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The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes
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Bill Simmons
Coming up, a two week NBA Power poll plus half baked ideas next. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by Ray Ban Meta Smart Glasses Built with Meta AI Ray Ban Meta Smart glasses react to what you see so you can learn more about the world around you. You can also take hands free photos, videos, send messages, make video calls, even play music and podcasts straight from your glasses with Ray Ban Meta. This episode is brought to you by the all new reimagined Nissan Kicks. From the bold new exterior to the performance and tech features like intelligent all wheel drive and a Bose Personal plus sound system. Cars where I live, I live in the Los Angeles area and cars are one of the most important things you can have cause you're in them a lot cause you gotta drive around all over the place. You know what's fun? To have a nice car for an everyday commute. To have music and the ability to do hands free stuff and just to feel safe you can do it. Drive the all new reimagined Nissan Kicks today. Head over to Nissan USA to learn more. Bose Personal Plus Sound System is an available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Intelligent all wheel drive cannot prevent collisions or provide enhanced traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. It is the 40th anniversary give or take a couple weeks of Body Double, the belated Brian De Palma classic. Had such a good time on this one. Me, Chris Ryan, Sean, Fantasy, a lot of laughs. Some lines were crossed. You can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on The Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Coming up on this pod I am going to do a two week NBA power poll. There's no games tonight and there were 15 games last night so wrote down a bunch of notes. I was working on this the last two days. We're going to count down the teams from 30 to one and then after that our old friend Kevin Wilds is coming on. We're going to talk candy for actually a long time. Drake, May, Patrick Mahomes and then a heaping healthy batch of half baked ideas. I want to put this up early today because I am hoping everybody is out there voting. You can listen to this when you're in line on your headphones, on your AirPods, whatever you listen to. In my case the Wire pods. Have we come up with the name of those yet? You can listen to them when you're driving to go vote, when you're taking the bus or the train to go vote. But I hope you're voting. And I stayed out of the election this time around on the podcast, but you know where I stand. It's the same place I stood every four years. But I thought this time around we would keep the podcast around the stuff that people come forward for. And if you want to consume politics, there's plenty of places to do it. But you know where I stand. Anyway, we're going to bring in the power poll in one second. First, our friends from all right, I'm taping this Tuesday morning. There are no NBA games today, which is the perfect time to do a power poll after two weeks. We did this last year. We did this the year before. Counting backwards with tears from 30 to 1. We have a nice little two week sample size here. So first category, there's only one team in it and it's called Poop for Coop. You could also have talked me in a sag for Flag. You could have talked me into Poop Scooper for Cooper. But I think Poop for Coop is the right one for this. And this is basically just Utah 30th offense minus 14.4 net rating already. I don't know what's going on with this team and I think the thing is they know they want to stink. One of the things they're doing, they're putting a lot of eggs in the Keonte George basket who I actually I'm not against. Like he might have potential down the road, but he has the ball a lot. He's shooting 33%, 29% from three when he's out there minus 22.3 net. And he's a young player that you're getting good reps for. So it's actually like he's probably one of the best tanking assets in the league because maybe four years from now he'll be really good. There is no path for this team to be good. They're in a conference that's way better than the other conference. If you look at the standings, I think there's only two teams in the east that have an above.500 record right now. The west is absolutely ridiculously loaded and Utah is the stinker in the west. So they are number 30. Next category is the Pre Tankers. I think these are teams that haven't admitted yet that they want a tank. But they'll get there. They're going to get there, especially as Cooper Flag starts looking better and better in these duke games. Number 29, Toronto. So 29th in defense and it feels worse. They've lost Scotty Barnes for at least three weeks. Rosilla talked about this when we did the over under podcast. There's really no path for them to be good, especially defensively. I don't really know what this team is. I do know that I like Grady Dick, so you got that going. But I wonder, like as the season goes along, does jakoberto become a trade piece for them? Anyway, that not a very fun team to watch. Not a fan. Number 28, Washington, who I watched a lot of last night in the Golden State game, which they hung around. They hung around. They might have nailed the draft. House was texting me about this. This is the 2024 draft, legendarily bad. I don't think we have a rookie averaging 11 points a game right now and everybody is either kind of lukewarm or kind of okay with who they picked. Washington's fired up sar Bob Carrington George, who's grown to six foot eight. They were talking about how his growth plates. He might be able to get to 6 foot 10. The guy would average like 7 points a game last year at Miami. But this team plays hard. Draymond called it out after the game last night. He just talked about that was the hardest he'd seen a Wizards team play in a while. Now that's going to change when Kyle Kuzma comes back. Shots of Kyle. Sorry, but I also like Koulibaly. I like Kispert and there's something here. So this is like a very fun bad team that I think at least has a little bit of hope. Maybe get another top three pick. Not against this team. Number 27, Charlotte. 30th defensive rating feels worse. This is a team you can catch for a quarter on league pass and they look great but. But ultimately they can't stop anybody. Lamelo good stats, bad team. We might have to wait the five year waiting period for the hall of Fame. He's putting up giant stats and the team loses and this has just been his entire career. Now you could argue if you just switched him with Halliburton in Indiana. Could he be really good on the Pacers? Probably, but I'm just from a result standpoint it has not been great for him. And then the last team, number 26 and the pre tankers, the Atlanta Hawks. Oh no, they can't tank. They don't have their pick. Yikes. I really like this team on opening night. Since then they've lost Bogdanovich. They lost Hunter, they lost Bufkin. They basically lost a lot of their wings, which I think is what made them interesting. And they also are having Trae Young's worst year ever. Like all his shooting stats have been awful. I still kind of like this team. I want to see when everybody comes back. But the problem for them is there's. You could say if they had their number one pick, you'd be like, oh shit, well, let's zag the other way. But you can't zag when you don't have a pick. So they're in the pre tanker category. Without a first round pick. I don't know what to tell you. Next category, Potentially frisky, probably Harmless Portland, number 25. They have size, they have wings who can create shots. They have Scoot who is starting to go downhill, a little bit more rosy. And I, this is probably one third of our tax because I think we own all the Scoot stock at this point. It's. It's like a dollar stock. But he looks better than he did last year and they kind of need him. I'm not against this team. I actually kind of like watching them. I think they've been a really strong league pass team on the West Coast. 28th on offense. Feels like that could be better. So we'll see. They'll probably end up tanking one more time, but there's some pieces here and there's some trade Bay pieces too. Plus Robert Williams coming back. Number 24. Detroit beat the Lakers last night. Good news for them. They have a coach that's not in a coma, so that's a bonus. Kate and ivy averaging almost 43 points a game. And this team rebounds. They're out rebounding teams by seven a game. They were, they were kind of standing up to the Lakers physically last night and they legitimately beat the Lakers. I didn't even think like Detroit played amazing. I just think they had a deeper team with some size and even though Davis went off, they still won the game. Detroit's interesting because Tobias hasn't shot well yet. I think he's shooting like 18% from 3. So I'm watching them because that's like a night to night. They're like a 10 point underdog against whoever and they win the game like there's something dangerous about them. And Cade's been good, but he's still at five turnovers a game. I feel like there's another level for him. I kind of like Detroit. Chicago, number 23. This has been a League Pass revelation. They are first in pace. They were 28th last year. They just push the ball and shoot threes. They're 43.1, 3.3 point shots a game. They're making over 16. They're shooting 38%. LaVine is averaging 22 a game, 50, 46, 82 percentages and just dying for somebody to panic, trade for him. Maybe it'll be the Lakers. On the flip side, somebody is scoring 70 points on them this year and I don't know who it is. There's about nine candidates. But they're going to give up a 70 point game this year because they can't stop anything. But I kind of like how they play. They play like one of those European Olympic teams that just pushes the ball, that has a center that can pass and create shots and they can do small ball lineups. And I've enjoyed the Bulls thumbs up. Good to see Josh Giddey finally on a team that's given him the car keys a little bit too. Number 22, the biggest surprise of the season. Brooklyn. Now House and I went over for them 18 and a half wins before the season because we thought they had a lot of competent basketball players. And as the season has unfolded here for two weeks, Schroeder, Claxton, Cam Thomas is like 27 a game. Cam Johnson, Phoenix, Smith, the 20 minutes of Simmons, a game. Like they're actually a little too confident. And you think about the trades that they made before the year where they got their own pick back. And it seemed like there was this whole tanking plan. I don't know what they're going to do now because the east just isn't good. Like we have, you know, seven, eight teams and then it's like this massive drop off to everybody else and there's going to be a playing team that's like, all right, fine, we'll make the plan. It might be Brooklyn. Schroeder's playing great. Schroeder is a legitimate trade asset. I think he's at 12 million. He's a fun one for a bunch of different teams. I would have said Orlando, but I kind of want them to just ride with Anthony Black. Anyway. Could they package Schroeder and Finney Smith to the Lakers for the D low contract, Christian Wood, something else. And get one of those first round picks from the Lakers that they're still hoarding? They probably could. Would that be a good trade for the Lakers? It actually would be. I'll get to that later. But Brooklyn at 22 and you could make A case they should be higher because I have some teams that have been playing awful ahead of them. Number 21. The last team in this group, San Antonio, 28th offensive rating, ninth on defense. The Wemby on off stats are like genuinely hilarious. I think they're like, it's like a plus 40 swing or something crazy. They're shooting 32% from 3. Dem Vasal has been out. Sohan made a made a little mini leap now that they're not forcing him to bring the ball up. I'm not sure what this team is yet, but defensively they're not nothing. They blew a huge lead to the Clippers last night. I haven't loved what I've seen from Wemby this year and he doesn't really seem any different to me from last year. And I was talking to Terminy and Eddie about this on their serious show the other day. It just feels like he's too far from the basket again. And last year they rectified this in the like basically the last two months of the season. They just had him around the basket more where he can use his size, his length, his long arms, his Freddy Krueger arms and just kind of be around the rim. And this year they, they seem like they've doubled down on making him more of a ball handler and I don't like it. So Chris Paul not washed. I can't say he's the point God anymore, but not terrible. We'll see whether he makes sense for them or somebody else. But the west is so good. It's probably going to make sense for them to, to try to tank and do one more tanking session. All right, the next category is fantastic. There's five teams in it and it's called Panic Time with three exclamation points. It's not just Panic Time, it's panic time with three exclamation points. Number 20, New Orleans. Just guys keep getting hurt. Murphy's been out the whole year. Herb Jones got hurt. CJ's out which not the worst thing in the world because now it's Jordan Hawkins time. And I like Jordan Hawkins even though he's not good at defense. But Missy's not bad as a center but they still need a center and they have Ingram doing an amazing trade bait season where he's basically 24 a night. He's borderline 50, 40, 90 guy and he's an expiring contract and somebody will talk themselves into him because it doesn't seem like they want to pay him. I guess the big and it's early, it's two weeks. But the thing that's concerning to me is Zion. Year five is he year five, Year five, Year six, can't even remember how many years he's been in the league. Field goal percentage is rough. Remember he was like a 60% field goal guy. So last three years, 61%. Last year 57% and this year he's 44% and his shots just not going in. And I actually thought he would be a better scorer as his career aged. He seemed like he was in good shape. So I'm just watching that. It's early in general, super early with New Orleans. They have a bunch of trade possibilities. Year six resigns. Rudy reminds me they have a bunch of picks and things they can do. The problem in the west is it might make more sense for them to punt on the year if they fall way behind with all these injuries. We'll see what happens. Not counting them out yet. Milwaukee, number 19. They have. They're tied for the worst record in the league. They're one in six. They're over under has dropped to 45 and a half on FanDuel. And I watched their last two games closely against the Cavs, including last night where they did not have Giannis. They're basically the Midwest Lakers. They have an awesome big man, they have an aging offensive star who doesn't play defense. They have nobody else on the team who can play defense. And they have no bench. And unlike the Lakers, there's no fixes because if you look at what they can do, they can trade Dame. I guess they have Conaton and Portis at 22 million combined for this year and next year. And Portis has been really bad this year. The net rating stats with him are terrible. The eye test defensively, he's really hurting them and that's really all they can do is package those guys together with I don't even know what because they don't have any picks left. I keep thinking about Doc, who was in such a great spot here in la. He was coming on my podcast, he was playing golf, he was doing TV great times. And then Giannis got dangled in front of him and he jumped at it. And he's on this team that I don't see any conceivable way this team is a contender. I felt that way fairly strongly before the year. Except for the Giannis piece. Giannis has been awesome and they're one in six. I don't see a fix defensively. We've talked about it already. In this pod. But it's an atrocious defensive team you look at every night after night after night after night. Last night it was Garland. Garland was getting whatever he wanted. They had no chance. They're playing guys in crunch time that would not even play for the Celtics or the Thunder. So I don't know what the fix is. I'm not counting out anything with Giannis yet. That's why I have them 19 and not 28 or 27 where they should be, but really rough, really rough with no fixes. And Doc, come back to the podcast. Just move back to la. Make make believe. This was like a dream sequence on the Sopranos. Just come back, get out of there. Number 18, the LA Clippers. I saw these guys on Saturday night. They played Oklahoma City. They played really well for about a quarter and a half, two quarters. And unfortunately for them, OKC is just a ridiculous beast of a team where they bring in their bench and their benches. Alex Caruso and Kason Wallace, and those are their defensive guards coming off the bench. So poor Harden, who is having a great season, like for him, he's averaging almost a triple double. He's 21, 9 and 10 three point shots down to below 30% and he's on a team that has no chance to do anything. But he's having a great time. He has the ball all the time. He's with Norm Powell, who's somehow averaging 25 points a game. Not sure that's sustainable. But you go against a team like OKC and you realize what a chasm it is where the Clippers, where they are without Kawhi versus teams like the Celtics and OKC and Cleveland, these teams that have really good starting fives and depth. And the Clippers are a million miles away. I still don't understand why they didn't sign Paul George. When you go into that arena, the amount of money they spent, which it just seems like one of those like crazy mansions you see in the Rob Report where you're like, wow, that guy spent $200 million on a house. That's what Ballmer did with that arena. And yet Paul George, he was like, ah, too rich for my blood. Doesn't really make sense. This team has no path. It was weird seeing Kawhi there on the, on the bench, just kind of being like, hey guys, go get him. And I don't see a path for him to be an NBA player anymore. It just seems like there's been too many knee injuries. So anyway, the biggest problem with them, just as a night to night team because they're really good defensively when they want to be, but their starting lineup's terrible. Nobody can create a shot for anyone else except for Harden and they're not a very good three point shooting team either. 12 for 34 basically every game for the season. So this is going to be a lottery team. I had them under 37 half wins in the over under as a lock and I still feel good about that because I do not see enough talent on this team. Number 17, sadly Orlando. I would have had them number six before the Palo injury. Just a huge bummer. They're saying four to six weeks which in NBA speak means two months. That ruins his all NBA chances because he's not going to play enough games. I think it also ruins their chance to be a top three seed which they absolutely positively would have been. No question. Now offensively they're challenged and I guess if you're going to spin into a positive no Palo means Hey Franz, let's see it. Step up. Can you be a crunch time guy near the end of games? Anthony Black, can you create some shots in the fourth quarter? Suggs, how much is in there? I mean I have Suggs. Suggs to me is now a top 50 guy. Like we're handing in Ringer 100 next week. I don't know how high Suggs is going to be, but he is in that 40 to 50 range at least. He's probably the best defensive guard in the league and offensively he's gotten better every year and he's I think 18 points a game and creating offense for them sometimes. So could they patch something together that would give them confidence when Paolo comes back? Maybe. I was thinking, speaking of Suggs, the 20, 21 redraft, if you're going to do it just quickly, this would probably have been a better podcast. But I'm just going to go quick because I was like where would Suggs go if they redrafted that draft? Mobley I think is still first and I'm not just saying that because I'm overleveraged with Evan Mobley stock. He's been awesome this year for him. Kate I think has to be second and I have Suggs third. Suggs was the fifth pick in the draft. I think he goes three if we do it again. Jaylen Johnson, I have fourth, Sengun's fifth. He went 16th in the draft. Jaylen Johnson went 20 so those would be the top five. Then I got Scottie, Trey Murphy, Franz, Herb Jones, Jalen Green as three year run of putting Herb Jones ahead of Jalen Green for me and then Josh Giddey. I think that would be the redraft. Now people would argue with the Jalen Green part, maybe put him up. I want, and I'm willing to accept that argument. I want to see a couple more weeks because that Houston team, as we'll get to after the break, is still trying to figure out what they're doing anyway. The point is, I think if you're doing that draft again, Suggs would be third because he's that good and he's been that important to them and he's that unusual as a player. I mean, could he be the third best player in the title team? I think he could. Number 16, the Lakers 25th defensive rating. I left at a trade game last night thinking, how do we get Anthony Davis more help? That was a joke. Um, Dlo, Reeves, LeBron, Rui and Davis as your crunch time team. Good luck getting stops. If you're a wing or a point guard. It's much like the Milwaukee situation. You're scoring on everybody that team has. And really the reason, I mean, they beat Phoenix twice because Davis just owns Nurkic and both of those games, you know, are pretty close. But the real reason their record isn't as bad as I think it probably should be, considering their bench is so bad that JJ could become a player coach like what we used to have in the 1970s and he'd probably be like the eighth man on the team. The reason their record is better than maybe it should be and maybe the eye test says that they're a little better than I think they are, is they just shoot a ton of free throws. They're shooting almost 10 free throws. Attempts more than their opponents. 9.7 to be exact for the season. 207 free throw attempts to 132. I'm positive they don't go to the rim that much more than everybody else. But that's part of what happens when you're the Lakers and you have LeBron on your team and you're 22, you're going to get some calls. But with the free throw attempt luck that they've had, if you want to call it luck, could also call it something else. I think the fact that they're basically a.500 team, not a great sign for the Lakers. And this is another much like Milwaukee, what's the fix like you hope Jared Vanderbilt comes back. That's not going to help them with three point shooting. Rui, I've been saying this especially after the first two games when Rui looked really good and all the Laker fans like, oh, Rui, oh Rui. Ru is trick or treat. That's just who he is. Ru is the same guy who will go 1 for 5 in a game like he did last night. That's just who he is. He's in his like mid-20s now. He's been in the league for a few years. That's who he is. You just gotta accept it. So the defense, the health of LeBron in year 22. Can he play 70 games? Davis fell down last night. It looked like he was gonna be out. Then he got back up. But I, I still they over under was 42 and a half. JJ is definitely a better coach than Darvin Ham. They might need to start playing, connect more. That's not going to help them with their defense, but at least it'll help them with the shooting. They still have a Delo trade to make, which I'm sure we'll, we'll be getting passive aggressive hints about fairly soon. I have it on my calendar for November 15th. But, but they, to me, they, they just seem pretty far away from the best teams in the league at this point. So that's what I have. That's the top 15. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back with the rest of the list. The NBA is back and fanduel is America's number one sports book. They want you to catch all the action right now. FanDuel giving everyone three months of NBA League pass. All you have to do to catch every tip off and buzzer beater is to place a $5 bet on the NBA. And it can be any $5 bet. You could say to yourself, you know what kind of enjoying how frisky Brooklyn is start of the season. That's too many points. Just grab Brooklyn plus 10 against a better team and watch crunch time. All of a sudden they're kind of lingering around there. I have enjoyed a bunch of these teams, especially watching is Cleveland real? Are they a contender? Well, we're going to find out. You can bet on them. You can throw them in a parlay next time you get a hunch on who's going to win or how many points a player will score. Watch your picks. Come to live. Live. Just visit FanDuel.com BS and get three months of NBA League Pass courtesy of FanDuel. Once again, FanDuel.com BS make every moment more with FanDuel and official sportsbook partner of the NBA. You must be 21 + in President select states or 18 + in President DC. After three month free trial, the full price of League Pass will be automatically charged monthly. Cancel anytime. No refunds. Terms, restrictions and embargoes apply. Limit one pass per customer. See terms@sportsbook.fando.com gambling problem. Call 1-800- Gamble or visit rg-help.com this episode is brought to you by Peloton. Now I know what you're thinking. Peloton doesn't look that tough. Well, let me tell you, Peloton is way more challenging than most people think. Whether you're on the Peloton Tread or diving into their All Access membership, they've got a wealth of running and strength training programs that will really push you to your limits. And these instructors, they're not messing around. We're talking military trained sub three hour marathoners and former college athletes who know how to bring out your inner beast. And with tons of options to choose from, you can gear up for race day with seasoned marathoners leading the charge. Plus custom strength workouts to keep you accountable and crushing those goals. Peloton is all about the details too. Want to up your game as a runner? Well, they're pace targets. Let you tailor your workout so you can truly challenge yourself every step of the way. Find your push, find your power with peloton@onepalaton.com coming back from a break, Ceruti said that during the break that the Scotty Barnes fans are going to be mad that I had Suggs over him in a redraft. You know what, I put real thought into it and I'd rather have Suggs. Sorry. I think Suggs is a winning player. We'll see with Scotty Barnes. He might be, but I haven't seen it yet. All right, the top 15 this tier is called Feeling it out and I'm not even sure what we're feeling, but we have number 15, the Miami Heat. They beat Washington and Charlotte in Detroit. Congratulations. I think it's very possible they're the good bad team, much like the Denver Broncos. I said this on Termini and Eddie show and I genuinely believe it. I think it's over for these guys. I think the league just got better and they stayed the same and I watched them and they don't seem that special defensively. I don't think they seem really good or anything. Crunch time. I always feel like the guy in the other team has just as good of a chance of scoring. Whoever the best guy is that they're playing as the guys that they have and they just seem like they missed their window, you know, which was a great window, by the way. They made the finals in 2020. They made the finals in 2023. You know, they had a really nice four year run. They battled Boston. This was great. But now Butler's 35. You know, they put a lot of, a lot of eggs in the Jovich basket. I'm not seeing it. And you know, there's, there's panic trades to make. Like, would Milwaukee accept Herro and Duncan Robinson and a pick for Dame tomorrow? They probably would, but I don't see it with them. And I don't think that's a controversial opinion. I just think that I just feel like they're at a different phase of whatever journey they're on. They're going to be mentioning the honest a ton like get ready for that machine to start and basically that would be out of buy. I would have to be in the trade plus picks. And is that a better situation than the one Giannis is in now if Bam's in the trade? I don't know. But I think this team's going to be a lot of trade rumors and I'm going to be really interested to see if Butler's on this team in February. Because if I had to bet, I would say it's 50. 50 and I would probably bet on no. We will see. Memphis number 14. This is a classic feeling it out team. You know, Ja's not even playing 30 minutes a game yet. Last night he had a couple jaw highlight, highlight real plays that only he can do. I think he's ready to take his corner back from Edwards as the most beloved under 26American guy in the league. Their 10th offensive rating. They lucked out again. But it's not luck because Memphis keeps doing this. But Scottie Pippen Jr. Who I saw in person last year when I took my daughter to an absolutely terrible Celtics Grizzlies game and Scottie Pippen Jr. Just looked like an NBA player and that kind of filed it away. I was like, hmm, that's interesting. He's turned into a legitimately good backup player. And then Huff, who I'd never heard of and I watched the NBA every night and I barely remember that he was in Denver last year. And they've turned him into a really good backup. Big hard to believe the Nuggets didn't have use for him. Somebody get Calvin Booth some coffee. We'll see. Bane is hurt. Smart's hurt now. Smart was 23% field goal, 17% from three before he got hurt and looked slow and doughy to me. We'll see if he's at a different point in his career because I have a feeling he is. But maybe they have three, four months to ramp him up and get him where they need him to be. This team, you could pick any direction for them and I would believe it. You could tell me they're never going to get their shit together. You could tell me they're going to win 49 games, I'll believe anything. Pretty fun league pass team though. All their games seem to be close. I don't think they're the same defensively as they used to be. But we'll see when they get everybody back. The last Feeling it out team is Philadelphia. So Paul George came back last night against the Suns and some really interesting crunch time stuff with them because the Suns couldn't stop Maxey. And then in the last four minutes, Maxey just never had the ball. Yabbacelli took a few shots in a row and then the biggest shot of the game, Paul George took and it was a contested 21 footer and of course he missed it. And I think he was 4 for 14 for the game. And I was watching Maxey's body language just standing on the side as Paul George decided the game and he was kind of like, what the fuck is going on? It made me think, when Embiid comes back, that's going to be even more notable with what happens there. I was thinking about Philly a lot before the season. I meant to say this on the over under pod and I didn't. But when you put like three guys together like this, there has to be some sort of sacrifice in place with the three. Right now think about the 2008 Celtics is a good example. Not to bring the Celtics into this. I swear. I wasn't looking for an excuse, but go back and go back and read anything about that team that year. You can watch the documentary we have coming in six months, five months, four months, whenever it is. Kg, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Doc brought him in and Doc was like, you guys are going to have to sacrifice. You don't all get to shoot 20 shots a game anymore. They were all at the point of their career that they were ready to make sacrifices because they'd all done a bunch of great stuff on their own, right? Paul Pierce had been the best player in the Celtics for almost a decade. He'd averaged 26 a game. Ray Allen had almost made the finals in 2001 and it got rudely taken from him by the refs and David Stern. We don't talk about that now. But he had been a real guy on his own and had plenty of shots. Garnett had been an MVP in Minnesota in 2004 and just wanted to win. And all those guys were at the point of their career where they wanted to give up something. So you look at the Sixers team, you could argue Paul George is at that point in his career, right? He's been on a bunch of good teams. He's been close. Maybe that's somebody who will sacrifice. Embiid. No comment. And then Maxey is the one. That's interesting because when you're. When you're asking three guys to sacrifice and be all right this game, you're going to be the one that stands in the side. You're going to be the one that only shoots 12 times. Maxey doesn't know who he is as a player yet. He doesn't know how good he is yet. He. For all he knows, he might be one of the 10 best players in the league a year from now. And he's just blossoming and figuring out, like, what is the ceiling? How many floors does this go up? And now you're asking him to sacrifice and he's sacrificing something that he hasn't even achieved yet. So I'm just flagging it, because when you're asking young players who haven't hit their potential yet and he's a special player, I think he's the most beloved Sixer. I don't think there's any question. I think if you're asking Sixers fans, protect one person on this team, they'd pick Maxi. And he's still figuring out who he is as a player. So from a sacrifice element, that's the main thing I'm watching. You're asking three guys to sacrifice, and they're not at the right point of their careers as a threesome.
- [34:41]
Kevin Wilds
Yet.
- [34:43]
Bill Simmons
The supporting cast, Yabbacelli, I think, was a good signing. I like Caleb Barton, not willing to rule this team out, especially when there's only two above 500 east teams right now. The Embiid thing is just going to be a soap opera all season, and they weren't honest about it. Before the year, there had been rumors, and they weren't even rumors because people were telling me this in September that his knee wasn't right. So we'll see. He's had a bunch of surgeries. He's had a bunch of things happen to him, and I Just don't think you can count on him week to week as a reliable person who's going to be in the rotation. It only matters in the playoffs, but I also think this is what the Clippers did with Kawhi for four years and it never worked out. So we'll see how it goes. But I'm really interested in the sacrifice piece of it. I was thinking about it last night as Maxie's just standing there on the side watching Paul, George and Max is probably thinking, this should be my team. We'll see how it plays out. Next category. Trust the process. Number 12, Sacramento, fifth in offensive rating even though they're only 33% from three. This is a team, you watch them at the end of games and they almost have too many crunch time options, right? They got Malik, Monk, they have Fox, and now they have DeRozan. All three guys I really like with the ball with like a minute left in a one point game. So they have to navigate that piece. They also, I don't love their bench even though Herter's playing better this year. Um, Lyles, Len McDermott. It, it just feels like a six man team and that's depending on how you feel about Ellis. But you know they missed on Davion Mitchell in, in 2021 with the ninth pick and then they took Carter 13th in June and he's not coming back till some point the winner. But it feels like they're a guy short. They have picks, they have things to trade. I'm watching them. That's a possible trade partner for Brooklyn or any of these other teams that have some sort of veteran between like 9 million and 18 million. Utah's another one with Clarkson and Sexton. We'll see what they do. Number 11, I have Indiana, who has the 25th defensive rating and is just getting a weird Halliburton season. He looked more like himself last night against Dallas. He had a 24 and 12. You think last year, the first 31 games of the year, he was 24 and 13, 50% shooting, 41% from three and was probably the most fun guard in the league. And then he got hurt and never really came back. And this year, before the Dallas game last night, he was 33%, 24% from 3, 14 and 7. And it was worse than that. Cause if you watched it, it didn't seem like he had the same confidence in his legs. It didn't seem like he was going downhill the same way. It didn't that crazy 25 foot 3 point shot that he would take that always went in last year. It didn't seem like he even thought it was going in this year. So you know, I'm not panicking about him yet. But it's notable that he hasn't been that good because Matherine came back 16 points a game for him and is a crunch time guy. Nismit just got hurt. Not sure when he's coming back, but I still believe in these guys. I have them 11th, but really only because we haven't seen them all healthy yet. They had a couple of bench guys go down. I still believe in these guys and I still think night to night they're scary to play and they know who they are. They have an identity. They beat The Celtics in OT already so 11 seems right for them. 10th Houston 9th in offense, 10 in defense. For the ratings they're shooting 40 threes a game. They're only making 32% partly because Van Vliet has kind of sucked this year. He's 28% from 3. I'm not positive he should be in their best lineup. You could talk me into like them just going bigger and just playing, having Jalen Green bring the ball up when there's four minutes left and just go with wings and size. It's a really interesting team to coach and I don't think Udoka knows who his guys are yet and he's been experimenting like Sengun. Like I think he played only 21 minutes in the warriors game last night. He played a bunch. He seems like he really likes Eason and Amen Thompson and guess what? Join the club because I really like those guys too. Those guys are hard to keep out of the game in crunch time because of the defense and the versatility and the athleticism. Ahmed Thompson, I threw him in a Butler trade. If they want to do a three for one like I don't know a week ago, I'd like to recant that. I don't I he might be a top 40 trade value guy for me at this point, but I'm not sure what their what the version of their best team is yet and whether they need to turn Brooks and Cam Whitmore and I don't know what else into some picks into one more awesome piece or whether they just ride it this year because they're not going to win the title. They're a top five league past team. Whitmore had a DNP on Monday night, which I thought was notable because I feel like they could get something for him. I think he could really help somebody off the Bench. But this is a team that has different looks night to night and I think they might be the league pass MVP for me. I never know who's finishing games for them. Shangun might have a 30, 20 any night. Jalen Green might have 40 points any night. Every time Reed Shepherd's in, I'm mesmerized because he's basically Mark price on the 1991 Cavaliers back. Really like this Houston team. They're in a great spot. Congratulations Houston fans. Number nine, Last person in this trust the process category, last team is Denver. So you know there's been a lot of KCP stuff this first couple weeks. Brown's been good. Their starting lineup is + 14.9 net. It's been their bench that's killing them. The fact that the Westbrook was pretty good last night playing for Murray, the bench hasn't been good enough and then Murray's just not the same guy and that's it. We could talk about the bench, we could talk about the league getting better. But Murray in the 2023 playoffs was 26 a game, 47% field goal, 40%, three 7.1 assists. And this year he's 16 points a game, 4.4 assists, 37%, 30% from three and itest backs it up. He just looks slower. He has trouble getting his shot off and that's the guy to watch because if he's not back to 2023 Murray by April, this team is has no chance of winning the title no matter how good Jokic is. Next category. The sleeper. So this was my hardest one in the power poll. Golden State, who I think you could argue probably should be in the top five with how they've looked and I just, I don't want to shoot my wad on that one yet. They got Boston, Cleveland, OKC as their next three games. Not great. That's probably the one of the all time gauntlets you're going to have in a regular season this decade. They're second in defensive rating, which is something Steve Kerr was talking about a lot in the preseason that he really liked how this team was defending. They're playing Draymond with TJD a little bit. He played 12 guys the first couple games, which I don't know if that was a trade bait thing or what the plan was with that. As you know, I'm morally opposed to 12 man rotations, but I think he kind of wanted to see what he had almost treated like a college team. The big thing for them is the buddy healed in the clay spot has been amazing. He's 22 a game in 25.5 minutes, making five threes a game for all time. He check seasons like the pantheon all time heat check season ever was John Drew in 1983, averaging 21.2 points a game in 27 minutes. One of my favorites, Freeman Williams in 1980, 18.6 points a game in 25.8 minutes. Buddy's 22 and 25 and a half minutes, which might be as close as we've gotten to minutes and points for anyone playing under 27 a game. But they've unleashed him. I think they really believe in him. The shooting coach was his coach for the Bahamas and they've just basically running all the clay stuff for him and it's going great. Curry came back. This team's better than I thought it was going to be. I think I went over, didn't do a lock or anything but. But with their depth, which you need in the regular season, I think this team, this is a high 40s team, I think. I think they have a lot of options and they have Curry. Okay, next category. Definitely lurking. So we have four teams in here. Number seven is the Knicks. This is weird. Third offensive rating, 19th defensive rating, fifth overall. I don't know if you saw Towns last week, but he eviscerated Bam Adebayo and it was notable. And I don't know if there was a history with those guys or what was happening, but he absolutely destroyed them. That plus the Towns Brunson high screen, which I think is probably a top five unstoppable NBA player right now. I don't really know what you do because you basically have to settle for town shooting from 25ft wide open because you don't want to. You don't want to have Brunson basically attacking your big guy. That plays great. I love how Townsend fit in. Their bench sucks. They're 7, 8, 9, 10 right now. Is Payne Sims, Dotier and Hug Pouredy. I know the Knicks fans are like, well, we got Mitchell Robinson coming back. Well, he gets hurt every year. The big thing for me is what was the point of the Bridges trade? For all the stuff they gave up, which I know they had to, but they gave up a fucking shitload for him. And then when you watch the Knicks play, he's basically Nikhil Alexander Walker on the side. And for what they gave up for him, for how kind of little they use him, it's kind of shocking. Like he's like a 15 points a game guy. He just stands in the corner and Crunch time. I thought he would be way more involved with their offense. And you know, you think like, if Giannis is really going to be available over these next couple weeks, months, they shot their wad on this Bridges package and, you know, they could have just done the towns thing, they could have kept everything else they had and kind of waited, but they, they went all in. I defended it last summer. It made sense to me. But I also thought that they'd use Bridges as more than just like this complimentary player. So maybe it's got to sort itself out. But I'm just watching that because he just seems irrelevant sometimes for them and I don't, I don't like it. So if you're going to give up that many picks for somebody, maybe, maybe use them. Number six, Minnesota, minus 0.4 net, 18th defense. Edwards has been in the story because of all the threes he's taking, which by the way, if he's going to take 12 threes a game and make 43% of them, knock yourself out. I like how Randall's looked offensively for them. He's almost 23 a game. It's a little clumsy sometimes, but, you know, their defenses is obviously worse. One of the reasons it's worse is McDaniels is basically unplayable. He's sucked since the Dallas series. McDaniels defense and Conley are basically at 30% shooting threes this year. And that's, that's why I think they haven't looked like maybe we thought they'd look yet. But I'm watching the McDaniels thing because they gave him an extension and Alexander Walker is just out playing him. So is he a possible trade piece for them? Can they get him going? But this started in the playoffs last year and it hasn't gotten better. And you think like one of the reasons their defense looked like one of the best defenses in the last 20 years in the first rounds of the playoffs was because the size of Townsend, Gobert, and then what McDaniels and Edwards were able to do together. And now McDaniels is in a complete funk. So watch out for that one. Number five is Phoenix. Somehow only a 16th offensive rating, which doesn't make sense when you're watching them because KD and Booker and Bill are almost nine threes a game, 42% from three, KD's, 27 a game, 55% shooting. His crunch time stuff is as good as it's ever been. It's unbelievable. I mean, he was in the 2007 draft. I think everybody from that draft is gone except for Horford and Conley, who are like role players at this point. KD's like beaten double teams off the dribble, and he's going by whoever he wants. He's been awesome. I think he's. He might be. It's him and Tatum, I think as the MVP through two weeks, just because of how much they've meant to their teams and how good they've been. So it turns out having a point guard helps. Who could have guessed? We only had 77 years of basketball history there. They now get fast breaks. They now get KD rolling off stuff. Still some weird fourth quarter shit with them. The Nurkic thing, I still don't love against certain teams, like Davis owns him, but I think Phoenix is where they want to be. That was one of the teams we went big on before the season. And, you know, they have one loss, they're doing great. So I almost put them in the. In the contender category, but I still don't think they know who their fifth guy is. Like, they were putting Ryan Dunn in there, but teams started leaving him open and they need to figure out Beal, KD, Booker, Nurkic, O'Neal. I guess that's the five. I kind of like it more sometimes when Nurkic isn't in there and they just go smaller and they have shooting all over the place. But I'm feeling good about Phoenix. Good to see Coach Bud on the sidelines again. The contenders, I have Dallas. Four other people would have them a little further back because they haven't been playing that great. They're 15th in offense, eighth in defense. P.J. washington, who beat OKC last year because he made all those corner threes, and they haven't gone in since. The big thing for me is Luca, who the. The MVP is sitting there for him now. Like, Giannis is out. Jokic is going to be out because Denver is not going to be good enough. Embiid's not going to play enough. Tatum, who has. I think he's averaging 13 points a game in the first quarters, but the Celtics are blowing all these teams out. So he's not even playing enough minutes to, like, pad his stats. But he's been great. KD's in there, but it just feels like Luca, if. If he goes on a tear, he's going to be the easy MVP favorite. He's only 28 a game, 40% field goal, 31% from three. So I'm sure that's going to flip. I'm sure he's going to have like 72 points against the Bulls and all of a sudden all those numbers will go up. But just feels first two weeks hasn't. Hasn't gotten it going. It's fun to see Clay on this team. I still feel like he's a little too involved because he's Klay Thompson. But you know, in crunch time, I kind of want the ball with Luka and Kyrie and just stand in the corner. Klay Thompson. But their starting lineup sucked too, so they got to figure that piece out. Why do they get better as soon as live that comes in? Maybe he should just start and play more minutes. Number three, Cleveland. Home run. First two weeks for them. They're eight now. Uh, this was another team we went big on before the season. Second in offense, fifth in defense. They're plus 12.7 net. They haven't had Struse all year, but Laverte's been good for them. They've gotten good shooting from Dean Wade, people like that. But the big thing is Garland's back and we flagged this. We talked about it extensively in the over under pod. Garland broke his jaw last year. It was a weird year in general. They didn't know if Mitchell was staying or not. This year Garland's 53%, 45% for three. He absolutely obliterated Milwaukee last night. Now, granted it's Milwaukee and it's Dane, but he's back to getting wherever he wants to go. And what I really like and what I think is really potentially special about this team, maybe Kenny Atkinson has a little bit to do with it, maybe the fact that Mitchell resigned with them. But there's a real generosity with Garland and Mitchell. Now, like last night, it was Garland's night. Mitchell. Mitchell deferred. He let him kind of run the show the last four or five minutes and if they needed Mitchell, he was there. I don't know if that was as seamless last year and I think these guys have been together a couple years now. They had two huge crunch time wins over Milwaukee. Mitchell made the big shot on Saturday. Garland made all the big plays yesterday. But I like the combo of them and I think the combo of Mobley and Allen. Who were wondering, should they trade one of those guys? Don't touch this team. This team. This is unequivocally the third best team in the league right now. So number two, I have OKC. Even though they are first in defensive rating at 93.2, which is 8.3 points lower than anyone else. I don't even like if we were going to say that's an NFL team, that would be like an NFL team giving up seven points a game. For the first two months of the season. When they play Caruso and SGA together though all the advanced metrics, they're basically the 96 Bulls. Chet is averaging almost five stocks a game. He's over three blocks, he's getting steals. They haven't played a close crunch time game yet. They're just dominating these games. And by the way, they're not shooting that well from three point percentages. Chet's under 30, SGA is under 30, Caruso is under 20, Wallace is under 33. So there's a level for them to go with the three point shooting. Defensively they're unbelievable. I just couldn't believe watching them on, on Saturday night in person. It just never ends. That's the thing. Like I know they have all these good defensive players and it makes sense that they're awesome on defense, but when you see it over the course of two and a half hours with your own eyes in person, it never lets up. It's like watching a defense where the in, in football where the defense is just blitzing every single down and the offense is picking up for the first quarter and a half of the game and then by the third quarter the quarterback's just getting pounded. That's what it felt like watching them. They have so many options. Everybody can switch onto a different guy. There's nobody to attack. It's funny watching these NBA teams. We're like who the fuck do we attack out of these guys? Every, every person we want to get into a pick and roll can also guard the person that's dribbling. So that plus how good Chets look this year, you know, this has a chance to be a really special regular season team. We'll see about the playoffs. But you know, this is a team that could win mid to high 60s I think because night tonight, the youth, the legs, the defense. The Clippers played really well on Saturday night for about an hour and it didn't matter. They were losing double digits in the fourth quarter then the favorite is still has to be the Celtics. They've only lost once. They won the title last year. They're fourth in defensive rating without Porzingis. 14.1 net rating. Really good back to back wins against an annoying Charlotte team over the weekend that I thought were meaningful because the second game was a classic. You forget to show up and you just kind of fuck the game up. But Grant Williams had done a Hard foul of Tatum. That was a cheap shot at the end of the game. Celtics were pissed about it and they came out and they laid the smackdown on Saturday. This is something that Steve Kerr talked about with me once upon a time when I was doing my book about the year after you win the title, you have this different confidence and swagger to you because you've done it, you've climbed the mountain. You believe in the infrastructure of who you are. And he's like, it's just there's this invincibility that develops and it feels like the Celtics are tapping into that a little bit now. Jalen got a little banged up. Porzingis probably isn't coming back till December. And then there's this Horford piece where he's playing 25 minutes a game. He's fine. He's 8 and 5. They're just trying to basically pace him for the playoffs. He hasn't shot a free throw yet this year in two weeks. So last four years free throws 95, 21, 30 last year and then zero this year. So they're really patching together the center position with him and Cornette and Kata. Kata has been really big for them from a shop blocking standpoint and as a regular season team, I still think they're in their 60s. If Tatum and White and Holiday are out playing and Jalen plays enough games, Tatum's been on a mission and the three isn't even going in every game. But he's just peak of his powers at this point. This is the best game to game, quarter to quarter that he's ever been offensively. He really knows how to attack, what he wants to do, how to be a point forward. And this is still the best team in the league. When Porzingis comes back, this is a 18 game winning streak kind of a team. And I think OKC is too. And I think my big lesson from the first two weeks is that Boston and OKC in my opinion are levitating above everybody else. Maybe Cleveland can kind of tap at their shoes a little bit, but it's Boston and okc and that's who I picked before the season to make the finals. I haven't seen one thing to make me think that's not going to be our finals. So there you go. That is our two week power poll. We're going to take a break and come back with my old friend Kevin Wilds. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. It is football season, which means the holidays are coming up and actually Simplisafe is already having a Black Friday sale. So if you're worried about the safety of your home and family, now is the time to get home security. I personally like to use Simplisafe because they can stop intruders before they break into your home. That's kind of the goal. I think. They take home security to the next level with their active guard outdoor protection. It's not an old school system. They only take action when somebody is already in your house. No, that's not Simplisafe. They take action before somebody gets in your house. There's no long term contracts, no cancellation fees. It's around $1 a day and it gives me peace of mind and helps me and my family feel protected. So take advantage of this Black Friday sale this week only. Right now you can take 60% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. Head to SimpliSafe.com BS to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this season. Keep your home, your family and your peace of mind protected with Simplisafe. Again, go to simplisafe.com/bs that is SimpliSafe with two eyes. There's no safe like Simplisafe. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. As a small business owner, every new hire added to your team needs to make an immediate impact. Think of C.J. stroud in his rookie year, how he transformed the Texans. With limited hiring resources, you don't have the luxury of getting it wrong. You need to feel confident that your candidate is going to perform when the game is on the line. With LinkedIn jobs, you can. As the world's largest professional network, LinkedIn gives you access to more than a billion professionals. With the unique skills and experience you need. Chances are your next standout star is one of them. A qualified candidate ready to put in the work that makes an immediate impact on your business. On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. So hire professionals like a professional on LinkedIn. Hire the right person for your role and post your job for free. Go to LinkedIn.com Simmons that's LinkedIn.com Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. All right, we're taping this late Monday afternoon Eastern time. I got Kevin Wilds right after he taped First Things First. This is when I like him. He's just done a two hour live TV show. He's groggy. He's not really thinking anymore. Like he's just, he's just reacting ad libbing not overthinking his takes. And I want to start here. Wilds, you posted a picture of your favorite candies, pyramid style.
- [58:26]
Kevin Wilds
Yes.
- [58:27]
Bill Simmons
And you had Reese's at the top. You did this during Halloween week. And I had a lot of problems with the pyramid.
- [58:36]
Kevin Wilds
A lot of people had problems with the pyramid. It was meant to provoke discussion, but it felt like nobody had a problem with Reese's being number one. The problem that everybody had was. And I didn't realize I was the only one that thought this, that plain M and Ms. Are better than peanut M and M. Turns out I was wrong. It wasn't one of those things like, well, that's just your opinion, Wild. You're allowed to have it. Nope. Every single person said I was wrong. So I said, you know what? I'll fold my hand on that one. I was wrong about that. I would flip those if I did it again.
- [59:08]
Bill Simmons
So people have peanut M and Ms. Over plain Eminem's.
- [59:11]
Kevin Wilds
Not. I was the only person. So I folded my hand on that if I was next. Tune in next year to see where they. They rank.
- [59:17]
Bill Simmons
See, I feel like those two are kind of their own candies. I don't feel like they're even like brothers or siblings or sisters or even cousins. I just feel like they're over here and over here, they're so different. And when I, like, I went to the Clipper game on Saturday and they had the plain M&Ms. And the peanut MM's, and I really thought about it, I'm like, am I in a plain Eminem mood or peanut MM mood? I was like, you know what? I'm in a peanut MM mood.
- [59:44]
Kevin Wilds
Wow.
- [59:44]
Bill Simmons
And I grabbed those instead. But I don't feel like they swim in the same pool.
- [59:48]
Kevin Wilds
See, here's my. Here's my argument. If I was to make it, if I want chocolate, I'll go with the Reese's. I already have that. The box checked on that. And if I want M and Ms, I'll go with an mm. The peanut M and M is living in the middle of that somewhere. So for me, it doesn't work. And a lot of people will say, well, what about the candy shell? I would just. I get that from the M and M. So I don't need the peanut M and M to even exist. But everyone's mad at me.
- [60:21]
Bill Simmons
So here is my biggest. My biggest pick. I think the 100 grand bar is the best chocolate bar on the planet. And I think everybody really, deep down thinks this, but nobody wants to admit it. And if you Put like, we have a candy jar in our house, and you've been to our house, and there's two full jars of candy. Cause for some reason, my wife likes having candy in the house. The hundred grands are always gone, and we start out equally, and they just get pulled out. I don't know anybody who's against 100 grand. I think it's the perfect chocolate bar, and I actually think they market it badly. I feel like their campaign almost had, like, LeBron has been marketing himself as, like, since the last dance, as, like, the goat. And he's just done all of these different things to kind of push this whole, well, look at my whole career. Look at what else can I do? I'm still playing 22 years. 100 grand needs to hire, like a media strategist to really grab the corner of the go candy bar, because I don't think it's there yet.
- [61:16]
Kevin Wilds
You're saying just being named after a denomination of money is. Isn't really getting it done for the 100 grand bar?
- [61:24]
Bill Simmons
No, I think people mispronounce it. I think some people call it the 100,000 grand bar, or they, like, they. They can't remember which one it is, but then when they have it, it's delicious. You go into like a Rite Aid or you go into a cvs. Sometimes you can't even find them.
- [61:39]
Kevin Wilds
No. Can I tell you something a little ugly for a candy?
- [61:43]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Maybe they need a complete rebrand.
- [61:45]
Kevin Wilds
It's kind of bumpy. It's not sure of itself versus when you take out, for example, Kiss. Aesthetically, the Hershey Kiss is just perfect. It's silver. It's got the little hat on it for the.
- [61:58]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, you get to interact with it, unwrap it.
- [62:00]
Kevin Wilds
Exactly. 100 grand bar. You take it out, you're like, what's going on here? It's just. It's all over the place. It just feels like. It's like a. Like when you see an alien trying to be born out of something, it's like it's kind of emerging. So I could see that being an issue. Nobody knows what it is. People get confused. Like, what, does that have rice crisps in it? It's like, yeah, I think so. It's like, is there a peanut butter base? Something in there? Like, I'm not 100% sure. I. I don't know even what's in the 100 gram bar versus. Is it a Milky way with rice crisps?
- [62:35]
Bill Simmons
Rice crisps and caramel? Three things that everybody likes. Everybody likes caramel. With a chocolate bar. Nobody's like, oh, man, there's caramel in this. I'm not eating it.
- [62:45]
Kevin Wilds
That's a good point.
- [62:46]
Bill Simmons
Reese's. I think part of what the success of Reese's is, first of all, great name. Second, people know what it is. It's chocolate with. With a peanut in it. It could be different sizes. It has brand recognition. It's. It's had a great media strategist over the last 80 years.
- [63:04]
Kevin Wilds
Whereas 100 grand bar, not as they advertise aggressively. Like, Reese's is out here getting it done with the orange wrappers. They're really making moves.
- [63:12]
Bill Simmons
I've gone ice cream. There's like. There's like, Reese's ice cream. Like, they're really, like, aggressively trying to expand the brand. 100 grand is just kind of like, we might be at cvs, we might not.
- [63:23]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, it's like a hundred grand. If I was to do, you know what? Like, remember when Tarantino got Travolta and be like, you know what? This guy's great, and everybody's forgotten about him. If I was to draft the Travolta 100 grand, payday, probably Baby Ruth, I'd give Crackle a shot. I would Cat. If I was a Tarantino s director, I'd give Crackle a run.
- [63:49]
Bill Simmons
Well, so here. Here's the one you're missing.
- [63:51]
Kevin Wilds
He's Bar.
- [63:54]
Bill Simmons
I think the Travolta Pulp Fiction is the Rolo. The Rolo Bar. I think everybody loves Rolo bars. You can't bring them anywhere.
- [64:02]
Kevin Wilds
What do you mean?
- [64:02]
Bill Simmons
No one.
- [64:03]
Kevin Wilds
No one likes Rolos. Rolo is. It has a bad, like, texture to it. Rolos are like. They're slippery. A Rollo, again, doesn't know what it wants to be. It's like we're, you know, a cylinder. Like what? Like, get out of here. Rolo.
- [64:22]
Bill Simmons
This is like your. My least favorite wilds take probably ever. If you want Rollo bars.
- [64:33]
Kevin Wilds
What is it? It's a candy. You pull it apart, the caramel comes. It's kind of. It's kind of like bisected.
- [64:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. It's almost like a star. It's like Starburst. Like, you buy, like, it's like a roll.
- [64:43]
Kevin Wilds
No, I don't like. No, those are bad. That's Caramello. You want Caramello vs. Rolo head to head. That would be like Ravens bills. You think that they're both on the same level until you see them head to head. And Caramello would wash Rollo. Well. See, I love.
- [65:00]
Bill Simmons
I love Caramello bars. But I never see those anymore. I thought those were just gone.
- [65:06]
Kevin Wilds
I don't know. That's the problem. I would.
- [65:07]
Bill Simmons
I would.
- [65:08]
Kevin Wilds
What happened to Caramello?
- [65:10]
Bill Simmons
Well, do your thing about Crackle, because I really want to dive into this. I thought it was one of your best and most important takes. We've known each other since 2006.
- [65:20]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah. Yeah. I guess somewhere in there, this is one of my best takes.
- [65:25]
Bill Simmons
I thought it was the one that resonated with me personally. As hard as anything as any of your recent albums, your recent work. Even when you did a little country there for a second, little hillbilly rock.
- [65:37]
Kevin Wilds
Like, still like this one. Both a compliment and an insult. My Crackle take was one of my best take. Look, every year you get the Hershey's Fun Bag mix, and there's Crackle. You open it up, you have the Crackle. You think this is great. There's no reason Crackle can't have the career that the Crunch Bar is having. And Crunch Bar is up here with a trophy case filled up. Most improved candy, Most valuable candy, Finals candy, mvp.
- [66:11]
Bill Simmons
Also, like Hershey Bar with s'mores. Like, it's. It's got this whole second career where it's like, you have to have it with the s'mores.
- [66:19]
Kevin Wilds
It's. It's an. It's an ice cream. I've had Hershey Crunch and there's Crackle out here. Pop in a game, give you, you know, 25 one night, and then disappear for weeks on end. What? Crackle pop up, throw for 300 yards when you gain three touchdowns and then just gone. So I don't know what to do with Crackle. Part of me thinks that Crackle. I don't want to say this, but part of me thinks that Crackle doesn't have the heart. You got all the tools, but just might not have the motor or Crackle on it. Here's the other thing about Crackle might not want it. Be afraid of the bright lights on Halloween. One of the ideas I had was like, crackle, maybe you should bail on Halloween. Try to find another holiday like Peeps did. Peeps couldn't compete on Halloween. Peeps like, we gotta be out. We gotta go to Easter. Candy Canes saw the lineup in Halloween that compete here. We need to go to Christmas and just try to dominate Christmas. Maybe. Crackle looks around, says, hey, you know what? Thanksgiving, why don't we. Why, we can take after dinner, mints. But right now, Crackle can't cut it. Can't cut it on Halloween, I was.
- [67:33]
Bill Simmons
Thinking you made me think about Crackle, which I had really never truly thought about. And I'm with you. It would always be in the chocolate bags and be like, oh, Crackle.
- [67:41]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, there you are.
- [67:42]
Bill Simmons
Game manager.
- [67:44]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [67:45]
Bill Simmons
Reminded me of a couple actors over the years that seem to have all the tools. And something was missing. Like right now, it's Chris Hemsworth. I don't know why Chris Hemsworth isn't one of the. Chris Hemsworth. I just called him Hemsworth. Maybe that's part of the problem. Chris Hemsworth, like, I loved him in Rush. I really liked the movie Rush, the race car movie about Niki Lada and the other guy. But James Cook, whatever his name was, the Bills running back, he's got everything you need. He's six three, handsome.
- [68:17]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [68:18]
Bill Simmons
Be a leading man. He was in Black Hat with Michael Mann. He could be in a rom com. He kind of do it all, but it's never really happened. And if he's opening a movie, I don't think it's probably going to do well because he's the star of it. But Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds was in this zone for 10, 12 years, and then I think he escaped because it feels like he's an A plus lister. So I don't know, maybe that's.
- [68:40]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, Ryan Reynolds did. Definitely Ryan. So you're saying. But Ryan Reynolds, I feel like. And I'm not a Ryan Reynolds expert, although I'm a fan. It feels like Deadpool pushed him. Pushed him beyond. He's like, you know what? I'm not going to try to be for everybody. I'm going to be a little more foul, and then that will allow my personality. So maybe. So I don't know how that plays. Just Crackle.
- [69:02]
Bill Simmons
No, that's. Crackle needs its Deadpool. Here. Here's what I think. Crackle. Here's what it needs. It needs to be in a show like a Stranger Things season four, like Euphoria Season three. And there's some episode where the character is, like, really obsessed. Just loves Crackle, like a big Crackle fan. And it just. You know how those shows sometimes that our kids watch can just get momentum with weird shit.
- [69:28]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [69:28]
Bill Simmons
Crackle needs its moment. It needs. Like it's some sort of moment. It's just never had it.
- [69:36]
Kevin Wilds
I'm gonna. I'm. I mean, this is gonna hurt if you work at Crackle, but I don't think the leading characters in any film are gonna love Crackle.
- [69:46]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [69:47]
Kevin Wilds
Like a secondary character or some. You Know, a supporting character. It's like, man, my weird friend loves.
- [69:54]
Bill Simmons
Crackle, the comic relief. Yeah, comic relief guy loves Crackle. Isn't that weird?
- [69:59]
Kevin Wilds
It's like, how did you get even 12 crackles you have to buy. There's only come three to a bag. Hershey's doesn't believe in Crackle either with or Nestle. I don't even know who the parent company is, but they don't believe in Crackle. They don't think Crackle has it either. So if you're not getting support from management. All right, has everyone's given up on Crackle? Maybe, honestly, maybe this is. This is Crackle's moment. Maybe you should just be the. You'd be the change you believe in and just start eating Crackles all the time. But again, probably not bad for the podcast, though, because of the stupid rice. Chris.
- [70:38]
Bill Simmons
I think it's like a Formula one situation where Hershey is the preferred driver of the Formula one team and Crackle is like the number two team. Could maybe if you gave it the number one car, maybe could drive it, but it just. It's just not going to get there the way it is. I would do a rebrand. I think the K hurts it maybe go back to the C. I think when people do goofy spelling for food or, you know, like, things you have to purchase, sometimes there's a backlash with that. And maybe the sizes have to be different, maybe thinner, maybe fatter. Like, you think about KitKat.
- [71:15]
Kevin Wilds
Can't go thinner. Can't go thinner. Thinner is the score. Bar S K O R. Get out of here. Nobody wants a score. You can't go thinner. You. I don't. Messing with the shapes, it. It comes across as desperate once you start counter.
- [71:33]
Bill Simmons
KitKat has done a lot of renovation stuff with the KitKat. Like, they'll have like a white chocolate KitKat. They'll have. During Halloween season, they'll have like a spooky KitKat. And it kind of works. It's like, I'll try that.
- [71:45]
Kevin Wilds
But KitKat is operating from a position of strength. Kit Kat. That's like the Lions running trick plays. Like, we can do so much stuff. We're so good at the fundamentals. We're running other stuff.
- [71:57]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, that's fair.
- [71:58]
Kevin Wilds
Crackle can't go out there doing, you know, the Philly Special. Like, you just gotta work on blocking and tackling right now.
- [72:07]
Bill Simmons
Crackle. I think KitKat's on the Mount Rushmore. I think almost everybody likes KitKat. I think part of the success is the double piece like, you can burn. You can. You can share it. Be like, you want to have my half of my KitKat? Cut it out. Give one person the bar, you keep the other one. It's just. It's good. Memorable. It's just really good.
- [72:28]
Kevin Wilds
I think that is 100% marketing. I bet less than 1% of KitKats are shared and you want the option to share it. Yeah, I think no one's. Hey, do you want. Hey, I got this KitKat. Do you want one? I think that rarely happens. You can share any candy. I. I can break a Twix in half too, but nobody does that.
- [72:53]
Bill Simmons
Twix is another one. I think Twix has had a really good. Twix is on a great kids. Really good run.
- [73:00]
Kevin Wilds
Great run. Great frozen. So who's on your mount rushmore? Kit kat.
- [73:06]
Bill Simmons
I have 100 grand. Kitkat, m and Ms. Hershey and hershey kisses. I have five. No, I just like the regular. The Hershey bar. I have five in the Mount Rushmore because Twix has to be on there. I really respect the Hershey, though. I like that. The little squares, you can have half of it, two thirds. As you know, I make raw dog s'mores where I don't actually microwave them. I just put like a graham cracker, two marshmallows, and like half a Hershey and I just eat it.
- [73:35]
Kevin Wilds
Well, it's Snickers on.
- [73:38]
Bill Simmons
I don't do Snickers.
- [73:39]
Kevin Wilds
Wow.
- [73:40]
Bill Simmons
Not a Snickers guy.
- [73:41]
Kevin Wilds
Wow. Okay.
- [73:43]
Bill Simmons
What was your Mount Rushmore?
- [73:46]
Kevin Wilds
I mean, the Mount Rushmore for me personally, or what I think should.
- [73:52]
Bill Simmons
No, your personal Mount Rushmore. You could go five, not four.
- [73:56]
Kevin Wilds
It's not going to be. It's not going to be well received. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. You ready?
- [74:04]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [74:05]
Kevin Wilds
York Peppermint patties.
- [74:07]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it's really weird.
- [74:09]
Kevin Wilds
It's getting worse. Necco wafers.
- [74:12]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [74:13]
Kevin Wilds
I love a dry wafer. And then I'll probably go. I'll probably just go plain M M's. I like. I like a. I like. It's the York that is really. That is really off putting to people. And the wafers.
- [74:33]
Bill Simmons
So the York's just gross. I don't know.
- [74:35]
Kevin Wilds
I just love that.
- [74:36]
Bill Simmons
Did you. Did you ever have the Reggie bar when Reggie Jackson had his candy bar?
- [74:40]
Kevin Wilds
No. No, I never got. I never. I. That's a little before my time. And then I. I don't think I've ever seen them for sale.
- [74:49]
Bill Simmons
I remember eating them as a kid and liking them even though he was a Yankee. But it was basically 100 grand bar is my memory of it. It was right on the corner. Very similar, maybe. Yeah.
- [75:02]
Kevin Wilds
Celebrity endorsement. My bad.
- [75:06]
Bill Simmons
I mean, it's a good Anthony Edwards thing. Maybe this. Maybe this is the key is. You remember when LeBron attached himself to Blaze Pizza and we didn't know? Oh, yeah, pizza was. And we were like, wait, what's he doing? And then it was like, oh, Blaze pizza. That's the one. And all of a sudden, Blaze Pizza was worth a billion dollars. Maybe Anthony Edwards needs to do with the Crackle.
- [75:24]
Kevin Wilds
Okay?
- [75:25]
Bill Simmons
He's just. He takes Anthony and takes 13 threes in a game, sits in his locker room after, makes five funny comments to media members as he's eating a Crackle. And people are like, something's happening with Crackle.
- [75:38]
Kevin Wilds
That would work. That would have 100% work. That's the longest anyone's ever talked about Crackle. And that includes inside the Crackle building. Can we move on to Mr. Goodbar?
- [75:52]
Bill Simmons
Maybe they took some notes.
- [75:54]
Kevin Wilds
It's.
- [75:54]
Bill Simmons
It's take season for you right now on first things first. And I'm catching right after Dak was scratched for five to six weeks. Is it better if the Cowboys are awful, mediocre, or good?
- [76:08]
Kevin Wilds
Good with flaws, I would say, is the best.
- [76:10]
Bill Simmons
That's the idea.
- [76:12]
Kevin Wilds
Good with flaws. I think every marquee team, when they're good with flaws makes it the most interesting. And not to be, like, too philosophical about it, but like a superhero, like a Superman thing, like a superhero with a kryptonite, I think is the most interesting team. That's why I think, like, I know we talked in basketball, like, that's why I think Tatum is interesting. Like, oh. Like, I think superhero with flaws is fascinating, but a mediocre team, that could get hot. Interesting, but just a bad team. A marquee team. That is bad. That's the worst. There's no. There's no takes that you can generate. That is. That is your dry, arid land that no takes can grow from.
- [77:00]
Bill Simmons
Is that same for the Lakers?
- [77:02]
Kevin Wilds
No, the Lakers, I think, are fascinating, but I always thought the lake, the Lakers punchers chance for the last few years, and now that they're running interesting stuff, it's like, oh, two top 10 players. Like, maybe. Maybe they can make a little run. I think the Lakers are always interesting because LeBron.
- [77:18]
Bill Simmons
Top 10 players. Who's the second one?
- [77:20]
Kevin Wilds
12. Where are you putting AD?
- [77:22]
Bill Simmons
I would have you could talk me, not LeBron.
- [77:25]
Kevin Wilds
What do you have?
- [77:27]
Bill Simmons
What do you have? LeBron?
- [77:29]
Kevin Wilds
It's not in the top 10? 15. Yeah. Okay, two. All right. But every team of two top 15 players has a chance at the title. Except them for the last few years. But maybe JJ can work some magic and maybe it'll work.
- [77:43]
Bill Simmons
They're not good defensively, you know, I.
- [77:47]
Kevin Wilds
Haven'T watched enough this year yet. I've spent so locked in on football. I haven't like switched over. And we were. I was locked in on the World Series. I got to switch over to basketball to get totally locked in.
- [77:57]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Who would have expected the Yankees Dodgers became like an actual spectacle. It got like 15 million people watching. Every baseball game is bigger than the NBA Finals. It was as big as like around one NFL game.
- [78:12]
Kevin Wilds
And for. I was trying to. Maybe you'll be able to pull this off the top of your head, but for a five game series, super tight and compelling versus usually thought like great series. Seven, six, like, oh, it's like every game was good. Moments again. Superstar with a flaw with Aaron Judge. You're always pulling for him to pull out of it. Ohtani kind of battling back kind of Willis Reedy, although he never had like the big moment. Freddie hitting a home run all the time. I thought it was. I thought it was just awesome. I thought this World Series baseball just fantastic.
- [78:46]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's funny because we always would have this in the NHL and in baseball we're like, oh, man, if it's only these two teams and then it's never the two teams.
- [78:54]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [78:54]
Bill Simmons
So it was like one of the two teams. And this time we actually got the two teams and it was awesome. And anecdotally, everybody. I mean, I'm in la, so obviously it's. I'm a little biased because everybody I knew out here cared about it, but it just felt like anecdotally you realize how many Yankee and Dodger fans you just have in your life, if you're even. Whether you're east coast, west coast, you know those. Those two teams and the Red Sox probably have the most fans.
- [79:21]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, there's. There was. We went to the regular season Yankees Dodgers game because it was on Fox and there was a ton of Dodgers fans. And I guess you can chalk some of it up to like, oh, my dad was a Brooklyn or my grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And that kind of like there is some of that still like rooted here. Like how Mad Dog is like a New York, old New York Giants fan, but there was tons of die and there's a lot of Dodgers fans at the World Series games too. So it was. And Yankees fans are obviously everywhere. But I thought it was. I just thought it was awesome. I loved it. And I know I'm supposed to be a Red Sox. Well, I am a Red Sox fan. I'm supposed to be.
- [79:57]
Bill Simmons
We don't. We don't count you in any way, shape or form anymore. You're like a fucking Chiefs fan now. You might as well, like, put a Chiefs jersey on.
- [80:04]
Kevin Wilds
Okay. Do I love sports?
- [80:05]
Bill Simmons
You've sold your soda. The church at Nick Wright. It's terrible.
- [80:09]
Kevin Wilds
I can't hate it. Might as well like Aaron Judge.
- [80:11]
Bill Simmons
I'm not homes.
- [80:12]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, okay. All right.
- [80:14]
Bill Simmons
This is terrible.
- [80:15]
Kevin Wilds
He's great.
- [80:16]
Bill Simmons
I thought you were aligned with me.
- [80:18]
Kevin Wilds
He's a great player. I'm going to. I'm going to be a fan of the great players. I'm not going to sit here and I already. Has anyone shed more blood and tears from Mac Jones than me? I'm out here. Get a little respite, little breath of fresh air. After watching Mac Jones, I'm still on Mac Jones island by myself, filtrating my own water volleyball all day. No one's here. Just me.
- [80:45]
Bill Simmons
Mac Jones Island. Well, I was. I was critical of Brady's Sunday broadcasting performance, and even that made me feel like I was getting hit by lightning. And I was super ungrateful. But to me, it's apples and oranges. Like, now the sports career is over. I prayed to the church of Tom Brady as a quarterback. And, you know, now it is what it is, but I'm still there. I will say, I do like that Mahomes has been a little odd. Now we're taping this before the Monday night game, so Maybe he'll have 15 touchdowns tonight. But I do like that he's been a little off this year because he's hitting this point in his career where Brady was just awesome year after year, except for the year that he blew out his acl. And people are like, well, Mahomes doesn't have the same weapons. Well, I urge people to go back and look at Brady's weapons in, like, 2006 and 2009. Like, he had years where he had, like, literally nobody to throw to if.
- [81:40]
Kevin Wilds
The Chiefs go undefeated or if they lose one game. But Mahomes statistically counting stats are pretty bland. But I guess there's other stats that we pulled off where it's like, you know, sort of must have moments, need to get it moments. And he's great in those moments, clutch moments. But if his counting stats are bland, would you give him the MVP it'd.
- [82:05]
Bill Simmons
Be 16 and one house and I talked about this on Thursday about what would their record have to be for him to just get it no matter what the stats are. And I think it would have to be 16 and 1 or 17 0.
- [82:16]
Kevin Wilds
How about, how about. Well so yeah, how about 15 and 1 and they sit. And they sit week 18 and they and Carson Wentz loses the game. But he only lost one game.
- [82:27]
Bill Simmons
15. I mean the thing is nobody.
- [82:31]
Kevin Wilds
I'm going to keep walking you back. All right. How about 14?
- [82:35]
Bill Simmons
Well I've watched every, I feel like I haven't missed a frame of this season. Lamar is the best player I've seen this season.
- [82:43]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [82:44]
Bill Simmons
And I think he means the most to his team. The record doesn't really back it up but Lamar is just week to week and I don't know if there's going to be voter fatigue with him or not. Allen is doing a lot too in Buffalo with what he has but they, I, you know they have some talent. Their schedule's been a little easier. What Lamar is doing week to week. I talked about this on Sunday's pod. I made the mistake of knocking that game off the multi view with like 40 seconds left in the first half against Denver when it was 17:10. So I just thought they're going to halftime forgetting that he could just easily get a 60 yard touchdown if he wanted to, which he did. And I felt pretty stupid but he's been amazing.
- [83:21]
Kevin Wilds
You don't care about head to head because I do like two MVPs going head to head I whoever won. So I put my homes over Lamar and I put Lamar over Josh.
- [83:30]
Bill Simmons
I only care about it when it's self serving to the team I root for. Like with the Brady years. Yes, Brady would be Manning and I'd be like he look at, look at the head to head and then Manning beat him a couple times. It's like it's one game way better team. He's got edger, James, Harrison, Wayne.
- [83:46]
Kevin Wilds
I'm sorry, does he play defense too? He's supposed to be Travis Hunter out there. It's nothing to do with it.
- [83:54]
Bill Simmons
I think what's cool about the Mahomes Chiefs thing is that we just immediately replaced almost in real time whatever the Pats meant to the league year to year as this kind of arbitrary thing that's in front that you have to chase and this is the team you have to get by and when you play them this is the game that matters the most and this is the line you have to cross and the Pats were that way for almost two decades. And then the Chiefs were like, okay, thanks. And they. And that's who they've been since. Like even you look at the Lions versus the Chiefs and it's just like, yeah, I believe in the Lions, but can they beat the Chiefs? Like, you don't almost think about. I'm not thinking, can they beat Baltimore? Can they beat Philly? Like, it's just about the Chiefs.
- [84:36]
Kevin Wilds
You know what? I realized it when I this is going to be a, this is like the biggest compliment I can give to Mahomes. When other teams have the ball with a chance to win the game, I will either think, A, they're not going to do it or B, this will be challenging to do it. But if it was Mahomes, I like, oh, game's over. And everybody, you go, you go to DraftKings or it's like. Or FanDuel or like, yeah, games. Everybody thinks this game is over now and the Chiefs are behind.
- [85:07]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [85:08]
Kevin Wilds
But I mean, you know what? I felt a little bit like that with Drake May. A little bit. I was like, oh, we're getting the ball back.
- [85:15]
Bill Simmons
I'm out of my mind. I've never been. We won six Super Bowls that made nine and I've never been more locked into the week to week of the season. But I also think that technology is better. Watching the all 22 tapes of him on Monday, some of the throws that he made. Do you see what Drake did?
- [85:30]
Kevin Wilds
Drake saw this and this is why he threw it. Love it. Love it.
- [85:34]
Bill Simmons
His receivers are terrible, the play calling is terrible, his offensive line's terrible. And he's doing 12 to 13 things a week that I've. We've never seen a Patriots QB do some of the things he's doing because we haven't had like an incredible athletic QB in 50 years.
- [85:51]
Kevin Wilds
Yes. What do you think about this take? I was like, I'm like, how do I feel about Drake May? Part of me feels like a little bit of a stretch how my parents view my kids. They're like, oh, they're like so excited to work.
- [86:10]
Bill Simmons
Grandparent energy.
- [86:11]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, grandparent energy towards Drake May. Like, I've already lived my adult life with Tom Brady, so to speak, in my kid life with like Tony Eason and Steve Grogan and then a big chunk of my life when I was really in it with Brady. But now I get to. I've already seen it all. I've seen how it all happens. And now like Drake is like, I've got Grandparent energy. Like, look at this. This is great. Like, yeah, he lost. He fell down and scraped his knee. That's okay. He's learning. I can see it's going to be great. I'm like, oh, you're in for a great time. Grandparent energy towards Drake.
- [86:51]
Bill Simmons
Man, I love it because you've been through all the ups and downs.
- [86:55]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [86:55]
Bill Simmons
You know, all the checkpoints and you're just kind of there to give gifts on the holidays and just be supportive and not overreact.
- [87:03]
Kevin Wilds
But if you're a parent, like, oh, would you be worried about the inners. He threw a game ending interception for if you're a parent, like especially like first kid parent. Oh, what am I doing? Oh, this and that. Like it's not a big deal. It's not. Trust me, he'll learn to clap. We had, we freaked out because Russell, we're like, is he, this is real conversation. Is he clapping on time? We read some stupid thing you should be clapping at, you know, 12 months. Is he clapping on. That's so stupid and grandparent. No, don't worry about it. That's really good for him.
- [87:36]
Bill Simmons
That's. Yeah. The grandparent energy. You're talking about your little boy. Your grandparent energy with little boys are like, they're all idiots until they're like seven. Don't worry about it. Yeah, you're fine. No, but nobody's like fired up about how, how mentally acute their four year old boy is.
- [87:52]
Kevin Wilds
Worry about it.
- [87:52]
Bill Simmons
They're just worried all the time. Why is my kid so stupid? Grandparent energy. You're just like, hey, he'll be fine.
- [88:00]
Kevin Wilds
We had a poop journal for our first baby. Okay, what time we were writing down? Come on.
- [88:07]
Bill Simmons
You know the, one of the best things with Drake, I mean there's been a lot of great things, but it really seems like he has a chance to be pretty special for like 15, 16, 17 years. And we having lived through that, knowing how long it is and it was kind of happening with Tatum a little bit like Tatum had that first year and he went head to head with LeBron. He had the block on LeBron and the game seven made a couple shots and you're just watching it going. This is a really good sign. This is a really good checkpoint for him to hit. I'm excited for this journey. And then he kept like making the steps and then they finally win the title. But I'm just excited to go on that journey again with a QB because it was incredible with Brady. So the problem here is that the Infrastructure, the IQ infrastructure of the behind the scenes Patriots. Like, I just don't trust it. Like, are they going to do this correctly? Are you like they have to get a left tackle, they have to get a number one receiver. Like, are they going to know all the. Once you have this, this is the number one gift you can get in football is to have a guy like this. Every decision has to be about maximizing this guy, which I love Belichick, but I feel like he didn't always do that with Brady, you know.
- [89:18]
Kevin Wilds
No, he was just defense first. I think we're just trading down. We're going to have a great pick. We're going to trade down for multiple picks, probably be get, you know, bolster the offensive line and then I don't know how we're getting a number one receiver.
- [89:34]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, but if I'm the number one receiver, I'd want to play. I'm glad you're using we because the Mahomes, I got to be honest, the Mahomes thing really worries me. Come on, do you make right? It's like, it's like you're. You're going to Chiefs. You're literally going to Chiefs games. Can I tell Kansas City to Chiefs games? Don't think I didn't fucking notice.
- [89:50]
Kevin Wilds
I didn't go to a Chiefs game.
- [89:51]
Bill Simmons
You did. You went to a Chiefs game.
- [89:53]
Kevin Wilds
I went to the Chiefs parade multiple times.
- [89:56]
Bill Simmons
You did that too? Yeah.
- [90:00]
Kevin Wilds
I went to Patriot. I took my kids to Foxborough to see Patrick Mahomes. What am I supposed to do, modern day Brady?
- [90:07]
Bill Simmons
Keep it in check. We're going to take a break and do have baked ideas. This episode is brought to you by Empower. You got money questions like can I retire early? What are my best savings options? Can I afford to pay for my kids education? Luckily, Empower has all the answers. With Empowers real time dashboard and real live conversations, you get clarity on your real life financial goals. So join 18 million Americans and empower. What's next? Start today at empower.com tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. Sponsored by Empower. Not an endorsement or a statement of satisfaction by a client. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. Sports fans. I know going to the big games can get expensive. So let's talk strategy. Let's talk how PayPal has changed the playbook. Now you can pay everywhere online, in store, either or Both with the PayPal debit card. That's right. Earn a 5% cash back up to $1,000 every month. In the category you choose, like apparel and groceries. Think about it. That's like getting cash back when you're picking up your game day snacks or grabbing a drink with the crew after the big game. I'm talking about real savings. Like that energy drink keeps you hyped for the big game. Cash back 17th Purchase a merch from your favorite team. Cash back post game extra large pizza. You order like clockwork. You get the idea. Every payment, everywhere, every time. Don't just pay PayPal terms and cash back limits apply. See PayPal app. The PayPal debit card is issued by the Bancorp bank N A pursuant to a license by MasterCard International Incorporated and may be used everywhere. MasterCard is accepted. All right, so Wilds, ever since I've had a podcast which was 2007, wilds would come on and do half baked ideas. And I don't remember the first time he did it, but many of them were on YouTube from 0809 2010. Then on this pod when we brought it to the ringer. Same thing. He's popped on. Now he's a busier guy, but every once in a while we have to grab him for the half bakes. And the concept of a half baked idea, it's not a fully baked idea, but there's enough in there that it makes you go, hmm, I like that. All right, so which first half picked idea?
- [92:22]
Kevin Wilds
So I got a colonoscopy with the idea, go out and get your colonoscopy if you need one and everybody needs to get it checked out. The idea being you might think you're fine, but you might be dying inside. That's the concept that will run through this storyline. Also hard stop. Second part of the story. I know two families that recently got dogs and they're like, they, they didn't want dogs for a long time. We're not dog people. This and that. Then they made the jump, got a dog. And then of course they say, I can't believe we were ever in this house without a dog. Thus the half baked idea is. I'm calling it the. I don't even know how to pronounce it. Get an Arian. Okay. It's like veterinarian, get in Ariana. You have to go. Just like you have to go to a colonoscopy doctor every five years. Every five years you need to go to a getinarian. And it's kind of like a therapist. You sit and you talk. Or maybe they come to your house and you talk about whether or not you need a pet in your life. So even if you already have a dog, you should have to talk about getting another dog. So every. You can go, all right, maybe you get a dog, maybe you get a cat, maybe you get a snake, maybe you get something. But it's an outside consultant that you have to go to. Every, every American. It's going to be in federal law. Every American needs to go to a get married and they ask, figure out if you need a dog that will make your life better.
- [93:56]
Bill Simmons
All right, so this is really interesting because I've had people in my life who've gotten pets and I just thought it was a mistake.
- [94:03]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, it could probably go the other way too. Like, do not get a dog. You're more of a fish.
- [94:07]
Bill Simmons
Well, I think if the get narian should be really candid.
- [94:11]
Kevin Wilds
Oh yeah.
- [94:12]
Bill Simmons
Like I've looked at you. You've been living alone your whole life. You seem like you have a pretty fun life. You do a lot of traveling. Like you can't have a dog. The dog's gonna be alone. You're gonna be always like either putting it like having somebody stay at your house with the dog or putting them up in one of those dog places. Like, don't get a dog. It's meaning to the dog. You travel too much.
- [94:32]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, that's, that's, that's prime reptile right there. No, you don't. But if you need a dog. How many dogs do you have right now? Two.
- [94:40]
Bill Simmons
We have two. And probably going to be two going forward.
- [94:44]
Kevin Wilds
Okay, I know you think that, but you should probably go to the getting area and be like, hey man, we ran the numbers. You're actually a three dog household. I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but you should get checked out.
- [95:00]
Bill Simmons
My wife wants to get a third dog right now because we basically lost our kids like we. One kid in college and another kid who never wants to be home. Very. It's just us now. So it's like a third dog and I get about like, oh, I've always loved those Bernese mountain dogs.
- [95:16]
Kevin Wilds
Exactly. I was just gonna say that, you know, you're gonna get a huge dog.
- [95:20]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [95:20]
Kevin Wilds
You gotta get small, medium, large. Oh, yeah.
- [95:25]
Bill Simmons
All right, do one more. Unless you want me to chime in with some quickies.
- [95:29]
Kevin Wilds
I've got one more that I think you're either going to love or really hate. Which is the key sweet spot for half baked ideas. I've got an appetite to consume more media than I have time to consume. Just like I have an appetite to consume all of the Sunday football games with. But I can't watch everything, you know, live. So I have Red Zone. But shows that I have started Gladiator, I started the Boys Penguin Yellowstone, those four shows. I've watched a bit of all of those shows.
- [96:08]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [96:09]
Kevin Wilds
But I'm not going to, you know, I find myself, well, maybe I'll get the flu and I'll be laid out. That's no way to live. Rooting for the flu. So I can bang through all these shows. Some sort of Scott Hansen Hansen zone. I'm calling some sort of Scott Hansen red zone thing where he's up there, but. All right, let's go to the penguin. Oh, the penguin just killed this guy. Oh, my God. Boom. Quick shot. Boom. All right, we got to go back now. We're going over to Yellowstone. Oh, my goodness. There's some real estate deal coming back. All right, let's go to the boys. We're on season one of what? And it's just for you, maybe it's AI, but I'm bouncing around. I don't need to see every little, you know, piece of plot. I just need the big moment so I can be conversant. I get a little emotionally about, oh, my God, I can't believe, you know, RIP killed this guy in Yellowstone. Red Zone for serialized television.
- [97:01]
Bill Simmons
Let's go over to Tell me Lies where Bree has just fucked her professor, but the wife knows about it.
- [97:07]
Kevin Wilds
I didn't even know that show. I got to put that on the list. I guess that's. That's Hansen's job. That's the idea. I really need this in my life.
- [97:17]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I don't really have any notes. I don't even think that's a half baked idea. I think that's a fully baked idea.
- [97:24]
Kevin Wilds
Thank you. And just like you know how YouTube has. You can pick. They don't let you pick the multiview. They're like, here are the four shows. That's what you go into. It's like, we're going to start season one of these four shows.
- [97:35]
Bill Simmons
Well, you're basically, it's talk soup.
- [97:37]
Kevin Wilds
You're in there for an hour.
- [97:38]
Bill Simmons
This is talk soup. But you're now taking all the prestige TV shows, which we have way too many of.
- [97:43]
Kevin Wilds
Yep.
- [97:44]
Bill Simmons
And we just sip it through. I don't know what's going on with the penguin, but I would love to know just enough to be able to chime in at a holiday party in two months. Be like, wow. Exactly. I was stunned when he did that in episode seven.
- [97:56]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah. Can you Believe that.
- [97:58]
Bill Simmons
Oh, no.
- [97:59]
Kevin Wilds
Like, yes, exactly. Right. Strip away a lot of the art of it. Like, ah, here's the penguin walking through Gotham in this beautiful scene. I get it. But also something that Hanson's taken out of the show for me. I'm boom, I'm out there. Red zone Hanson.
- [98:14]
Bill Simmons
See, I thought you were going to say it's AI TV takes where you just listen to this podcast and they give you five things to then say at a at. Like, if you're going to a holiday party, I don't know if Tell me lies. Season two was as good as season one. And here are my three points. And it makes it seem like you watched it, but you really didn't. No, I have way more of a half picked idea.
- [98:36]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, there was an idea that I had for since the show that we, you know, is produced.
- [98:43]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [98:44]
Kevin Wilds
First things first. Obviously we kind of know what we're saying. We have like notes and stats and full screen. Then here's my point. And here's my thing. I haven't said this before. Like, I come over and like produce your Thanksgiving dinner. It's like, all right, Bill, what do you want to talk about? Like, all right, I got to talk about, you know, the landscaping of my neighbor's house.
- [99:01]
Bill Simmons
Dinner producer.
- [99:02]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, it's like, all right, what's your issue with the landscaping area? Like, these trees are too dumb. Like those trees are too tall. Like, the average tree is this. I'm gonna make you a full screen. Say, the average tree is this and this block in your view of whatever. Like, what else in this? And we've got lots.
- [99:15]
Bill Simmons
And I'm throwing you up with the seating chart.
- [99:17]
Kevin Wilds
Well, yeah, but I'm also.
- [99:18]
Bill Simmons
Bob's gotta be in the middle because Bob can go either way. It's like on TV when the middle seat is an important seat on a.
- [99:24]
Kevin Wilds
Studio show and I'm in Bob's ear, I'm like, hey, Bob, don't forget, don't forget Bill said this the other day. Stick it to him like, right.
- [99:33]
Bill Simmons
Don't bring up the election to Aunt Louise.
- [99:35]
Kevin Wilds
No, that's a no go.
- [99:37]
Bill Simmons
She'll go nuts. I have a couple. I have three tiny ones. I have two that I like, but I'll give you quick ones. I don't even know if this is a half baked idea. Full service gas stations just come back.
- [99:52]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, they got to move to New Jersey. But how many are. How many full service gas stations are in California? None, really.
- [100:00]
Bill Simmons
It's. Everyone's on their own with gas and I just Kind of miss having the guy like do my, do my windshield and just pump the gas for me. Apparently there's one place in Beverly Hills that does it, but I miss full service gas stations. I was trying to think, is there like a 2.0 version of those? Because they had those in like the 40s and 50s. Like maybe in LA it's stand up comics who were doing gas, but they're also doing like three minutes of their act.
- [100:24]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, God, yeah.
- [100:26]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. Half baked. Yeah. Ten day Westbrook. So Westbrook pops on all these different teams for a year and then he kind of wears that as welcome, right? But everybody's really excited when he shows up because it's like Westbrook, second unit, he'll be able to run the offense himself and he puts up all these stats and he'll change the energy. And each year a team talks themselves into it, but by like midway through the year. But it's like, ah, wish we didn't have Russell Westbrook.
- [100:57]
Kevin Wilds
It also revitalizes your superstar. Like every superstar is like, Russ changes the rt.
- [101:03]
Bill Simmons
He's like Joker the other day.
- [101:04]
Kevin Wilds
Like, yeah, this is what he does for us.
- [101:07]
Bill Simmons
Like, all right, stats don't back it up. And he's shooting 20%. If he's just 10 day contract Westbrook, he's just like Memphis right now is a bunch of injuries or New Orleans and it's like, oh, 10 day rest is here. Comes in. He's a Hall of Famer, he's padding the stats, instant offense. But then you kind of. He just kind of leaves. It's like having leftovers in the fridge. He's just gone after 10 days. Just comes out.
- [101:32]
Kevin Wilds
This will be the second Pulp Fiction reference, but kind of like the Wolf, like, West, like, I'm here.
- [101:41]
Bill Simmons
Not like, not as confident. Yeah, oh, we got you. Bring him, Russ. Oh, yeah.
- [101:48]
Kevin Wilds
Shows up there super fast. He's always dressed really well.
- [101:53]
Bill Simmons
And the key is he. So he signs with these teams so he can make like 3, 4 or 5 million a year, whatever he gets. So 10 day Westbrook would just be more expensive on the salary cap. He's basically getting paid like 100,000 a game. And you just sign in. It's like, oh, I'll do 10 Day Westbrook for four games. We got Jaren Jackson's out and Jaws Hurt and we need whatever.
- [102:16]
Kevin Wilds
Great.
- [102:17]
Bill Simmons
And then I have NBA announcer navigation systems.
- [102:23]
Kevin Wilds
Okay. Oh, for your gps.
- [102:27]
Bill Simmons
Well, just for specific moments like when you're parking and you could just like switch to Ryan Ruko mode. And he's like. He's gonna parallel park in the back. Can he get it? You bet. No. I gotta run this red light. Is he gonna get caught?
- [102:46]
Kevin Wilds
Bang.
- [102:51]
Bill Simmons
All right, what do you got?
- [102:53]
Kevin Wilds
I actually like that one. Do you like that one a lot? This one is super. Hold on. This one is super depressing. You want a depressing one or a stupid one?
- [103:05]
Bill Simmons
Give us both.
- [103:07]
Kevin Wilds
I'll start with the depressing one.
- [103:09]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [103:12]
Kevin Wilds
Gonna go to. We're trying to go to Hawaii for our next vacation. I'll be probably after my birthday, so I'll be like 47.
- [103:21]
Bill Simmons
It's a long way from the east coast. Good luck.
- [103:23]
Kevin Wilds
I know. We're gonna pit stop and then go. Any of them. 47.
- [103:28]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [103:33]
Kevin Wilds
Prime funeral photo time for me, Brian. Not. Not too young. Like. Like right on my casket right there. What photo you got? It's that photo we took on vacation in Hawaii. I'm thinking about it. So right now, I don't know if there's photographers that specialize in this. So you get perfect. You get exposed to a professional photographer a few times in your life. You're born, you usually get like a nice photo. Then K through 12, a guy or woman shows up every. Every photo day.
- [104:07]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [104:07]
Kevin Wilds
That's good. Then you're in a pretty much of a dry spell there until your wedding. Wedding day. Boom. And then you're pretty much on your own. Like, there's very few times. And you're going to run into a professional, maybe at going down a roller coaster. And that's probably a robot, but that's it for all K through 12, your wedding. And if you're going down a waterside with a scary face, that's the only time you're getting professional photos. So when you die, your poor loved ones already have the stress of dealing with your departure. Now they have another stress of going through how many pictures of me? 3,000 pictures on my iPhone. You got to go through 3,000 pictures and try to find the one.
- [104:49]
Bill Simmons
So they have to figure out your passwords. Yeah. Like just a bunch of things and then a photo on top of it.
- [104:56]
Kevin Wilds
Exactly. And a few things. One, got to be solo. Got to be on the casting. You can't have two people. Like, hold on. Two people. What happened here? Was this some sort of accident?
- [105:06]
Bill Simmons
Like your arms around somebody and it's like cut off stump of your arm?
- [105:10]
Kevin Wilds
No, that's a no go. Got to be solo. It's got to be sort of a candid photo. Like, oh, look at this. Which. Which, you know, normal people Have a hard time capturing you pose on a photo. Sure. But just like a candid photo. And who am I laughing with? Like that person taking the picture. Got to need a pro, got to be smiling, obviously. And I need a live life to the fullest background. Can't just have it, you know, just walking down the street at the coffee shop. I have to have. Wow, what? Oh, look at that. Remember you went to Hawaii. That's a great moment for him. And then part of me, and this is just an idea here, I have no proof of this. Part of me thinks that when you go to heaven or whatever you may believe in and if you are a physical entity there, that you need to put a recommendation up into the management at heaven on how you would like to be perceived.
- [105:59]
Bill Simmons
Right. Do you Want to be 28 year old wilds? Do you want to be mid-30s wilds? 47 year old wilds?
- [106:04]
Kevin Wilds
You got to be. Because it's also confusing for everybody else. Like I was just thinking like I would have Benjamin Franklin, he's 20 years old. I'm like, who are you? Like bench Ben Franklin? Like Ben Franklin, bro. What are you like? And he's like playing basketball. Like, dude, no, you have to be.
- [106:20]
Bill Simmons
You need your stretch for.
- [106:22]
Kevin Wilds
He's just like this young, like strapping dude. Like no, dude, where you're stocking. So anyways, it's. I called it taken. But since it's like the idea of the clock is ticking. Tick tock. It's called. No, it's. I called it either Wake Graham Casket Gram or TikTok. But it's a photographer that only does funeral photographs.
- [106:43]
Bill Simmons
So you consult with the photographer and he's, he's like, great spot at the top of this mountain in Kauai. Yeah, we'll get background. There's like a volcano over your right shoulder. It can do that. Oh, wow. Or I'm thinking maybe hotel bar, just with a big drink and you're looking at somebody laughing and there's the ocean behind you.
- [107:04]
Kevin Wilds
Love it. Yeah, love it. I wouldn't do honestly for that. If you were the photographer, I'd be like, let's do the bar. Because I think the clouds at the top little too on the nose. So let's do the hotel bar. Good lighting and it'll be great. Like save it. And if you hear about my demise, let's print that up.
- [107:23]
Bill Simmons
Well, you know how they have these national days that I hate? Like it's like National Daughter's day and then you have to feel bad if you don't post a picture of your daughter. Because it's not. It's this arbitrary holiday that we've created five years ago. Maybe it should be, here's the photo I want shown at my funeral when I die day. I mean, that's certainly there. Then whoever dies, you're just like, what did Wild Swamp. First photo. Oh, that hotel bar one in Maui.
- [107:49]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [107:50]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. That's a great one. I really like this. This is good. This is almost a fully baked idea.
- [107:56]
Kevin Wilds
Good, I'm glad. I thought that was going to be more depressing. This is.
- [107:59]
Bill Simmons
I thought it was uplifting.
- [108:03]
Kevin Wilds
All right. This is. This is stupider.
- [108:07]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [108:09]
Kevin Wilds
NFL game. You're going over the game. What are you wearing? Jersey. NBA game, wearing a jersey. Soccer, wearing a jersey. Baseball game, hats and jerseys. Kentucky Derby, full suit. Kentucky Derby. Either jockey jerseys, little checkerboard action with the hat in the pants, or dressed like the horse outfits, where it's like, oh, nice markings with a shirt with a mane that goes down your spine. Like, oh, sick. You dress like your favorite horse. You don't have to wear a dress or some, like, fancy suit. Dress like the jockeys. Got a shirt with a number on. Some of those shirts look great. Green checkerboard with like, jockey.
- [108:53]
Bill Simmons
Jockey shirt. Almost like when soccer jerseys took off, like 10 years ago.
- [108:57]
Kevin Wilds
Yes.
- [108:57]
Bill Simmons
And all of a sudden soccer jerseys were the rage.
- [109:00]
Kevin Wilds
Yes.
- [109:00]
Bill Simmons
So you're saying jockey jerseys have not Ammonia. I don't know about the horse part.
- [109:05]
Kevin Wilds
Okay. Horse. You might not want to dress as the horse, but certainly you dress like the jockey. They look great. And part of this is born. I started riding. I bought a bike. So I'm riding a bike in the first hurdle to get over after you buy the bike, it's like, all right, am I really going to buy the.
- [109:19]
Bill Simmons
You know, Are you going to dress like one of those guys?
- [109:22]
Kevin Wilds
Bill, I look fantastic.
- [109:26]
Bill Simmons
Oh, you're dressing like one of those guys now.
- [109:29]
Kevin Wilds
A hundred percent. Bill, I look great.
- [109:31]
Bill Simmons
Oh, I was going to ram my car into those guys.
- [109:33]
Kevin Wilds
I. If you did, I would look great. They would be my funeral pick, and I would. They're like, that dude looks fantastic. And it's slimming. You're squeezed in there. You're looking aerodynamic. You're in bright colors. You just look like you're, like, out here living life. I look. I look fantastic in my biking outfit.
- [109:55]
Bill Simmons
You just should be an AI feature where I just get updates about my friends and everybody has to sign up. And it'll just be like the Tuesday edition of your newsletter of all the people you know, Kevin Wild's now a bike guy.
- [110:09]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [110:09]
Bill Simmons
And that's how I just find out from the news.
- [110:11]
Kevin Wilds
I'll post some stuff of me looking like. You look muscular in them. It's like they're like Spanx in there. And once you start biking, you start to get, you know, cut off a little bit. It's great.
- [110:22]
Bill Simmons
Wow. I can't believe you're a bike guy. That's unbelievable.
- [110:26]
Kevin Wilds
Being a bike guy has been fantastic. The other part of this is. And this is a half big idea. Subhead lower body available for fanatics. It's really like, got basketball sneakers, that's taken care of. Hats, so, you know, tip to toe, that's taken care of. The whole upper body's taken care of. Shorts occasionally. But the lower body is there for you if you want to wear a Yankees pinstripe pants.
- [111:01]
Bill Simmons
Definitely wouldn't want to do that.
- [111:03]
Kevin Wilds
Well, I'm just saying, like, they're like. The lower body is available for. Is a. Is an open piece of real estate for fanatics to jump on. I'd wear. Personally, I'd wear those little jockey shorts. Jockey and the high boots. I look great.
- [111:18]
Bill Simmons
I have. I have two that I really like that I'll go fast on, but one that's not even half baked. It just struck me with the NFL trade deadline.
- [111:25]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [111:26]
Bill Simmons
How much content we get from it. How I just wish it existed in other parts of life. Like, it'd be like my wife. My. My wife and like all her friends. It was like, Tuesdays, trade deadline. Might get rid of, like, one of my friends. It's like, really? Which one? Oh, my God. And it just like the conversations it would provoke. My God, you're getting rid of Helen. Yeah, well, you know, she hasn't been doing as much this year. She stopped drinking and we just go anyway. All right, here are my two.
- [112:00]
Kevin Wilds
Can I, Can I spin one off of that?
- [112:02]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [112:03]
Kevin Wilds
I read a study. It was about, like, loneliness is like, you know, epidemic. It was like 58% of men haven't made a friend in the last year. A new friend in the last year. I was like, 58. I would put that at 99. I didn't realize, like, everyone's like, getting these new friends, like a draft day of like, hey, you know, draft is coming up, and you just call a guy that, you know your kids, you know, a kid's your kids. Friend's father that you've seen and like, hey, man, I just want to let you know I took you in the second round of my friend Draft. We're gonna let you. Happy to. Welcome aboard Friends. You're gonna invite it to. We're gonna go out for a beer to and like, mandated, you gotta get new friends.
- [112:47]
Bill Simmons
I always announce at the end of my year to my wife, who my favorite new friend of the year was.
- [112:51]
Kevin Wilds
But you're getting new friends all the time.
- [112:54]
Bill Simmons
Yes. Somehow I always end up with a new friend.
- [112:56]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, geez, I'm stuck. I've just been rolling out New York.
- [112:59]
Bill Simmons
Everybody's just. It's like freaking Game of Thrones.
- [113:02]
Kevin Wilds
I've been rolling with the same friends for a while. I'm like, just trying to think of a team that's just like. Yeah. We're running it back again. Like, really? We got all. Got a year older. I got to get some new blood. I'm thinking about. I might. I met one of Billy's soccer friends.
- [113:17]
Bill Simmons
Dads could be a new friend.
- [113:20]
Kevin Wilds
Might be a new friend. Might be a new friend.
- [113:23]
Bill Simmons
The parent. Parents of the kids usually end up being a very fertile new fan base of.
- [113:28]
Kevin Wilds
That's my. Well, that's all. That's my only. You know, that's my only ground. I don't know, like a guy on the street like, hey, buddy, I did meet a random guy. Like, buddy, we should be friends, right?
- [113:41]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's weird because guys being like, hey, you want to go to a sports bar or watch the Laker game?
- [113:46]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [113:47]
Bill Simmons
All right. Here are my favorite two that I had. I'll make them quick. I feel like VHS players need to make a comeback. Vinyl came back, right? All of a sudden, vinyl is as big as it's ever been. It's like, man, that's weird. Oh, man, I shouldn't have thrown out my vinyl. Oh, I kept some. Oh, there's some over there. And now it's become this whole thing that's happened. And Sean fantasy for, you know, Sean, he's been a big physical media guy forever with blu rays and DVDs, but there was this whole VHS era forever. And it wasn't just with buying movies and TV shows. It was also like, you know, if you had a video camera and you videotaped, like, your kids or people in college, and you just have these VHS tapes, and then all of a sudden, the VCR player just died and you couldn't even buy them. And they. You couldn't. That none of them work with HDMI cords. And then you go on Amazon and they like refurbish them and it all feels super shady. I just want them to come back. So then I was thinking, I also don't like how annoying it is to have DVDs and to stand up instead of just like with my remote. I'm like, I'm going to watch something on Amazon. I just press a button.
- [114:54]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, you like, you like, do you like doing that? Left the scroll to find stuff.
- [114:58]
Bill Simmons
I would rather not move when I'm about to pick a movie. But with the DVD player, you have to get up, you have to go, you put the DVD in, you got to press the button. So now I was thinking, could they just have these VHS DVD players that are attached to the side of the tv so you have like this, you know, like these long thin TVs that we put on the walls. Maybe on the left side, it's like this little DVD thing I just plop on the side. Or it's like a little VHS thing and it's part of the tv and that would encourage people to bring VHS and dvd.
- [115:29]
Kevin Wilds
So that is not only a half baked idea. I believe that is a full baked idea. I stayed at a hotel. I stayed at a hotel like in the Catskills. And they had like a little library there of VHS. And then it was included in the thing and it was like, literally.
- [115:44]
Bill Simmons
Is it part of the TV though? I think being part of the TV is.
- [115:48]
Kevin Wilds
I think it was one unit.
- [115:50]
Bill Simmons
Oh, interesting. All right, bad idea then. No, nobody has this idea.
- [115:55]
Kevin Wilds
It's a great idea, but it's.
- [115:56]
Bill Simmons
This is my best idea.
- [115:58]
Kevin Wilds
Okay, here we go.
- [116:00]
Bill Simmons
So we're on these zooms, right? And sometimes you're on a zoom and I'll do like I as, you know, I walk around. So sometimes I'll be walking around when I'm on a zoom. But then I was thinking it would be great if AI which I think we're all afraid of, but also has some really good fertile things that could also help all of us. I'm more pro AI than most. I was thinking if AI could basically replace and replicate my face on a zoom so that the zoom's happening and AI Bill is just there like nodding every once in a while and like a laugh. And it just can kind of react to the cues of the zoom. But I'm not actually there. I'm just in another room. I'm not even on the zoom or I'm on the zoom, but I didn't feel like being on the zoom. So I just did AI Bill for the zoom. And I'm just over there listening and I'm not really on the zoom. AI Bill is Pretending to be me on the zoom.
- [116:55]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah.
- [116:56]
Bill Simmons
It feels like AI is good enough that we could pull this off. And I think we should use AI for good. And part of AI for good is let's figure out ways to cheat on zoom so people don't know we are not actually on the zoom.
- [117:08]
Kevin Wilds
Can I ask you a question? Cause I do very few zooms now that are. Do you feel the need that zoom replace conference calls? Like, why are you just on a conference call? Why do you need to see everybody?
- [117:20]
Bill Simmons
I don't. Because it's a leftover Covid thing. We like seeing everybody, but no one.
- [117:26]
Kevin Wilds
Likes to be seen.
- [117:28]
Bill Simmons
Or maybe they kind of do because nobody goes to an office anymore. Or very few or less people go. And it's like, this is interaction time.
- [117:35]
Kevin Wilds
We're in the. Yeah, I guess so.
- [117:37]
Bill Simmons
We're in the office. You have an atypical situation.
- [117:40]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, we're in the office. And then with the zoom that we have, everyone's camera's off. I'm like, we're actually just having a conference call. The poor conference call industry is just really.
- [117:49]
Bill Simmons
Conference calls are done. Yeah. Dial in. Press this pin. It's over. It's just zooms now. Anyway. AI face for zooms. Let's work on it. What do you have for your last half baked? You going rapid? Rapid fire. Just going to shoot three until I pick one.
- [118:03]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, I have two. Hold on. All right, I have this one from. Hutchinson was injured, and he went to the game, and I said, sports bar, and he looked very comfortable as he recovers, so Godspeed. Aiden Hutchinson Sports Bar. But the seating looks like you just had major surgery. It's more of like, you're just kind of being pampered, but. Aiden Hutchinson.
- [118:26]
Bill Simmons
Oh, like an Alamo drafthouse sports bar.
- [118:29]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, but you're. But it looks like you just had surgery, so.
- [118:32]
Bill Simmons
You're really right.
- [118:33]
Kevin Wilds
It's really just. I mean, it's really short for. It's a bar where you put your feet up and take your shoes off. I think that's where that's kind of the underlying current final.
- [118:43]
Bill Simmons
Interesting. Okay.
- [118:46]
Kevin Wilds
I don't like self checkout. I'm not a huge fan of that.
- [118:51]
Bill Simmons
I hate it as well.
- [118:52]
Kevin Wilds
I'm like, all right, I have to work here too now. Not a fan. However, you, like, cook my own food at your dining establishment, so all buffets. Love it. Element of fun. The movie theater for my own sodas. Fantastic. There's, like, a yogurt shop in town. You can make your own yogurts. Do that. That's great. Those, like, little, like, hibachi places, little teriyaki where you, like, have a little open flame. Fantastic. Is. I don't have. This is a quarter bake. Is there another food that is ripe for that treatment where it's like, yeah, you. You actually go and you just do it yourself. I'm like, what, they don't do it for you? Like, no, you have to do it. They give you all the tools, but you get to do it. Like, great. But I don't know what the food is.
- [119:44]
Bill Simmons
So this is happening with pizza, at least with this 2.0 version of pizza, where they give you these giant, heavy, sharp scissors and they just bring the pizza out, and it's just a circle, and then you have to cut the slices with the scissors. A bunch of pizzas do it.
- [120:00]
Kevin Wilds
But that's just like the ninth inning. I'm not going to buy when I come in. And, like.
- [120:04]
Bill Simmons
So you're saying, like, they give you the ingredients for a soup and you stand in the bowl and you, like, make a soup or you make, like.
- [120:12]
Kevin Wilds
Your own tomato sauce. I wouldn't mind being the guy who threw the pizza.
- [120:17]
Bill Simmons
Oh, you want to literally make your own pizza.
- [120:20]
Kevin Wilds
But I don't just, like, a lot of times make your own pizza just means throw some basil on it. I wouldn't mind. I don't know. I'm trying to find out the best thing. A very hot steak. I don't know. But I know I like pouring my own sodas, and I know I like, you know, cooking my own hibachis. So I don't know.
- [120:39]
Bill Simmons
Sports bar where you're grilling your own hot dogs and burgers. You just get your own grill.
- [120:45]
Kevin Wilds
Oh, that's not a bad idea.
- [120:47]
Bill Simmons
Just a box. I just say you're just on there, and then you're like Tony Soprano.
- [120:52]
Kevin Wilds
That's what it is. It's a giant sports bar, and it's almost set up like pop Golf. And you go in there, it's like, here's your station, here's your grill. Maybe you have a huge smoker. Maybe you have a pig on a spit. It's like, this is your little area. You gotta do it. And you're making friends. And you'd be like, hey, buddy, want to be friends? Come over. Absolutely.
- [121:14]
Bill Simmons
So you're basically like, you get to be Adam Perry Lang for, like, four hours.
- [121:17]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah, it's hot. Yeah, it's high end. I got a big grill. Like, hey, buddy. Because I'm grilling by myself, making friends and grilling you're like competing other guys more for high end grills.
- [121:29]
Bill Simmons
That's pretty good.
- [121:30]
Kevin Wilds
Anything. Well, like anybody had this good, we solved it.
- [121:33]
Bill Simmons
Kevin Wilds, you can see him on first things first every single day. We're aligned on Drake May for the next 20 years. Can't wait, can't wait to see your, your funeral photo. I'll send you mine later. I think I have a good one from Hawaii last summer. I have a lay on. When you have a lay on this and that, like that's like points.
- [121:55]
Kevin Wilds
Yeah. You're always having a blast.
- [121:57]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [121:57]
Kevin Wilds
This guy really live.
- [121:59]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [121:59]
Kevin Wilds
All right.
- [121:59]
Bill Simmons
Good to see you. Wow.
- [122:00]
Kevin Wilds
All right. Good to see you.
- [122:03]
Bill Simmons
All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin Wilds. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Ceruti as well. Don't forget you can watch all the clips of videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch the new rewatchables episode on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel. I hope you're voting today. I hope when I come back on Thursday to do the third podcast of the week, I hope the country's in a good place. We will see. Go out and vote. See you on Thursday. Must be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in President D.C. gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit rgh-help.com, call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text hopeny in New York.