seen this over and over again in basketball. There's been teams where the pieces fall into place. With Philly, you have a lot of star power and a lot of money. You have Embiid, who we're gonna talk about after the break.
35:32 Bill Simmons? It's just, you know, I, I would just be careful with that one. That, is it an on paper team, or is it a team that's actually gonna play well together? Cause Paul George, whatever you say about him at this stage of his career, definitely knew he was a complimentary player. And could kind of pop in and out.
35:48 Speaker 03 But, well, he certainly popped in and out.
35:50 Bill Simmons? I don't know if Jaylen wants to pop in and out at this point.
35:53 Speaker 03 Well, if you were, if you're measuring it by, well, how many games did Paul George play? He certainly popped into, and then popped out of the entire season.
36:00 Bill Simmons? Might have popped some things into his body, too. Yeah, so when, when we talk about like, the usage rate and some of these advanced stats, it prompted me to go on this huge deep dive. And you know, I did my book from basically oh seven, oh nine. We didn't have a lot of these stats, I didn't have access to them. And there's stuff that, like, I would, like, I was looking at Steve Nash.
36:24 Bill Simmons? Who I had, I forget where I had him, but like in the pyramid, I think I'm gonna move him. But I, I think I had him like in the, somewhere in the thirties in the pyramid, and now he was in that cluster of point cards. Steve Nash ran the number one offense in basketball. You can go back now to, through, basically to the mid nineties and look at all the on off stats, all the offensive ratings, everything. He was the number one offense every year from 2003 to 2010. Two, last two years on Dallas. His first six Phoenix seasons, no matter who was on the team, they didn't have Amare Stoudemire for all of those six. Didn't matter. They were still number one in offense.
37:06 Bill Simmons? They were number one in 08 with Shaq when they made that weird Shaq trade. They were number one in 09 and 10 and.
37:15 Speaker 03 Another Mark Cuban masterpiece.
37:16 Bill Simmons? Well, but then you go and you look at the on off stats for Nash and his, when they, he was off the court those last two years. They were better without him allegedly, according to the stats. That must have been one of the reasons they let him go. Anyway, my point is like, I do think some of these stats are great.
37:35 Bill Simmons? I think Jaylen might just be an outlier to some of this stuff. High usage guys on a team that's not that good. That probably should have been like a 42 to 45 win team. And for whatever reason, this type of player was able to pull 10 wins out of the regular season. But in the playoffs, it becomes harder.
37:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, especially with the roster construction that the Celtics had this most recent season. I just think it's a dumb way to try and capture who he is and the impact on the franchise. The only aspect of it to me that has a kind of like, okay, I can see this vibe to it is the extension. If he was really going to get bent out of shape about the extension, if there was something that happened in those conversations.
38:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
38:21 Speaker 03 But here's the problem. The Celtics front office did not prepare its fan base in any way, shape or form for anything like this. It was either Giannis coming to the Celtics to join Tatum or we're gonna run it back.
38:34 Bill Simmons? Open for business.
38:35 Speaker 03 We're gonna run it back with JB and then we'll see what happens over the course of the season. And by the way, running it back with JB or at the beginning of the season, at least it's going to be a bunch of wins for the Celtics. Because Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum together with the cast of characters and inserting Mitchell Robinson into it. They're going, they were going to win a bunch of basketball games. And I think that should have helped overall, like some teams, you know, circumstances change as you get to the beginning of the season. Some teams start underperforming right away and the best you can do is.
39:09 Bill Simmons? Right. You just wait till December. Who's unhappy?
39:12 Speaker 03 Right. Yeah. Paul George in July is not the answer. Like, we have proof. We know for sure that a GM took a big gamble on Paul George and that GM is not in the league right now.
39:23 Bill Simmons? It was, I'll tell you this, it wasn't the answer right, right after my colonoscopy.
39:29 Speaker 03 Yes, it was.
39:31 Bill Simmons? You know, who's the best, the best example of the kind of Jaylen season we're talking about, where the advanced metrics actually kind of liked it, was Iverson.
39:40 Speaker 03 Interesting.
39:41 Bill Simmons? His 01 season, where, you know, his usage, everything is like just highest possible caliber. And he was on the court was plus 5.7 and his on off was plus 4.1. So it was around the same. Now, there's also reasons for that. They built that entire team around Allen Iverson. Every decision they made, every player they put next to him was to help hide him on defense. A physical team that can protect him and basically just shoot a shitload of shots and go nuts. You know, and then we get to the playoffs that year and he's basically even on the court in minus five when, when he was, uh, minus five overall in the playoffs.
40:28 Bill Simmons? Where he didn't have a lot of good games and they got a lot of foul help when gets Milwaukee and all that stuff. But it is possible to build around a high usage. More likely it works out like it did with Jerry Stackhouse on that 01 Pistons team. Remember when he averaged like 30 a game and they were 32 and 50? That's usually the way it goes.
40:46 Speaker 03 Yeah. What I, the, the, I thought the touch point, the reference that that was closest to what I might've imagined for the Celtics team was Russell Westbrook, the year that KD left.
40:59 Bill Simmons? Right.
40:59 Speaker 03 And he, he averaged his triple double. That was the 16, 17 year, right?
41:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah. They, they won like, I'm going to say 48 games, something like that.
41:06 Speaker 03 I think they won 46. Yeah. Maybe it was 48, but they got, they won one game in, in the playoffs. They immediately got, got, you know, uh,
41:16 Bill Simmons? And it was similar. Remember, remember Westbrook won the MVP because there was that one game in the weekend? When he was just awesome in the last three minutes and it was like, all right, fine. You twist my arm, you have it. But the point is, Jaylen could at least be somebody that you could, whether the advanced metrics stats loved it or not, he could be the fulcrum of a team that could win in the mid 50s. If you put the right types of players around him, I don't know if there's a lot of guys like that in the league. You know, I don't think, by the way, as great as Kawhi was last year,
41:46 Bill Simmons? the durability thing is just not going to be there with him in the same way. You know, and I also wonder, I can't remember if I said this before, but if you're playing 71 games and you're going hard in all those games and you're really trying to guard and do all the stuff that Jaylen was trying to do, you're not going to be 100% for all of those games, right? Whereas like the, we've, we've seen some guys where they could play the 55 to 58 games and take a couple of breaks during the season. Look at Paul George. Paul George took 25 games off, came back. He was 21 a game, the last 10 games of the season, then he was really good in the playoffs, partly because he took 25 games off in the middle of the season. So,
42:25 Bill Simmons? I don't, I will never understand why they didn't wait. And, uh, and I think I'm more confused by the advanced metrics than I was before this trade. Because I don't, I don't really have an explanation for how they're worse when, when he plays and they were better when he was off the court. And I think it's an advanced analytics team that was like, this is, this is multiple years now where this has been the case.
42:49 Speaker 03 What multiple years though, like, just saying regular season. They were making it to the Eastern Conference Finals, the years they were making it to the NBA Finals, like, there's some alchemy there. There's something about the, the chemistry experiment that's producing more good results than, than not good. Like, you know, these far runs deep into the playoffs with, with him as the second most important player. And it's fine casting him that way. That, that tells me a lot about, um, his, his import to the situation.
43:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they're basically treating him like a TV show. Where it's like, this is ER season eight. We don't really need to pay our number two lead $60 million anymore. We can get some other actress and bring, bring her in and basically get the same ratings.
43:34 Speaker 03 What's your reasonable forecast for the Celtics this upcoming season?
43:38 Bill Simmons? Oh, I'd be shocked if they weren't in the mid 50s again. I think FanDuel has them minus 135 for the 50 plus. There's more injury risks this year with the team.
43:47 Speaker 03 No, no, no. They're 49 and a half on FanDuel and it's not minus 135 to the over.
43:51 Bill Simmons? Oh, well, it was, it was four days ago. 50 plus wins was minus 135. So that's different?
43:58 Speaker 03 I'm gonna try and pull it up here super quick. They had, they had the Celtics. They opened up, FanDuel opened up. They put 10 teams out with, um.
44:05 Bill Simmons? With the actual over unders?
44:06 Speaker 03 With, with over unders and the Celtics are at 49 and a half and I guarantee you the over is not minus 135 at the moment.
44:13 Bill Simmons? Well, the thing is Mitch, assuming Mitch can play 60 games and play 20, 25 minutes a game, 20 to 25 minutes a game. He's so much better.
44:24 Speaker 03 60 is a lot of games for Mitchell Robinson.
44:26 Bill Simmons? I get it, but he's just way better than what they had last year with Garza and Vucevic.
44:31 Speaker 03 Could not agree more. That's why I thought they should have kept Jaylen Brown, but how many games?
44:35 Bill Simmons? Tatum is in the Jaylen Brown spot and has been a first team all NBA guy four times. So you'd figure there at least a little up there. They lose Simons and replace him with Paul George. And then you have who goes a year older and Shireman's a year older. More Pritchard shots, less minutes for White, so he can be a little more efficient. And I don't understand why they wouldn't at least be a 54 to 55 win team. For the regular season, plus three pointers. They have more injury risks than they did last year. Yeah, no question.
45:07 Speaker 03 They sure do.
45:07 Bill Simmons? Tatum.
45:08 Speaker 03 They sure do.
45:09 Bill Simmons? Mitch, Paul George.
45:11 Speaker 03 Right.
45:12 Bill Simmons? But the thing is, couldn't they play Paul George 45 games?
45:16 Speaker 03 Oh, so it's the exact same price. It's minus 135. I, I got it wrong. Boston at, at winning 50 is it still at minus 135? And the over is over 49 and a half. That's what FanDuel set it for, is at minus 135. So that's it.
45:29 Bill Simmons? I mean, I would think about the 55 for that. Cause he figured Detroit's worse. We'll see with Philly will be better.
45:37 Speaker 03 East is tough. There's only one team that took a step backwards, in my opinion, and that's Detroit. The Pacers are going to be playing, you know, to win this season. The Wizards are playing to win. Now, that doesn't translate, but I don't think Charlotte is worse. I like what they did in terms of their machinations this offseason.
45:56 Bill Simmons? I like what they did long term, but this for the season itself, we'll see.
45:59 Speaker 03 Well, we'll see. I like Orlando this upcoming season with a functioning head coach. And if Franz Wagner can play 60 games. Well, but look, I mean, you know, they were forecasted to have over 50 wins last season.
46:10 Bill Simmons? You would think Atlanta would be a little bit better.
46:12 Speaker 03 Right. The East is tough. The East is going to be a bitch. There's only three teams that suck.
46:17 Bill Simmons? I gotta say, the single funniest thing to me about the Jaylen, the, and listen, and it's been discussed a little in different places. But I think Jaylen's side and his agent definitely, definitely sabotaged a couple of possible teams. There's no question. There's a couple of teams.
46:35 Speaker 03 Like who?
46:36 Bill Simmons? I think there were a couple of teams that they were like, yeah, he's not going to be happy if he goes there.
46:41 Speaker 03 Name names.
46:41 Bill Simmons? I think there were teams that backed off.
46:45 Speaker 03 Name, here's the problem with trading him at this moment now especially is like, there are not a lot of teams that can take on a $57 million contract. Like it's, it's, it's.
46:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but here's, but this is, this is the unforgivable one.
46:59 Speaker 03 Go ahead.
47:00 Bill Simmons? Explain to me in a million years why the Brooklyn Nets wouldn't have traded Michael Porter's expiring for, and three of the first they have for Jaylen Brown. What possible answer do you have for this?
47:13 Speaker 03 You are asking for, you know, the, the, the, the, the solution to the Jesus shroud. This is the functional equivalent. Like, how can you explain?
47:23 Bill Simmons? Like, like imagine I'm Joe, I'm Joe Si and I call you.
47:27 Speaker 03 It's a phenomenon.
47:28 Bill Simmons? Yo, we have a chance to trade Michael Porter's expiring, a pick down the road. We have like a Houston pick and something else and we can get Jaylen Brown. Wouldn't your answer be like, what the fuck are you waiting for? Take the trade before they pull it off.
47:44 Speaker 03 The phenomena in the, this is one of those phenomena in the universe that has no explanation. You just have to accept it.
47:52 Bill Simmons? It's not like they have another Max guy. You can't even blame like this.
47:56 Speaker 03 No, are you saying that Brooklyn put this on the table?
48:00 Bill Simmons? No, I'm saying Boston thought they had a chance to pull something off with Brooklyn. And at some point in the higher levels, I talked about this a week ago. It got squashed. They decided they didn't, they weren't interested in Jalen Brown.
48:12 Speaker 03 Which, oh, okay.
48:13 Bill Simmons? I'm saying higher ups.
48:16 Speaker 03 Well, Brooklyn deciding against it makes perfect sense because they make no sense whatsoever. Because you can't make any sense out of what Brooklyn is doing.
48:23 Bill Simmons? The Knicks just won the title. Who are you, who am I selling to Nets fans next year? Please come see Brown, our rookie, before he gets hurt.
48:31 Speaker 03 Julius Randall.
48:33 Bill Simmons? If I had Brown and Julius Randall and a bunch of shooting and young guys, like I'm, at that point, I'm not, not interesting.
48:39 Speaker 03 Right.
48:41 Bill Simmons? But yeah, they turned that down. It's really bad.
48:45 Speaker 03 They don't need more teams. They just need to move that Brooklyn team.
48:48 Bill Simmons? We're gonna take a break and then we gotta talk about Joel Embiid. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what? You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech. For American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather, visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 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.
49:30 Bill Simmons? 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.
49:44 Bill Simmons? All right, Joel Embiid, 57 million this year, 63 next year, 67 in the final year of his deal.
49:53 Speaker 03 I mean, we're doing the worst contracts draft all over. I mean, this whole podcast is Paul George and Joel Embiid. Absolutely amazing.
50:00 Bill Simmons? Jaylen's 57, 61, and 65, and Maxey's 41, 44, and 46. And the cap's going backwards. This whole thing where the cap went backwards has been, I wish I had been more focused on it heading into the draft in free agency. Like, this is nuts. It's 6 million lower than they projected it for this year. I think next year it's going to be in double figures. And by the time we get to the last year of the decade, I think it's going to be like 25 million less than they thought.
50:27 Speaker 03 So this is the most, yes, I didn't mean to interrupt.
50:29 Bill Simmons? Well, no, it was just when they did the Jaylen deal a couple of years ago. It was like, whoa, we had to pay the whole 304 with Tatum too? Like, why'd we do that? And then everybody, and it was just Celtics, every team was like, cap's going way up. Like, it's like that contract and a couple of years. Like, and I remember doing pods about, these guys are going to be making 75 million and it's going to be like they're making 35 now. Well, the cap didn't go up because of all this local TV stuff. And it is one of the reasons that drove the Celtics trade. And if I'm the Sixers, and I have 114 million for Embiid and Jaylen, and then I said the Maxey thing going up, who's the guy I want
51:10 Bill Simmons? to build my team around? And I have VJ Edgecombe down the road. It makes me wonder, do I need to have Joel Embiid around? I think they're going to trade Joel Embiid, House, and I think they want to.
51:22 Speaker 03 This is interesting.
51:23 Bill Simmons? And I don't care if this gets aggregated. So I think he's available. I think teams think he's available. And I think Philly has been pretty careful about saying, we're so excited to build around Embiid, Jaylen, Max, and VJ. You haven't really heard a lot of that. I think Embiid's available. And the question for me, House...
51:44 Bill Simmons? Would you trade for Joel Embiid? And if you, and if you, if the answer is yes, how much would you give up?
51:51 Speaker 03 Would the Wizards trade for Joel Embiid?
51:53 Bill Simmons? Pick a team. I'll give you a bunch of them. Yeah, I'll give you the Wizards. That would be Davis for 58.4. It's a straight shoot. I think Philly would have to make a second trade to do something with the first apron. They'd have to do a couple of cap mechanics, but my guess is Philly would have to throw picks into that trade.
52:12 Speaker 03 Yes, they sure would.
52:14 Bill Simmons? Would you, would you be interested in that?
52:16 Speaker 03 No, sir. No, thank you. I'm all set.
52:19 Bill Simmons? So no, thank you.
52:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
52:21 Bill Simmons? Well, I think I agree with you. If you're Milwaukee, would you think about Myles Turner, 26, 28, 29, next three years? And Kuzma's expiring for Joel Embiid?
52:33 Speaker 03 To do what? Milwaukee stinks. What's the point of adding a guy that plays 40 games a season at 60 million bucks a year?
52:43 Bill Simmons? So that's, so that's a no.
52:45 Speaker 03 That's a hard no.
52:46 Bill Simmons? Okay.
52:47 Speaker 03 They need to stink.
52:48 Bill Simmons? If you're Brooklyn, would you think about Michael Porter just straight up for Embiid?
52:54 Speaker 03 Who knows? Ask, you have to ask.
52:57 Bill Simmons? But you're in charge, you're in charge of Brooklyn right now.
52:59 Speaker 03 Oh, I'm in charge.
53:00 Bill Simmons? You're in charge of Brooklyn.
53:02 Speaker 03 Yes.
53:02 Bill Simmons? You would trade Michael Porter's expiring for three years of Embiid?
53:06 Speaker 03 No, definitely not.
53:07 Bill Simmons? You wouldn't?
53:08 Speaker 03 No. Michael Porter's expiring is worth a lot. That's worth a lot.
53:14 Bill Simmons? I could have Joel Embiid, the 2023, I think that was the year he won, 2023 MVP on my team.
53:22 Speaker 03 How many games is he playing?
53:23 Bill Simmons? Who's on my team? Let's say you move to Brooklyn. Who are you going to see in the Nets this year?
53:27 Speaker 03 Nobody.
53:27 Bill Simmons? Julius Randall?
53:28 Speaker 03 The same as ever. It's the Nets.
53:31 Bill Simmons? Well, here's the one team, I think.
53:35 Bill Simmons? Dallas.
53:37 Bill Simmons? Run by Messiah Harry.
53:40 Bill Simmons? Long, longstanding relationship with Joel Embiid.
53:43 Speaker 03 Okay.
53:44 Bill Simmons? I think would be the one guy.
53:47 Bill Simmons? That would.
53:49 Bill Simmons? Maybe be a little more favorable about rolling the dice of them. And the other thing is they have contracts. They have Gafford at 17, 18, 19. PJ Washington 19, 21, 23, and Klay at 17.4. And that can't be the trade. They'd need a third team. So you would have to bring Milwaukee into it and send Turner and Kuzma. To Philly, you would have to send Embiid to Dallas.
54:15 Speaker 03 That's not terrible.
54:17 Bill Simmons? And then you would have to send the Gafford, Klay, PJ. You'd have to, you'd need some sort of third team. It'd be something like that. If you were Dallas, would you think about it?
54:26 Speaker 03 No. Wrong player, wrong timeline.
54:31 Bill Simmons? So the conclusion we've come to is that Philly is gonna have Joel Embiid on their team next year?
54:37 Speaker 03 The situation that makes sense for him. Honestly, is a team that is very close to winning the title. And that team looking at, you know, it would be a Western Conference team to me in the first place. And it would be a team that feels like this, we can, we can bolster our when be stopping power. With some number of games from Embiid in the playoffs.
55:07 Bill Simmons? Okay.
55:07 Speaker 03 That's what makes sense to me.
55:08 Bill Simmons? Okay, what's that team?
55:11 Speaker 03 Well, the contenders are Minnesota, Denver, and Oklahoma City. Those would be the teams that I think, you know, have a legit chance. I don't look at anybody else in the West. Why not? They, they, they, they had a.
55:25 Bill Simmons? I'm not doing that if I'm Denver.
55:27 Speaker 03 They had Valens Junis as the backup to Joker.
55:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but you can't have a 57 million. Denver's out. That's, Denver's ridiculous. They'd have to trade Jamal Murray for him.
55:35 Speaker 03 I'm talking.
55:36 Bill Simmons? Minnesota, I don't think can because.
55:38 Speaker 03 And you're saying they have to trade Jamal Murray for him?
55:41 Bill Simmons? Two giant big guys with no point guard? Minnesota, I don't think can do anything because of the second apron. I think it's too complicated for them.
55:48 Speaker 03 Even the Gobert bit, they can't.
55:51 Bill Simmons? They would have to be Gobert. I don't even know if they're allowed to package players. That's another thing that's so stupid about the league right now is these. You know, be all these restrictions and regulations against being able to trade. What was the third team you had?
56:05 Speaker 03 Shout it, uh, um, San Antonio themselves could, could acquire him.
56:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but they're not doing that.
56:10 Speaker 03 Oklahoma City, though, was the third team.
56:12 Bill Simmons? They're not doing that either.
56:13 Speaker 03 Okay.
56:15 Bill Simmons? It would have to be a team that's like a slightly, slightly desperate.
56:20 Bill Simmons? You know, like a.
56:21 Speaker 03 I mean, it could be Houston, but Houston doesn't do anything that makes any sense. So they're just gonna waste the end of KD.
56:27 Bill Simmons? Forget all the teams. Would you even consider taking that contract down in a million years?
56:34 Speaker 03 Under like desperate kind of circumstances is what you said. Can Golden State fit him? Is the expiring Jimmy Butler, uh, uh, an option here?
56:44 Bill Simmons? House. Now we're talking.
56:50 Bill Simmons? Now we're talking.
56:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, we can get to play.
56:52 Bill Simmons? Golden State says, fuck it. We'll, we'll get, they had Embiid, Kerr coached him in the Olympics.
56:58 Speaker 03 He played very well for Kerr. He really tried hard for that US team, Embiid did.
57:03 Bill Simmons? And you use them as a luxury. The problem is if you're wrong, you've, you've ruined the last bullet in your gun for Curry. Golden State's an interesting one, though. Uh, yeah, the bigger point is.
57:12 Speaker 03 What if LeBron's there? What if LeBron helps?
57:14 Bill Simmons? The other one is, what if Detroit?
57:18 Bill Simmons? Says, yeah, I mean, this is actually more interesting to us than a Durin sign and trade. I don't think they would do that either.
57:24 Speaker 03 Okay.
57:25 Bill Simmons? Um, but yeah, there's just not a lot of teams.
57:27 Speaker 03 I don't hate Detroit. I really don't. I don't hate Detroit. I do think that the idea of Cade and Embiid has a kind of logic.
57:34 Bill Simmons? Let me, let me do this exercise in a slightly different way.
57:41 Bill Simmons? Give me the over under of games by year and bead plays next three years.
57:47 Speaker 03 Thirty nine and a half.
57:48 Bill Simmons? Per year?
57:49 Speaker 03 Oh, you're saying, yes, yes, per year. Right. So that's one.
57:54 Bill Simmons? So if his over under was thirty nine and a half games next season. Would you bet over or under?
58:03 Speaker 03 Uh, under.
58:04 Bill Simmons? Yeah, see, this is why Philly's not gonna be able to trade Joel Embiid.
58:08 Speaker 03 They didn't have to sign him to that extension.
58:10 Bill Simmons? If the Knicks had lost the title.
58:14 Speaker 03 Oh, that's a good one.
58:17 Bill Simmons? There's some towns and bead starts to become, but instead it went the other way. But yeah, the Knicks, the biggest mistake Daryl made, I think of this decade, um, was not selling high on Embiid, much like the Celtics just sold high on Jaylen Brown, which I, I think for different reasons, but.
58:34 Speaker 03 It wasn't only, just only the not selling high. It was also the extension that was not called for, was not required. He was cut, he had a murky foot situation. That extension is the most unforgivable extension in all of basketball.
58:48 Bill Simmons? All right, so we think Joel Embiid will stay on Philly, even though I don't think they want him to stay.
58:52 Speaker 03 That, that was, that, that's where I'm putting him down.
58:54 Bill Simmons? I look forward to them being asked this in a press conference, be like, I don't know where this stuff's coming from. We, we love Joel, we want him back here. I don't, I think they want to have the team built around Maxey and VJ and Jaylen Brown. If they could get out that contract, they would. Um.
59:12 Bill Simmons? On Joel Embiid.
59:16 Bill Simmons? Golden State.
59:20 Bill Simmons? If they could just manage and they'd have Draymond, they have Yaxle and Curry and
59:27 Bill Simmons? you basically, and they have Porzingis, right? They'd have a couple luxuries and basically the goal would be, can we just patch together a regular season and get into the playoffs as one of the eight seeds and then kind of see how it goes for two months. It's kind of fun.
59:40 Speaker 03 I'm into it. I'm into it.
59:42 Bill Simmons? It's kind of fun.
59:43 Speaker 03 Let's, let's, let's, let's take a spin.
59:45 Bill Simmons? Well, the other thing that happened to poor Golden State is I think they thought they were getting, uh, LeBron and potentially AD and, and now it's pretty clear they were being used by leverage as leverage. And the, as LeBron goes back to Cleveland.
59:59 Speaker 03 But I don't understand what that leverage translates into, like, meaning what? Because the teams that are still in the running for him, the Sixers, the Heat.
1:00:09 Bill Simmons? He's going to.
1:00:10 Speaker 03 And Cleveland.
1:00:11 Bill Simmons? The Cleveland thing's done.
1:00:12 Speaker 03 He's going to Cleveland. Okay.
1:00:13 Bill Simmons? Come on.
1:00:14 Speaker 03 But it has to be.
1:00:15 Bill Simmons? First of all, they hired his buddy as assistant GM. That was red flag number one. Red flag number two was they gave Donovan Mitchell that giant extension for no reason. Do you want to pay Donovan Mitchell $75 billion three years from now?
1:00:27 Speaker 03 Well, here, here's the thing.
1:00:28 Bill Simmons? That was they were paying off Donovan Mitchell, so he doesn't get mad when we got LeBron.
1:00:32 Speaker 03 You're going to be shouting this from the rooftops. We, we need to tell all, all the hoops heads out there, all the NBA lovers. It's not just that the salary cap is, is going in the, in the wrong direction. The percentage of what Donovan Mitchell's salary represents to Cleveland is going. It's going to be nearly 40% of the cap because of the way that the cap is.
1:00:55 Bill Simmons? You're right. If the cap goes, is it any sort of danger going the other way?
1:01:00 Speaker 03 It's, it's an incredible miss by the people doing the math. At the time the collective bargaining agreement was negotiated and this second apron, this hard cap was dropped into the situation. They fucked up how much money is going to be available year over year.
1:01:18 Bill Simmons? Yes.
1:01:19 Speaker 03 In a material way. So we are living in an era now, and you've said this, and, and, and we just got to keep telling all our hoops head brethren. There are going to be a lot of deals done where it was done for money, not done for, for basketball reasons, but for salary cap reasons.
1:01:36 Bill Simmons? Things, two things might flip this.
1:01:40 Speaker 03 Let's hear it.
1:01:42 Bill Simmons? Expansion?
1:01:45 Bill Simmons? Being able to dump, they could make the expansion rules whatever they want.
1:01:50 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:01:50 Bill Simmons? Right? They could say you have to take eight, $10 million and up players or however they want to do it. But you might be able to get off one of these guys. The other thing is, and I don't know if they can agree.
1:02:02 Speaker 03 Timeline for expansion. Does it marry up with how much time is left on the Embiid contract?
1:02:07 Bill Simmons? No, the, the next couple of years are going to be bad. I wonder, could they, could they institute an emergency amnesty clause?
1:02:17 Bill Simmons? Just make that part of like, like they, they add a year to the CBA. Like, well, add a year to the CBA, but we, we need a couple of things back, including, uh, we're going to bring the amnesty clause back. You and I, the amnesty clause-
1:02:29 Speaker 03 The players don't want another year of this CBA. The players hate this collective bargaining agreement.
1:02:34 Bill Simmons? Well, they should, you know, they should blame themselves because they, they, uh, they had the reps that signed up for it. Um, the amnesty clause brought us more joy than just about anything.
1:02:44 Speaker 03 It was the Allen Houston, oh, and then-
1:02:47 Bill Simmons? Just every time they had it, it was so funny to watch teams just, just pay people to go away. Including your team with the famous Andre Blatch extension, which was my favorite.
1:02:56 Speaker 03 One of the all time greats.
1:02:57 Bill Simmons? The extension that turned into the amnesty clause. Um, yeah, I don't, maybe there's not an Embiid team yet, but that's, I feel like that's going to be a story. And by the way, he's been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks, but I, I feel like there's something there with Dallas too.
1:03:13 Speaker 03 You haven't seen a welcome to, to Philly JB from Embiid yet? Have we seen that? Maybe he's done it. I'm, I don't, I'm not.
1:03:20 Bill Simmons? So you're just, you, there's no situation where you trade for him unless you were super close to a title and you had a situation like a Jimmy Butler type contract.
1:03:29 Speaker 03 A thousand percent.
1:03:30 Bill Simmons? You wouldn't do it like if you're Brooklyn and be like, we have Joel Embiid, we have a star, come see Joel Embiid.
1:03:37 Speaker 03 How many games can you tell your fans he's going to show up and play? If he only plays 40 games, then come see him for 20 games?
1:03:44 Bill Simmons? I don't know. How did Philly do it the last five years?
1:03:47 Speaker 03 Not well. Their fans are, are, are, are besides themselves.
1:03:51 Bill Simmons? The counter on Embiid is you, you could say, eh, I don't know, his knees look actually pretty good. He had all these other weird injuries and things happen that what if he's just healthy? And I'm trying to talk myself into it for somebody. Phoenix was the other one that I couldn't even figure out. Phoenix's salary cap, I couldn't, but it just felt like a Phoenix thing. Yeah, it felt like a Phoenix thing kind of move.
1:04:10 Speaker 03 There'd be no doubt. I mean, the Miles Bridges thing is fucking bananas. Why, why did they acquire Miles Bridges?
1:04:16 Bill Simmons? Well, I think, didn't he go to Ishby's college?
1:04:19 Speaker 03 Yes, he did. Seems like that could be an explanation.
1:04:23 Bill Simmons? All right. Well, watch, Embiid watches on. Um, we're going to take, uh, oh, I had another thing for you.
1:04:34 Bill Simmons? Teams that have their own picks in 2027, we're gonna do a mailbag in one second. As far as I can tell, it's only 11 teams that just have their own pick in a way that we can understand like, oh, they have their own pick. Sacramento, Memphis, Chicago, Washington, Portland, Orlando, Charlotte, Golden State, Indiana, Boston, and Detroit.
1:04:57 Bill Simmons? And I think I'm right. I'm not, don't, don't hold me to it, but I think those are the 11 teams. And then there's a whole bunch of new picks, swaps. Houston has Phoenix's pick. Memphis has the Lakers. Brooklyn has the Knicks pick. San Antonio has the Hawks, et cetera, et cetera. I think they need to add this to the CBA too, along with the amnesty clause.
1:05:24 Speaker 03 What?
1:05:24 Bill Simmons? They, this is too confusing now. Like, look at, look at this document I have.
1:05:31 Bill Simmons? New picks, swaps, and like, this is just a team, this is fucking, how did we end up here?
1:05:36 Speaker 03 How did we end up here?
1:05:37 Bill Simmons? There's two double swaps, and I don't even know if this is all right.
1:05:43 Bill Simmons? Like, Brooklyn has Philly's pick, I think, protected one through eight next year, which they're not getting, so I guess it rolls over. Clippers have Toronto's pick. The Celtics have this Clippers pick two years from now? That might actually be something?
1:05:57 Speaker 03 Well, this is, we can't do this.
1:05:58 Bill Simmons? But it's just, it's too, I just can't follow it anymore.
1:06:01 Speaker 03 The third week of June 2027, one through 30, somebody will be picking, it'll be 30 picks in the first round.
1:06:10 Bill Simmons? They have to.
1:06:10 Speaker 03 Who the hell knows?
1:06:11 Bill Simmons? I hate it. Um, all right, we're gonna come back to it in a minute. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right, it's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras, and watch Tip Off Plus as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.
1:06:55 Bill 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. Mailbag. All right, some mailbag questions. You can send them to [email protected] . Actually, speaking of what we were just talking about with Brandon asked about the repeater tax. Has it run the court, run its course? Teams are treating the second apron as a hard cap. Can they just remove it? It was interesting. Stevens mentioned something I had been talking about on my podcast for years
1:07:40 Bill Simmons? about how unfair it was that Tatum and Brown were guys they drafted that grew up in Boston, became star players. And then they basically, because of the rules, couldn't keep both of them. And whether they should have stuff built into protected teams. And my argument was always like after five years, maybe you get 2% off per year of the guy's salary for your luxury tax or your cap or whatever. You get some sort of benefit because then that would lead to more stability and fans knowing that they would have the same guy on a team for more than nine years. You're down with any of those types of ideas, right?
1:08:17 Speaker 03 Of course, yes. You have to persuade the ownership, the group that, you know, sits on that side of the table, that this is something that fans want. And so far, they haven't been persuaded. It hasn't shown up in a collective bargaining agreement yet. Of course, it should make sense.
1:08:34 Bill Simmons? AJ in Toledo says the everyone wins penalty would be for the NBA to force Bomber to swap the Clippers for the Supersonics for free. He gets to be the hometown hero in Seattle and run the team. He leaves behind the Intuit Dome and the Clippers, which they then have expansion for. And you get the L A Clippers and is an expansion team. And that's how everybody saves face. I mean, the more interesting thing about the Bomber penalty, and if there's going to be a penalty in that stuff is.
1:09:06 Bill Simmons? They traded Kawhi to Toronto. Who was the aggrieved party in 2019?
1:09:11 Speaker 03 Toronto. I mean, the stories are out there about all of the extracurricular stuff that, you know, Kawhi's camp was demanding. Yeah.
1:09:23 Bill Simmons? So conspiracy bill.
1:09:25 Speaker 03 Are out there.
1:09:26 Bill Simmons? Conspiracy Bill tackled this in a mailbag a week and a half ago about could this be the penalty? Where they just, Toronto just gets their picks back and we call it a day. And but it is interesting that they've removed the one, so they get Kawhi back, who apparently loved being there the whole time, even though he fled like it was the Amityville Horror House after that season. And everybody's just like, yeah, you know, and, and we're just good. So does this mean we're never getting a verdict or finding out what happened?
1:09:57 Speaker 03 Both. Yes. There'll be a verdict, but so finding out what happened, the league is going to say, we, we investigated it extremely thoroughly and we couldn't connect to any of the dots that suggests that there was, you know, a knowing plan by the, the leadership of the, the Clippers to deliberately circumvent the salary cap. It's a lot of circumstantial evidence. So they're going to say, we couldn't connect any of the dots. It doesn't look good. The optics aren't great, but there's no, you know, direct communication from anybody at Clippers leadership to Kawhi or to aspire that says, we're going to try and compensate you, Kawhi, outside of the rules of the league.
1:10:43 Bill Simmons? We'll see how it goes. Javon from North Carolina. Javon from North Carolina wants to know why Phoenix isn't being talked about as a legitimate LeBron destination.
1:10:54 Bill Simmons? He could be doing the 2021 Chris Paul with Devin Booker. They have talent. They have flexibility and more importantly, it's one of the country's best golf destinations. What more could he want? Intriguing.
1:11:07 Speaker 03 Here's the thing, two answers. First of all, he's gonna play golf wherever he wants to play golf, on whatever circumstances he wants to play golf. He, it doesn't, he's not tied to the locale, right? It would be, it's a nice to have for the locale to have, you know, some, some golf courses on, on the days that he's actually, you know, there for home games.
1:11:27 Bill Simmons? Right, because he's gonna be on the road half the season.
1:11:29 Speaker 03 Yes, yes. And even home games, you know, if there's time stretches in the schedule, he can get anywhere. He has a, a, a private jet that will take him anywhere on earth, and certainly anywhere within the continental United States to go play golf, uh, when he finds room in the schedule. And by the way, if he needs a little bit of rest here and there, which certainly makes sense for him and for the team, then go take three days. He doesn't need to play every regular season home game. Um, and he won't play every, every regular season away game. He'll play some number. It, it probably makes sense for him to play, what do you think? 60 games? Is that, is that the right number?
1:12:07 Bill Simmons? He has every record. That, this is why I still feel like, I mean, one of my predictions is already coming true, that he's using the entire month of July to milk this. Um, and it's worked. And everybody with a podcast, every TV show has had LeBron segments. ESPN seems to write a piece every two days, like played brilliantly on that. Um, I still wonder, could he just wait till December, January and, and just keep this going for six months and kind of wait for week 17 football season to strike, depending on who.
1:12:37 Speaker 03 Didn't he, how many games did he miss at the beginning of the most recently completed season? The first 30?
1:12:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah, well, yeah, it was like 20 at least.
1:12:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, because of the sciatica? Got the sciatica?
1:12:48 Bill Simmons? He's a sciatica.
1:12:49 Speaker 03 Got the sciatica. I gotta say, which is, makes sense. Fine with it.
1:12:55 Bill Simmons? If he called you as his golf conciliary and was like, I'm picking my team. I have every record and I have four titles. I'm picking my team solely for the golf courses. What would you tell him?
1:13:07 Speaker 03 Golden State, it's an all time no brainer. The proximity to the Monterey Peninsula and Cypress Point. That means you get Cypress, you get Pebble, obviously. You get the other bangers right there. Monterey Peninsula Club is super underrated. Magnificent. Paso tiempo is within a short drive. And then right there in San Francisco, there is banger after banger. San Francisco Golf Club, the Cal Club, where Curry belongs. Olympic is there. It's just, you know, there are a dozen of the greatest golf courses that earth has to offer in that area.
1:13:45 Bill Simmons? Plus, LA is a short flight. So he's got all of those. He has San Diego and that whole scene. Like you're in the epicenter.
1:13:55 Speaker 03 He wants to go spend, you know, 48 hours at Band and Dunes down in, at North Bend, Oregon. You know how easy it is to get on from a, with a private jet from San Francisco down to...
1:14:07 Bill Simmons? It's like, dude, you already won four titles. You're already, you're in everybody's top three for eternity. Like, you should have fun. Play with Steph Curry.
1:14:16 Speaker 03 Steph has to make this patch. Steph is the one making the pitch.
1:14:19 Bill Simmons? You're selling out arenas. You're going to get to play golf at every course. Like, what are we doing? Just come to us. I don't know what he's... The Cleveland thing, uh...
1:14:30 Bill Simmons? I don't really understand it.
1:14:33 Speaker 03 What do you mean?
1:14:34 Bill Simmons? I don't understand how, like, if winning is the number one priority.
1:14:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:14:42 Bill Simmons? I don't understand how you win a title if you're playing Mitchell, Harden and LeBron as three of your five guys in four straight playoff series. Why, anyone would think that was going to work.
1:14:52 Speaker 03 It's a tough one.
1:14:53 Bill Simmons? I think LeBron has to be in the Harden spot. And the only case I would say like, why, if he decided it's Cleveland, why it's taking so long is they're trying to figure out a way to get out of the Harden piece of this when they had a wink, wink with him.
1:15:05 Speaker 03 I thought they already extended him, didn't they?
1:15:08 Bill Simmons? I thought they were...
1:15:10 Speaker 03 They're still discussing it?
1:15:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I don't think it's been announced.
1:15:14 Speaker 03 Well, they said they're working on the extension. Has it not been announced that the extension is completed?
1:15:18 Bill Simmons? We've seen teams back out of stuff.
1:15:20 Speaker 03 Well, that's true. We have seen that. Daryl Morey is a liar, according to some.
1:15:26 Bill Simmons? That was tough. Poor Daryl Morey, tough decade. No, he is not.
1:15:35 Bill Simmons? He's not.
1:15:36 Speaker 03 Extension's not complete yet.
1:15:38 Bill Simmons? It is not. There's a lot of could be's and maybes. Could be three years, like all kinds of stuff.
1:15:43 Speaker 03 That's what I saw.
1:15:45 Bill Simmons? It would be interesting if Harden became the sixth man on the team, like he went back to his 2012 OKC.
1:15:53 Speaker 03 The problem with Cleveland is Kenny fucking Atkinson. I mean, get grandpa, his smoking pipe and some pudding. And let him, you know, tell you how many games they won according to the Ouija board.
1:16:08 Bill Simmons? Charlie sends in, it's supposed to be eight slices of pie for blame pie. I always do blame pie. I guess I had three slices in the last one and he doesn't like that. Said it's illegal. There's no word, no need to have the word pie involved. You don't say, sure, I'll have 10% more apple pie on Thanksgiving. You say, I'll have one more slice. And then he writes, I'm a depressed Celtics fan living in the Bay area.
1:16:34 Speaker 03 He wants more explanations.
1:16:36 Bill Simmons? So how many slices can be in a blame pie? At least four? Cause you can have a four sliced blame pie.
1:16:42 Speaker 03 You could, yes. But I, we had eight explanations for how the Celtics fucked this up. Did they apologize to their fanbase yet?
1:16:50 Bill Simmons? The Celtics?
1:16:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, they need to apologize.
1:16:54 Bill Simmons? I'll say this, um, cause there's been some, some weird stuff going on online and people go, you know, doing shitty things to Stevens and all that stuff. Sports, anybody that does that stuff, I just don't get it.
1:17:10 Bill Simmons? Like you can be mad about a trade, like whatever, but you start calling in a social media handles and stuff. I just think you've got to take a look at a mayor at that point.
1:17:17 Speaker 03 I hope. I didn't see any of that stuff. I don't like.
1:17:20 Bill Simmons? It's like shit with Brad Stevens' kids.
1:17:21 Speaker 03 I denounced all of it. I denounced that. That's horrendous.
1:17:24 Bill Simmons? Let's, let's keep it in perspective. We won the title in 2024. Settle down. I didn't like the trade either, but if you're going online to try to attack people, settle down. Keith Black says.
1:17:38 Bill Simmons? He thinks the Matt Fries error from the World Cup game is up there with the worst sports plays he's ever seen in his life. And he said his top five are J.R. Smith's finals brain fart, the Bill Buckner game six error, um, the Colts special teams play when they put all the guys on the right side and then the snapper got overrun and the punter got tackled, the butt fumble and Chris Webber calling timeout. He thinks I should have a bracket with all the worst plays ever. That's too mean. The Matt Fries play was iconic, though.
1:18:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, and, and you have to separate even that list of contenders. The stakes were radically different for many of those, like, like, uh, the Buckner error is in the same class as Fries because that's, that's what was at stake.
1:18:22 Bill Simmons? I don't know why I was calling him Fries. Fries.
1:18:24 Speaker 03 Whatever, however you say it, I don't know how to say it.
1:18:26 Bill Simmons? Buckner was just like a, a brain fart mistake, the, the goalie having like basically an AYSO error for the third goal that you would see like in an under 10 game in Norco, California. I'm still reeling from that.
1:18:39 Speaker 03 I'm just being like in terms of like, what was at stake and the, the, the horrible outcome that produced.
1:18:45 Bill Simmons? It's pretty bad.
1:18:46 Speaker 03 Well, except for they weren't going to win that series and it was game one and they still, all it, all it produced was them going to overtime. They still could have won that basketball game. It didn't, the game didn't end on that play. The stupid, you know, uh, giving up that goal. The game was over. That was it. That game.
1:19:02 Bill Simmons? What about Wemby whipping it off Castle's back?
1:19:05 Speaker 03 Go ahead and put that in the list. You can put that in the list.
1:19:12 Speaker 03 The foul was worse. The foul on him fouling Brunson was worse.
1:19:15 Bill Simmons? AC in DC says the Jaylen trade is so interesting because of two elements coexisting. How lopsided and panicky the trade appears. How amazing Brad Stevens has been.
1:19:31 Bill Simmons? Two things that don't, two things that collide.
1:19:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:19:35 Bill Simmons? Well, he's been amazing as an executive.
1:19:37 Speaker 03 Has he been amazing?
1:19:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I think so.
1:19:39 Speaker 03 You like the Vucevic, how that went down?
1:19:41 Bill Simmons? That was a money thing. That was a money thing and then hope. That was it. That was a money trade. That was not a basketball trade.
1:19:48 Speaker 03 Well, again, we have to keep telling the world this because that team was, you know, trending in a direction where they knew that Tatum was a possibility.
1:19:56 Bill Simmons? They had to save money or the team was going to have $300 million in taxes, which was unsustainable, apparently.
1:20:01 Speaker 03 So this is the expectation management that I'm talking about and why they should be apologizing. They should have said out, out loud that, that, you know, Jaylen, as much as we love him and we'd love to keep him, we're not sure that's going to be possible. They could have said that at any point.
1:20:16 Bill Simmons? They should have said that during the honest thing.
1:20:18 Speaker 03 They could have said this at any point.
1:20:19 Bill Simmons? I'm still not positive they were that in on Giannis. They made one offer.
1:20:24 Speaker 03 You said that they were.
1:20:25 Bill Simmons? They made one offer. They never made a second one, though. It's so weird.
1:20:28 Speaker 03 Why? Why didn't they?
1:20:29 Bill Simmons? If you, if you wanted to get a new house in DC and you're like, I really like this house, you make an offer. And then the broker's like, all right, well, they'll do this instead. And you're like, nope. I've made my one offer.
1:20:45 Speaker 03 Rather not, rather not have the house.
1:20:46 Bill Simmons? Usually you can make an offer in basketball, that means you're going to make another offer. But that's the thing. The Celtics are like, yeah, I'm good with that. I don't want the house.
1:20:55 Speaker 03 It doesn't make any sense because the, it, it cost them Jaylen Brown.
1:20:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Anyway, AC in DC says, with something like the Luca trade, we could immediately just trash Nico Harrison and not worry too much about eating crow later. But because of how much most basketball fans respect Stevens, we have to entertain the thought that maybe we're the asshole here. Maybe he's far ahead of us on understanding the card cap and how to compete with Wemby and OKC and, and getting rid of Jaylen. And then he wonders, has there ever been a bigger self-questioning, wait, am I the asshole trade in the history of basketball? I did think about this. It's probably the Adrian Dantley, Mark Aguirre trade.
1:21:38 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:21:41 Bill Simmons? Because I think our reaction when that trade happened was huh.
1:21:46 Bill Simmons? Like they almost made the finals last year with Adrian Dantley and Mark Aguirre seems pretty unhappy in Dallas and this is a pretty weird trade. Wonder why they did this? And then it turned out that won them two titles. Not saying this is going to turn out the same way. I couldn't think of any other examples though.
1:22:04 Speaker 03 How quickly can they trade Paul George? What are the rules now? How long do they have to hold on to him now?
1:22:10 Bill Simmons? I mean, you can.
1:22:11 Speaker 03 Some period of time. Okay, they still, I didn't know if there was like, if this was one of those trades where you have to sit on them for some period of time before he comes trade eligible again.
1:22:20 Bill Simmons? I liked when New Orleans said they're not trading Trey Murphy.
1:22:25 Speaker 03 What are they doing?
1:22:26 Bill Simmons? Trey Murphy's going around everywhere saying like, yeah, I don't know where I'm going. I'm definitely getting traded. Like talk to him.
1:22:31 Speaker 03 New Orleans and Brooklyn, the two most confounding franchises.
1:22:36 Bill Simmons? Luke Hall in Melbourne, Australia.
1:22:39 Speaker 03 Love Melbourne, Australia.
1:22:41 Bill Simmons? He said, after hearing your list of, oh no, trades on the podcast with Zach, should we start ranking trades for shock factor, the same as earthquakes, like on the Richter scale? The Luca trade would be a 9.5, the largest ever recorded.
1:22:56 Bill Simmons? It's true. You could factor it aftershocks, tsunamis and more for trade analysis.
1:22:59 Speaker 03 It's a 9.9. It's a full 10.
1:23:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I would argue the Luca trade was a 9.7. Well, I don't think, I think it's a 10. That's like the end of civilization.
1:23:08 Speaker 03 Whatever the highest.
1:23:09 Bill Simmons? I thought nine was like, your whole city's ruined at like eight and a half or, yeah. So maybe the Luca was a nine.
1:23:15 Speaker 03 It was catastrophic until the league fixed the Cooper flag pick.
1:23:20 Bill Simmons? I think a 10 would be like, OKC trading Shay Gildes Alexander for Kevin Herter, straight up. That'd be a 10.
1:23:29 Speaker 03 What about, what about the Celtics trading Jaylen Brown for Paul George?
1:23:33 Bill Simmons? And, and two first round picks?
1:23:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, what about that?
1:23:36 Bill Simmons? I think it's at least, at least a seven and a half.
1:23:39 Speaker 03 I would say so.
1:23:40 Bill Simmons? The thing is, we knew they were shopping them. So that's what the Luca trade.
1:23:43 Speaker 03 An untradeable contract. We, we, you know, how much mileage we've gotten off these Paul George contracts the last three years.
1:23:49 Bill Simmons? What was the number one Washington Wizards Richter scale trade? Oh.
1:23:55 Speaker 03 Probably Chris Mitch Richmond for Chris Webber. That was pretty bad.
1:23:58 Bill Simmons? You were so sad.
1:23:59 Speaker 03 Hurt. Actually, you know what? No, it's not that. It was, uh, we traded Ben Wallace for, hold on. I know this. The guy from Orlando. Oh God, I know his name. I'm sorry. I can't pull it right now. It was a horrendous, horrendous trade.
1:24:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah, cuz.
1:24:16 Speaker 03 And Ben, Ben Wallace went to Detroit and became a cornerstone, the most important player on, on multiple contending teams for them.
1:24:24 Bill Simmons? So, uh, it was, oh.
1:24:28 Speaker 03 Ike Austin.
1:24:29 Bill Simmons? Ike Austin.
1:24:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, I knew I could pull it.
1:24:32 Bill Simmons? Tim Legler was in that trade. Legs.
1:24:34 Speaker 03 Legs. Wonder how he feels about it.
1:24:37 Bill Simmons? Ike Austin. I remember.
1:24:39 Speaker 03 Jesus Christ.
1:24:40 Bill Simmons? I had a.
1:24:41 Speaker 03 What the fuck?
1:24:41 Bill Simmons? I had the digital city column back then, but no podcast. You were just an occasional character in my, in my column. I don't think you weighed in on the record on that, but I know from phone calls, you were absolutely furious and upset because you were going to Wizards games and you were like, this guy Ben Wallace, there's something here.
1:25:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:25:00 Bill Simmons? And then they traded him for Ike Austin.
1:25:03 Speaker 03 God damn it.
1:25:04 Bill Simmons? All right. Um, now that Kyle Lowry is officially retired as a Raptor, I need a ruling. This is from Big Mo in Toronto. Is Kyle Lowry a Hall of Famer? Six All-Stars, one All-NBA champion, Olympic gold.
1:25:22 Bill Simmons? He will get a jersey retired here anyway, but we can't control the Hall of Fame. So I, as you know, I've been constantly tinkering with this pyramid list that I'll probably die and nobody will even know who was in it. I did have him on the extended honorable mention. Um, second best player on a championship team. He did get 13 All-NBA ones, 2019 playoffs, 15, five and seven in 24 games with all the defense stuff that he did. I wrote down best love him on your team hate him if he's on anyone else's team guy of his era, basically, which is Lambert, Mahorn, Bruce Bowen, those kind of guys. He was probably the most talented of all those types of players. And everyone gets into the Hall of Fame. So the answer is he's in.
1:26:05 Speaker 03 He's in. That's a great point.
1:26:07 Bill Simmons? Antoine Jameson's getting in. Did Antoine Jameson get in?
1:26:10 Speaker 03 Are you kidding me?
1:26:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he'll get in. He has 20,000 points. He'll be in.
1:26:16 Speaker 03 My goodness. The NBA is something.
1:26:18 Bill Simmons? Jack M. writes, I've heard several takes on how LaMelo will fit with Ant in Minnesota. But people aren't talking enough about the biggest problem with this trade. LaMelo Ball will be living in Minnesota throughout the winter. The worst driver of our era is going to be driving on snow and ice for four months. This can't end well. You're going to have to call Con and Uber and get to Minnesota to protect Ant at all costs. We cannot let him get in an automobile with LaMelo behind the wheel. Now, people have been joking about this, but it's it's possible. We haven't joked enough about it. But he couldn't handle Charlotte. Charlotte's nice.
1:26:50 Speaker 03 It should be in his contract that he
1:26:53 Bill Simmons? Ubers only?
1:26:54 Speaker 03 Yes, yes. It doesn't not an Uber, just a driver.
1:26:56 Bill Simmons? I think he likes driving, though. He likes driving that
1:26:59 Speaker 03 Well, that means he likes crashing.
1:27:00 Bill Simmons? Crazy giant trucks.
1:27:01 Speaker 03 He's gonna drive that giant, giant, giant truck and
1:27:04 Bill Simmons? Could be Fargo, too.
1:27:08 Bill Simmons? Paul from Liverpool, UK. He said, FAO conspiracy bill. Myopic new salary cap rules. Most talent leagues after I ever had not enough max salary slots, potentially disgruntled players. Adam Silver now trying to rush expansion to open up more salaries and more max slots. What are your thoughts? I don't think they're related.
1:27:32 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:27:32 Bill Simmons? It did make me think that.
1:27:34 Speaker 03 I tend to to agree with you. You think that the expansion will open up this the cap that the cap will increase because of the expansion?
1:27:42 Bill Simmons? The cap won't increase the ability to take 24 players and move them around and give some cap relief. And then if you're an expansion team, like if Embiid's unprotected.
1:27:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:27:58 Bill Simmons? The last year of his deal, let's say they start in 27, 28, or 28.
1:28:02 Speaker 03 Well, that's why I asked.
1:28:02 Bill Simmons? Let's say they started 28, 29. If you're Vegas, do you make Embiid like one of your first picks in the expansion? Because you get Joel Embiid for a year.
1:28:10 Speaker 03 Right. Okay, I get it.
1:28:12 Bill Simmons? XF Ramirez in New York says, why is no one in the media discussing just how terrible the Pelicans rebuild is going? Is it a retool, a re-poop? You tell me. Trey Murphy is still on this team. Why exactly? Missy is suddenly feverishly untouchable. Derek Queen, he's untouchable. Herb Jones, they're letting, content with just letting him rot away in a smoothie coated hellhole. And what in the ever loving fuck is Zion Williamson still doing there? From the outside, it looks less like a plan and more like someone forgot to hit simulate on the rebuild. What are they doing? What is this team?
1:28:47 Speaker 03 Well, he forgot one. They just, didn't they just hire Jamal Mosley to be the head coach?
1:28:51 Bill Simmons? They did. He's hot. He's coming off a seven game playoff series.
1:28:56 Speaker 03 Well, he's hot because he was sitting on the goddamn hot seat for the entirety of that Orlando season.
1:29:01 Bill Simmons? It's hot for the seat.
1:29:02 Speaker 03 And it's in an inferno.
1:29:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah, so they have.
1:29:06 Speaker 03 Them in Brooklyn, I have no fucking idea what they're doing.
1:29:09 Bill Simmons? Dumars, when he traded McCollum's expiring for two years of Jordan Poole, one of my favorite underrated bad trades of the decade.
1:29:16 Speaker 03 Bless up. Bless up.
1:29:17 Bill Simmons? So they still have Jordan Poole on an expiring. They have Murphy, Herb Jones. They did not have their number one pick this year, of course. They still have Murray. I don't know. I don't know what they're doing.
1:29:31 Speaker 03 That's a team. Who was it? Willie Green was the head coach?
1:29:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:29:36 Speaker 03 It was just two years ago and they were on pace to win nearly 50 games. Of course, Zion got hurt, but there was a case to be made for Willie Green. Like, he was quietly taking a lot of that talent and here we are with them once again.
1:29:51 Bill Simmons? They have some sort of, some sort of swap with Milwaukee that I've, I just.
1:29:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they have.
1:30:00 Speaker 03 It should be valuable because Milwaukee is going to stink stink.
1:30:04 Bill Simmons? I it's either 27 or 20. I don't know. There's been so many things about I have this document with all the draft picks and I don't even know what's right anymore. But they have a swap with uh. Apparently with New Orleans and Milwaukee where New Orleans gets the best of those two picks. But that, yeah, that's right. I have that correct.
1:30:29 Bill Simmons? So that's not bad.
1:30:30 Speaker 03 No.
1:30:31 Bill Simmons? The Bucks might not be good.
1:30:33 Speaker 03 They're not going to be good.
1:30:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Um, all right, couple more.
1:30:39 Bill Simmons? Watching upset. This is from Craig from Durham, North Carolina. Watching obsession. Did you see obsession?
1:30:46 Speaker 03 I didn't.
1:30:49 Speaker 03 Sign me up.
1:30:50 Bill Simmons? You should. It's you can you can pay per view it on whatever.
1:30:55 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:30:56 Bill Simmons? Watching obsession got me thinking about Kevin Durant. His career has all the telltale signs of a poorly worded wish coming true. That's the focus of obsession.
1:31:05 Speaker 03 That's the.
1:31:05 Bill Simmons? Guy makes a wish, it goes badly.
1:31:07 Speaker 03 All right.
1:31:07 Bill Simmons? After being eliminated in 2016, Durant made a wish that probably sounded something like. I wish I was part of the best team of all time. He then got his chance. Unfortunately, after that, numerous injuries, foot on the line. Sabotaged a couple of teams, never got the respect he wanted. That's an interesting analogy. He did get what he wanted. He would that 2017 Warriors team was, I think, the best team of this century. It's either them or the old one Lakers in the finals. Who do you have in that?
1:31:36 Speaker 03 Um, the Warriors.
1:31:41 Bill Simmons? Um.
1:31:42 Speaker 03 Back to back finals MVP, right? Didn't he get it both years?
1:31:46 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Patrick wants to know if um.
1:31:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:31:49 Bill Simmons? Is Jaylen Brown replaced cat now as this generation's 90 10 guy? Where his 90% is good, but everybody dwells in the 10% and he said. My other choice was cat, but I think he washed himself of his sins with the last postseason. I think that's true.
1:32:04 Speaker 03 I agree.
1:32:05 Bill Simmons? So Jaylen, that was that Westbrook column I wrote in 2012 about.
1:32:10 Bill Simmons? Everybody has 10%. That's not great. In some guys, it's more glaring than others. And Russell Westbrook's was always the most glaring. And that's a little bit like what Jaylen's like. Uh, Cal from Ottawa said after watching Argentina scrape by Egypt, got me thinking about Messi and his relationship with his teammates. I think he has to be the most, number one most loved teammate of all time. Who else would you add to the list? Steph, um, et cetera, et cetera, he goes. Um, for basketball, I think Steph and Duncan and Nash.
1:32:41 Speaker 03 I'm glad you had Duncan. I agree with Duncan as well.
1:32:43 Bill Simmons? For the last 25 years. And it seems like Brunson might be pretty close to those guys.
1:32:49 Speaker 03 Good, good. Like that, like that direction.
1:32:52 Bill Simmons? And then going backwards, I think Russell is probably the all time example of this. Jerry West was another good one. Um, Bill Walton, when he was healthy.
1:33:00 Speaker 03 Wasn't Magic beloved?
1:33:02 Bill Simmons? And Magic, Magic, you know, he did get a coach fired there. He, he, he did get Norm Nixon traded. Like, I didn't think it was perfect, but I, you know, I think everybody loved to have Magic on their team.
1:33:17 Bill Simmons? David B. in the, in the, from the Bay area was listening to me talk to Zach about how I thought they needed a third card in soccer.
1:33:27 Bill Simmons? In Gaelic football and hurling.
1:33:30 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:33:31 Bill Simmons? In Ireland.
1:33:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:33:33 Bill Simmons? They have similar yellow and red cards soccer, but they also have a black card that works like a power play.
1:33:38 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:33:39 Bill Simmons? If you get a black card, you're out of the ga- black card, you're out of the game for 10 minutes. And your team's at a disadvantage and then you come back.
1:33:45 Speaker 03 Oh, I like this.
1:33:46 Bill Simmons? I started to think about how this could apply to the NBA and other sports. You get a technical foul, you're out for two minutes, your team plays five on four. I, I gotta say, I did think about it a little bit. I think for soccer, like the Balogun red card, if they had just given him the black card instead, he's just out for 15 minutes. And you have to play one man down and then he comes back. I, I like that more than just. This like do or die with the way it is now.
1:34:11 Speaker 03 My complaint with the Balligan red card was the next game. Like I, even if he had set out the remainder of the game in which he'd committed that foul, I could have like kind of understood that, but kicking him out for the next game.
1:34:26 Bill Simmons? You lose a game and a half.
1:34:28 Speaker 03 That's.
1:34:29 Bill Simmons? It was like the Wemby elbow. If when Wemby elbow, who did Wemby elbow? Nas Reed.
1:34:34 Speaker 03 Nas Reed.
1:34:35 Bill Simmons? He had to leave that game in the first half. And then if he had also missed the next game, that's like you basically missing two games.
1:34:41 Speaker 03 That was possible because we wondered whether he was gonna get an expense, a suspension. And there was some discussion at the time around whether or not, you know, the league would, would step up that way.
1:34:53 Bill Simmons? Daniel from Toronto wants to know, are the Raptors Forrest Gump and his Kawhi Jenny?
1:34:59 Bill Simmons? They unconditionally deeply love the person, but they walk out on you, cheat on you, dabble in rotten, sketchy behavior when it all goes to shit. Whisper sweet nothings. So you take them back and provide a net of safety and support for their final chapter. I guess Forrest Jr. Is the 2019 title. You don't want to guess what he said aspiration was. But I do like the analogy of Jenny Gump as Kawhi.
1:35:26 Speaker 03 It's pretty good. The problem is.
1:35:27 Bill Simmons? I love you Jenny.
1:35:30 Speaker 03 This next chapter of him in Toronto, it's not gonna go well.
1:35:34 Bill Simmons? Well, yeah, they ended with them getting married and her dying.
1:35:36 Speaker 03 This Jenny with AIDS.
1:35:38 Bill Simmons? Right. She died. She died.
1:35:40 Speaker 03 Yeah. From AIDS.
1:35:42 Bill Simmons? Jack, Jake's never confirmed in the four, we did a whole thing at the Forrest Gump. We think it was probably, yeah.
1:35:48 Speaker 03 I was there for that pod. It was Washington DC.
1:35:52 Bill Simmons? Jake Steiner said, if I could bet on when LeBron James plays his last professional game of basketball,
1:35:58 Bill Simmons? what would the odds be for him to retire in 2028? But after the Summer Olympics gold medal game.
1:36:05 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:36:08 Speaker 03 Interesting.
1:36:09 Bill Simmons? Hmm. Two more years, plays for the Olympic team. Does the last year is the farewell tour and then the Olympics is the last moment.
1:36:21 Bill Simmons? The question is, do you want 43 year old LeBron James involved in our gold medal game? This is gonna be the greatest Olympics basketball of all time.
1:36:29 Speaker 03 Wow.
1:36:30 Bill Simmons? This could be a house gets divorced.
1:36:34 Bill Simmons? Olympics. I don't know how you don't come out for all the basketball for like two and a half weeks.
1:36:38 Speaker 03 Start with that. I mean, there's ways to do that and stay married, I feel like.
1:36:44 Bill Simmons? Okay, good. That was a good answer.
1:36:48 Bill Simmons? But.
1:36:48 Speaker 03 Wow. I do love the idea of LeBron having something to do with that team. I really do love it.
1:36:55 Bill Simmons? Um, huge fan of the pod. Um, this is from Darren. I'm a diehard miserable Mets and Nets fan. As a Mets fan, there's a Jaylen Brown comp staring us in the face. Pete Alonso, consistently one of the top RBI guys in the league, the metric geeks all think he's not worth the big money. The Mets let him go, paid all these other guys. All them got hurt, missed time and can't do what Pete did at the plate or on the field. The only thing that makes this comp perfect is if the Celtics shit the bed. Please know David Stern would have made this Jaylen Brown trade in a heartbeat. That made me feel worse. Just, just no question.
1:37:28 Speaker 03 Wait, what does that mean? David Stern would have made the Jaylen Brown trade?
1:37:32 Bill Simmons? He's the Mets guy. Yeah.
1:37:33 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:37:34 Bill Simmons? Saying like as the Pete Alonso.
1:37:36 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:37:38 Bill Simmons? Dan Fahey from the North End thinks that sliding doors for the whole Celtics trading JB saga is not Tatum getting the Achilles injury, but Porzingis getting the mystery illness.
1:37:50 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:37:50 Bill Simmons? In the second half of 2025, which led to them not being able to beat the Knicks. And then Tatum getting hurt in game four.
1:37:57 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:37:57 Bill Simmons? And if Porzingis is healthy, maybe less minutes on Tatum and maybe that is the thing we should point to.
1:38:02 Speaker 03 There's something to this theory. I do like it.
1:38:08 Bill Simmons? Andy, oh, well, there's a couple more quick ones. Andy from QC. I forgot to mention this to you before the draft.
1:38:16 Speaker 03 Andy from QC, where's QC?
1:38:18 Bill Simmons? QC Philippines.
1:38:19 Speaker 03 Oh, phenomenal. Hello Philippines.
1:38:22 Bill Simmons? He wants to know why we didn't make the DeBance, the Bancea Lumbias connection. And ironically, AJ was the one that made it. I don't see it. I don't feel like they're, I don't, I don't see the comparison. But body wise, I see it.
1:38:36 Speaker 03 Yeah. The way they, they, they present, um, I'll say this with, with no disrespect intended in any way, shape or form towards my guy AJ. Um, Bias was a much more physical player. And he, he, he could bully guys. We didn't see that version. AJ might grow into his body and get there. But, but I mean Bias was a, a beast on the block. He, he was capable of, you know, creating advantage out of his sheer physicality. And AJ, again, he's not there yet.
1:39:09 Bill Simmons? It's so funny that he was both our favorite college players, but we didn't know each other yet. And you had even bigger ties to him because he was Maryland.
1:39:17 Speaker 03 I mean, I was going to games at Cole Fieldhouse at the, at the University of Maryland, like.
1:39:22 Bill Simmons? It's a top five NBA would have.
1:39:24 Speaker 03 Brutal.
1:39:26 Bill Simmons? Alex wants to know, he said his basketball group chats having the following conversation. How many years would Seth Curry have to play to be considered the better Curry brother? Like from right now. Um, assuming he maintains his Dallas level splits. 11 points a game, 43% free points. How many years to play before the sheer overwhelming numbers of his career become unassailable? 40 more years? If he was hooping at 85, does he not become the best Curry?
1:39:55 Bill Simmons? How do these people come up with these?
1:39:57 Speaker 03 That's amazing. Poor Seth. I was gonna say, poor Seth Curry. Fuck that. He's had an incredible run.
1:40:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I still think he'd have to go to 85. Jay from Halifax, Nova Scotia said, the big fondue was a great Wemby name, but can't believe we didn't go with the choke monsieur, monsieur.
1:40:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, I saw the choke monsieur was out there. I saw that. I, I enjoyed it. Sacre bleu.
1:40:19 Bill Simmons? All right, two more and then we're done. From Chance in Oregon. Your segment explaining Chuck Robinson and World Be Free and a recent mailbag was my favorite five minutes of the pod this year. As a millennial NBA junkie, it's hard to get the proper sense of good, but perhaps not great players from previous eras. You can piece together YouTube, Wikipedia, Basketball Reference. Please make this a regular segment. He lists a whole bunch of guys. He said, so many dudes, I'm on the cusp of understanding their careers. Pick a guy each week you find fascinating. First guy he mentioned was Gus Williams.
1:40:49 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:40:50 Bill Simmons? And I'm happy to do 90 seconds on Gus Williams with you right now. 1979 champs, best guy on the team. I have him as the unofficial playoff MVP for 1979. 26.7 points a game in the playoffs that year. He was fifth MVP in 82. He was All-NBA once, second team All-NBA once, third team twice. He played in the 78 finals, best guy on that team. 79 championship, 80 Eastern Conference Finals, and held out in the 80-81 season, which I talked about in my book. He had an agent named Howard Slusher who held him out because he was underpaid and basically cost him a really important year of his prime.
1:41:34 Bill Simmons? He was the best point guard in the league, House, from 1978 to 1982.
1:41:39 Speaker 03 So this is why-
1:41:40 Bill Simmons? It's a five-year span and then Magic took it. Yeah, and then Magic took the torch.
1:41:45 Speaker 03 Lost to history because this was the lowest point in the history of the league, right? In terms of its exposure, it's the place that it occupied, the league occupied in the American consciousness. So Gus Williams really lost to history. When you say a guy, the averaged, what did you say, 20?
1:42:04 Bill Simmons? 26.7 for the playoffs.
1:42:06 Speaker 03 No threes. There are no threes in the NBA. Look at the scores of those basketball games and think about how good he had to be in terms of inside, outside. And he was an incredible long-range shooter. Like, he would have been awesome if with the three-point line.
1:42:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he was. And then the next year, he was 24 a game in 15 playoff games. That team was Portland should have been the best team of that era. And then Walton got hurt and then Seattle basically was and they couldn't. The real problem is Dennis Johnson, who I loved, obviously, but I think was a little prickly. Gus Williams, they.
1:42:47 Speaker 03 There's that.
1:42:47 Bill Simmons? They it turned into a little bit of a like a worse version of the Jaylen Jason thing. They end up trading Dennis Johnson in Phoenix for Paul Westphal, who plays that one year and then gets hurt. And then Gus ends up eventually on your team for two years, Washington.
1:43:02 Speaker 03 I remember.
1:43:03 Bill Simmons? But wasn't really the same version of himself at that point. But yeah, I think, I think he was the best point guard in the league for a five year stretch, which ain't nothing. And the games weren't on. I think he's somebody he was, he was a classic bald guy with a beard, almost looked like an actor. Could dunk on dudes, would do the thing where he would go hard to the basket and wait for the big guy to come challenge it and kind of wait a second and then dunk on the guy. I loved his game. He was one of my favorite good basketball cards. Was really never on TV unless they're in the playoffs, though.
1:43:38 Speaker 03 That's the point, right?
1:43:39 Bill Simmons? I don't think they showed Seattle ever.
1:43:41 Speaker 03 That era that you just mentioned, when we think of him as the, the best point guard in the league. He had 49.5%, 48.2%, 48.6%, 47.7%. From the field, this fucking guy, that's a bucket. That's a, that's a bucket right there.
1:43:57 Bill Simmons? He's really good. He was fast. That was, there was always like, those were the point guards that are kind of have gone away now, those John Lucas.
1:44:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:44:04 Bill Simmons? Norm Nixon, Gus Williams, like these Kevin Porter, these fast guys.
1:44:09 Speaker 03 Who you think is the closest to that now?
1:44:11 Bill Simmons? Guys who know how to run a team.
1:44:13 Speaker 03 That's a great one. Who is our closest in modern basketball?
1:44:17 Bill Simmons? Like right now?
1:44:18 Speaker 03 Yeah. Cause I, it's not Brunson.
1:44:21 Bill Simmons? I don't think we have those guys.
1:44:23 Speaker 03 Cause Brunson's a scorer.
1:44:25 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I would say, cause these guys, the impetus is more to score, but like, I feel like somebody like Acuff could be like that, but it's, it's like, it's the interests are more for him to shoot. Right? But.
1:44:38 Speaker 03 I'm gonna think on this. Who's our modern equivalent of Gus Johnson?
1:44:43 Bill Simmons? Gus Williams.
1:44:44 Speaker 03 Williams.
1:44:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he.
1:44:45 Speaker 03 Dennis Johnson.
1:44:47 Bill Simmons? It's the, he was like a prototype, though, for those shooting point guards, basically. He was never like a high assist guy. Anyway, I loved him. Go check out his YouTube. Last question for Brandon Richter. Said 20 years ago in the mailbag, I wrote to you about instances in which day drinking before 10 a.m. is acceptable. And he attached the image.
1:45:06 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:45:10 Bill Simmons? From my old page two column. Yeah, he made it.
1:45:15 Bill Simmons? And he said, today, the day before the Knicks' first ever ticket tape ticker tape parade, I email you wondering if you need to update the list because this seems like a reasonable excuse for early morning beverage. I've been saving this email for you because nobody loves day drinking more than Joe House. So.
1:45:30 Speaker 03 Especially morning drinking.
1:45:32 Bill Simmons? So when I answered this in 2005,
1:45:36 Bill Simmons? I said, here's my official when it's okay to drink before 10 a.m. list.
1:45:41 Speaker 03 Great.
1:45:42 Bill Simmons? While attending football tailgates, college reunions, or the Boston Marathon.
1:45:47 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:45:47 Bill Simmons? Three winners.
1:45:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, good.
1:45:49 Bill Simmons? During your final two weeks of college.
1:45:51 Speaker 03 For sure. Absolutely. Because you're proud. There are many instances where you haven't gone to bed. You're just drinking because you're drinking. I'm not going to bed. I just stay up. Oh, look, it's sun. That's sunrise. Oh, let's toast to that.
1:46:05 Bill Simmons? During any Vegas trip or bachelor party or guys only golf outing.
1:46:10 Speaker 03 Lot of lot of time where you lose track of time. The sun goes down, the sun comes back up.
1:46:16 Bill Simmons? If you pulled an all nighter and haven't let us left a strip club yet, that's in there.
1:46:21 Speaker 03 Again.
1:46:21 Bill Simmons? Again, this is 2005 me. Sorry, I apologize in advance. Before any wedding that starts at 1 p.m. or earlier, anytime your in-laws are visiting, any morning, any morning when it's below 10 degrees. This is a good one. I don't know how I came up with this.
1:46:35 Speaker 03 Big list.
1:46:36 Bill Simmons? If you're dating an actress and just attended a movie premiere during which she had a graphic sex scene with someone on a 50 foot movie screen.
1:46:45 Speaker 03 In 2005, who could have been?
1:46:48 Bill Simmons? How I came up with that. While living in any town in Canada that's farther than 75 miles from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver. If you've been writing for a late night talk show for more than two years, I think that was a joke about writing for Jimmy's show. If your name is Jack Nicholson. Before your fantasy football draft, if you're trying to get the ball rolling so some of your other buddies get plastered, I actually used to do this. There's always one guy who got married too soon and falls for it. And then I have a mean Vin Baker jokes that I'm not going to repeat because he actually had issues. I was way meaner in 2005. What are the other reasons that I didn't put in there?
1:47:24 Speaker 03 Well, you you touched on it briefly. You said the
1:47:28 Bill Simmons? Ticker tape.
1:47:29 Speaker 03 The well, the ticker tape parade goes in, but really many rounds of golf, many, many, many rounds of golf, like, you know, like a Bloody Mary on the golf course or a Bloody Mary as you head over to the first tee. That's a pretty tried and true staple like that. That really lands for sure.
1:47:50 Bill Simmons? I had two more that as we got older, I thought of.
1:47:54 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:47:54 Bill Simmons? And both involve Bloody Marys.
1:47:56 Speaker 03 Good.
1:47:56 Bill Simmons? Because we I wasn't really a Bloody Mary guy in my early mid 30s. The Bloody Mary the next day when you're hungover.
1:48:04 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:48:05 Bill Simmons? I just think is important and somewhat life changing. And I think you might have even introduced me to it. You were my wife. You're the two suspects.
1:48:14 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:48:15 Bill Simmons? And then on the plane.
1:48:16 Speaker 03 Oh, the great call. Amazing call.
1:48:19 Bill Simmons? I I didn't sleep enough last night. I just want to have one drink to get me a little bit more tired.
1:48:25 Speaker 03 So I can sleep.
1:48:26 Bill Simmons? Nice little Bloody Mary and then I get a little sleepy.
1:48:29 Speaker 03 Or it's the rev up to I'm going to this destination. I want to be loose. Going to start drinking now.
1:48:35 Bill Simmons? The six, the 6 a.m. flight to Vegas, cross country, and you start drinking on the flight at like 10:30.
1:48:42 Speaker 03 I'm on vacation. Vacation starts when my ass is in the plane seat. Can I bring you some champagne? Yes, you can.
1:48:49 Bill Simmons? Well, there's also better alcohol now that they have like, my daughter drinks this, I forget what it's called, but it's bottles and it's iced tea and lemonade with something in it.
1:48:59 Speaker 03 There's a lot of those out there.
1:49:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah, she likes one of them.
1:49:02 Speaker 03 High noon, Surfside.
1:49:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Surfside. That's what she she likes. But people have those and they feel like they're not drinking, but they're actually drinking.
1:49:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, they're definitely drinking. Definitely. Nice one of those over a cup of ice. That's a drink that I'll drink on the golf course at eight forty five in the morning. Oh, I've just played seven holes. Let me get a drink.
1:49:23 Bill Simmons? Your most of your day drinking over above around golf and some sort of golf thing.
1:49:27 Speaker 03 Yes, before the round, during the round and after the round.
1:49:30 Bill Simmons? I don't understand how you're able to play golf when you have drinks in you.
1:49:35 Speaker 03 But I mean, first of all, I suck. So that's one piece of it.
1:49:40 Bill Simmons? But is there, is there a point where you feel like you're getting better and then you get worse?
1:49:44 Speaker 03 Uh, sometimes it does create, you know, the, the, the, taking the pressure off, whatever you're, you're sort of feeling about your game up to that point. There's an element of that to it. And I mean, everything's within moderation. Let's, let's be real. I'm not, I'm not out there, um, you know, trying to make, walking up the eighteenth fairway shit face. That's not the goal.
1:50:07 Bill Simmons? Well, plus it's hot. You gotta be careful.
1:50:09 Speaker 03 Hot, can be hot. Yeah, you gotta be careful. Don't want to end up, you know, having the ambulance come to the Mexican restaurant patio. Cause I was out there for five hours drinking a dozen high noons. Trying to avoid that, trying to avoid that.
1:50:22 Bill Simmons? Forgot about that one. All right, House. Um, have you been enjoying betting the World Cup?
1:50:28 Speaker 03 I, I mean, we, we, we have, I don't, I'm gonna knock on wood. I don't want to say. I have been enjoying it. We've been pretty good. That's what I'll just leave it at that. There's been a lot of good.
1:50:38 Bill Simmons? I was doing great and then I let my heart carry me with, uh, US first Belgium.
1:50:43 Speaker 03 Did you not hedge out of that?
1:50:44 Bill Simmons? I should have hedged it. I didn't.
1:50:45 Speaker 03 You didn't hedge that twenty four to one? Did you tell America that you had a twenty four to one ticket, a four leg parlay? And the first three legs hit?
1:50:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:50:52 Speaker 03 And then you even put into the thread, the hedge and the bundle told you just wait until after it was Spain was the third leg.
1:51:01 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:51:01 Speaker 03 And then you were set up for a perfect hedge.
1:51:03 Bill Simmons? One in regular time.
1:51:04 Speaker 03 Amazing hedge. It would have been a giant winner for you.
1:51:07 Bill Simmons? This is why I'm stupid. But this is why I'm stupid.
1:51:09 Speaker 03 Oh, my God. It's fricking USA soccer.
1:51:12 Bill Simmons? I'm sorry.
1:51:12 Speaker 03 There's no such thing as bad karma. They, they, they stink. Um, they put a thirty eight year old dude with a man bun. This is the thing. I'm not gonna go do the rant. I do understand where everybody's coming from in terms of the rebuttals to the idea that our best athlete, if we had our best athletes,
1:51:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:51:29 Speaker 03 we'd be better. And then there's a lot of rebuttal. There's a different thing to it. The skill set, developing the skill set. I do feel like I asked this on a pod this week. Where, where, where would you put Tim Ream in terms of American athletes right now? I'll give you the over under of 5,000 fucking athletes in the United States of America.
1:51:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:51:50 Speaker 03 Is this, is this guy inside the top 5,000 US athletes at the moment or, or no?
1:51:56 Bill Simmons? See, I don't blame Tim Ream because I don't think, he probably even deep down wonders why he's the sweeper when he's 38 years old. He's 30 years old and he was our best guy to be.
1:52:08 Speaker 03 Blaming that guy, right?
1:52:09 Bill Simmons? One of our, one of our three guys who we have back to stop all bad things that can happen against the best countries in the world.
1:52:15 Speaker 03 So this is the problem when you win, guys say, well, there's a fair rebuttal, like there's the skill set that gets developed, whatever. This dude's 38 fricking years old. He's, he's a big man, but the 6'4 guy from Belgium just jumped over him. Like what?
1:52:29 Bill Simmons? Well, the other issue is, I went back, I was going through, I was bummed out after we lost. I was going through the 2002, the run they had.
1:52:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:52:37 Bill Simmons? Where they beat Mexico and then Mexico started cheap shotting everybody in the last 50. It's unbelievable. One guy has like a flying headbutt, like he's in bloodsport. Vasquez gets kicked out. But then we lose to Germany on a handball play.
1:52:50 Speaker 03 Hmm.
1:52:50 Bill Simmons? We lose 1-0. We actually score a goal that hits the German guy's arm and they don't call it. It would have been called a goal now with the, with the VAR era.
1:53:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
1:53:00 Bill Simmons? We lose 1-0. But that was, you know, when we talk about like best American teams, that's clearly the best team we've had. That team was actually like, you know, going toe to toe. But when you think about the reasons they're going toe to toe, they had a bunch of tough motherfuckers in that team.
1:53:14 Speaker 03 Hmm.
1:53:15 Bill Simmons? And that's what, when I think about like the World Cup, I've been watching all these other teams, how feisty everybody is now.
1:53:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:53:20 Bill Simmons? There's a nasty side to these things. Did you feel like we had a nasty side? Cause I didn't see that at all.
1:53:26 Speaker 03 We have some great, um, tough athletes. I think, um,
1:53:29 Bill Simmons? But do we have, do we have nasty dudes?
1:53:32 Speaker 03 Freeman. Who do, who do you want to be nasty?
1:53:34 Bill Simmons? I'm just saying like, we, we need to send our team to nasty camp. Because all these other teams, they're pulling arms, they're pulling jerseys, they're throwing elbows, they're starting shit, they're.
1:53:45 Speaker 03 So this is the challenge, right? This is the physicality you're describing. We've seen this. This is why there is, you know, this instinct to go to, what if we got our, our, our better athletes out there, our athletes that are tougher guys.
1:53:58 Bill Simmons? It's the, it's the style.
1:54:00 Speaker 03 When you, it's my eyes, my, when my eyes see.
1:54:03 Bill Simmons? Tim Ream, I think you're right.
1:54:05 Speaker 03 Fall, fall down every time somebody touches him. I've seen, I've been watching fucking football. I've been watching college football. I've been, you know, these guys don't get tipped over. They don't get knocked off the ball.
1:54:16 Bill Simmons? Jaylen Brunson got knocked down. He just gets up and he's like this tough little dude.
1:54:20 Speaker 03 And also can't get really knocked off the ball.
1:54:22 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:54:22 Speaker 03 There's, there's plenty of physicality and he can't get knocked off of it. That dude Dest, the fuck is that guy?
1:54:29 Bill Simmons? Well, I was thinking the 2022 finals that we went to those games Warriors Celtics. And the Warriors basically big boyed the Celtics and the Celtics kind of didn't know how to fight back and got pushed around and all. That's kind of what the US is like in the World Cup every four years. Feels like these teams, Belgium big boyed us. You know?
1:54:49 Speaker 03 Well, then.
1:54:49 Bill Simmons? And Trump danced us in the locker room after the game like that. So I gotta, it's not just a Tim Ream. Obviously they had some holes. There was, you know, some speed on the sides and then can we, can we get an awesome? Somebody who's a stopper.
1:55:05 Speaker 03 I mean, upon reflection, we had, we were sort of lulled into a misunderstanding around what this team's true caliber, potential, you know, the true outcome.
1:55:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah. When you, when you hear like people like the Bundo and CR and these people that watch Premier League and La Liga. And all these dudes and these other teams have all these guys that, you know, like that number 10 on Belgium who's on Arsenal and is awesome. I don't watch a lot of Arsenal, but they have all these dudes who have been in just big games all year.
1:55:37 Speaker 03 Right.
1:55:37 Bill Simmons? And our guys, you know, so I don't know. There was a little bit of an optical illusion. I still enjoyed the ride. I had a great time.
1:55:44 Speaker 03 Really fun.
1:55:44 Bill Simmons? Really fun.
1:55:45 Speaker 03 Enjoyed it thoroughly.
1:55:46 Bill Simmons? But yeah, it's, it's, this is probably where we're going to max out all the time around, around the 16.
1:55:51 Speaker 03 Maybe so.
1:55:52 Bill Simmons? Unless we get somebody else.
1:55:53 Speaker 03 I'm okay with it. I'm only interested once every four years.
1:55:56 Bill Simmons? House, good luck with DeBonsa and Peterson today.
1:55:58 Speaker 03 Big night tonight.
1:55:59 Bill Simmons? I hope your guy AJ shows up. Thanks for.
1:56:02 Speaker 03 He's gonna show up. You know, Peterson's gonna look awesome. Everybody get prepared for that.
1:56:07 Bill Simmons? All right. I'll talk to you this week. Thanks, buddy. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to House, thanks to Gahow and Eduardo. As always, don't forget Ali Rewatchables, that is up. She's the One and Hitch are the next two coming. And I will see you at some point on Sunday live on Netflix. Enjoy the rest of the week.
1:56:45 Bill Simmons? Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Get them a problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESSET. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 8778HOPENY, or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller
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